Overthrowing Education

My guest, Barbara Heller, and I discuss how to integrate mindful meditation into your class routine to help your students feel centered, more focused and open up their channels to creativity, which can benefit all subjects.  Barbara is not only a thoughtful and passionate educator but also a published author, voice over artist, award winning film writer, director, playwright, and songwriter who also writes an original and evolving curriculum infusing mindfulness and creativity called “Meditate and Create.” In addition, she hosts a podcast called See One Beautiful Soul about what she calls the real F word- forgiveness. Barb has been a regular voice actor on many of my fauxmercial, and the one on this episode is extra special because Barbara conceived of it, co-wrote it, does the two main voices – the young teen and the announcer - and she wrote and sang so beautifully the Forgive- Ness jingle. Lastly, you’ll hear some of the many voice impressions Barb does when we play a very unusual version of The 5-Minute Game Show. Links and Resources www.BarbHeller.com Barb’s original guided mindful meditations And feel free to email her at info@BarbHeller.com for the worksheets that go along with the meditations or hire her to do a Live Zoom Meditate and Create session for you and your students or try a 1:1 Coaching. See One Beautiful Soul: The podcast about Seeing the Good in Ourselves and Each Other! Overthrowing Education Swag

My guest is educational leader Matthew Woods, host of the podcast Leading Out of the Woods. Our discussion covers a lot of different important and timely issues – including how to address and ease teacher and educational leader burn-out, and how to cultivate and also be strong leaders. We also play a very wacky, and very different kind of The 5-Minute Game Show. And Matthew definitely earns his Overthrowing Education mug. You don’t even have to be subjected to my game show to get your own Overthrowing Mug (or T-shirt, tote bag or hoodie). Check out lots of goodies. My special thanks to Matthew Woods, whose books we spoke of are ready and available, so check the links for everything in the show notes or on the OE website. And to the wonderfully talented voice actors Eli Schiff and Barbara Heller. Links and Resources Matthew's podcast: Leading Out the Woods Author of the Children's Book series, "I Wanna Be..." Website: leadingoutthewoods.com

As educators and parents, we need to listen more to what students are voicing about education. While I hope to have more students share their thoughts, I’m starting with my guest on this episode, 17-year-old student, Kayhan Ali, who shares important ideas about what’s missing in education today and how a company he’s starting with friends, Dream It Youth, plans to fill in those gaps.  He also lets us in on a huge change in education he would make (a change I have been advocating for extensively) and he gives advice on how other young people can make changes in education and how educators and parents can help them. After all of that awesomeness, we play a really fun British Prime Ministers version of The 5-Minute Game Show. Don’t forget that you can get some awesome OE swag including shirts, hoodies, notebooks, tote bags and the famous OE mug! See the link below for more information and great shopping. I want to thank my wonderful guest Kayhan Ali and my excellent fauxmercial helpers Tzofiya Bookstein and Tuvia Frankel. Links and Resources: https://www.dreamityouth.co.uk/ Kayhan@dreamityouth.co.uk Swag for Overthrowing Education: https://overthrowingeducation.threadless.com/

Tara Raju, of the Mountain Region of the Anti-Defamation League, tells me all about an incredible resource for schools to create empathetic, tolerant learning environments for all students that work toward eliminating prejudice, implicit bias and bullying called No Place for Hate. We also discuss ways that individuals – whether teachers or students -can try to combat these issues even when they don’t have the support they need from their school.  One of the keys to eliminating inequities in our education system is to tackle the problems of prejudice head on, with our students taking the lead and adults providing support for them. After listening to this episode, please check out the tons of resources and links below: www.adl.org/education noplaceforhate.org (national website) mountainstates.adl.org (regional website) www.adl.org/mountainstates/noplaceforhate (regional NPFH website) - this site has our videos on it Louisville Middle School (Colorado) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGlmcpiIfUk&t=1s   Rampart High School (Colorado) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdIXhtOe82c Life in the Middle (Colorado Schools - about NPFH in Middle Schools) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNN61TgJr3I Here are lots of amazing free online resources from ADL as well. Responding to Bias Incidents - Responding to Bias Incidents in Middle and High Schools: Resources and Best Practices for School Administrators & Educators Lesson Plans- is a collection of timely, relevant and free lesson plans for different grade levels (common core connected) to assist educators in teaching about news topics and other issues of the day.   Table Talk: Family Conversations About Current Events: provides parents and family members with the tools they need to engage their families in conversations about important news stories and other timely discussions about societal and world events. ​​​​​​​  Books Matter- remarkable kids’ bibliography re: social justice issues. Rosalind’s Classroom Conversations–  bestselling author and bullying prevention specialist Rosalind Wiseman joins forces with ADL to provide a timely resource for educators. 

This is the first in a series of mini-episodes that share ideas about the creative and authentic assessments I call DISCOVER assessments. In each short episode, I'll share an idea that will help students express not only what they know, can do and understand, but also synthesize the content, and express it using multiple intelligences. And enjoy it.  Tests and quizzes can't do that! Need help getting started? Wanna share something cool your students have done? Any questions? DM me on Twitter @BatshevaFrankel or IG @Batsheva.Frankel See NewLensEd.com for more information about great assessments. 

