The What School Could Be Podcast

The Five Angles Podcast is coming soon.Created by Josh Reppun of Josh Reppun Productions, The Five Angles Podcast explores one compelling idea at a time through five conversations, five distinct perspectives, and five different ways of seeing.Each collection brings together educators, researchers, designers, creators, students, community leaders, and other curious minds whose expertise and lived experience illuminate a shared question. Rather than rushing toward a single conclusion, the show slows down, listens carefully, and makes space for connection, tension, surprise, and discovery.Born in years of thinking about education, but now reaching far beyond it, The Five Angles Podcast examines the ideas shaping how we learn, work, create, belong, and become fully human. Every season of five episodes is designed as a complete journey, released together so listeners can move through the conversations in their own order and in their own way.This is not a show about finding one definitive answer. It is about discovering what becomes visible when one important subject is considered from several angles, and when voices that do not always appear in the same conversation are invited to meet.Five conversations. Five perspectives. One important idea, seen from five angles.The Five Angles Podcast is coming soon.

Listeners, this episode takes us to Warren Local High School in rural southeastern Ohio, where sophomores Jocelyn Evans and Lily King are helping us explore what can happen when a public school begins listening differently to its students. Warren is a recognizable American public school, grades, schedules, homework, tests, football games and homecoming, but something interesting is happening inside it. Through Students Solving Problems (SSP) and related student agency work, young people are learning to conduct empathy interviews (in partnership with the Human Restoration Project and Polaris Education), listen closely to peers and teachers, analyze what they hear, and bring those findings back to the adults shaping their school. What began amid a familiar tension, teachers concerned about student motivation and students frustrated by traditional “sit and get” learning, has become an experiment in something much larger: trust. Jocelyn and Lily take us inside that work, including efforts to understand Warren’s Flex Friday; they wrestle with what student agency means when young people are given not merely a voice, but opportunities to influence what happens next. Jocelyn also shares how the work carried her from rural Ohio to MIT and the Student Power Summit in Los Angeles, representing Warren far from home. But this conversation goes well beyond programs and school improvement. We talk about the adults who make young people feel safe, supported and seen, leadership without titles, Lily’s hatred of homework, and what students may really be saying when they push back against “sit and get.” Jocelyn offers an extraordinary challenge to adults: “What are we doing wrong? Why don’t the children trust us?” We also explore whether school itself may contribute to young people’s stress, and whether agency, purpose, consequential work and knowing that your ideas matter might help create healthier conditions for learning. What emerges is not a story about two students who have all the answers. It is a story about what becomes possible when adults stop assuming they already have them. Warren is learning to ask, listen, trust and act. And Jocelyn and Lily remind us what we may discover when young people are given real opportunities to practice their voices. Editing is provided by the talented Evan Kurohara. My creative consultant is Mel Ching. Our theme music is by Michael Sloan.

Poema Strong, an aspiring surgeon and student-athlete; Diego Harris, a public-service storyteller; and Jillian Quinn Asiong, an entrepreneur and adventurer, share life at High Tech High. They discuss exhibitions, internships, portfolios, media literacy, and turning school projects into public work. Along the way: a haunted attraction, a South Korea-funded jewelry venture, chemistry’s path to medicine, student-designed AI leadership, and the role of belonging, challenge, and purpose.

