Human Restoration Project (Human Restoration Project)

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Ted Dintersmith is an accomplished entrepreneur - from serving as a top venture capitalist and running an incredibly successful business, to working in our government as an analyst and representative to the United Nations - as well as being an advocate for innovative education. Dintersmith offers a profound, visionary look at changing educational practice to be applicable, relevant, and creative and is well known for co-producing and co-writing Most Likely to Succeed as well as his latest book, What School Could Be.

Dintersmith, in our view, has written a fantastic piece of work that covers all elements of - and most importantly exemplifies - progressive education with What School Could Be. You can read an extensive review on our blog. You can read more about Ted Dintersmith on his website.

If you've read the book and want to discuss more (or just to see what all the fuss is about!) check out #EdCoChat 's upcoming book talk on Twitter on May 10th at 9:30PM EDT.

Also, check out the accompanying video from What School Could Be surrounding (and entitled) The Future of Work. For more information on the exponential growth of AI (and its potential impact on education) check out AlphaGo - the story of a robot that could defeat the world's best Go players.

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We're excited and honored to speak with renowned educator Alfie Kohn surrounding his views on progressive education and what steps educators can take to implement his ideas. We spoke about the ideology surrounding Kohn's views on grading and standardized testing, among others: its relevance to today's world and why it's needed.

Kohn has authored an extensive amount of articles on the importance of progressive practice, including his collection of works The Myth of the Spoiled Child, Feel-Bad Education, Schooling Beyond Measure, Punished by Rewards, The Homework Myth, and more. Kohn is well known for his views on eliminating competition such as grading in schools, eliminating standardized testing, emphasizing the removal of automatic (expected) rewards for positive behavior, and truly having a relevant, authentic caring system that focuses on education over content cramming.

You can find Kohn's works on his website, featuring articles, videos, blogs, audiobooks, and more (many for free!). We highly encourage any educator not familiar with Kohn's work to read his collections of works and dig deeper into his lectures on YouTube or via his website.

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Sunil Singh was a high school math and physics teacher for 19 years. Before he quit teaching in the classroom in 2013, he had taught everything from basic math for junior students to IB math for honors-level students. He has worked in a socioeconomically challenging environment of an inner-city school in Toronto and at the prestigious International School of Lausanne in Switzerland. His vast experience teaching math in every setting imaginable has helped him become a leader in creative math education in North America. Since 2005, he has given over 50 workshops on kindergarten to grade 12 mathematics at various locations—math conferences, faculties of education, and even the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto. In addition to having been a regular contributor to the New York Times “Numberplay” section, Singh works full time as a math consultant for Scolab, a digital math resource company in Montreal, Canada. As well, he travels all over North America as a speaker and promoting Family Math Nights in local communities. He is an integral component of the Global Math Project, and his ambassador designation is helping him communicate the beauty and happiness of mathematics throughout the world. He is the author of Pi of Life: The Hidden Happiness of Mathematics, and his next book, Math Recess, a co-writing endeavor with kindred math spirit, Chris Brownell, will be out in Spring 2019.

This podcast is roughly divided into two parts - the first on current issues in mathematics, the second on what change looks like and its implementation.

Sunil and I spoke about a lot that personally resonated with me. One factor I wasn't expecting were Sunil's opinions on a shift to personal finance from Algebra I and other similar shifts in "relevant math." To me, this was a no-brainer - utilize applied math skills instead of our traditional building blocks. However, Sunil noted that not only are these concepts simple - they don't necessarily reform the issues we currently have. His analogy: instead of rearranging the room of a house, implode it. This shifted my thinking on this concept. Math is much more than I give it credit for - and a math curriculum housed (partly) around justice, love, and happiness seems otherworldly. It's hard to comprehend in a culture that's so logistically focused on math - especially in the classroom. However, I believe Sunil's argument is well-stated.

Near the end of the talk, we highlighted one of the most important notions - can real change happen? How can we make a change now? We offered starting points: "find your tribe" on social media or in your building, try new things and be open to innovation, and fight. If you know what's best practice - you know the culture of your school - and you fight for change, but nothing is done even after organizing and preaching best practice? Then perhaps you're at the wrong place. Seek out a school that embraces what's best for children - a place where your voice is heard. They're out there in increasing numbers. Change in education is more than complaining, it's about taking action.

\unil advised that all math teachers (or educators in general) watch Dan Finkle's "Five Principles of Extraordinary Math Teaching."

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Mandy Froehlich is the Director of Innovation and Technology in the Ripon Area School District in Wisconsin and author of The Fire Within: Lessons from Defeat That Have Ignited a Passion for Learning. This collection of stories from educators describes how adversity is met with strength and everyone grows as a result. Furthermore, Mandy is a Google for Education Certified Trainer, ambassador for Canvas LMS, a keynote speaker, presenter, and PD lead.

In our discussion, Mandy and I (Chris) spoke about the dangers of the stigma surrounding mental health and its specific detriment to teachers and students. Often, teachers are put on a pedestal - being seen as heroic (or for some, godlike) - and facing trauma is both unrealistic to account for, as well as dangerous to the psyche of "teacherhood."

Furthermore, we talk about the steps teachers can take to ensure they are well equipped to deal with trauma in the classroom, as well as simple actions that can have drastic impact on students' lives.

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For this episode we're trying something new. Instead of having a guest, I'm (Chris) deep-diving into one element of progressive education - offering history and advice to gradeless learning. I tried my best to cover an extensive look at this topic, including - most importantly - the point of why this is needed.

There are many quotes and research provided, here is a list of the resources used:

• Much of the historical data (and all quotes) are from "Making the grade" by Jack Schneider & Ethan Hunt (2013).
• We recommend the portfolio tool Seesaw.
• **Mistakenly, I said that Seesaw was free for everything except grading - this is mostly true, but to assign "skills" and organize student posts via tags it is $120/year. A simple workaround is to create folders for skills and have students upload work into them.
• I celebrate the upcoming work of the Mastery Transcript Consortium.

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Today we're joined by Dr. Tony Wagner. Tony is a Senior Research Fellow at the Learning Policy Institute who has served at Harvard University for over twenty years. Tony has worked in K-12 education as a school teacher, K-8 principal, university professor in teacher education, and is the founded the Educators for Social Responsibility. An author of many thoughts including Creating Innovators, The Global Achievement Gap, and Most Likely to Succeed (documentary now available on iTunes) - Tony has been a perpetual driver of innovative educational practice. Tony has been a prime resource for Michael and I for years and we're always thrilled to show new staff and students Most Likely to Succeed to promote project-based learning and transforming the traditional model. 

In our discussion, we primarily focus on the need to change education and hope that's on the horizon - specifically the Mastery Transcript Consortium (of which Tony serves on the board.) Our emphasis on grades, unwavering class times, age segregation, and more have led us toward a stale curriculum which does a disservice to students. Instead, why not flip the entire model by reimagining college admissions?

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Restoring Humanity are short(ish) segments on understanding a key idea of progressive education. This time, we're tackling discipline! What are the roots of our discipline system, what issues exist, and how can we solve them?

We also cite:

• William Bagley's Classroom Management (1908)
• School Discipline in Public Education (2011)
• For Public Schools, Segregation Then, Segregation Since (2013)
• How Racial Bias Affects the Quality of Black Students' Education (2016)
• The Trevor Project: Facts About Suicide (n.d.)
• Effective Discipline for Misbehavior: In School vs. Out of School Suspension (n.d.)
• ACLU: School to Prison Pipeline (n.d.)

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Today we’re joined by Ira Socol. Ira is the public education director of Educational Technology and Innovation, a Design Project Manager, Researcher, a specialist in Universal Design technology, Senior Provocateur, among many other titles. Ira’s latest book, written with Dr. Pam Moran and Chad Ratliff, Timeless Learning: How Imagination, Observation, and Zero-Based Thinking Change Schools, explores how maker spaces, project-based learning, and student-centered instruction radically changes schools from assembly lines to a community learning space.

In our discussion, we focus on converting traditional schools to ones that put students first. Often, when we talk about ‘student-centered learning”, we’re really just offering a faux choice designed by teachers. Instead, why not change schools to truly do what students want? Why not completely realign traditional practice to the needs of the 21st century? And what if, despite what everyone may think, students did better on traditional standardized assessment as a result? Ira offers research and anecdotes to help one understand the impact of zero-based thinking and what teachers/administrators/parents/whomever may do to transform their schools to be more human.

Despite some minor connectivity issues, make sure you listen in to this one!

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Restoring Humanity are short(ish) segments on understanding a key idea of progressive education. This time, we're tackling discipline! What are the roots of our discipline system, what issues exist, and how can we solve them?

Cited within:

• Heinz-Peter Gerhardt: “Paulo Freire”
• EdGlossary: “Hidden Curriculum”
• Paulo Freire: “The ‘Banking’ Concept of Education”
• P. Allman: “Paulo Freire’s Contributions to Radical Adult Education”

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We are joined by Dr. Susan Engel, professor of developmental psychology at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts. Dr. Engel has authored a variety of publications and books, including The End of the Rainbow: How Educating for Happiness (not money) Would Transform Our Schools and A School of Our Own: The Story of the First Student-Run High School and a New Vision for American Education, among many more - including her latest book, The Children You Teach: Using a Developmental Framework in the Classroom. Furthermore, Dr. Engel co-founded the Hayground School, a non-profit school focused on experiential learning and the teachings of John Dewey.

In our conversation, we talk about so many important topics:

• Why is “next step” and industry-prep (e.g. “Preparing students for tomorrow’s industries.”) potentially a problem?
• Why is well-being imperative to learning? How does this contradict those who focus so much on rigor?
• How can we convince educators and administrators that progressive policies help students learn?
• How can we enact this research without eliminating standardized testing?
• How can testing (if shifted to other realms) actually help us in progressive education?

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In this podcast, we're talking about "the good life." What is it exactly that we want students to have in their future? Is it a great career, a content lifestyle, a family, solidarity, freedom, respect for one another, a mixture of all of the above? And if we can't agree on that question or at least have somewhat unified goals in getting there, how can education exist to serve that question? In addition, do teachers have and deserve "the good life"?

We've spoken to various educators from across the world, and I hope you enjoy listening to their amazing thoughts and ideas.

Guests, in order of appearance:

Steven Gumbay, who has taught for over 40 years, starting in Denver, CO, then transitioning to Taiwan, Zambia, Kenya, Hong Kong, Myanmar, and Ethiopia. Steven has served as a science department chair and as a consultant building secondary, primary, and preschool programs.

Dr. Erin Raab and Nicole Hensel of REENVISIONED and The Future Project. Erin holds a Ph.D. in Education from Stanford University, where her scholarship pertained to the question of how we can transform education systems to foster individual flourishing and thriving democracies. Nicole obtained a dual Masters in Public Policy and Education Leadership from Stanford University. You can find their work below.

