FreshEd

Today we talk about how to teach about and beyond September 11th. My guest, Ameena Ghaffar-Kucher, says 9/11 is often taught in American schools as a one day event, focused on loss and mourning, heroes and first responders. Together with a global team, Ameena has launched the Teaching Beyond September 11th curriculum to change the narrative. Ameena Ghaffar Kucher is a Senior Lecturer in the Literacy, Culture, and International Education division at the Graduate School of Education, University of Pennsylvania and the director of the international educational development program. She also hosts the podcast, The Parent Scoop, which she started with her family during the Covid-19 lockdown. https://freshedpodcast.com/ghaffar-kucher/ -- Get in touch! Twitter: @FreshEdpodcast Facebook: FreshEd Email: info@freshedpodcast.com Support FreshEd: www.freshedpodcast.com/donate

Today we celebrate the life and work of Paulo Freire, who was born on September 19, 1921. Freire has had an enormous impact on education around the world, from his concept of freedom and praxis to this understanding of oppression and liberation. I’m sure many listeners have read his famous book “Pedagogy of the Oppressed.” With me today is Alma Flor Ada who knew Freire and was deeply influenced by his work and friendship. Alma is Professor Emerita at the University of San Francisco and author of children’s books, poetry, and novels. https://freshedpodcast.com/ada/ -- Get in touch! Twitter: @FreshEdpodcast Facebook: FreshEd Email: info@freshedpodcast.com Support FreshEd: www.freshedpodcast.com/donate

Today we take a critical look at the idea of competency-based education. Not only is the term hard to define but also it has various political agendas depending on which organization is promoting it. With me are Kathreyn Anderson-Levitt, a Professor Emerita of Anthropology at the University of Michigan–Dearborn and Meg Gardinier, who teaches at the School for International Training’s (SIT) Doctorate in Global Education Program. They’ve recently co-edited a special issue of Comparative Education entitled “Contextualising Global Flows of Competency-based Education." https://freshedpodcast.com/Anderson-Levitt-Gardinier/ -- Get in touch! Twitter: @FreshEdpodcast Facebook: FreshEd Email: info@freshedpodcast.com Support FreshEd: www.freshedpodcast.com/donate

Today Mari Casellato joins me to talk about her FreshEd Flux episode, which aired last week. I recommend you listen to her Flux episode before listening to this interview. It’ll make a lot more sense! In our conversation today, we talk about the history of environmental education and how it is different from education for sustainable development. Mari details youth conferences in Brazil in more detail and explains how they impacted her. She also talks about the way she approaches audio story telling from a collective standpoint. Mari Casellato recently graduated with her master’s degree from Teachers College, Columbia University. https://freshedpodcast.com/casellato/ -- Get in touch! Twitter: @FreshEdpodcast Facebook: FreshEd Email: info@freshedpodcast.com Support FreshEd: www.freshedpodcast.com/donate