Earlier this year I listened to two episodes of Phil Evans' Education by Design podcast. One explored the Iovine and Young Center, founded on the vision of Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre, where challenge-based learning, design thinking, and entrepreneurship are redefining what public education can become. The other episode featured the International Baccalaureate's ambitious Systems Transformation pilot, where students tackle complex global challenges through systems thinking, interdisciplinary inquiry, and authentic assessment.Although the two initiatives emerged from very different places, I was struck by how much they had in common. Both reject the idea that learning should revolve around subjects, standardized tests, and the transfer of information. Instead, they invite young people to grapple with messy, consequential problems, work collaboratively across disciplines, and develop the habits of mind needed to lead meaningful change in an increasingly complex world.Today I'm reposting those two episodes here on the What School Could Be Podcast. It's my way of expressing my gratitude to Phil Evans—for his friendship, his collaboration, and for creating conversations that continue to move forward the education reimagined movement. I hope you'll receive these episodes in the same spirit in which they're offered: as gifts to be shared. If you are a podcaster, maybe you will consider sharing someone else’s awesome episode on your platform. As always, if you have thoughts or questions, I'd love to hear from you. You can reach me at [email protected]. My thanks to my editor, Evan Kurohara and creative consultant, Mel Ching. And now, please enjoy these two episodes from Education by Design.

Earlier this year I listened to two episodes of Phil Evans' Education by Design podcast. One explored the Iovine and Young Center, founded on the vision of Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre, where challenge-based learning, design thinking, and entrepreneurship are redefining what public education can become. The other episode featured the International Baccalaureate's ambitious Systems Transformation pilot, where students tackle complex global challenges through systems thinking, interdisciplinary inquiry, and authentic assessment.Although the two initiatives emerged from very different places, I was struck by how much they had in common. Both reject the idea that learning should revolve around subjects, standardized tests, and the transfer of information. Instead, they invite young people to grapple with messy, consequential problems, work collaboratively across disciplines, and develop the habits of mind needed to lead meaningful change in an increasingly complex world.Today I'm reposting those two episodes here on the What School Could Be Podcast. It's my way of expressing my gratitude to Phil Evans—for his friendship, his collaboration, and for creating conversations that continue to move forward the education reimagined movement. I hope you'll receive these episodes in the same spirit in which they're offered: as gifts to be shared. If you are a podcaster, maybe you will consider sharing someone else’s awesome episode on your platform. As always, if you have thoughts or questions, I'd love to hear from you. You can reach me at [email protected]. My thanks to my editor, Evan Kurohara and creative consultant, Mel Ching. And now, please enjoy these two episodes from Education by Design.

Nobel Navigators is a global learning community founded by a way cool education revolutionary named Andrew Sachs. By revolutionary I mean the type of person who wants to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Andrew didn't set out to redesign this thing we call school. He more or less decided to ignore tradition and build something completely different. Nobel Navigators has a bold mission: helping young people around the world develop the technical skills, human skills, and leadership they need to thrive in a rapidly changing world. Young people from more than 180 countries come together online to learn, and teach. Thousands of young learners focus on design thinking, collaboration, coding, artificial intelligence, entrepreneurship, public speaking, and servant leadership, all while working on real projects and relevant subject areas. Nobel Navigators isn't trying to improve the traditional model of school. It has thrown out the traditional, obsolete model used in so many countries and is instead asking a much bigger question: What if we build a global learning community centered in purpose, empathy, and action?Today's guest joins us from Afghanistan. Protecting her privacy was essential during my prep, and is essential today. We'll simply call her Rukhsar. There are no photographs of her in our promotional materials, only an artist's rendering. A few years ago, the Taliban barred her and all Afghan women from continuing a formal education, meaning the future Rukhsar had imagined was suddenly taken away. But that is only the beginning of her story. Through Nobel Navigators, Rukhsar discovered not only a way to keep learning, but a way to lead, to teach, and to serve. Today she organizes workshops for Afghan women, builds learning communities, mentors others, embraces AI as a tool for human flourishing, and has become a passionate advocate for empathy, servant leadership, and educational opportunity. Listening to her, it's impossible not to recognize that education is about far more than classrooms, diplomas, and test scores.Neuroscientists tell us that our brains remain remarkably plastic throughout our lives, continually rewiring themselves in response to new ideas, new experiences, and new relationships. I suspect the same is true of our hearts. Today's conversation invited me to reconsider what learning is, what leadership is, what it means to become educated, and even what it means to be future ready. My hope is that as you listen to Rukhsar's remarkable story you won't simply learn something new. My hope is that, together, we'll discover the quiet joy of reconsidering what we thought we already knew. If you have comments, insights or questions, email me at [email protected]. As always, my boundless gratitude to our talented audio engineer and editor, Evan Kurohara, and our creative consultant, Mel Ching. 