Richard Loeper-Viti, whose progressive practices have transformed his English international classroom. Starting in a top-ranked charter school in the United States, he ventured to Chengdu, China after his wife, a US Diplomat, received a new position.

Anne Connolly, a CERT inclusion specialist and special education primary instructor, who has taught for over 20 years. Anne currently uses her progressive practices in an elementary classroom in Ontario.

Gamal Sherif, who has taught over 20 years in middle and high school, served as a fellow for the US Department of Education, and is an ambassador for the UN Sustainable Goals Project. Gamal has a focus on sustainable teaching practices.

Resources

• Dr. Erin Raab’s summarized research on education systems design. (full dissertation)
• REENVISIONED’s website
• The Future Project’s website
• The Future Project’s “Future Camp” sign-up, for students to take hold of their dreams (available across multiple states)

Further Listening

• S2: E11: Administration, Organization, and Vision w/ Amy Fast Ed.D.
• S2: E12: Trauma, Mental Health, and Well-Being w/ Mandy Froehlich

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Frankly, I’m astonished by how little school systems spend on covering purpose in students’ lives. Where do they see themselves in 10, 20 years? We leave them to the “next step” (either lost and apathetic or in incredible amounts of debt) to figure it out for themselves. How do we go about creating a purposeful society? Is it possible for a teacher to actually make a change? And, in addition, what about our sense as educators in the classroom? What about our purpose?

GUESTS IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE

Dr. Kendall Cotton Bronk, head of the Adolescent Morality Lab at Claremont Graduate School, Dr. Cotton Bronk is one of the founding/leading researchers surrounding youth purpose-finding.

Dr. John Cagle, a 27-year public education educator who currently serves as Assistant Principal at Jefferson County High School in Tennessee. His dissertation focused on relationship building and academic success.

Skylar Primm, an educator at High Marq Environmental Charter School in Montello, Wisconsin*, a fascinating small public charter school centered on interdisciplinary experiential learning, with a focus on the environment.

*This were mentioned incorrectly during the podcast, sorry!

Elizabeth Martin, an English teacher who recently ventured to a county school after years spent at a large urban district. She has started to document this shift on Medium.

RESOURCES

• Adolescent Morality Lab
• Greater Good Magazine
• Project Wayfinder
• Linchpin by Seth Godin

FURTHER LISTENING

• S2: E26: Engaging Students with Meaningful Work and Partnerships w/ Zack Jones (Dual School)
• S2: E22: Finding Purpose w/ Patrick Cook-Deegan (Project Wayfinder)

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We speak with someone exposed to progressive education throughout the world, a human-centered school in Vietnam, an elementary school teacher reaching out, and two tech-experts leading the way in global communications.

One of the fundamental shifts of the information age is being able to connect globally with barely any limitations. I'm still shocked that I can connect to a classroom in Vietnam - see and speak with the person - and it's almost like I'm there. And that's a semi-normal thing to do.

And I often think about: what does that mean for education? Not only from a communicative standpoint in perspective-building, but specifically progressive education. I know starting off: adopting critical pedagogy in the classroom, giving students projects that weren't necessarily completely aligned with standards, letting students choose what to do each day - those were radical concepts to me that I took away...at least mostly...from books. I was incredibly hesitant to really go "full on" with any of my ideas...until I started engaging online. It turns out, I wasn't crazy - there are plenty of other people tackling and contemplating these ideas on social media and elsewhere.

GUESTS IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE

Ara Aman, a sophomore at Bennington College in Vermont, a progressive higher education experience. Ara grew up in progressive environments in India and the United Kingdom.

Tania Mansfield, the PYP (International Baccalaureate Primary Years Programme) Coordinator at Ho Chi Minh City International School in Vietnam, which is piloting a self-directed education program.

Lisa Liss & her elementary students, located in Sacramento, California, organizing around an experiential project, the aptly named Bandage Project, which seeks to build tolerance and understanding of the Holocaust.

Colleen Mascenik, founder of BreakawayLearning.org, a non-profit organization which connects students and educators with individuals around the world, teaching anything from life under the Taliban to piano instruction.

Evin Schwartz, founder of Belouga, an online platform aimed at connecting classrooms across the world, centered on social impact campaigns.

RESOURCES

• Bennington College
• Brightworks School
• Ho Chi Minh City International School
• Bandage Project (donate today!)
• BreakawayLearning.org
• Belouga.org

FURTHER LISTENING

• S2: E19: Educating for Change w/ Kevin Wilcox & Benjamin Goes
• S2: E15: Engaging in Social Media w/ Annick Rauch

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By far the most inspiring thing about living in the communication age is seeing school innovation at work throughout the world. Sometimes we can get trapped in our microcosm obsessing over what doesn’t work in schools - after all, there is a lot that needs changing. But that doesn’t mean, of course, that there aren’t awesome things happening.

To expand on the word "innovation" - I know that these word can be "fad worthy" - if you will. The education community tends to look at every new initiative as innovative, including those that just do everything most normally do - better. But that's not what I'm getting at here...innovation is taking a risk against the status quo, doing something that little to no other people are doing. It's important to highlight and express these ideas are not only legitimate, but extraordinary - we should celebrate work and be careful of solely critiquing the established system.

GUESTS IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE

Bennett Jester, a high school freshman at the progressive Clark Street Community School in Middleton, Wisconsin, who blogs and speaks on issues of grades and traditional education at-large.

Ted Fujimoto, the president of Landmark Consulting Group, a business that focuses on scaling, leadership, and redesign, and whose hand shaped the growth of New Tech Network and Big Picture Learning, both of which have seen massive whole-school progressive redesigns.

Deanna Hess, an English educator at Dover High School in Dover, Delaware, who teaches a range of classes including dual-credit courses, where she focuses on developing purpose in writing and reading in what is typically regarded as a traditional setting.

Sophie Fenton, the Head of Education Design at the Asia Education Foundation in Melbourne, Australia, who focuses on promoting intercultural and communicative schools in an increasingly connected world.

RESOURCES

• Clark Street Community School
• Rise Up & Write Program (WI)
• New Tech Network
• Big Picture Learning
• Go All Creative
• Asia Education Foundation
• Foundation for Young Australians
• An Overview by Insight.com on the “Intelligent Digital Mesh”

FURTHER LISTENING

• S2: E11: Administration, Organization, and Vision w/ Amy Fast Ed.D.
• E20: Timeless Learning w/ Ira Socol

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On today's podcast, we're looking at the gradeless movement. There's a lot to be debated in the education system, but I'm hard-pressed to find a topic so steeped in research as this one. Whether it be motivation, willingness to learn, and even traditional test scores, not giving a grade shows improvement across the board.

There's countless research articles, books, podcasts, psychologists, education experts, and more writing and studying the effects of grades. And every single time, whether it be 1850 or 2019, it seems to support the same outcome:

1. Grades diminish motivation and do little to actually provide feedback for students to improve.
2. If there is research that supports grades, it's stating that they improve standardized test scores, not necessarily motivate or improve student outcomes.

GUESTS IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE

Jeffery Frieden, an English educator at Hillcrest High School in Corona, California, and founder of Make Them Master It, an organization aimed at connecting teachers to mastery-based practice and identifying teacher struggle through a podcast, book, and blogs.

Aaron Blackwelder, an English educator in Woodland Public Schools in Woodland, Washington, and founder of Teachers Going Gradeless, an organization aimed at providing resources and connecting educators who diminish or eliminate the use of extrinsic motivators.

Nick Covington, a Social Studies educator at Ankeny High School in Ankeny, Iowa, who promotes progressive education in his own practice including developing portfolio-based gradeless assessments.

RESOURCES

• Make Them Master It
• Teachers Going Gradeless
• Aaron Blackwelder’s Feedback Report
• Aaron Blackwelder’s Soft Skills Rubric
• Redefining Quality: Working Towards New Measures of School Achievement by Aaron Blackwelder
• The End of Average by Todd Rose
• Nick Covington’s Medium
• Nick Covington’s Economics Evidence Journal
• Grading =/ Assessment HumResPro Resource

FURTHER LISTENING

• S2: E18: Innovating Education w/ Dr. Tony Wagner:
• S2: E16: Restoring Humanity: Assessment (Gradeless Learning)

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The New Nordic School is an innovative school being built in Finland. Our guest, Brad Kremer, serves as director and informs us about the fantastic opportunities Finnish education provides and what New Nordic School aims to build further upon.

In our discussion, Brad and I discuss:

• What is the New Nordic School?
• What is the current state of Finland’s education system? Why is the New Nordic School different?
• What curriculum can be exported from Finnish schools?
• Is it possible for Finnish schools to be replicated everywhere, even in less equitable societies? As in, are Finland’s educational outcomes due to curriculum or more supportive societal structures?

RESOURCES

• The New Nordic School

FURTHER LISTENING

• S2: E20: Timeless Learning w/ Ira Socol
• S2: E3: What School Could Be w/ Ted Dintersmith

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In this episode, we're focused on advocacy - getting students motivated to speak up for themselves and change the world. We have so many brilliant voices who feel limited to the classroom, not realizing the power they hold. Particularly, we're going to look at how writing instruction lends itself to promoting student voices, featuring a variety of English educators, as well as authors, who recognize how important the Humanities are to promoting a flourishing democracy.

GUESTS IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE

Bryn Orum, director of Rise Up and Write, a summer writing program centered around advocacy in Madison, Wisconsin, who used to teach high school English and further, co-founded Clark Street Community School, who our previous guest, Bennett Jester, attends.

J.J. Burry (Jess Houser), an English educator at a small public school in Texas, who is an aspiring writer and advocate of writer’s notebooks.

John Warner, an author, editor, speaker, and professor focused on writing instruction. Recently, John's work has focused on writing instruction through Why They Can't Write and its companion book, The Writer's Practice.

Stephanie Hurt, an English educator at Brodhead High School in Brodhead, Wisconsin. Stephanie is a teacher leader for the National Writing Project's College, Career, and Community Ready Writer's Program and The Greater Madison Writing Project.

Dr. Richard Wilkinson, an accomplished social epidemiologist, author, and advocate who served as Professor Emeritus of Social Epidemiology at the University of Nottingham. He is co-founder of The Equality Trust and was awarded the 2013 Silver Rose Award from Solidar for championing equality. His co-author and significant other, Kate Pickett, wrote The Spirit Level and The Inner Level, which both focus on the across-the-board improvements of equitable societies.