In this episode, I address a major problem all educators can attest to: Cheating. It’s always been a serious issue, but the solutions are right in front of us. I talk about 3 key things we can do that will eliminate cheating, and also promote real learning. I also share my very favorite, true and hilarious plagiarism stories. If you are looking for laughs, here they are. Also, I realized that if I am “the guest” on this episode, I should also have to play The 5-Minute Game Show, so I borrowed the one that Aviva Levin wrote for me when she had me as a guest on her podcast Lesson:Impossible a while ago.  If you have a great cheating story to share it! Batsheva@overthrowingeducation.com   Links: Twitter: @overthrowinged   @batshevafrankel Instagram: @overthrowingeducation @batsheva.frankel New Lens Ed  Lenses of Questioning Course   Overthrowing Education Swag Shop  Twitter: @avivalevin Lesson:Impossible  My guest blog for Matt Miller/Ditch that Textbook

On this episode, Rachel Creeger, a passionate parent and stand-up comic who has been advocating for better education in the UK, joins me to talk about what makes great learning. We discuss the importance of, cross -curricular and experiential education, integration of art, relationship building, getting rid of standardized test and much more. Rachel also shares insights about the similarities between teaching and doing stand-up, and some great lessons that educators can learn from stand-up comedians. After our interview, Rachel does brilliantly in The 5-Minute Game Show. Special thanks to my guest, Rachel Creeger, and to Joshua Silverstein from episode 34, because I re-used the fauxmercial that he created for his episode. Links: Contact info for Rachel: W: www.rachelcreeger.com F: www.facebook.com/RachelCreegerComedianWriterDirector  T: www.twitter.com/RachCreeger  IG: www.instagram.com/rachcreeger The Overthrowing Education Swag Shop is open! Get gifts for yourself or any educator, parent or student who wants to make a statement. https://overthrowingeducation.threadless.com/

Matt Barnes, podcast host and founder of started the Global Education Movement, so that educators and parents can team up to create and implement a whole new vision of learning that will benefit every student. Our conversation has many great take-aways for both parents and educators. Please share this episode with every parent you know! Matt hit it out of the park for The 5-Minute Game Show. And I announce a contest for a listener to get their own Overthrowing Education mug! Special thanks to Matt Barnes, and to my fauxmercial VO pal Shane Lawrence from The Ed podcast. For Parents: https://theeducationgame.com/ https://educationgame.fireside.fm/ www.QualiaSchool.com Contact Matt to find out information about Global Education Movement: LinkedIn  Instagram Facebook

On this episode, Zaynab Baalbaki joins me. She is a passionate educator who is truly working on and supporting others in overthrowing education and creating amazing and equitable learning spaces joins. She talks about an incredible public school, Escuela Verde, where she worked in and I also talk about Qualia: The School for Deeper Learning, another example of education at its best. And we also discuss how more traditional schools and districts can start slowly to incorporate elements of both these and other transformative schools into their learning spaces. If you know of another  “super cool school” (a reference from today’s commercial parody), please let me know. I love to highlight some of the wonderful work that some schools are doing out there to help inspire everyone with how to make small and large changes. You can send me an email at batsheva@overthrowingeducation.com, or DM me on Twitter @overthrowinged. Don’t forget to listen to The 5-Minute Game Show at the end of the interview, not only because it’s fun, but also because we drop more good ideas and some cool facts about Wisconsin. Lastly, astute listeners will notice that the fauxmercial in this episode is related to the one from the previous episode. I had so much fun with Jake Miller from the last episode, I asked him to help me again with the fauxmercial for this episode. Special thanks to my guest Zaynab Baalbaki, and my terrific voice actors who joined me on today’s fauxmercial, Jake Miller who hosts the Educational Duct Tape podcast and Tuvia Frankel who is always a good sport. Links and Resources: Contact: zbaalbaki@gmail.com Twitter: @zbaalbaki Escuela Verde Qualia: The School for Deeper Learning  Teacher Powered | Ambassador Wisconsin Resource Center for Charter Schools | Charter School Consultant  Wisconsin Association for Environmental Education | JEDI Committee

In this episode amazing educator and Ed Tech sage Jake Miller, host of the podcast Educational Duct Tape, and I discuss some great tech tools and how to make sure they enhance, not distract from, your lessons. We also laugh. A lot. In our chat, Jake talks about his new book, Educational Duct Tape: An EdTech Integration Mindset. And you won’t want to miss him play The 5-Minute Game Show, because not only does he nail it, but it’s also pretty funny. And if that isn’t enough, the multi-talented Jake Miller is also the announcer in the “Dynamic Duct Tape” fauxmercial. Special thanks to Jake for all of the above! Links, Resources and Contact Information: JakeMillerTech@gmail.com Twitter Instagram Facebook Website Educational Duct Tape Podcast Website YouTube TikTok LinkedIn Pinterest