Class Disrupted

Although classrooms are not disrupted as they were over the last three school years, Diane and Michael are back with the goal of finding a way to disrupt them. In their opening episode of Season 4, the two catch up on headlines from their summers and share a preview for how they plan to help educators innovate over the course of this season. https://archive.org/download/class-disrupted-s-4-e-1-final/Class%20Disrupted%20S4%20E1%20final.mp3

In the final episode of season 3, Diane notes that many of the solutions to help make schools safer all focus around banning things: banning CRT, books, speakers, and more. Michael and Diane discuss what these ideas from both sides of the political spectrum share in common—and whether this instinct is actually the way to make our schools safer. https://archive.org/download/class-disrupted-s-3-e-20-final/Class%20Disrupted%20S3%20E20%20final.mp3

In this episode, Michael brings Diane a puzzle. A reader recently pushed back on an assertion in his upcoming book, From Reopen to Reinvent, that “fixed grouping of children by perceived ability… narrows opportunities,” by suggesting that older students are in fact relatively fixed in their abilities. In turn, Diane unpacks what’s behind the statement and why the traditional education system perpetuates this flawed belief. https://archive.org/download/class-disrupted-s-3-e-19-final/Class%20Disrupted%20S3%20E19%20final.mp3

As charter schools face challenges in the Beltway, Diane and Michael go back to first principles around the purpose of charter schools by revisiting the original 1992 California Act that created charter schools in the state and assess how they’ve done. They then do a deep dive into innovation theory to revisit the promise and potential of charter schools and discuss how the reality lived up to the theory. Finally, they project forward to thinking about what the future might hold for charter schools. https://archive.org/download/class-disrupted-s-3-e-18-final/Class%20Disrupted%20S3%20E18%20final.mp3

Having returned from Germany, Diane shares what she learned about how Germany remembers the Holocaust and what it teaches its children about it so that it does not repeat its past. Michael and Diane reflect how the way Germany approaches the conversation could offer a new starting point to help America move past its polarizing conversations about teaching race and racism. https://archive.org/download/class-disrupted-s-3-e-17-final/Class%20Disrupted%20S3%20E17%20final.mp3

In their final episode exploring the themes of meritocracy and education, Diane and Michael describe the rethinking that has gone on in education around the college-for-all movement and suggest a path forward that learns from the past. https://archive.org/download/class-disrupted-s-3-e-16-final/Class%20Disrupted%20S3%20E16%20final.mp3

Diane and Michael work to dispel the myths around selective college admissions, dissect whether they are in fact meritocratic, and architect what they see as a better path forward. https://archive.org/download/class-disrupted-s-3-e-15-final/Class%20Disrupted%20S3%20E15%20final.mp3

Diane and Michael dive into the fierce debate around selective exam schools as a case study to not only identify the problems in implementation that meritocracy-based ideas have created, but also to suggest solutions that retain and amplify the benefits of meritocracy. https://archive.org/download/class-disrupted-s-3-e-14-final/Class%20Disrupted%20S3%20E14%20final.mp3

In this episode, Diane details the discussion of the history, pluses, and minuses with meritocracy through the prism of three recent books on the topic. Michael and Diane then discuss how this intersects with our K–12 education system—and set up two episodes to come about exam schools and selective college admissions. https://archive.org/download/class-disrupted-s-3-e-13-final/Class%20Disrupted%20S3%20E13%20final.mp3

There are two dominant narratives in education right now about teachers. On the one hand, many media stories and educators say loudly that teachers are leaving in droves, which is making it hard to manage schools. On the other hand, researchers are observing that the numbers of quits don’t appear much different from how it’s been in education for a while. In this episode, Michael and Diane dig into the data and stories to try to explain the two narratives and find some common ground. https://archive.org/download/class-disrupted-s-3-e-12-final/Class%20Disrupted%20S3%20E12%20final.mp3