RESOURCES

• Rise Up and Write (website, Facebook)
• Greater Madison Writing Project Medium
• Jess Houser’s blog
• The College, Career, and Community Writer’s Program
• Dr. Richard Wilkinson’s TED Talk
• NCTE: Introduction to Writer’s Notebooks

FURTHER LISTENING

• S2 Highlight: Restoring Humanity to...Purpose (Changing the Focus of School)
• S2 Highlight: The Importance of Relationships w/ Monte Syrie

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Today's podcast is all about designing spaces for learning. Often, we think of a teacher's role as creator - someone who is making the learning happen within their room. But we can look at this in a more nuanced way. To completely steal Ryan Hopkins-Wilcox's explanation from in this podcast, when we plan an experience, we're already aware of what outcomes will be achieved. We're planning for what's going to happen next and already have each step in mind. In contrast, to design an experience - or space - we're opening possibilities for students to learn in multiple fashions. We have a general idea of where we want to be, but we're side-by-side in that learning experience.

GUESTS IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE

Dr. Pam Moran, superintendent of the widely acclaimed Albemarle County Public Schools and co-author of Timeless Learning. Pam is an avid proponent of progressive education and designing schools that ignite learning.

Tim Fawkes, a high school music educator set on redesigning the classroom as an equitable, democratic space through embracing student voice, choice, and experiential learning.

Ryan Hopkins-Wilcox, an international educator and current assistant principal at the International School of Uganda, where she focuses on igniting learning through well-designed opportunities for staff and students.

Tosha Woods and Natalia Parker, founders of the Discovery Lab, a self-described “micro school.” Tosha and Natalia started this school as concerned parents and community members to provide an outlet of progressive learning to students.

RESOURCES

• Timeless Learning: How Imagination, Observation, and Zero-Based Thinking Change Schools by Pam Moran, Ira Socol, and Chad Ratliff
• HRP Review of Timeless Learning
• Pam Moran’s recent TEDx Talk
• The Application of Critical Pedagogy to Music Teaching and Learning by Dr. Frank Abrahams
• Discovery Lab
• HRP’s 1 Page PD: Curation

FURTHER LISTENING

• S2 Highlight: Restoring Humanity to....Education (Critical Pedagogy)
• S2 Highlight: Timeless Learning w/ Ira Socol

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RESOURCES

• HRP’s Review of We Got This
• We Got This Publisher Page
• Cornelius Minor’s Website: Kass and Corn

FURTHER LISTENING

• Heinemann’s Author Series featuring Cornelius Minor and Kwame Alexander

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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!

RESOURCES

• Kenrya Rankin’s website
• Parent Teacher Home Visits
• How We Fight White Supremacy by Kenrya Rankin and Akiba Soloman
• Start It Up: The Complete Teen Business Guide to Turning Your Passions into Pay by Kenrya Rankin

FURTHER LISTENING

• The Short Stacks 15: Akiba Soloman & Kenrya Rankin//How We Fight White Supremacy

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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.

RESOURCES

• Geeky Pedagogy Website
• Preorder/Order the Book (West Virginia University Press)
• Teaching Struggling Students by Laura Harrison

FURTHER LISTENING

• Tea for Teaching 82: Geeky Pedagogy

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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.

• Homework: 30%
• Tests: 40%
• Classwork: 20%
• Participation: 10%
• With opportunities for extra credit.

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 APPEARANCE

Abigail 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

• Alfie Kohn, “Punished by Rewards” (Discussion)
• Monte Syrie, Project 180
• Teachers Going Gradeless
• Dr. Susan Blum’s website
• Cathy Davidson
• Chapter on Ungrading - Laura Gibbs (from Dr. Susan Blum’s upcoming work)
• Dr. Laura Gibbs’ website
• Dr. Laura Gibbs’ Course Page
• Dr. Laura Gibbs’ Feedback/Mindset resources for students
• Dr. Laura Gibbs’ students’ work

FURTHER LISTENING

• S3: E5 - Redefining Assessment by Implementing Gradeless Learning feat. Jeffery Frieden, Aaron Blackwelder, & Nick Covington
• S2 Highlight: Adopting Progressive Ed. w/ Alfie Kohn

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this podcast, we're speaking with Goddard College, a private college in Plainfield, Vermont with additional campuses in Port Townsend and Seattle, Washington. Goddard is a heavily progressive school with a variety of unique programs - from inventing “low residency” (students attend campus for around 2 weeks, then complete self-directed, purposeful projects) to never giving grades. It enrolls 700 students, 30% of whom are undergraduates. Founded in the spirit of experiential and democratic education, Goddard emphasizes self-directed higher education programs where learners submit their work via learning portfolios.

We talk about the struggles, successes, and experiments of progressive universities, including what makes Goddard different, how we can prepare students and educators for progressive schooling, what types of students make Goddard their home, and how we can revolutionize higher education.

Two of their representatives join us:

Dr. Bernard Bull, president of Goddard College, an advocate of alternative education and author of many books, including Missional Moonshots: Insight & Inspiration in Educational Innovation, What Really Matters: Ten Critical Issues in Contemporary Education, and Adventures in Self-Directed Learning.

Dr. Kumari Patricia Younce, education program director of Goddard College, who has worked in every variety of school as an art educator, whose focus on creativity and progressive practice landed her at Goddard.

RESOURCES

• Goddard College’s website
• Goddard College’s continuing education programs

FURTHER LISTENING

• Leading Learning 137: Bernard Bull

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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.

• What does it mean to have a “humanized mathematics curriculum”? How does this differ from the predominant way mathematics is taught?
• How can we redefine what “success” looks like in mathematics, as well as lessen math anxiety and promote wellness in the classroom?
• How can we make substantial changes to the process and curriculum to make mathematics more engaging? (e.g. social justice, real life scenarios, PBL, decolonization)
• Why is it imperative that we implement these changes? What specific notes will you take away from this conversation? What questions and concerns do you still have?

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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 APPEARANCE

Ayush 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.

RESOURCES

• SDGs for Children
• Chad Hyatt’s Twitter (Cody Lee’s teacher!)
• Meghan Kestner’s Blog

FURTHER LISTENING

• Shaping a Fairer World with Ayush Chopra
• S3: E9: We Got This: Equity and Access in Schools with Cornelius Minor

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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!

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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 APPEARANCE

Carla 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.

RESOURCES

• Connect the Dots International (Carla Marschall)
• StuVoice.org

FURTHER LISTENING

• Podcasts from Student Voice

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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?

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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.

GUEST

Jennifer 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.

RESOURCES

• Gaddis’ Book: The Labor of Lunch: Why We Need Real Food and Real Jobs in American Public Schools via the University of California Press (use 19V3712 for 30% off.)
• Jennifer E. Gaddis’ Website
• The Chef Ann Foundation
• Food Corps
• National Farm to School Network

FURTHER LISTENING

• E143, Heritage Radio Network - Eating Matters: The Labor of (School) Lunch
• E93, Bite: There Is Such Thing as a Free (School) Lunch

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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.

GUESTS

Dr. 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

• Overview of the SDGs
• TeachSDGs
• World’s Largest Lesson
• Teach Boldly: Using EdTech for Social Good by Dr. Jennifer Williams

FURTHER LISTENING

• S3: E14: Listen to Students (feat. Ayush Chopra, Cody Lees, & Meghan Kestner)
• S3: E7: Writing for Purpose and Advocacy feat. Bryn Orum, J.J. Burry, John Warner, Stephanie Hurt, & Dr. Richard Wilkinson

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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!

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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?

GUESTS

Brooke 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.

RESOURCES

• How to Teach Us: A Guide for Teachers Written by Students
• Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing
• Student Interview Questions

FURTHER LISTENING

• S3: E14: Listen to Students (feat. Ayush Chopra, Cody Lees, & Meghan Kestner)
• S3: E8: The Inventive Design of Learning Spaces feat. Pam Moran, Tim Fawkes, Ryan Hopkins-Wilcox, & Discovery Lab

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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.

GUESTS

Seth 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.

RESOURCES

• Indie Game: The Movie Super Meat Boy Clip
• Coffee with Butterscotch (Podcast)
• GDC: Design by Chaos
• Butterscotch Shenanigans
• Medium (Chris McNutt): Game Design, Classroom Design, and the Faux Use of Gamification

FURTHER LISTENING

• S3: E2: It All Orbits Purpose feat. Kendall Cotton Bronk, John Cagle, Skylar Primm, and Elizabeth Martin
• S2 Highlight: Adopting Progressive Ed. w/ Alfie Kohn

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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.

GUESTS

Dr. 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.

RESOURCES

• What Works May Hurt by Zhao
• Reach for Greatness by Zhao
• Counting What Counts by Zhao
• The Courage to Be Creative: An Interview with Dr. Yong Zhao
• HRP’s Primer for Human-Centric (Progressive) Education

FURTHER LISTENING

• FreshEd #79: What Works (May) Hurt w/ Dr. Yong Zhao
• ReImagine Schools: Global Competence with Dr. Yong Zhao

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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:

• How does one become inspired to start a SDG-related project? How can we incorporate student inspiration and voice to the planning process?
• What components work well in SDG-related projects? What tools, websites, or objectives are there?
• How can we take projects into the community to make meaningful, authentic change for the world?

Please see the attached Google Document for all the notes from this conversation, as well as a variety of external links.

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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.

GUESTS

Peter 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.

RESOURCES

• The Other Literacies podcast
• Bruce Mansfield’s course materials

FURTHER LISTENING

• S3: E12: Making the Switch to Ungrading (feat. Abigail French, Dr. Susan Blum, and Dr. Laura Gibbs)
• S3: E4 - Innovation in Progressive Education feat. Bennett Jester, Ted Fujimoto, Deanna Hess, & Sophie Fenton

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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.

GUESTS

Jesse 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

• Jesse Stommel’s Website
• Kajeet - an affordable hotspot that uses mobile data (for students lacking access
• “Friggin’ Packets” Blog and Podcast from Cult of Pedagogy - for ideas on alternatives to masses of papers
• UNICEF - Learning Through Play - for ways to introduce play-based learning to the home, primarily aimed at younger students

FURTHER LISTENING

• Edsurge: Bonus Episode: Coronavirus Has Led to a Rush of Online Teaching. How Can Professors Manage?

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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:

• Commiserate: What’s going on? How has the response to the COVID-19 crisis impacted you and your school?
• Collaborate: What can we learn from your response to the crisis to do right by our kids and our communities?
• Community: How are you going to balance connectivity and social isolation?

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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.

GUESTS

Zoe 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.

RESOURCES

• The Institute for Humane Education
• Solutionary Guidebook
• Zoe Weil, TEDx - The World Becomes What You Teach

FURTHER LISTENING

• My Home Planet: Why We Should All Have A Humane Education

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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.

