Human Restoration Project

Restoring Humanity are short(ish) segments on understanding a key idea of progressive education. This time, we're tackling discipline! What are the roots of our discipline system, what issues exist, and how can we solve them?We also cite: William Bagley's Classroom Management (1908) School Discipline in Public Education (2011) For Public Schools, Segregation Then, Segregation Since (2013) How Racial Bias Affects the Quality of Black Students' Education (2016) The Trevor Project: Facts About Suicide (n.d.) Effective Discipline for Misbehavior: In School vs. Out of School Suspension (n.d.) ACLU: School to Prison Pipeline (n.d.)

Today we're joined by Dr. Tony Wagner. Tony is a Senior Research Fellow at the Learning Policy Institute who has served at Harvard University for over twenty years. Tony has worked in K-12 education as a school teacher, K-8 principal, university professor in teacher education, and is the founded the Educators for Social Responsibility. An author of many thoughts including Creating Innovators, The Global Achievement Gap, and Most Likely to Succeed (documentary now available on iTunes) - Tony has been a perpetual driver of innovative educational practice. Tony has been a prime resource for Michael and I for years and we're always thrilled to show new staff and students Most Likely to Succeed to promote project-based learning and transforming the traditional model. In our discussion, we primarily focus on the need to change education and hope that's on the horizon - specifically the Mastery Transcript Consortium (of which Tony serves on the board.) Our emphasis on grades, unwavering class times, age segregation, and more have led us toward a stale curriculum which does a disservice to students. Instead, why not flip the entire model by reimagining college admissions?

For this episode we're trying something new. Instead of having a guest, I'm (Chris) deep-diving into one element of progressive education - offering history and advice to gradeless learning. I tried my best to cover an extensive look at this topic, including - most importantly - the point of why this is needed.There are many quotes and research provided, here is a list of the resources used: Much of the historical data (and all quotes) are from "Making the grade" by Jack Schneider & Ethan Hunt (2013). We recommend the portfolio tool Seesaw. **Mistakenly, I said that Seesaw was free for everything except grading - this is mostly true, but to assign "skills" and organize student posts via tags it is $120/year. A simple workaround is to create folders for skills and have students upload work into them. I celebrate the upcoming work of the Mastery Transcript Consortium.

Mandy Froehlich is the Director of Innovation and Technology in the Ripon Area School District in Wisconsin and author of The Fire Within: Lessons from Defeat That Have Ignited a Passion for Learning. This collection of stories from educators describes how adversity is met with strength and everyone grows as a result. Furthermore, Mandy is a Google for Education Certified Trainer, ambassador for Canvas LMS, a keynote speaker, presenter, and PD lead.In our discussion, Mandy and I (Chris) spoke about the dangers of the stigma surrounding mental health and its specific detriment to teachers and students. Often, teachers are put on a pedestal - being seen as heroic (or for some, godlike) - and facing trauma is both unrealistic to account for, as well as dangerous to the psyche of "teacherhood."Furthermore, we talk about the steps teachers can take to ensure they are well equipped to deal with trauma in the classroom, as well as simple actions that can have drastic impact on students' lives.

Sunil Singh was a high school math and physics teacher for 19 years. Before he quit teaching in the classroom in 2013, he had taught everything from basic math for junior students to IB math for honors-level students. He has worked in a socioeconomically challenging environment of an inner-city school in Toronto and at the prestigious International School of Lausanne in Switzerland. His vast experience teaching math in every setting imaginable has helped him become a leader in creative math education in North America. Since 2005, he has given over 50 workshops on kindergarten to grade 12 mathematics at various locations—math conferences, faculties of education, and even the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto. In addition to having been a regular contributor to the New York Times “Numberplay” section, Singh works full time as a math consultant for Scolab, a digital math resource company in Montreal, Canada. As well, he travels all over North America as a speaker and promoting Family Math Nights in local communities. He is an integral component of the Global Math Project, and his ambassador designation is helping him communicate the beauty and happiness of mathematics throughout the world. He is the author of Pi of Life: The Hidden Happiness of Mathematics, and his next book, Math Recess, a co-writing endeavor with kindred math spirit, Chris Brownell, will be out in Spring 2019.This podcast is roughly divided into two parts - the first on current issues in mathematics, the second on what change looks like and its implementation.Sunil and I spoke about a lot that personally resonated with me. One factor I wasn't expecting were Sunil's opinions on a shift to personal finance from Algebra I and other similar shifts in "relevant math." To me, this was a no-brainer - utilize applied math skills instead of our traditional building blocks. However, Sunil noted that not only are these concepts simple - they don't necessarily reform the issues we currently have. His analogy: instead of rearranging the room of a house, implode it. This shifted my thinking on this concept. Math is much more than I give it credit for - and a math curriculum housed (partly) around justice, love, and happiness seems otherworldly. It's hard to comprehend in a culture that's so logistically focused on math - especially in the classroom. However, I believe Sunil's argument is well-stated.Near the end of the talk, we highlighted one of the most important notions - can real change happen? How can we make a change now? We offered starting points: "find your tribe" on social media or in your building, try new things and be open to innovation, and fight. If you know what's best practice - you know the culture of your school - and you fight for change, but nothing is done even after organizing and preaching best practice? Then perhaps you're at the wrong place. Seek out a school that embraces what's best for children - a place where your voice is heard. They're out there in increasing numbers. Change in education is more than complaining, it's about taking action.Sunil advised that all math teachers (or educators in general) watch Dan Finkle's "Five Principles of Extraordinary Math Teaching."

We're excited and honored to speak with renowned educator Alfie Kohn surrounding his views on progressive education and what steps educators can take to implement his ideas. We spoke about the ideology surrounding Kohn's views on grading and standardized testing, among others: its relevance to today's world and why it's needed.Kohn has authored an extensive amount of articles on the importance of progressive practice, including his collection of works The Myth of the Spoiled Child, Feel-Bad Education, Schooling Beyond Measure, Punished by Rewards, The Homework Myth, and more. Kohn is well known for his views on eliminating competition such as grading in schools, eliminating standardized testing, emphasizing the removal of automatic (expected) rewards for positive behavior, and truly having a relevant, authentic caring system that focuses on education over content cramming.You can find Kohn's works on his website, featuring articles, videos, blogs, audiobooks, and more (many for free!). We highly encourage any educator not familiar with Kohn's work to read his collections of works and dig deeper into his lectures on YouTube or via his website.

Ted Dintersmith is an accomplished entrepreneur - from serving as a top venture capitalist and running an incredibly successful business, to working in our government as an analyst and representative to the United Nations - as well as being an advocate for innovative education. Dintersmith offers a profound, visionary look at changing educational practice to be applicable, relevant, and creative and is well known for co-producing and co-writing Most Likely to Succeed as well as his latest book, What School Could Be.Dintersmith, in our view, has written a fantastic piece of work that covers all elements of - and most importantly exemplifies - progressive education with What School Could Be. You can read an extensive review on our blog. You can read more about Ted Dintersmith on his website.If you've read the book and want to discuss more (or just to see what all the fuss is about!) check out #EdCoChat 's upcoming book talk on Twitter on May 10th at 9:30PM EDT.Also, check out the accompanying video from What School Could Be surrounding (and entitled) The Future of Work. For more information on the exponential growth of AI (and its potential impact on education) check out AlphaGo - the story of a robot that could defeat the world's best Go players.

In this podcast, Monte Syrie joins us to talk about building relationships with our students. Monte operates a daily educational reflective blog at letschangeeducation.com, serves as an adjunct professor of education at Eastern Washington University, and is a high school English teacher and department chair at Cheney High School in Cheney, Washington.