The What School Could Be Podcast

Listeners, meet Miguel Gonzales, Brian Hyosaka and Megan Parry, three visionary and articulate education leaders at Embark Education and Embark, the School in Colorado. "At Embark Education, we are rooted firmly in radical trust, fostering relationships, and shifting mindsets, while expanding to explore the profound potential of learner-centered education for youth and adults. Embark, the school, is a micro middle school in North Denver embedded in two small businesses – Pinwheel Coffee and Framework Cycles. Embark supports students to courageously inquire, engage, and discover a sense of self in an environment that is learner-centered, integrated, and embedded." Editing for this episode is provided by the talented Evan Kurohara. Our theme music comes from the vast catalogue of music by master pianist, Michael Sloan. Please support this show by giving us a rating and writing a review wherever you get your podcasts!

Stephen Ritz is a South Bronx educator and administrator who believes that students shouldn’t have to leave their community to live, learn, and earn in a better one. Moving generations of students into spheres of personal and academic successes they have never imagined, while reclaiming and rebuilding the Bronx, Stephen’s extended student and community family have grown more than 165,000 pounds of vegetables in the Bronx while generating extraordinary academic performance. Named a 2015 Top Ten Finalist for the Global Teacher Prize, Stephen’s accolades include a 2014 Greenius Award, 2014 Green Difference Award, 2013 Latin Trends Award, ABC Above and Beyond Award, Chevrolet / General Motors National Green Educator Award, USS Intrepid Hometown Hero Award, NYC Chancellor’s Award and various others. Stephen has consistently moved attendance from 40 percent to 93 percent daily, partnered towards thousands of youth jobs in the Bronx and captured the United States EPA Award for transforming mindsets and landscapes in NYC. A strong advocate for Project Based Learning, he is currently working on embedding the concepts of sustainability, food, energy and environmental justice into K-12 programming and beyond. This special episode was edited by Evan Kurohara and Kim Dilts. Music is provided by Michael Sloan.

Today my guest is Paul Balazs, the Theory of Knowledge teacher, Student Activities Coordinator, Wipeout Crew founder and advisor, and Milken Award Teacher of Promise - among many other things - at Henry J. Kaiser high school in East Honolulu. Listeners, as always, I spent two weeks preparing for today’s conversation. In the end I must have had 30 questions I wanted to ask Paul, but in a painful process, and in the interests of time, I had to narrow them down to just 9 or 10. Ouch!So here is what I will not be asking Paul Balazs in this interview, though some of these topics might come up anyway in his responses to my chosen questions. I was not able to ask him why the following awards have great meaning to him: the Donald and Astrid Monson Award, the League of Women Voters award and the Aloha Award, which recognizes individuals in the global surfing community who are ambassadors of the Aloha Spirit. Frankly, to hear the complete list of things we did not have time to cover, listen to my intro to the episode! My editor and sound engineer is the talented Evan Kurohara. Our theme music comes from the vast catalogue of music by master pianist, Michael Sloan. Please support this show by giving us a rating and writing a review wherever you get your podcasts.

The very well traveled educator, Emma Reppun was raised between the hills of Marin County, California and the Koʻolau Mountains of O'ahu, in Hawai'i. In college she studied sociology at UC Santa Barbara where she received the first inkling that teaching would be her life’s work. In the following years she was trained in the ways of Forest School and Nature Connection by her mentors at Vilda and Earthwise Education, and became a Wilderness First Responder through the National Outdoor Leadership School, or NOLS. During that time she discovered a deep love for working with early-childhood aged children and decided to pursue a graduate degree in education, through the Bay Area Teacher Training Institute, which she completed in 2021. Editing for this episode is provided by the talented Evan Kurohara. Our theme music comes from the vast catalogue of music by master pianist, Michael Sloan. Please support this show by giving us a rating and writing a review wherever you get your podcasts.

Ted Dintersmith, at his website, writes, "I have an unusual vantage point on the future of our children and our nation. I spent my career in the world of innovation [and venture capital], and my track record there suggests I might know a bit about it. And over the past decade, I’ve immersed myself in the world of education. I don’t claim to have the expertise our classroom teachers have, and I respect their insights — celebrate them, actually. But I have insights into the world our children will live in as adults, and the ways this future ought to affect the way we educate children. I fight every day to do what I can to help give children a creative, uplifting education that prepares them to lead lives of purpose. Make no mistake, the challenges are serious. But so are the opportunities." Ted is the Executive Producer of the acclaimed film, Most Likely to Succeed, co-author of the book, Most Likely to Succeed (with Tony Wagner) author of the book, What School Could Be and the founder and funder behind all the work being done at WhatSchoolCouldBe.org, including this podcast. Editing for this episode is provided by the talented Evan Kurohara. Our theme music comes from the vast catalogue of music by master pianist, Michael Sloan. Please support this show by giving us a rating and writing a review wherever you get your podcasts.