GUESTS

Tiersa McQueen, avid homeschooler and unschooler who posts under the handle @MotherBae to critique traditional education and represent Black married moms who unschool

RESOURCES

• HRP COVID-19 Resources and Charities
• Tiersa McQueen on Twitter (@tiersaj)
• Tiersa McQueen on Instagram (mother_bae_i)
• Tiersa McQueen on YouTube

FURTHER LISTENING

• Girlfriends Guide to Homeschooling with Angela Jordan Perry: Episode 91: Dual Employed homeschooling Parents of 4, Tiersa McQueen

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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.

GUESTS

Liz 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.

RESOURCES

• Wildlands 8-12 School
• Teacher Powered Schools
• Summit Sign Up (April 29th, 7:30PM EST)

FURTHER LISTENING

• THE "TEACHER POWERED SCHOOLS" INITIATIVE from Blog Talk Radio

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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.

GUESTS

Dr. sj Miller, associate professor of teacher education, expert on gender identity justice and social justice, and published author/researcher.

RESOURCES

• sj Miller’s recently published book, about Gender Identity Justice in Schools and Communities
• sj Miller’s website
• sj Miller’s TEDMED talk: “Why gender identity justice matters for everyone”

FURTHER LISTENING

• Engendering Communication - Episode 42 - The Oxford Comment
• Documentary: Gender | The Space Between

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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.

GUESTS

Dr. 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

• YouTube: Overview of Dr. Kralovec’s recent work
• Schools That Do Too Much by Etta Kralovec
• HRP Book Review: The End of Homework by Etta Kralovec and John Buell

*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

• Teacher’s Aid: Homework? Really? That’s So 1950s
• High Tech High Unboxed: Continuous Improvement: Teacher Induction

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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.

GUESTS

Dr. William Ayers, professor of education at the University of Chicago, elementary education expert, education reform activist, author, and researcher.

RESOURCES

• “You Can’t Fire the Bad Ones!”: And 18 Other Myths about Teachers, Teachers Unions, and Public Education by William Ayers, Crystal Laura, and Rick Ayers
• Bill Ayers’ Website

FURTHER LISTENING

• Bill Ayers | Teaching And Organizing for Social Justice | University of Oregon Lecture
• Headline: Author Bill Ayers on the Eighteen Myths of Public Education

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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?

GUESTS

Marie Bigham, former college admissions counselor and co-leader and founder of the ACCEPT Group (Admissions Community Cultivating Equity & Peace Today.)

RESOURCES

• ACCEPT Group (Website)
• ACCEPT Group (Facebook)
• ACCEPT Group (Twitter)
• DEFINING ACCESS: How Test-Optional Works
• "We are witnessing America as a failed social experiment" - Dr Cornell West Full CNN Segment
• The Privileged Poor: How Elite Colleges Are Failing Disadvantaged Students by Anthony Abraham Jack

FURTHER LISTENING (UPCOMING)

• ACCEPT Group Chat Sessions

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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!

Resources

• I use evidence to inform my teaching. by Chris McNutt
• At a Crossroads of Anti-Authoritarianism: Dismissing Far-Right School Advocates by Chris McNutt
• Human Restoration Project's research page

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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.

GUESTS

Dr. 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

• #ImReady Solidarity Work (AAPI Women Lead)
• The Abusable Past: A Reading List on Policing, Rebellion, and the Criminalization of Blackness
• Asian American Justice Toolkit
• TransformHarm Resource Hub
• Truthout.org: We Are Witnessing an Uprising Against a World Built on Anti-Blackness by Dr. Connie Wun
• Teachers for Social Justice
• Education for Liberation Network
• Teaching Tolerance Black Lives Matter Resources
• Movement for Black Lives
• Black Visions Collective

FURTHER LISTENING

• Beyond the School to Prison Pipeline by Dr. Connie Wun
• The Tao of Self-Confidence: 712: You Are Gifted With Dr. Connie Wun

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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.

GUESTS

Dr. 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

• Do grades shape students' school engagement? The psychological consequences of report card grades at the beginning of secondary school
• See me through my eyes: Adolescent–parent agreement in personality predicts later self-esteem development
• Dashed Hopes, Dashed Selves? A Sociometer Perspective on Self-esteem Change Across the Transition to Secondary School
• The Role of School in Adolescents’ Identity Development. A Literature Review
• Klapp: Does grading affect educational attainment? A longitudinal study
• Koenka et. al.: A meta-analysis on the impact of grades and comments on academic motivation and achievement: a case for written feedback

FURTHER LISTENING

• 28: Restoring Humanity: Gradeless Learning
• 54: Making the Switch to Ungrading (feat. Abigail French, Dr. Susan Blum, and Dr. Laura Gibbs)

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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

• Parent Letter Template - We Demand Safe Schools!
• “There Will Be No Teachers Left”
• School Virtual/Hybrid Reopening Demand Template Letter (Florida)

Citations

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6b8Kg_a4Omo
• https://www.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#cases
• https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html
• https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/coronavirus-us-cases.html
• https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/22/health/coronavirus-restrictions-us.html
• https://www.advisory.com/daily-briefing/2020/05/26/children-transmission
• https://www.businessinsider.com/how-coronavirus-travel-through-air-droplets-aerosols-2020-3
• https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/12/us/arizona-teachers-coronavirus/index.html
• https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/11/politics/cdc-documents-warn-high-risk-schools-reopening/index.html
• https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/07/10/889848834/nations-pediatricians-walk-back-support-for-in-person-school
• https://www.wral.com/coronavirus/concerns-mount-in-chapel-hill-over-prospect-of-students-returning-to-unc-amid-pandemic/19183462/
• https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-07-13/covid-19-reinvades-u-s-states-that-already-beat-it-back-once?srnd=premium
• https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/israel-battles-new-wave-coronavirus-infections-after-reopening-n1233139
• https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/29/asia/south-korea-coronavirus-shuts-down-again-intl/index.html
• https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/health-environment/article/3092174/coronavirus-third-wave-fears-escalate-hong-kong
• https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-hongkong/hong-kong-tightens-social-distancing-again-as-coronavirus-cases-rise-idUSKCN24E1L5
• https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/07/10/889376184/photos-how-hong-kong-reopened-schools-and-why-it-closed-them-again
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JSGOO6GiI8
• https://www.edweek.org/ew/section/multimedia/map-coronavirus-and-school-closures.html
• https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/13/us/teachers-covid-19-return-school/index.html
• https://fortune.com/2020/05/28/us-unemployment-rate-numbers-claims-this-week-total-job-losses-may-28-2020-benefits-claims-job-losses/

This podcast is adapted from an article recently published by HRP.

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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.

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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:

1. We need to recognize that asynchronous learning is just as valid, if not more valid, than synchronous learning in both content knowledge and equitable practice.
2. Our conversation of “reimagining education” has been replaced with maintaining control. Teachers must push back to change the status quo.
3. Teachers are facing massive cognitive dissonance of wanting to return to the classroom and help students, while simultaneously recognizing the safety and logistical concerns of the situation.

Also, we experimented with a new recording set up so I apologize for the decrease in quality…always attempting to do better!

Show Notes

• Death and Teaching, COVID-19 by Chris McNutt
• Referenced Rubric (@k_shelton)

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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?

Transcript available here.

GUESTS

Evan Whitehead, a leader in social-emotional learning, leadership, and self-care, and director of special services at a K-8 school.

RESOURCES

• How Self-Compassion Can Help Prevent Teacher Burnout
• Dena Simmons: Without Context, Social-Emotional Learning Can Backfire

FURTHER LISTENING

• The Innovator’s Mindset: Balance, Boundaries, and Breaks (YouTube)

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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.

Finally, this episode is not sponsored in any way, I'm just excited about it. Christine offered our listeners 20% off their first year - putting the platform at roughly $67. Just use code "RESTORE20" before October 31st, 2020.

GUESTS

Christine Witcher, a current middle school STEM educator and co-founder of Floop, founded in 2017.

RESOURCES

• Study: LMS, Grading, and Comments
• PD on Feedback-Driven Learning
• The Floop Curriculum

FURTHER LISTENING

• Teach Better Podcast: 94: A Two-Way Conversation – Christine Witcher chats with us about the importance of feedback, and how to make sure our students are emotionally ready for it, and prepared to learn from it. 

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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!

GUESTS

Dr. 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

• REENVISIONED: Hundreds of interviews on the purpose of school, with free resources and activities to help facilitate these conversations by yourself or with classes.
• “Why School?": A Systems Perspective on Creating Schooling for Individual Flourishing and a Thriving Democratic Society” - Dr. Raab’s Ph.D. Dissertation
• The End of Policing by Alex Vitale (referenced)

Shorter, broad audience pieces by Erin:

• If We Want a More Just, Equitable Society We Have to Re-envision School. Here’s how to start. 
• Designing School for Human Flourishing & Thriving Democracy   
• The Four Purposes of Schooling

FURTHER LISTENING

• 43: The Good Life feat. Steven Gumbay, REENVISIONED, The Future Project, Anne Connolly, Richard Loeper-Viti, & Gamal Sherif

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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.

GUESTS

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)

RESOURCES

• 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

FURTHER LISTENING

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

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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?

RESOURCES

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

FURTHER LISTENING

• Introduction: Human Restoration Project

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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?

GUESTS

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.

RESOURCES

• 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

FURTHER LISTENING

• ThinkUDL with Kevin Gannon: Radical Hope for Online Teaching

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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.

GUESTS

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

RESOURCES

• 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

FURTHER LISTENING

• 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

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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.

GUESTS

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

RESOURCES

• 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

FURTHER LISTENING

• 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

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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.

GUESTS

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

RESOURCES

• 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

FURTHER LISTENING

• 34: Restoring Humanity to Education (Critical Pedagogy)

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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.

GUESTS

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

• 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

FURTHER LISTENING

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

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

Today's conversation is all about 100 Days of Conversations About School! 100 Days is a project by Human Restoration Project, REENVISIONED, Choice Filled Lives Network, and Cortico's Local Voices Network. Simply stated, 100 Days is catalyzing conversations about school in communities across the country. Featuring young people and adults, these conversations about the good life, the school experience, and equity in education are being compiled, shared, analyzed, and presented. We're taking the findings and presenting them to the new Secretary of Education and policymakers across the country.

The process is designed to center the voices of young people and educators - both in the conversations themselves and in the policy and practice recommendations that emerge from the process. We're seeking educators, young people, and education non-profits who are interested in hosting a conversation in their community.

The entire process takes about 2 hours, including the conversation itself. We supply all the materials, the recording space, and walk you through the conversation. Simply go to 100DaysofConversations.org, sign up, gather 2-8 folks, 2 of whom are below the age of 24, choose a time, and host the conversation. We'll take everything from there!

