Human Restoration Project

Our guest today is Keenan Crow. Keenan Crow is the Director of Policy and Advocacy for One Iowa, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to advance, empower, and improve the lives of LGBTQ Iowans through education, advocacy, and collaboration. Keenan has been active in Iowa politics since 2010 when they interned with Chris Hall’s campaign for Iowa State Representative. Since then, they have been involved with several nonprofit organizations including Planned Parenthood of the Heartland and Cedar Valley Citizens for Undoing Racism. They were also involved in One Iowa’s campus group at the University of Northern Iowa, where they obtained a BA in Political Communications and a Master’s in Public Policy. The campus at UNI is also where I met Keenan, now well over a decade ago.In this episode, we talk to Keenan about their work at One Iowa Action - and how listeners can get involved in supporting similar groups around the country - current challenges that LGBTQ youth are facing, from book banning to bathroom bills, and what allyship looks like, especially for teachers, in 2022. How can we make our schools and classrooms safe and welcoming places for LGBTQ students?GUESTSKeenan Crow, Director of Policy and Advocacy for One Iowa and champion for LGBTQ civil rightsRESOURCES OneIowa @OneIowa (Twitter) @KF_Crow (Twitter)

Joshua Seigal is a highly acclaimed, award-winning professional poet, performer and educator. Joshua uses poetry to develop literacy skills and inspire confidence and ​creativity in communication. He has worked in hundreds of schools, libraries, theatres and festivals around the world, had books published by Bloomsbury and other major publishers, and has written and performed for BBC television. Joshua Seigal has recently been awarded the 2020 Laugh out Loud Book Award for “I Bet I Can Make You Laugh”, and shortlisted for the 2021 Peoples Book Prize for “Yapping Away”. In this episode, I talk to Joshua about his journey from academia to poetry as well as his own experiences attending British schools and the perspective he has on them now as an adult, and of course we get a bit of a poetry reading near the end. I should add that I recorded this at home with a very busy 3.5 year old, who you may hear throughout the episode. Thank you Joshua, for being very gracious during a chaotic recording on my end!GUESTSJoshua Seigal, award-winning poet, performer, and educatorRESOURCES Joshua Seigal's website @JoshuaSeigal (Twitter)

A conversation around student loan debt has been happening at the margins of American political life for nearly a generation. By 2012, total student loan debt in the United States surpassed one trillion dollars, with the only relief coming from a pause on interest and federal debt collection that began with the pandemic in March 2020. Today, a majority of Americans, nearly 60% of polled voters, support some kind of forgiveness on the nation’s now 1.7 trillion dollar student loan debt, and borrowers have benefited from the pause on payments, recently extended to May 2022. That’s over two years without a single required payment…and seemingly without a single negative economic consequence. A recent study from the Student Debt Crisis Center also found that nearly 90% of borrowers are not financially secure enough to resume payments.Is it time to pause these payments indefinitely? Is it past time for mass student loan debt forgiveness? While most of the conversations we have at HRP happen at the intersection of the theory and classroom practice of education, today I am joined by Thomas Gokey, Eleni Shirmer, and Jason Wozniak, as they talk to us about their organization, Debt Collective, make the moral, economic, and pedagogical case for debt cancellation, and let listeners know how to join their grassroots movement. GUESTSThomas Gokey, organizer and co-founder of Debt Collective, visual artist, adjunct professor at Syracuse University, and activistEleni Shirmer, researcher at the Future of Finance Initiative at UCLA's Luskin Institute on Inequality and Democracy, and organizer with Debt CollectiveJason Wozniak, assistant professor at Teacher's College, Columbia University, and author of the upcoming book, The Mis-Education of the Indebted StudentRESOURCES @StrikeDebt (Twitter) Debtcollective.org

Today we are joined by Dr. Nick Stock. Dr. Stock, a former English teacher, now serves as a researcher for the University of Birmingham. He has published various essays which focus on critiquing education by using philosophy typically seen outside of traditional pedagogy, such as Evangelion, Schools and Futures; Education after the end of the world. How can education be considered a hyperobject?; and Paradise Shall Remain Lost. Readdressing Deschooling through a Miltonian Lens.Specifically, we invited Dr. Stock on to talk about his recently published work, The Weird, Eerie, Exit Pedagogy of Mark Fisher, which dives into the work of Fisher, who wrote Capitalist Realism, and connects it to pedagogy, something that it isn’t typically associated with.This podcast covers: "Exit Pedagogy", connecting Mark Fisher's capitalist theories (and to an extent, Baudrillard's theories) to education "Hauntology" and reimagining a world without capitalism Critiques of liberatory and critical pedagogy and their connection to capitalism What it means to apply exit pedagogy to the classroomGUESTSDr. Nick Stock, former English teacher and current researcher at the University of Birmingham, who focuses on an ironist perspective to education through postmodern, poststructural ideas.RESOURCES The weird, eerie, exit pedagogy of Mark Fisher by Dr. Nick Stock Capitalist Realism by Mark Fisher Unpacking "Neoliberal" Schooling, Part 3: Progressive Education: Enter the Matrix by Chris McNutt