Dr. Cara Chaudron is a math enthusiast born and raised in Honolulu, Hawai’i. She teaches 6th grade math at the School For Examining Essential Questions of Sustainability, known as SEEQS, a public charter school near and dear to my heart. I have done two previous episodes with SEEQS faculty, including Zoe Ingerson and school founder, Buffy Cushman-Patz. Dr. Chaudron is a shining example of what it means to teach for deeper learning. This episode was edited by the talented Evan Kurohara. Our theme music comes from the vast catalogue of pianist, Michael Sloan. To support this podcast, write us a review and give us a rating in your favorite podcast app or aggregator.

My guest today is Annie Evans, the Director of Education and Outreach for New American History at the University of Richmond in the great state of Virginia. Annie is a National Geographic Society Grosvenor Teacher Fellow, a National Geographic Certified Educator and Trainer, a Co-Coordinator of the Virginia Geographic Alliance and a great writer/blogger. She has over 30 years of classroom and educational leadership experience and she designs curriculum and facilitates professional learning for K-16 teachers and museum educators. Her focus is on Historical Thinking Skills, Geo-Literacy, Instructional Coaching, Project-Based Learning, and Performance Assessments. Editing for this episode is provided by the talented Evan Kurohara. Our theme music comes from the vast catalogue of music by master pianist, Michael Sloan. Please support this show by giving us a rating and writing a review wherever you get your podcasts!

Today my guest is Ali Pressel, a truly remarkable and impressive educator who teaches, guides, mentors and coaches young people in the St. John's County School District in Florida. She has masters in science from University of Maryland and a bachelors in Environmental Sciences and Human Ecology from Rutgers University. She is a leader in career academy education and develops innovative ways to engage students in their local community and help them make connections between the natural world and their personal human stories. She actively collaborates with community partners to ensure real-world applications of natural resources management, citizen field science, and internship opportunities for her students. A member of the Teacher Advisory Council with National Geographic Education, she frequently shares National Geographic initiatives to enhance student experiences and enable them to become future leaders and change-makers of tomorrow. Editing for this episode is provided by the talented Evan Kurohara. Our theme music comes from the vast catalogue of music by master pianist, Michael Sloan. Please support this show by giving us a rating and writing a review wherever you get your podcasts.

Today my guest is Rob Strain, coming to us from Oakland, California. This is his first time as a guest on a podcast! Working chronologically, Rob has done internships in Botswana, at NASA and at a refugee camp in Philadelphia. He taught in the 1st grade at a Bay Area public school, served in multiple roles at Teach For America, GripTape, the Catalyst Fellowship and at Transcend. Rob co-founded the Inspiration Project and is about to launch a rebranded consultancy called Lemon Battery. And that is just the half of it. Alison Kerr, a partner at Transcend writes: "Rob was able to bring out ideas I didn't even know I had. One of his biggest superpowers is this insane ability to generate ideas across different topics. Then he's able to take all that and synthesize so beautifully. He's got an ability to take complex or unrelated information and make it user-friendly." Editing for this episode is provided by the talented Evan Kurohara. Our theme music comes from the vast catalogue of music by master pianist, Michael Sloan. Please support this show by giving us a rating and writing a review wherever you get your podcasts.

Today my guest is Brendan McCarthy. Brendan’s resume is complicated, so bear with me. He is currently working on a masters in education at the University of Hawaiʻi at Manoa. Prior to that, he has degrees from Parsons School of Art and Design and the Harvard Graduate School of Design. He also taught at Parsons, which is what we are going to focus on today. His undergraduate degree in mathematics is from Columbia University and he graduated as the valedictorian at Gonzaga College High School. Recently, he was a scholar in residence at Hanahauoli School where he developed a remarkable gathering for 217 elementary school kids titled I Want to Know What Love Is: A Progressive Film Festival. And, he is working on an informal degree in surfing, love and fun. Among the zillions of interesting things about Brendan’s life and work as an educator, we note that he was born in, Nairobi, Kenya. Editing for this episode is provided by the talented Evan Kurohara. Our theme music comes from the vast catalogue of music by master pianist, Michael Sloan. Please support this show by giving us a rating and writing a review in your wherever you get your podcasts.