Afterwards, you'll not only get to participate in an important process but also receive a transcript and categorical analysis of what happened - which is so important in figuring out how to reimagine our educational system. It's one thing for us to belabor on the importance of changing ed - yet we must include young people as the most important voices in the conversation.

GUESTS

Dr. Erin Raab, chief strategy and impact officer for Choice Filled Lives Network and co-founder of REENVISIONED who focused her PhD on transforming schooling from competitions and tests to human flourishing and collective liberation

The 100 Days Social Media Team (Olivia Chiang, Summer Freed, Léa Henaux, which also includes Nontobeko Mdlalose)

RESOURCES

• 100 Days of Conversations Website and Sign Up
• 100 Days Facilitation Guide
• 100 Days Analysis Overview

FURTHER LISTENING

• 79: Reimagine the System w/ REENVISIONED (Dr. Erin Raab)

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

In today's conversation, we're joined by Trevor Aleo, an English teacher in Wilton, Connecticut, Kayla Duncan, a professional instruction coach from Cumming, Georgia, and Julie Stern, author of Tools for Teaching Conceptual Understanding and many more, and workshop leader of Making Sense of Learning Transfer.

Together, along with Krista Ferraro, a history teacher from Braintree, Massachusetts, have written Learning That Transfers: Designing Curriculum for a Changing World, releasing in April, 2021. This work connects interdisciplinary learning, centers students in instructional design, and offers educators with tools to plan effectively.

In our conversation together, we talk about what it means to transfer learning, how this differs from traditional "brain science" curriculum planning, and how we can push for social justice through interdisciplinary, aligned learning.

GUESTS

Trevor Aleo, middle school English teacher from Wilton, Connecticut who focuses on making students become sense-makers.

Kayla Duncan, personalized instruction coach from Cumming, Georgia, who focuses on authentic experiences and increased ownership.

Julie Stern, best-selling author of Tools for Teaching Conceptual Understanding and many more, and thought leader of the Making Sense of Learning Transfer workshop series.

RESOURCES

• Learning That Transfers: Designing Curriculum for a Changing World (release April 2021)
• Education to Save the World

FURTHER LISTENING

• Conceptually Speaking (Julie Stern & Trevor Aleo's podcast)

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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

In today's conversation, we are joined by Dr. Ilana Horn. Dr. Horn is a professor of mathematics education at Vanderbilt University's Peabody College, who focuses on serving disenfranchised youth through authentic mathematics. She leads the Teacher Learning Laboratory, which focuses on sense-making of schools, how teachers and students interact. Further, she is the author of Strength in Numbers: Collaborative Learning in Secondary Mathematics and Motivated: Designing Math Classrooms Where Students Want to Join In.

In our conversation, Dr. Horn and I discuss how teachers can wrap up the 2020-2021 school year through reflection. How can we build a better system after seeing the inequities, problems, and challenges that this school year has highlighted? And, how do we build a classroom in spite of a system that often demotivates and disenfranchises educators?

GUESTS

Dr. Ilana Horn, professor of mathematics education at Vanderbilt University's Peabody College, director of Teacher Learning Laboratory, and author of Strength in Numbers: Collaborative Learning in Secondary Mathematics and Motivated: Designing Math Classrooms Where Students Want to Join In.

RESOURCES

• Teacher Learning Laboratory
• Strength in Numbers: Collaborative Learning in Secondary Mathematics
• Motivated: Designing Math Classrooms Where Students Want to Join In

FURTHER LISTENING

• TeachLab - Dr. Ilana Horn
• 82: Build a New Future: Teaching Action and Coalition Building w/ Dr. Kevin Gannon

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

In today's conversation, we are joined by Alex Venet. Alex teaches undergraduate students at the Community College of Vermont, graduate classes at Castleton Center for Schools and Antioch University New England, creates PD, is a community facilitator for Edutopia, co-organizes Edcamp Vermont and Trauma Informed Educators Network Conference, and is soon releasing her new book Equity-Centered, Trauma-Informed Education, releasing May 25th, 2021. A link is in the show notes.

We received an advanced copy, and I cannot emphasize enough how much this book is needed, and how much it resonated with my own practice. Alex not only perfectly outlines trauma-informed education, but places reflections, challenges, and paramount questions for us to rethink systems in education toward including and advocating for all students. In this conversation, Alex and I talk about shifting the system toward fostering critical wellness and systemic change for equity. Enjoy this listen!

GUESTS

Alex Venet, educator at Community College of Vermont, teaches graduate classes at Castleton Center for Schools and Antioch University New England, creates PD, is a community facilitator for Edutopia, co-organizes Edcamp Vermont and Trauma Informed Educators Network Conference, and author of Equity-Centered, Trauma-Informed Education

RESOURCES

• Equity-Centered Trauma-Informed Education (Releasing May 2021); Phoenix Books
• Unconditional Learning (Alex Venet's Website)

FURTHER LISTENING

• Trauma Informed Educators Network Podcast: Episode 34: Alex Shevrin Venet

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Today we're speaking with Emi Takemura. Emi is the co-founder and representative director of FutureEdu Tokyo, which seeks to reimagine education in Japan based on project based learning and experiential education inspired by High Tech High. She is also the representative director of Learn by Creation, which provides professional development, conferencing, and networking for inspiring hands-on learning in Japan.

Emi is a veteran entrepreneur who co-founded Peatix, a mobile event platform, and engages in many events on social entrepreneurship and start-up funding. She's worked at a senior level in various financial firms, and has been an advocate for female leadership, ethical investing, and reimagining education in Japan. Our conversation dives into what it means to develop a hands-on learning curriculum, how Japan and the US relate and differ, and how all of this should or shouldn't relate to the job market.

GUESTS

Emi Takemura, co-founder and representative director of FutureEdu Tokyo, representative director of Learn by Creation, co-founder of Peatix, and veteran entrepreneur

RESOURCES

• FutureEdu Tokyo (Japan)

FURTHER LISTENING

• 15: What School Could Be w/ Ted Dintersmith

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On today's podcast we are joined by Zoe Bee. Zoe is an English professor, poet, and content creator who produces content for YouTube and streams on Twitch. Some of her work includes "A Professor Explains", where Zoe dives into why Grammarly is a poor product or what makes a poem a "good" poem; or full overview of the themes of H.P. Lovecraft.

Zoe is a successful content creator despite being active for less than a year. We specifically learned about her after seeing her wildly successful video, "Grading is a Scam (and Motivation is a Myth)", which is nearing 500,000 views within 3 weeks. Her takedowns of PragerU, support of progressive education, and overall extensive, fact-checked videos show a growing interest, especially by younger viewers, in educational pedagogy and politics.

In this podcast, we sat down with Zoe to talk about her growth, practices as an educator, and content creation.

GUESTS

Zoe Bee, YouTuber, streamer, professor, and investigator of educational pedagogy, poetry, and English

RESOURCES

• Zoe Bee's YouTube
• Zoe Bee's Twitch
• Zoe Bee's Patreon
• Grading is a Scam (and Motivation is a Myth) | A Professor Explains

FURTHER LISTENING

• 83: Why Rating Students Undermines Learning w/ Dr. Susan Blum
• 74: The Research on Assessment w/ Dr. Astrid Poorthuis
• 69: Social Justice, Gender Identity, and Liberatory Pedagogy w/ sj Miller

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Today we are joined by Carla Marschall and Elizabeth Crawford to cover their upcoming book, Worldwise Learning: A Teacher's Guide to Shaping a Just, Sustainable Future. I was fortunate to receive an advance copy, and Worldwise Learning is all about inquiry and experiential education: shaping global citizens by tackling real world issues in projects. The book walks teachers through the "inquiry cycle", which helps students "connect, understand, and act." It's filled with activities, diagrams, and charts, to co-create with students in planning a serious, in-depth project.

We talk about:

• What makes "Worldwise Learning" different than something more generalized, like experiential education?
• How do we balance, or do we balance, between student interest and introducing what could be deemed as "controversial" topics?
• How do we allow space for co-created projects when there's limited perceived time and structure in most/many schools?

GUESTS

Carla Marschall, an experienced educator who has worked in various international schools from Germany to Hong Kong to Switzerland to Singapore. She is now the Director of Teaching & Learning at UWC South East Asia, and previously co-wrote Concept-Based Inquiry in Action

Elizabeth Crawford, an Associate Professor of Elementary Education at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. She specializes in global education and works with teacher educators and organizations to advance the Sustainable Development Goals, tackling interconnected global challenges in the classroom

RESOURCES

• Worldwide Learning: A Teacher's Guide to Shaping a Just, Sustainable World (available Sept 2021)

FURTHER LISTENING

• 66: Humane Education w/ Zoe Weil
• 60: Implementing the Sustainable Development Goals to the Classroom with Dr. Jennifer Williams, Julia Fliss, and Nick Covington
• 45: Building a Global Equitable Community feat. Ara Aman, Tania Mansfield, Lisa Liss, Colleen Mascenik, and Evin Schwartz

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Today, we are joined by Akil Bello. Akil is a supplemental education and test preparation expert. He's launched two companies, developed test preparation programs, and trained hundreds of instructors. He was the founding partner and CEO of Bell Curves, a test prep company based on community partnerships, worked for The Princeton Review, and now is the Senior Director of Advocacy and Advancement at FairTest.

Akil and I talk about the advent of "learning loss" after pandemic schooling, the way that testing companies are using this term to generate more tests and test prep software, what was lost in the pandemic, and what we can do as teachers to build back better.

GUESTS

Akil Bello, Senior Director of Advocacy and Advancement at Fairtest, founding partner and former CEO of Bell Curves, and contributor on test equitability, learning loss, and much more

RESOURCES

• How Test Publishers Are Poised To Profit From Pandemic “Learning Loss” by Akil Bello
• Akil Bello's website
• FutureEd State Plan Tracking
• Introducing "Operation Reverse the Loss" (IES)
• Oh What a Tangled Web We Weave: How the Testing Industry Manufactured the "Learning Loss" Narrative (HRP)

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Long time listeners may recognize the title to this podcast: Re:Teaching. Last year, Nick released a series of short podcasts on a separate channel, focused on current events and short-form highlights of writing. We soon realized that by splitting our podcast into two segments, most folks didn't hear any of this series! Therefore, after much delay - and many reminders by Nick - we'll be releasing Re:Teaching over the next few weeks on this channel. Enjoy, and there will be even more new Re:Teaching episodes on the way.

