Human Restoration Project

Transcripts can be found via our website, humanrestorationproject.org.In today's conversation we're joined by Tesha Fritzgerald,. Tesha is an urban education expert who currently serves as a district level leader in an urban school district in Ohio. She is a Martha Holding Jennings Foundation Scholar who has a passion for UDL and culturally responsive teaching, which has led her to publishing her recent book, Antiracism and Universal Design for Learning: Building Expressways to Success.I invited Tesha on to talk about pairing UDL and antiracist teaching, with a specific focus on: Demanding excellence in progressive, human-centered classrooms. Clarifying what UDL actually is. Clarifying how UDL and antiracism can coexist, when UDL has been critiqued for upholding a traditionalist lens. And actions we can take to build anti-racist, UDL-driven classrooms.GUESTSTesha Fritzgerald, an urban education expert who focuses on UDL, culturally responsive teaching, anti-racist teaching, and author of Antiracism and Universal Design for Learning: Building Expressways to SuccessRESOURCES Antiracism and Universal Design for Learning: Building Expressways to Success by Tesha Fritzgerald Building Blocks of Brilliance (Tesha Fritzgerald's website) Follow Tesha on Twitter! Article: Making Room for Asset Pedagogies by Benjamin DoxtdatorFURTHER LISTENING Planning Period Podcast - Episode 147: Tesha Fritzgerald 73: School and the Carceral Network w/ Dr. Connie Wun

Transcripts can be found via our website, humanrestorationproject.org.Today we're joined by Dr. Tanu Biswas and Dr. John Wall. Dr. Biswas is a doctorate of pedagogy who focuses her research on children's civil disobedience for climate justice, and showcasing the richness that children and childhood have to offer adults. Dr. Wall is a theoretical ethicist who focuses on the idea of a moral life centered on language, power, culture, and childhood. His upcoming book, Give Children the Vote: How to Democratize Democracy argues for voting rights regardless of age.Our conversation centers on combatting adultism, or the power adults have over children and the discrimination of young people, which is more than present in society but in my opinion, amplified in the classroom. We talk about what adultism and childism mean, how to promote democracy, and the importance of civil disobedience.GUESTSDr. Tanu Biswas, doctorate of pedagogy and researcher focused on civil disobedience, children, and the intersection of climate justiceDr. John Wall, theoretical ethicist centered on language, power, culture, and childhoodRESOURCES The Childism Institute (Rutgers) Children's Voting Colloquium Upcoming Event!: Exploring Children Across Disciplines by  (Jan 22, 2021 @ 8AM ET) Children’s Civil Disobedience in the Minority World & its Potential for Re-imagining the Educational by Tanu Biswas Why Children Should Have the Right to Vote: An Argument for Proxy-Claim Suffrage by John WallFURTHER LISTENING 34: Restoring Humanity to Education (Critical Pedagogy)

Transcripts can be found via our website, humanrestorationproject.org.Today we are joined by Dr. Jennifer Berkshire and Dr. Jack Schneider. Dr. Berkshire is a journalist and educator who focuses on podcasting and labor organizing at Boston College and Umass Amherst respectively, and Dr. Schneider is an education historian focused on reform and school accountability. Jennifer and Jack co-host the wonderful Have You Heard Podcast, which is focused on hot button issues in educational policy and current events, and both Chris and I highly recommend checking it out if you aren’t listening already. Our discussion today is going to cover a lot of ground but center on education reform, innovation, labor rights, unions, and change. There’s an odd dichotomy between progressive education and the assault on public education: a cognitive dissonance between the necessity for systemic reform while ensuring a free and accessible public education for the future and recognizing the need for organized labor as a path to a strong working class, that teacher unions are among the largest and most powerful in the country. Yet, there is a narrative - real or not - that unions are resistant to the change that many progressive educators want, and more recently, the notion that they have become the major roadblock to school reopenings in 2020.GUESTSDr. Jennifer Berkshire, journalist and educator focused on podcasting and labor organizing at Boston College & UMass AmherstDr. Jack Schneider, education historian centered on reform and school accountabilityRESOURCES A Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door by Dr. Berkshire & Dr. Schneider Review: A Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door by Nick Covington Have You Heard Blog/PodcastFURTHER LISTENING 80: Pandemic Pods, School Choice, and Combating Inequity w/ Dr. Jon Hale This Podcast Will Kill You: COVID-19 Chapter 10: Schools This is Hell!: 1263: The end of public school / Jack Schneider + Jennifer Berkshire