Today we air the third episode of Flux, a FreshEd series where graduate students turn their research interests into narrative-based podcasts. This episode is by Mari Casellato, a recent graduate of Teachers College, Columbia University. Mari takes us on a journey through time, revealing the potential of youth participation in environmental education in Brazil (and beyond). You might be thinking Brazil – where the Amazon was on fire just last year and the current Bolsonaro government has been routinely criticized for doing too little to prepare for the climate crisis. But back in the 1990s and early 2000s, Brazil spearheaded this idea of environmental education, which brought together a diversity of voices through national conferences and was seen as a political act. Mari was personally involved in this history. freshedpodcast.com/flux-casellato -- Today’s episode was created, written, produced, and edited by Mari Casellato. Johannah Fahey was the executive producer and Brett Lashua and Will Brehm were the producers. Voices: Narrator: Mariana Casellato History narrator: Tiago Luna English version of Joao: Alcides Ferreira English version of Mariana: Renata Penalva English version of Isis: Aline Godoy Youth voices: Ajani Stella and Kayley Chery Music in this episode (used with permission): Cacuriá – Mawaca “Temas tradicionais de cacuriá” Maranhão – Brazil/Arrangement: Mawaca Special guest: Tião Carvalho (Voice, cavaquinho and caixa) Lá na Mata da Amazônia - Seu Antonio and Grupo Cupuaçu Other music came from the Blue Dot Sessions (www.sessions.blue): Eggs and Powder and Alum Drum Solo; and Soundstripe (www.soundstripe.com) Baiao Baiao, Coco Coco, and Sambita Sambita, all by Hola Hola. Sound effects retrieved from Freesound.org: Sea sound effect by HowNotToSail and Forest sound scape by jonasrocha. Former UN Secretary-General Boutros-Ghali speech at Rio 92 audio retrieved from the UN Audiovisual Library: The Earth Summit. Special thanks to Rachel Trajber and Marcos Sorrentino for their generosity and continued work; to Clóvis, for continuing to be a reference; and to João, for the energy. To Projeto Cala-boca já morreu and all of its participants for so many years of partnership, with special remarks to Grácia for all the inspiration, to Mariana, for the insights, to Tiago, for the great voice, and, to Isis for all the support and companionship now and over the years. To Danilo Fernandes, Ajani Stella, Kayley Chery, Renata Penalva, Alcides Ferreira, Aline Godoy, Daniel Corsi, Carla Hirata, and Caio Mamede for agreeing to lend their voices for this project and for all the support. Finally, to Mawaca, to Tião Carvalho, to Neila Campos Mendes and her family, and to Grupo Cupuaçu for allowing us to use their amazing songs “Cacuriá” and “Lá na Mata da Amazônia” that gave so much life to this project. -- Learn more about Flux: freshedpodcast.com/flux/about/ Twitter: @FreshEdpodcast Facebook: FreshEd Email: info@freshedpodcast.com Support FreshEd: www.freshedpodcast.com/donate

Next week we will air another episode of Flux, our series where graduate students turn their research interests into narrative-based podcasts. In fact, it’ll be the last episode of Flux for the year before we launch the application period for the next round of fellows. Next week’s episode will be about environmental education in Brazil. Environmental education is different from education for sustainable development, the common phrasing used by UNESCO and others today. So, in preparation for the Flux episode, I’m going to replay an interview about education for sustainable development. It’ll be good background for next week’s episode. -- Climate change and its effects aren’t some future possibilities waiting to happen unless we take action today. No. The effect of climate change is already occurring. Today. Right now. Around the world, people have been displaced, fell ill, or died because of the globe’s changing climate. These effects are uneven: Some countries and classes of people are more affected by global warming than others. Still, the United Nations estimates that catastrophic consequences from climate change are only a decade away. That’s the year 2029. [Editor’s note: The IPCC report is from 2018 and gave a 12-year prediction, so it should read 2030, not 2029.] What is the role of education policy in an era of detrimental climate change? My guest today is Marcia McKenzie, a professor in the Department of Educational Foundations at the University of Saskatchewan and director of the Sustainability Education Research Institute. She recently has been awarded a grant to research UN policy programs in relation to climate change education and in June will release a report for the United Nations that reviews country progress on climate change education and education for sustainable development. In our conversation, we talk about what countries are doing or not doing in terms of education and sustainability, and we reflect on some of the existential questions that climate change brings to the fore. https://freshedpodcast.com/mckenzie/ -- Get in touch! Twitter: @FreshEdpodcast Facebook: FreshEd Email: info@freshedpodcast.com Support FreshEd: www.freshedpodcast.com/donate