This episode is a feature read of A Progressive Response to “Ed. Reform’s Lost Decade” by Nick Covington, published in January 2020. Learn more about Human Restoration Project and find a wealth of free resources to create human-centered classrooms at humanrestorationproject.org, and follow us on social media, @HumResPro.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Long time listeners may recognize the title to this podcast: Re:Teaching. Last year, Nick released a series of short podcasts on a separate channel, focused on current events and short-form highlights of writing. We soon realized that by splitting our podcast into two segments, most folks didn't hear any of this series! Therefore, after much delay - and many reminders by Nick - we'll be releasing Re:Teaching over the next few weeks on this channel. Enjoy, and there will be even more new Re:Teaching episodes on the way.

This episode is a feature read of What’s in a grade? GRExit, GPA, College Admissions, and the Mastery Transcript (oh my!) by Nick Covington, published in March 2020. Learn more about Human Restoration Project and find a wealth of free resources to create human-centered classrooms at humanrestorationproject.org, and follow us on social media, @HumResPro.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today, Nick and I are going to break down Human Restoration Project's recently released "Learning Loss" Handbook, providing an overview of the ideas we present in the book, the faux narrative being created surrounding "learning loss", and offering an alternative for educators to push for and pursue. You can find the free download at humanrestorationproject.org/materials.

Included in this conversation is...

• The history of the term "learning loss"
• An analysis of standardized testing and what we're measuring
• Showcasing the overall negative impacts of standardized testing
• Deconstructing the financial ties to learning loss and the testing industry
• Dissecting the stereotype threat and Pygmalion effect and its potential connection to the negative narrative of learning loss

Next time we'll break down *how* we counteract this narrative. Stay tuned!

*Apologies for the audio quality, my mic literally broke while recording this podcast! Support our funding drive! :)

FUNDING DRIVE

Human Restoration Project is currently in the midst of our September 2021 funding drive. You can learn more, help us out, obtain donor gifts, and support future podcasts/ resources by visiting Human Restoration Project's website.

RESOURCES

• 95: Deciphering "Learning Loss" w/ Akil Bello
• FutureEd State Plan Tracking
• Introducing "Operation Reverse the Loss" (IES)
• HRP's Learning Loss Handbook

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today, Nick and I are continuing our dissection of learning loss via our Learning Loss Handbook. In part 1, we spoke about the myth surrounding "learning loss" and the dire implications it has on our practice in schools. If you haven't listened in yet, I highly recommend checking out that episode.

In this episode we discuss:

• What was lost during pandemic schooling?
• What actions can we take in order to counteract the problems resulted from an isolated, virtual year(s)?
• How can we take these actions even in districts that don't support progressive actions?

RESOURCES

• HRP's Learning Loss Handbook
• 96: Unpacking Learning Loss: The Who, the What, and the Why
• Is Learning “Lost” When Kids Are Out of School? by Alfie Kohn
• Is Summer Learning Loss Real? by Paul T. von Hippel

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In this podcast we've decided to experiment a bit with our programming. To be honest, right now there's a ton of burnout in the education world, from the pandemic to ongoing struggles of teacher power and support, and the culture war once again resurfacing in the classroom. As educators by day and nonprofit workers by night, we totally get that struggle.

Therefore, we're putting a slight pause on our typical interview format to try out something new. This frees us up from the workload of scheduling, researching, and working with guests. And, it opens up the door for us to produce more casual content. If you like the guest stuff, don't worry - we'll come back to that in early December! But...if you like the new stuff, please let us know.

In this podcast we're going to go through four parts:

1. An update of what we're working on at HRP.
2. Article shareouts that Nick and I have been interested in recently.
3. Talking about what we're currently doing in our classrooms.
4. A pop-quiz to see who exits this podcast alive (or something.)

And we discuss:

• Militarism and increased nationalism in the classroom.
• Simulation theory, Baudrillard, and fatal strategies.
• How video game design relates to classroom pedagogy.
• Celebrating Columbus Day (and the surrounding debate) and its context to nationalism.
• The corruption of large-scale nonprofits, including testing companies and public charter networks.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this podcast, Nick and I are continuing our foray into random topics of progressive education! Today's episode centers cognitive science, research movements, and "studies of the brain." Within, we'll be talking about what's currently going on at HRP, articles and books that Nick and I have been reading recently, what's going on in our classrooms, Q&A from listeners via Twitter, and then a pop-quiz for who stays alive.

And we discuss:

• Mary-Helen Immordino-Yang's work and development in neuroscience
• Audrey Watter's Teaching Machines, and the history of B.F. Skinner/behaviorism, especially his behaviorist "Utopian" book Walden Two
• Nick using the "Tier List Maker" for class assignments
• Chris using Floop for workshoping and ungrading
• Responding to "How do you motivate reluctant learners?" and "What does a student-driven curriculum look like in practice?"
• A game show(!) featuring "Doug Lemov (Teach Like a Champion) said what!?" and "Ungrading: The Research." Who will be sent out of the airlock?

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It's our 100th podcast episode! In celebration, Nick and Chris discuss the ongoing pursuits of Human Restoration Project.

And we discuss:

• Our accomplishments over the years.
• Our favorite events, writings, and podcasts.
• Our major upcoming initiatives, which you'll want to stick around for!
• Questions from our listeners.
• And finally....host a trivia session on science fiction.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Long time listeners may recognize the title to this podcast: Re:Teaching. Last year, Nick released a series of short podcasts on a separate channel, focused on current events and short-form highlights of writing. We soon realized that by splitting our podcast into two segments, most folks didn't hear any of this series! Enjoy, and there will be even more new Re:Teaching episodes on the way.

This episode is a feature read of Why What Works Won't Work and Why What Works May Hurt by Nick Covington, published in March 2020. Learn more about Human Restoration Project and find a wealth of free resources to create human-centered classrooms at humanrestorationproject.org, and follow us on social media, @HumResPro.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today we are joined by Dr. Nick Stock. Dr. Stock, a former English teacher, now serves as a researcher for the University of Birmingham. He has published various essays which focus on critiquing education by using philosophy typically seen outside of traditional pedagogy, such as Evangelion, Schools and Futures; Education after the end of the world. How can education be considered a hyperobject?; and Paradise Shall Remain Lost. Readdressing Deschooling through a Miltonian Lens.

Specifically, we invited Dr. Stock on to talk about his recently published work, The Weird, Eerie, Exit Pedagogy of Mark Fisher, which dives into the work of Fisher, who wrote Capitalist Realism, and connects it to pedagogy, something that it isn’t typically associated with.

This podcast covers:

• "Exit Pedagogy", connecting Mark Fisher's capitalist theories (and to an extent, Baudrillard's theories) to education
• "Hauntology" and reimagining a world without capitalism
• Critiques of liberatory and critical pedagogy and their connection to capitalism
• What it means to apply exit pedagogy to the classroom

GUESTS

Dr. Nick Stock, former English teacher and current researcher at the University of Birmingham, who focuses on an ironist perspective to education through postmodern, poststructural ideas.

RESOURCES

• The weird, eerie, exit pedagogy of Mark Fisher by Dr. Nick Stock
• Capitalist Realism by Mark Fisher
• Unpacking "Neoliberal" Schooling, Part 3: Progressive Education: Enter the Matrix by Chris McNutt

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A conversation around student loan debt has been happening at the margins of American political life for nearly a generation. By 2012, total student loan debt in the United States surpassed one trillion dollars, with the only relief coming from a pause on interest and federal debt collection that began with the pandemic in March 2020. Today, a majority of Americans, nearly 60% of polled voters, support some kind of forgiveness on the nation’s now 1.7 trillion dollar student loan debt, and borrowers have benefited from the pause on payments, recently extended to May 2022. That’s over two years without a single required payment…and seemingly without a single negative economic consequence. A recent study from the Student Debt Crisis Center also found that nearly 90% of borrowers are not financially secure enough to resume payments.

Is it time to pause these payments indefinitely? Is it past time for mass student loan debt forgiveness? While most of the conversations we have at HRP happen at the intersection of the theory and classroom practice of education, today I am joined by Thomas Gokey, Eleni Shirmer, and Jason Wozniak, as they talk to us about their organization, Debt Collective, make the moral, economic, and pedagogical case for debt cancellation, and let listeners know how to join their grassroots movement.

GUESTS

Thomas Gokey, organizer and co-founder of Debt Collective, visual artist, adjunct professor at Syracuse University, and activist

Eleni Shirmer, researcher at the Future of Finance Initiative at UCLA's Luskin Institute on Inequality and Democracy, and organizer with Debt Collective

Jason Wozniak, assistant professor at Teacher's College, Columbia University, and author of the upcoming book, The Mis-Education of the Indebted Student

RESOURCES

• @StrikeDebt (Twitter)
• Debtcollective.org

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Joshua Seigal is a highly acclaimed, award-winning professional poet, performer and educator. Joshua uses poetry to develop literacy skills and inspire confidence and ​creativity in communication. He has worked in hundreds of schools, libraries, theatres and festivals around the world, had books published by Bloomsbury and other major publishers, and has written and performed for BBC television. Joshua Seigal has recently been awarded the 2020 Laugh out Loud Book Award for “I Bet I Can Make You Laugh”, and shortlisted for the 2021 Peoples Book Prize for “Yapping Away”. In this episode, I talk to Joshua about his journey from academia to poetry as well as his own experiences attending British schools and the perspective he has on them now as an adult, and of course we get a bit of a poetry reading near the end. I should add that I recorded this at home with a very busy 3.5 year old, who you may hear throughout the episode. Thank you Joshua, for being very gracious during a chaotic recording on my end!

GUESTS

Joshua Seigal, award-winning poet, performer, and educator

RESOURCES

• Joshua Seigal's website
• @JoshuaSeigal (Twitter)

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Our guest today is Keenan Crow. Keenan Crow is the Director of Policy and Advocacy for One Iowa, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to advance, empower, and improve the lives of LGBTQ Iowans through education, advocacy, and collaboration. Keenan has been active in Iowa politics since 2010 when they interned with Chris Hall’s campaign for Iowa State Representative. Since then, they have been involved with several nonprofit organizations including Planned Parenthood of the Heartland and Cedar Valley Citizens for Undoing Racism. They were also involved in One Iowa’s campus group at the University of Northern Iowa, where they obtained a BA in Political Communications and a Master’s in Public Policy. The campus at UNI is also where I met Keenan, now well over a decade ago.

In this episode, we talk to Keenan about their work at One Iowa Action - and how listeners can get involved in supporting similar groups around the country - current challenges that LGBTQ youth are facing, from book banning to bathroom bills, and what allyship looks like, especially for teachers, in 2022. How can we make our schools and classrooms safe and welcoming places for LGBTQ students?