Harper Klassen, a recent Michigan high school grad who builds and brands boards and champions work with people with disabilities, dreams of bringing Gone Boarding to Hawaii. She talks about how hands-on board projects spark passion, real-world skills, inclusive employment models, mentorship from Bill Curtis, and why experiential, student-centered learning opens horizons.

RECOMMENDED: WATCH THE SHORT FILM, NOTHING BEFORE YOU LISTEN TO THIS EPISODE. AND, READ THE SHORT STORY, "MARRY ME, GEORGIA." Listeners, given my love of all things media production, I am super stoked to bring you today’s guest, Norah DeMello, a screenwriting major at Chapman University’s nationally renowned Dodge College of Film and Media Arts. She is a writer, aspiring filmmaker, and deeply reflective young artist whose relationship with storytelling began early, somewhere between the mountains and rivers of Northern California, stacks of beloved novels, and a home filled with music from bands like Radiohead, Pixies, and The Cure. She describes herself as “a nature girl through and through,” and there is something about the way she talks about art, film, music, and the human condition that makes it feel less like career preparation and more like a voyage of discovery. Norah is also a product of California public schools, including Placer High School in Auburn, where teachers recognized and nurtured her gift for writing long before she fully trusted it herself. Today, after transferring from community college into one of the nation’s most selective film programs, she is developing screenplays, directing short films, balancing multiple campus jobs, and learning how to build a creative life without tying her worth to perfection. Her work explores questions of connection, vulnerability, identity, and what it means to become fully alive, themes that seem deeply connected to her own ongoing process of becoming freer, more open, and more at peace with uncertainty. Mitch Weathers, author of “Executive Functions for Every Classroom,” founder of Organized Binder and a longtime friend of Norah’s father, wrote the following for this episode. “I want to begin by saying that I genuinely admire Norah DeMello. Not simply because of what she has accomplished, although those accomplishments are impressive, but because of who she is as a person. If you are fortunate enough to know Norah, what stays with you is not just her talent, but her authenticity, her courage, and her heart. I’ve known Norah her entire life. Her father, Dave, has been my closest friend since middle school. But over the last couple of years, I’ve had the chance to really get to know Norah herself. Watching her grow into who she is becoming has been inspiring. By most standards, Norah was on the “'deal' path. School came naturally to her. She earned outstanding grades in high school, received an academic scholarship, and enrolled at one of California’s most prestigious universities. But before the end of her first semester, she dropped out. I remember asking her about it, and her answer has stayed with me ever since. She simply said, “I just didn’t find my people.” There is something incredibly brave about a young person stepping away from the path everyone else celebrates in order to pursue a life that feels true to who they are. That decision wasn’t easy, and I know it came with uncertainty and struggle. But Norah chose authenticity over expectation, and that takes real courage. Since then, she has embraced a path in acting and screenwriting, and it’s been amazing to watch her flourish creatively. She has a natural presence both on camera and the stage, and in her writing. If you get the chance, make sure to watch the film Nothing, which she stars in. What I admire most about Norah is that she seems committed to truly living her life, not just performing the version of success others expect from her. And my sense is that somewhere along the way, she has found her people. As always, if you have feedback about this show, reach out to me at [email protected]. Audio engineering is provided by the talented founder of SOZEN Sound, Evan Kurohara. And, my eternal thanks to my podcast creative partner, Mel Ching. 