Today I’m going to play an old episode that has taken on new meaning now that we’ve aired Yardain Amron’s Flux episode, “Education is not the silver bullet.” If you don’t remember or haven’t listened, Yardain brought together multiple stories of student activism in India and Puerto Rico to paint a picture of how the privatization and marketization of higher education is a violent act. Back in 2017, I interviewed David Harvey, the Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at the City University of New York. In that episode, our 100th, Harvey gave a Marxist interpretation of higher education. He touched on student debt, living through contradictions of capitalism, and resistance movements internal to our neoliberal system. Much of what he said provides excellent background to Yardain’s episode. It’s also nice to think that Yardain is studying Geography and Harvey is a Rockstar in the field. They make for an excellent pair of FreshEd episodes. So here it is, David Harvey on Freshed from December 2017. https://freshedpodcast.com/davidharvey/ -- Get in touch! Twitter: @FreshEdpodcast Facebook: FreshEd Email: info@freshedpodcast.com Support FreshEd: www.freshedpodcast.com/donate

Today Yardain Amron joins me to talk about his FreshEd Flux episode, which aired last week. I recommend you listen to his Flux episode before listening to this interview. It’ll make a lot more sense! https://freshedpodcast.com/flux-amron/ In our conversation today, we talk about his process of creating podcasts and telling stories. He says he dwells on contradictions that often go unnoticed. Yardain also talks about the connections and tensions between his approach to storytelling as a journalist and his approach to academics as a master’s student. He worked through some of these tensions developing his Flux episode, which brought together many different stories into a coherent narrative connected to theory. Yardain Amron is a freelance journalist and master’s student at the University of British Colombia. www.freshedpodcast.com/amron/ -- Get in touch! Twitter: @FreshEdpodcast Facebook: FreshEd Email: info@freshedpodcast.com Support FreshEd: www.freshedpodcast.com/donate

Today we air the second episode of Flux, a FreshEd series where graduate students turn their research interests into narrative-based podcasts. In this episode Yardain Amron crafts a narrative that shows complex theories in action. He doesn’t simply tell his listeners what these ideas are or name them explicitly. He takes us to disparate places–from universities in India and Puerto Rico to Occupy Wall Street–and makes a connection between them by embedding stories within stories. Through this nested narrative, he shows us how the streets are schools by exploring spaces of activism as educative sites, while leading us to the core idea at the heart of this episode: the relationship between debt and violence. Yardain Amron is a freelance journalist and master’s student in Geography at the University of British Columbia. freshedpodcast.com/flux-amron -- Today’s episode was created, written, produced, and edited by Yardain Amron. Johannah Fahey was the executive producer and Brett Lashua and Will Brehm were the producers. Flux theme music was composed by Joseph Minadeo of Pattern Based music. Music in this episode came from Blue Dot Sessions (www.sessions.blue): Tiny Bottles ShadowPlay The Bus at Dawn Kvelden Trapp David Graeber clip from "Debt: The First 5000 Years — Extended Interview" by Uprising with Sonali. Special thanks to Eleni Schirmer, Jose Laguarta, Banojyotsna Lahiri, Alessandra Rosa, and the many other student- and scholar-activists across the globe whose experiences and expertise, if not voices, underpin this story. -- Learn more about Flux: freshedpodcast.com/flux/about/ Twitter: @FreshEdpodcast Facebook: FreshEd Email: info@freshedpodcast.com Support FreshEd: www.freshedpodcast.com/donate

Today we explore the language of instruction in refugee education. Although learning in a home language is important, often it’s impossible for refugee children. Such tensions have important implications for refugee futures which are often unknowable. My guests are Celia Reddick and Sarah Dryden-Peterson who have recently co-written a new book chapter entitled “Refugee Education and Medium of Instruction: Tensions in Theory, Policy, and Practice.” Celia Reddick is a PhD Candidate in Education at Harvard where Sarah Dryden-Peterson is an Associate Professor and Director of REACH. www.freshedpodcast.com/reddick-dryden-peterson/ -- Get in touch! Twitter: @FreshEdpodcast Facebook: FreshEd Email: info@freshedpodcast.com Support FreshEd: www.freshedpodcast.com/donate