GUESTS

Keenan Crow, Director of Policy and Advocacy for One Iowa and champion for LGBTQ civil rights

RESOURCES

• OneIowa
• @OneIowa (Twitter)
• @KF_Crow (Twitter)

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Today we are joined by Dr. Joanne Golann. Dr. Golann is an Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Education and an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Vanderbilt University, and focuses on how culture shapes educational policy and practice. Her recently released book, Scripting the Moves: Culture & Control in a "No-Excuses" Charter School, follows Joanne over 18 months as she observes a “high-performing” charter school, documenting the various regimented structures, student and parent perspectives, what the teachers do...and more - which we’ll begin to talk about in this interview.

GUESTS

Dr. Joanne Golann, Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Education and an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Vanderbilt University

RESOURCES

• Scripting the Moves: Culture & Control in a "No-Excuses" Charter School by Joanne Golann
• Empty Pedagogy, Behaviorism, and the Rejection of Equity by Chris McNutt
• Teach Like a Champion Playlist
• Uncommon Schools Playlist

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This podcast is our first of what we’re calling the “spotlight” series. Every so often, we’ll reaching out to schools who are doing intriguing progressive practices that could inspire and influence others to do the same. Each has a twist on how their school is operated, and we’re bringing in students and teachers to talk about it. They’re not all perfect, and they’d all acknowledge there are things they’d change; but there’s so much to learn from these schools as we reimagine education in our communities.

We are joined by students and faculty from Assumption College, a Catholic co-ed 7-12 secondary school located in Kilmore, Victoria, Australia, featuring 1,200 students, some of whom board on campus. Assumption is doing a lot of fascinating work that would interest people interested in progressive education and reform measures. In the last few years, they’ve transferred to the “MyMAP” program, which stands for Mastery, Autonomy, and Purpose. Instead of assigning students to traditional classes, students have the option between many different classes that are then mapped to traditional graduation needs. This means that students that have an interest in the arts will have a drastically different curriculum than say, engineering.

To learn more, we’re talking today with Kate Fogarty, the principal; Vaughan Cleary, the Deputy Principal; Kendall Aglinskas, Professional Practices Coordinator and Learning Leader; and Bel Luscott and Billy Carlin, both year 11 students. All of these folks have been at Assumption before and after their self-directed curriculum began.

SCHOOL

Assumption College, a Catholic co-ed 7-12 secondary school located in Kilmore, Victoria, Australia

RESOURCES

• MyMAP Overview
• MyMAP Learning Program (YouTube)
• Assumption College Website

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*This podcast contains content regarding suicide and child abuse.

In this podcast we are joined by R.L. Stollar, a Child Liberation Theologian and child and survivor advocate. Stollar is the author of the upcoming book, The Kingdom of Children, which reports on the issues and concerns of the evangelical homeschooling movement. Stollar, who was himself homeschooled, is an advocate of homeschooling who is calling attention to the issues that many face in the system, connecting the concept to faith — which is often juxtaposed with the practice of homeschooling. His work in Child Liberation Theology, which you’ll hear about shortly, centers the idea of young people being leaders in their faith-based decisions.

This is an interesting topic, because it blends ideas that aren’t commonplace in progressive education. Although I am personally not religious, there are fascinating connections between a faith-based education, self-directed learning, critical pedagogy, and more that we’ll explore in this podcast.

As a side note, this podcast also features Thomas White. Thomas is our prior development director who accepted a new position after this podcast aired. Essentially, Thomas did his job so well with us that he accepted a full-time position doing development work, leading to a conflict of interest with his current part-time role. We’re sorry to see him go! Thomas is writing a book on Classical Christian Education, which has a lot of overlap with the upcoming conversation.

We introduce R.L. Stollar as a Dr....but in fact he has not earned a doctorate (yet!)

GUESTS

R.L. Stollar, Child Liberation Theologian and child and survivor advocate and author of the upcoming book Kingdom of Children

Thomas White, former HRP development director and author of upcoming book on Classical Christian Education

RESOURCES

• R.L. Stollar's Website
• Overview of Child Liberation Theology

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today we are joined by Dustin Hensley. Dustin is the library media specialist at Elizabethton High School in Tennessee. He is an advocate for creating spaces that cultivate a student’s love of learning. He was one of the co-founders of the Bartleby Program, which centers community improvement and entrepreneurship with students, and is one of the winners of the XQ Super School competition, remaining active in the XQ Community of Practice. He currently teaches courses on Community Improvement and Academic Research.

In this podcast, Dustin and I talk about the state of libraries today:

• the purpose of a library
• how libraries interact with students
• political forces attacking books and librarianship
• transitions from libraries to Makerspaces and Fablabs
• and how libraries provide a pedagogy that transforms learning.

GUESTS

Dustin Hensley, library media specialist, project lead, and grant-writer for Elizabethton High School, part-time professor, co-founder of the Bartleby Program, and active member of the XQ Community of Practice

RESOURCES

• A Library Transformed by Dustin Hensley (Getting Smart)
• #FReadom movement in Texas
• Mirrors, Windows, and Sliding Glass Doors by Dr. Rudine Sims Bishop
• Readicide: How Schools Are Killing Reading and What You Can Do About It by Kelly Gallagher and Richard L. Allington

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I am joined today by Burton Hable. Burton Hable is a music educator, currently living in Central Virginia. He is a doctoral student in Boston University’s Music Education program, and his research interests lie in how people construct music knowledge in the context of a makerspace. He also serves as the Operations and Building Manager for the Charlottesville Band. Prior to moving to Virginia in the summer of 2018, he taught instrumental music in Iowa for eight years. I’ve also known Burton for 20 years now, as we were high school classmates and played trombone in the same high school band together, and both of us came back years later to teach in the same district we graduated from. In so many ways, Burton and I share a similar journey in arriving at progressive education, and I am grateful to call him a friend and a learning partner for these many years.

As the title mentions, this episode focuses on the niche pedagogy of “constructionism” largely attributed to one man, Seymour Papert, who published his first book, Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas, back in 1980. It’s both fascinating and frustrating that despite 4 decades of research supporting the powerful impact on cognition and the opportunity for collaboration inherent in these ideas, the philosophy and framework of constructionism and similarly modeled “makerspaces” are still only deployed in limited pockets on the fringes of the standard model of school. This conversation gets at the same central premise as so many others on this podcast, that is our limited imagination about “what works” in schools as they are currently structured, and “what works to do what” within music education in particular. What does it mean to be musically literate? To be a musician? Burton Hable imagines the role of makerspaces supported by constructionist pedagogy in music ed as a way to expand and enrich the standard model for students, with the goal of creating a broader collaborative experience for students to engage with all aspects - creating, performing, responding, and connecting - of what it means to be musical.

Connect with Burton @ burtonhable.com or on Twitter @burtonhable

GUESTS

Burton Hable, music educator & Operations and Building Manager for the Charlottesville Band

RESOURCES

• Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas by Seymour Papert (open access)
• Review: The Case for Constructivist Classrooms by Nick Covington

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, Akil & I discuss the history & context of the CollegeBoard and how the AP program in particular fits into CollegeBoard’s vision for “college ready” admissions, how that very vision is undermined by the emphasis on a 3.5 hour exam in May, and what we could be doing instead to crash the gates and actually improve accessibility & equity in the admissions process in the absence of the Advanced Placement signifier.

GUESTS

Akil Bello, Senior Director of Advocacy and Advancement at Fairtest, founding partner and former CEO of Bell Curves, and contributor on test equitability, learning loss, and much more

RESOURCES

• Akil Bello's website
• Drop the College Board by Chris McNutt

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On today’s podcast we are joined by David Buck. David is an English professor at Howard Community College in Maryland who is actively involved in the ungrading movement, as well as focusing on open access resources, open pedagogy, and the UN Sustainable Development Goals. To foster and grow the practice of ungrading, David is actively involved in utilizing social and other online media for discussion, including but not limited to his “Let’s Talk Ungrading” Twitter Spaces, which is also an edited podcast, the Ungrading Twitter Community, the Ungrading Book Club, the Ungrading Discord Community, and “Crowdsourcing Ungrading” an open-access book on Pressbooks.

We talk about:

• The desire and need for more spaces to gather and reflect on progressive education.
• What it means to build these spaces in "new media", such as Discord or Twitter Spaces.
• How we can get more young people involved in joining, curating, and creating these spaces (such as on Twitch).
• How we can inspire more educators to lead and grow these spaces, co-created with students.

GUESTS

David Buck, English professor at Howard Community College and mass-curator and co-leader of various ungrading spaces

RESOURCES

• #Ungrading: A Digital Ethnography (Dissertation by Christina Moore)
• David Buck's Twitter (and location for Twitter Spaces)
• Crowdsourced Ungrading Pressbook
• David Buck's Sutori Student Blogs
• Ungrading HUB (Discord)
• Human Restoration Project (Discord)

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Today’s guest is Deborah Meier, who really needs no introduction for advocates of progressive education. Meier is the founder of the modern small schools movement, that aims to reorganize larger schools into smaller, democratic ones. She was founder and director of Central Park East, a Dewey-inspired progressive school in East Harlem, New York City. She also opened Central Park East II, River East, and the Central Park East Secondary School the same neighborhood. This led her to establish a network of similarly minded schools in New York City, and eventually founding Mission Hill School in Boston.

Meier is an advocate of democratic, progressive, public schools who has served on the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, National Academy of Education, The Nation, Dissent, and more. She is a recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship, as well as the author of multiple books including the recently co-authored These Schools Belong to You and Me: Why We Can’t Afford to Abandon our Public Schools. Meier is a huge inspiration to us at Human Restoration Project and we frequently draw on her work in our materials and advocacy.

In this podcast, Meier and I talk about building a coalition of schools, educators, families, and community members to build and protect a progressive public education, discussing the importance of building a public education system that strengthens and models a democracy.

GUESTS

Deborah Meier, founding director of Central Park East and Mission Hill School, as well as various progressive democratic public schools, and author of various works including co-authoring These Schools Belong to You and Me: Why We Can’t Afford to Abandon our Public Schools

RESOURCES

• Deborah Meier's website
• These Schools Belong to You and Me: Why We Can’t Afford to Abandon our Public Schools
• The Power of Their Ideas: Lessons for America from a Small School in Harlem

SUPPORT THE MOVEMENT TO END GUN VIOLENCE

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• Donate: March for Our Lives
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Today’s guest is T. Elijah Hawkes. Elijah served as a public school principal for over a decade, including as the principal at Randolph Union in Vermont, and was the founding principal of the James Baldwin School in New York City. Currently, he is a director at the Upper Valley Educators Institute and an advisor at the Polarization and Extremism Research Innovation Lab at American University. In addition, he is the author of various articles on democracy, public schools, and adolescence including appearing in The New Teacher Book and Rethinking Sexism, Gender, and Identity. Further, Elijah is the author of School for the Age of Upheaval: Classrooms That Get Personal, Get Political, and Get to Work, which we’ll be talking about in this podcast. Further, his second book, Woke is Not Enough: School Reform for Leaders with Justice in Mind will release soon.