Dr. Kyra Caldwell Templeton, the Atlanta Public Schools Program Director of Student Engagement and Co-Advisor of the Student Advisory Council, is someone I 100% trust when it comes to understanding what authentic student voice actually looks like inside a large school system. Her work centers on making sure students are not just heard, but meaningfully included in decision-making, and she has helped shape initiatives like the APS Student Advisory Council, where young people sit in real conversations with district leadership. When I asked Kyra if there was a student who embodied what this kind of engagement could look like at its best, she quickly named a young man named John Henry Collins. Atlanta Public Schools is one of the largest urban districts in the country, serving a diverse student population across the city of Atlanta. Under its current strategic vision, APS is working to balance academic outcomes with deeper questions around student voice, belonging, and real-world readiness. It is looking at how schools prepare young people not just for college, but for life in a complex, rapidly changing world. John Henry Collins is a sophomore at North Atlanta High School, but that label only scratches the surface. He is an Eagle Scout who has led environmental restoration projects, a member of the APS Student Advisory Council, a production manager running lighting and sound for live theater, and a young person who has traveled extensively across all 50 states and more than 30 countries, often helping plan and manage those experiences himself. Across all of this, he is developing a rare combination of leadership, technical skill, and systems thinking. He is the embodiment of what folks in my home state of Hawaii call ma ka hana ka ‘ike, or in doing, one learns. Audio engineering is provided by the very talented Evan Kurohara of SOZEN SOUND. Our theme music comes from the master pianist, Michael Sloan. In this episode you will learn about a speech John Henry Collins delivered about his home city of Atlanta. Read that speech here. It will blow you away.

Listeners, this episode marks the beginning of what I am calling Josh’s Chapter Six. I am choosing this road less traveled because I’m less interested in talking about what school could be, and more interested in what happens when young people are actually given the chance to experience it, and explain it to us hidebound adults mired in 19th century teaching and learning. Good grief, at some point, we have to stop endlessly chewing on the idea of change and freaking change, which means getting out of the freaking way and letting the kids build their own navigation charts. I apologize for starting this episode in such a crabby state. In my defense, the more I listen to the kids the less I am willing to defend educators and education leaders who sit, fixed to a system that is over 100 years old and hopelessly outdated. Back in March, I had the chance to visit the EDGE microschool embedded inside Liberty Public Schools, just outside Kansas City. EDGE stands for Empowering Discovery of the Global Experience. What I saw was a learning environment built around global challenges, real-world projects, and a level of student agency that felt fundamentally different from the traditional classrooms sitting just down the hall. Same building, very different experience. It was during this visit that I met my two guests today. Scarlet Langhorst is a senior at Liberty High School and a leader within the EDGE microschool. Through her growing composure and patience in professional settings, and her ability to listen to understand rather than respond, Scarlet has developed a collaborative, eclectic and calm presence that makes her both effective and trusted within real-world teams working on real-world projects. Morgan Yeates is a junior at Liberty High School and also lives and breathes her time in EDGE. She is a student leader whose work spans Global Ties KC, the EW Kauffman Foundation, and multiple youth-led initiatives focused on access, culture, and creating meaningful third spaces for young people. Through her sharp debate skills and instinct for reading group dynamics, Morgan has developed the ability to communicate persuasively, adapt quickly, and step into whatever role a team needs in the moment. She pairs that with a self-aware, almost ironic understanding of her own voice, knowing how to use it effectively while staying attuned to when to lead and when to create space for others. Get ready for a doozy of a conversation, listeners because Scarlet and Morgan aren’t talking about the future of school as an idea. They’re living inside a version of it right now, while still navigating a traditional system just down the hall. And over the course of this conversation, we’re going to put them in some real positions, asking them to think like diplomats, designers, even decision-makers, wrestling with global conflict, questioning how schools actually work, and at one point, facing a choice that might sound hypothetical, but won’t feel that way in the moment. As always, you can reach me at [email protected]. My episodes are edited by the very talented Evan Kurohara, of SOZEN Sound. My thanks to Mel Ching at Pililei Consulting, LLP, my JRP creative partner and co-producer.