Transcripts can be found via our website, humanrestorationproject.org.Today we are joined by Dr. Susan Blum, Dr. Blum is a professor of anthropology at the University of Notre Dame, and the author of many works and articles, including her recently released: Ungrading: Why Rating Students Undermines Learning (and What to Do Instead), which features fifteen different educators, such as Arthur Chiaravalli, Jesse Stommel, Aflie Kohn, and Laura Gibbs, speaking on their ideas and implementation of the practice. And as an interesting side note, more than half of the educators in the book have appeared on our podcast! In this conversation we'll be talking about ungrading, framed on the ideas found in the book - the “how” of the practice, and particularly how ungrading fits within COVID-19 and promoting equity as a whole.GUESTSDr. Susan Blum, professor of anthropology at the University of Notre Dame and active author, with a recent focus on ungrading.RESOURCES Ungrading Book Club (assembled by David Buck) West Virginia University Press: Ungrading, edited by Dr. Susan Blum Human Restoration Project Ungrading Handbook Human Restoration Project Ungrading CourseFURTHER LISTENING 78: A Way to Ungrade, Floop w/ Christine Witcher 74: The Research on Assessment w/ Dr. Astrid Poorthuis 54: Making the Switch to Ungrading feat. Abigail French, Dr. Susan Blum, and Dr. Laura Gibbs 47: Redefining Assessment by Implementing Gradeless Learning feat. Jeffery Frieden, Aaron Blackwelder, & Nick Covington

Transcripts can be found via our website, humanrestorationproject.org.Our conversation today will center on teaching organization and collective activism. Essentially, we find ourselves at an important crossroads, as the administration shifts to new policies - teachers will be at the whim of new federal (and likely, state) policies that will have massive ramifications on classrooms, especially during COVID-19. And I hope out of this conversation, we’ll be able to address - what should I be concerned about? What problems may exist? And then, okay...what can I do to actually mitigate these problems and demand an equitable education system?GUESTSDr. Kevin Gannon, the Director of the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning and a Professor of History at Grand View University in Des Moines, Iowa, and author of Radical Hope: A Teaching Manifesto. Further, Gannon actively writes and teaches on the science of learning, racism and race in education, and building inclusivity online and offline. You can learn more on his website, TheTattooedProf.com and on Twitter @TheTattooedProf.RESOURCES The Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door by Jack Schneider and Jennifer Berkshire Pedagogy of Hope by Paulo Freire Radical Hope by Kevin Gannon HRP Book Review: Radical HopeFURTHER LISTENING ThinkUDL with Kevin Gannon: Radical Hope for Online Teaching

This is a recording of our Teacher Powered Schools Virtual Conference 2020 presentation: Sharing Power with Students: Reframing Systems Toward a Liberatory Pedagogy. This session dives into why reform doesn't work, how teachers can use collective action to change systems, and what really, is the point of us working against inhumane structures if not much is actually changing?RESOURCES One Teacher Can't Save the World by Nick Covington and Chris McNuttFURTHER LISTENING Introduction: Human Restoration Project

Today, Chris and I (Nick) are joined by John Hale, whose biography you will hear at the beginning of the interview. John was recently the guest of a Soho Forum debate on the topic of pandemic pods, which you heard excerpts of at the beginning of this episode and confined in its entirety on YouTube.Since the Human Restoration Project has primarily been focused on pedagogy and changing the structures of school, I wanted to have John on to talk more about the history and ramifications of education policy and help us unpack what's really going on in our current conversations about pandemic pods, voucher programs and the recently announced Bezos Academy. How can we simultaneously acknowledge that schools need to change while being critical advocates for the need for public institutions and employee unions? How have market oriented takes on so-called school choice actually subverted the original intent of independent and charter schools? It's a really interesting conversation and it was great to talk to John. I'm sure we'll have him on again to talk education policy, history and organization in the future.GUESTSDr. Joe Hale, professor of educational policy, organization, and leadership at the University of Illinois, Urban-Champaign, and author of the forthcoming book, "The Choice We Face" (working title)RESOURCES Jeff Bezos is opening a tuition-free preschool for underserved children (CNN) Savage Inequalities by Jonathan Kozol Small Schools and Choice Revisited by Deborah MeierFURTHER LISTENING Are ‘Pandemic Pods’ a Symptom of the Public School Monopoly? A Soho Forum Debate (YouTube)