In this podcast, Elijah and I (Chris) will talk about an education that gets personal, gets political, and gets to work. It's all about how we can channel the anger of adolescents toward fulfilling, actionable livelihoods toward changing structures and systems that challenge and oppress them. Further, we'll discuss the growth of extremism, how dialogue has broken down and the difficulties in performing this work.

GUESTS

T. Elijah Hawkes, Director of Leadership Programs at the Upper Valley Educators Institute and Education Advisor at the Polarization & Extremism Research & Innovation Lab at American University, as well as a former principal.

RESOURCES

• T. Elijah Hawkes' Website
• School for the Age of Upheaval: Classrooms That Get Personal, Get Political, and Get to Work
• Strong Schools, Polarized Times from the Upper Valley Educators Institute
• Polarization and Extremism Research Innovation Lab
• Confronting Conspiracy Theories and Organized Bigotry at Home from the Western States Center
• Southern Poverty Law Center
• Dr. Rachel Kleinfeld's Articles and Books

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In this bonus episode of Human Restoration Project's podcast, we talk about all of the fantastic opportunities available at our upcoming Conference to Restore Humanity! 2022: System Reboot, which is entirely online from July 25th-July 28th, 2022. We detail:

• The goals and reasoning for establishing the conference, including pedagogy, sustainability, accessibility, and representation
• The keynotes, learning tracks, and additional events
• The purposeful design for ensuring everyone can participate and be informed through the conference (and why traditional conferences don't work for everyone)
• ...and other reasons why a virtual-first conference model is not only needed, but necessary

If you're interested in attending, early bird pricing ends really soon from this recording - June 30th! You can sign up at any point at humanrestorationproject.org/conference

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This is our second “spotlight series” episode where we’re reaching out to schools who are doing intriguing progressive practices that could inspire and influence others to do the same. Each has a twist on how their school is operated, and we’re bringing in students and teachers to talk about it. They’re not all perfect, and they’d all acknowledge there are things they’d change; but there’s so much to learn from these schools as we reimagine education in our communities.

We are joined by students and faculty from Sora Schools, a 7-12 online-only school currently enrolling students in the United States. They're in their third year of operation. Sora prides itself on its project-based curriculum that centers fun, intriguing activities for students, anywhere.

The school is entirely online with a unique schedule that highlights possibilities of virtual spaces. What made Sora Schools stand out to me were the pedagogical shifts they were making as a result of being online. As we highlight in our Virtual Learning Handbook: teaching a remote class can actually bring about community and intriguing pedagogical shifts — it doesn’t have to simply be isolation and replication of what people had to do in-person! Sora is using this virtual space for some really innovative work.

To learn more, we’re talking today with Keegan, an 8th grader at Sora; Angela Anskis, a humanities expert at Sora; and Garrett Smiley, the CEO and co-founder.

*About halfway through this episode I had a new audio setup...so apologies for the random quality difference! The content is stellar still. :)

SCHOOL

Sora Schools, a virtual, project-based school for students in the United States

RESOURCES

• Sora Schools Website

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Today we’re joined by Dr. Sheldon Eakins. Dr. Eakins is an educator who has taught in elementary, middle, and high school settings, as well as an administrator. Currently, he is the Director of Special Education at a school in Idaho. In 2018, Dr. Eakins founded the Leading Equity Center, a professional development service, podcast, and resource hub for spreading cultural awareness, promoting equitable practice, and inspiring change to disrupt inequities in schools.

Each week, Dr. Eakins hosts a livestream and podcast that tackles a disruptive concept, from recruiting diverse applicant pools, to examining critical childhood studies, to being vulnerable with students. We highly recommend his work and would encourage you to check out Leading Equity on your favorite podcast player and visit https://www.leadingequitycenter.com/.

GUESTS

Sheldon Eakins Ph.D., Director of the Leading Equity Center, host of the Leading Equity podcast, K-12 educator, principal, and director of special education

RESOURCES

• Leading Equity Center
• Sheldon Eakins' Website
• Leading Equity: Becoming an Advocate for All Students by Sheldon Eakins

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Keynote Transcript: https://writing.humanrestorationproject.org/transcript/dr-henry-giroux-critical-pedagogy-in-a-time-of-fascist-tyranny/

Q&A Transcript: https://writing.humanrestorationproject.org/transcript/conference-to-restore-humanity-2022-keynote-q-a-dr-henry-giroux/

In this extensive episode, we'll be releasing the keynote address and Q&A session from our first speaker at Conference to Restore Humanity: Dr. Henry Giroux.

We are firm believers in free, public access to the pedagogical tools necessary to enact a human-centered education system. And over the next week, we will be releasing almost everything that was presented at our conference, including keynotes, Q&As, and learning track materials. The best things in education should not be gate-kept.

That said, almost all of our conference fees go toward paying our faculty track leaders and keynote speakers. We believe in paying a competitive rate. And to be transparent, HRP used its organizational funds to cover what ticket sales could not. Therefore, if you value this keynote and these resources, your donation ensures that we can continue to host events just like this! Further, your donation highlights that there's a need for events like this, allowing us to secure partnerships and scholarships for grander ideas in the future. If every regular listener donated 25% of the $200 ticket price: $50, we could easily payoff multiple conferences to restore humanity. Visit humanrestorationproject.org/donate to help us out, and stay tuned to our website and social media for conference material releases next week.

What you're about to hear takes place in two parts: the first is a pre-recorded 35 minute speech, followed by an live hour Q&A. If you'd prefer to watch these sessions, they are released on our YouTube channel, simply search Human Restoration Project.

Our guest today really needs no introduction and it's my honor to have a true legend in education here with us. Dr. Henry Giroux is a renowned scholar who has authored or co-authored over 70 books, including directly working with Paulo Freire on education and cultural studies. He's written hundreds of articles and delivered more than 250 lectures. He is a founding theorist of critical pedagogy, being foundational to the study as he literally coined the term. Starting off as a social studies teacher in Barrington, Rhode Island, Giroux has taught at many universities, served as the co-editor of educational journals, and has served on multiple boards. Today, he serves at the board of directors for Truthout, continues to publish more works, and is the Chair for Scholarship and Public Interest and the Paulo Freire Distinguished Scholar of Critical Pedagogy at McMaster University. Thank you so much, Dr. Giroux, for joining us.

Human Restoration Project is a 501(c)3 nonprofit centered on enabling human-centered schools through progressive pedagogy. We do not endorse any specific political candidates. Conference keynotes and faculty members do not reflect political endorsements by Human Restoration Project.

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I was introduced to Nick Sousanis’ work through a Twitter connection, shout out to @AndrewJ, as I wanted to spend more time over the summer with what are broadly called graphic novels. Probably like many listeners, I had read comic books as they appeared in pop culture over the years, The Dark Tower adaptation, the Walking Dead, even “classic” graphic novels, I suppose, like Alan Moore’s Watchmen, V for Vendetta, and From Hell. As a history major, I read the first book of Maus in college. but other than that I never really knew where to go from there. Now, just last month, I had a friend recommend Marjan Sahtrapi’s Persepolis, a graphic memoir of her childhood before, during, and after the Iranian Revolution. I borrowed it from the library, read it in a single sitting, and was hooked. So I immediately put a call out on Twitter on where to go from there and got dozens of suggestions. I’ve spent the rest of the summer catching up on a number of graphic memoirs including the March Trilogy, The Best We Could Do, and Fun Home. Then came Nick Sousanis’ Unflattening.  

Nick Sousanis is an Eisner-winning comics author and an associate professor of Humanities & Liberal Studies at San Francisco State University, where he runs a Comics Studies program. He received his doctorate in education at Teachers College, Columbia University in 2014, where he wrote and drew his dissertation entirely in comic book form. Titled Unflattening, it argues for the importance of visual thinking in teaching and learning, and was published by Harvard University Press in 2015. Unflattening received the 2016 American Publishers Awards for Professional and Scholarly Excellence (PROSE Award) in Humanities, the Lynd-Ward Prize for best Graphic Novel of 2015, and was nominated for an Eisner Award for Best Scholarly/Academic work. To date, Unflattening has been translated into French, Korean, Portuguese, Serbian, Polish, Italian, and Chinese.

There is an irony here that we are going to attempt to discuss these very visually linked ideas in an audio podcast, but I will also provide links to the excerpts of Unflattening that are available on Nick’s website.

GUESTS

Dr. Nick Sousanis, Eisner-winning comics author and an associate professor of Humanities & Liberal Studies at San Francisco State University

RESOURCES

• Nick Sousanis' Website
• Nick Sousanis' Twitter
• Unflattening
• On Graphic Scholarship: A Conversation with Nick Sousanis (The Comics Grid)

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On today’s podcast we’re talking about PragerU, the infamous and growing conservative nonprofit that’s probably best known for its YouTube channel with recent uploads like “Why I Sued My Daughter’s Woke School”, “What Kinds of Shows is PBS Making Now?”, and “Teachers are Training Marxist Revolutionaries.” Which on its face is quite a silly thing to talk about, but this channel receives billions of views each year and is a stronghold of conservative leaders and talking points.

To help us make sense of PragerU, as well as understand what its goals and objectives are, we’re joined by Rob Dickinson and Tom Cowin from the University of Sussex. Rob and Tom both have backgrounds in international relations and global policy, and together founded FRAMES project in 2020 to analyze contemporary far-right propaganda in the US, with a specific focus on PragerU. This project is virtually the first of its kind, with essentially no coverage of PragerU in academic circles.

This podcast dives into the methodology and role of PragerU in the education sphere, offering educators reasons why they should care, why they need to be informed, and what actions they can take to stop PragerU from propagandizing students/other educators.

GUESTS

Rob Dickinson, leads the African Cabinet and Political Elite Data project, working with the Scaling-up Packages of Interventions for Cardiovascular disease prevention in selected sites in Europe and Sub-Saharan Africa (SPICES) project, and researches how the Trump Administration may fit into historical patterns of neoliberalism as a candidate for a PhD in International Relations at the University of Sussex.

Tom Cowin, delivers undergraduate teaching in International Relations, International Political Economy, and Globalisation and Global Governance at the University of Sussex. He previously held the position Doctoral Tutor Representative for IR, sits on the Management Committee for the weekly PGR-led Chapter Chats sessions and is a Postgraduate Researcher Representative for Sussex UCU.

Both Rob and Tom are co-founders of the FRAMES project to study far-right propaganda in the United States, with a specific focus on PragerU.

RESOURCES

• The Alt-Education Pipeline: PragerU (Writing)
• Alt-Right Pipeline 2: Electric PragerU (YouTube, Zoe Bee)

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