Long time listeners may recognize the title to this podcast: Re:Teaching. Last year, Nick released a series of short podcasts on a separate channel, focused on current events and short-form highlights of writing. We soon realized that by splitting our podcast into two segments, most folks didn't hear any of this series! Enjoy, and there will be even more new Re:Teaching episodes on the way.This episode is a feature read of Why What Works Won't Work and Why What Works May Hurt by Nick Covington, published in March 2020. Learn more about Human Restoration Project and find a wealth of free resources to create human-centered classrooms at humanrestorationproject.org, and follow us on social media, @HumResPro.

It's our 100th podcast episode! In celebration, Nick and Chris discuss the ongoing pursuits of Human Restoration Project.And we discuss: Our accomplishments over the years. Our favorite events, writings, and podcasts. Our major upcoming initiatives, which you'll want to stick around for! Questions from our listeners. And finally....host a trivia session on science fiction.

In this podcast, Nick and I are continuing our foray into random topics of progressive education! Today's episode centers cognitive science, research movements, and "studies of the brain." Within, we'll be talking about what's currently going on at HRP, articles and books that Nick and I have been reading recently, what's going on in our classrooms, Q&A from listeners via Twitter, and then a pop-quiz for who stays alive.And we discuss: Mary-Helen Immordino-Yang's work and development in neuroscience Audrey Watter's Teaching Machines, and the history of B.F. Skinner/behaviorism, especially his behaviorist "Utopian" book Walden Two Nick using the "Tier List Maker" for class assignments Chris using Floop for workshoping and ungrading Responding to "How do you motivate reluctant learners?" and "What does a student-driven curriculum look like in practice?" A game show(!) featuring "Doug Lemov (Teach Like a Champion) said what!?" and "Ungrading: The Research." Who will be sent out of the airlock?

In this podcast we've decided to experiment a bit with our programming. To be honest, right now there's a ton of burnout in the education world, from the pandemic to ongoing struggles of teacher power and support, and the culture war once again resurfacing in the classroom. As educators by day and nonprofit workers by night, we totally get that struggle.Therefore, we're putting a slight pause on our typical interview format to try out something new. This frees us up from the workload of scheduling, researching, and working with guests. And, it opens up the door for us to produce more casual content. If you like the guest stuff, don't worry - we'll come back to that in early December! But...if you like the new stuff, please let us know.In this podcast we're going to go through four parts: An update of what we're working on at HRP. Article shareouts that Nick and I have been interested in recently. Talking about what we're currently doing in our classrooms. A pop-quiz to see who exits this podcast alive (or something.)And we discuss: Militarism and increased nationalism in the classroom. Simulation theory, Baudrillard, and fatal strategies. How video game design relates to classroom pedagogy. Celebrating Columbus Day (and the surrounding debate) and its context to nationalism. The corruption of large-scale nonprofits, including testing companies and public charter networks.

Today, Nick and I are continuing our dissection of learning loss via our Learning Loss Handbook. In part 1, we spoke about the myth surrounding "learning loss" and the dire implications it has on our practice in schools. If you haven't listened in yet, I highly recommend checking out that episode.In this episode we discuss: What was lost during pandemic schooling? What actions can we take in order to counteract the problems resulted from an isolated, virtual year(s)? How can we take these actions even in districts that don't support progressive actions?RESOURCES HRP's Learning Loss Handbook 96: Unpacking Learning Loss: The Who, the What, and the Why Is Learning “Lost” When Kids Are Out of School? by Alfie Kohn Is Summer Learning Loss Real? by Paul T. von Hippel

Today, Nick and I are going to break down Human Restoration Project's recently released "Learning Loss" Handbook, providing an overview of the ideas we present in the book, the faux narrative being created surrounding "learning loss", and offering an alternative for educators to push for and pursue. You can find the free download at humanrestorationproject.org/materials.Included in this conversation is... The history of the term "learning loss" An analysis of standardized testing and what we're measuring Showcasing the overall negative impacts of standardized testing Deconstructing the financial ties to learning loss and the testing industry Dissecting the stereotype threat and Pygmalion effect and its potential connection to the negative narrative of learning lossNext time we'll break down *how* we counteract this narrative. Stay tuned!*Apologies for the audio quality, my mic literally broke while recording this podcast! Support our funding drive! :)FUNDING DRIVEHuman Restoration Project is currently in the midst of our September 2021 funding drive. You can learn more, help us out, obtain donor gifts, and support future podcasts/ resources by visiting Human Restoration Project's website.RESOURCES 95: Deciphering "Learning Loss" w/ Akil Bello FutureEd State Plan Tracking Introducing "Operation Reverse the Loss" (IES) HRP's Learning Loss Handbook