Today we're joined by Dr. Erin Lynn Raab. Erin is the Co-founder of REENVISIONED, a movement to redefine the purpose of school.
  REENVISIONED aims to change the conversation of school away from standards, norms, and improving the status quo, toward human flourishing, community, democracy, and collective liberation. Erin and her co-founder, Nicole Hensel, both graduates of the Stanford Graduate School of Education, aim to collect 10,000 stories of students, teachers, and community members to develop a shared vision of what school could, and should be.
The organization works with schools and individuals to catalyze new conversations and create new visions.  They provide a tried and true process for opening space for truly eye-opening conversations between young people, educators, and other adults in their community about what we all really want out of our education system and for our live. You can read some of these interviews at REENVISIONED.org.In our conversation together, Erin talks about systems-based thinking and transforming the system, rather than upholding the status quo. It's a deep, complex discussion centering on history, psychology, and more. I hope you enjoy!GUESTSDr. Erin Lynn Raab, who earned her Ph.D. in Education from Stanford University, where her scholarship pertained to the question of how we can transform education systems so they foster individual flourishing and thriving democracy, and is the co-founder of REENVISIONED.RESOURCES REENVISIONED: Hundreds of interviews on the purpose of school, with free resources and activities to help facilitate these conversations by yourself or with classes. “Why School?": A Systems Perspective on Creating Schooling for Individual Flourishing and a Thriving Democratic Society” - Dr. Raab’s Ph.D. Dissertation The End of Policing by Alex Vitale (referenced)Shorter, broad audience pieces by Erin: If We Want a More Just, Equitable Society We Have to Re-envision School. Here’s how to start.  Designing School for Human Flourishing & Thriving Democracy    The Four Purposes of SchoolingFURTHER LISTENING 43: The Good Life feat. Steven Gumbay, REENVISIONED, The Future Project, Anne Connolly, Richard Loeper-Viti, & Gamal Sherif

Today we're talking about ungrading with the EdTech tool, Floop, short for feedback loop,  found over at FloopEdu.com. Now, we don't normally talk about specific tools and strategies at HRP - we get into the theory and pedagogy of progressive systems...but the most common question we're asked is: okay well, is it even possible to do any of these things? It seems like a ton of work and it'll be overwhelming, and everyone is against me!Well, one potential solution is Floop! In summary, Floop allows you to easily provide feedback to your students. You create dropboxes on the platform, students upload their assignments, and then you are given audio and text-based tools to comment on what they've done. You can assign feedback visually, through comment banks, see growth over past revisions, and you can see if students have read what you've said. I personally love that Floop is committed to ungrading - and you don't need to enter in any grade whatsoever. The company actively promote practices to distance ourselves from grades altogether.I, myself, started using Floop this year and I'm excited to share it. I think it's a great example of an ed tech company using their tools for actual education as opposed to maintaining the status quo, and it's affordable and ethical as you'll soon find out.Christine Witcher, a current middle school STEM educator and co-founder of Floop, founded in 2017.RESOURCES Study: LMS, Grading, and Comments PD on Feedback-Driven Learning The Floop CurriculumFURTHER LISTENING Teach Better Podcast: 94: A Two-Way Conversation – Christine Witcher chats with us about the importance of feedback, and how to make sure our students are emotionally ready for it, and prepared to learn from it. 

Today we are joined by Evan Whitehead, a veteran educator who is the director of special services at a K-8 school in Illinois. Evan has served in a variety of roles, from crisis and behavior interventionist to Latino parent outreach coordinator to Title 1 director. Further, Evan actively presents on reaching at-risk youth, leadership, and self-care for everyone in education, and is a national consultant for the Aha! Process.We discuss how educators can best prepare for self-care, especially now within remote and hybrid contexts. Further, we focus on conversation on two themes: 1) how can we build systems (e.g. breaks, SEL check-ins) to ensure teachers are supported by administration, and 2) how can we ensure that toxic positivity doesn’t ignore equity and social justice in the “name of” self-care?Transcript available here.GUESTSEvan Whitehead, a leader in social-emotional learning, leadership, and self-care, and director of special services at a K-8 school.RESOURCES How Self-Compassion Can Help Prevent Teacher Burnout Dena Simmons: Without Context, Social-Emotional Learning Can BackfireFURTHER LISTENING The Innovator’s Mindset: Balance, Boundaries, and Breaks (YouTube)