In this episode, Ben Blaisdell (East Carolina University, Kevin's department-mate) talks about critical race theory (CRT) and its applicability to k-12 education. Ben's research and work in schools relies heavily on critical race frameworks, and at a time where people are so polarized about CRT, Ben explains what it is, what it's not, what critics get wrong about it, and how it can answer current criticisms leveled against it. 3:12 - What is critical race theory and what is its significance for a field like k-12 education?14:12 - Concrete ways racialization plays out in schools 26:26 - But aren't we just lowering expectations for black and brown students? Aren't we just devolving into racial stereotype?31:06 - Are the people critics of CRT aim at (Kendi, DiAngelo) working within a CRT framework? (Teaser: not really.) 45:03 - If racism is unavoidable, how can teachers subvert it? If biases are unconscious, how can we become aware of ours? 54:30 - What are critics (especially legislators and pundits) getting wrong about CRT? 1:03:55 - Can CRT and antiracism veer into a religious way of thinking?

In this conversation, I talk with higher education anthropologist Susan Blum (Notre Dame) about her work on how students experience higher education. We also talk about an essay collection she recently edited called Ungrading: Why Rating Students Undermines Learning (and What To Do Instead). 0:58 - How Students Navigate and Experience School; It Ain't Pretty! 12:35 - Why Do So Many Students Play School Like a Game?23:55 - What Makes Grading So Problematic? Can We Motivate Students Without Them?36:43 - Ways Different Teachers (including Susan and Kevin) Have Backed Off of Grades in Their Classrooms52:50 - How Could Teachers Start Moving Away From Grading?

Kevin Currie-Knight (East Carolina University) and David Labaree (Professor Emeritus, Stanford University) talk about the history and meaning of academic freedom. They talk about whether there has ever been a “golden age” where academics were safe to be heterodox (no), and what academic freedom means in an age of social media and the in-group policing it fosters.  00:00:32 - David’s Life as a (Newly) Retired Academic and Kevin’s Life as a Grinding Academic00:04:49 - The European Origins of (and the Reasons Behind) Academic Freedom11:14:58 - Academic Tenure Comes About at Stanford University00:19:32 - Academic Conformity and Why David is Concerned About Two Types of Academics00:34:29 - A Tension Between Academic Freedom and University Brand-Consciousness00:44:25 - When Academics Tweet00:52:56 - Should We Redesign a More Robust Academic Freedom? Can We?

Robert Gressis (California State Northridge) and Kevin Currie-Knight (East Carolina University) hae a wide-ranging conversation about the (fraught?) relationship between schooling, learning, and A-F grading. The discussion centers around an essay Currie-Knight wrote called Against the Grade Economy: https://theelectricagora.com/2020/12/... 00:02:36​​ Rob and Kevin make small talk 00:07:01​​ Kevin describes and laments the grade economy 00:36:07​​ What's the relationship between grades and learning? 00:57:19​​ Bryan Caplan's "The Case Against Education" and how it has traumatized Rob 01:05:58​​ Unschooling 01:21:35​​ If schools sucks so much, how did Rob and Kevin learn?

This episode's guest is not normal... and that is a GREAT thing. Jonathan Mooney is an author, speaker, entrepreneur, and activist within the disability rights community. Before all that, he was a kid struggling in school with various diagnosed disabilities, told that he just wasn't normal. Today we talk about his recent book Normal Sucks, where he interrogates and examines this idea we have of normality, and how we've built a culture that strives for it. We talk about how we can - teachers, students, parents - build a culture that welcomes and supports difference and diversity instead.

In this episode, I talk with Education Professor Doris Santoro about why teachers leave the profession. She distinguishes between teacher burnout and teacher demoralization and argues that, if we want to counteract the persisting and large teacher attrition problems, we need to treat these as different sets of reasons. We also talk more generally about why teaching is such a demanding field and what teachers and administrators can do to guard against attrition. Doris A. Santoro is Professor of Education at Bowdoin College. She teaches courses in educational studies and teacher education. Her philosophical and qualitative research examines teachers’ moral concerns about their work and their moral arguments for resistance. She has taught high school English in Brooklyn and San Francisco, GED prep at an alternative to incarceration program in Manhattan, and worked as a bilingual literacy consultant in Jersey City. She is the author of the book Demoralized: Why Teachers Leave the Profession the Love and How They Can Stay.

On this episode, I talk with Richard Rothstein (Economic Policy Institute) about his book Color of Law: The Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America. While the book is not about education, Rothstein’s research is an outgrowth of prior research on racial disparities in education. In the book, Rothstein tells the story of how government policy has been used to create and sustain residential and financial segregation that, it turns out, may have a lot to do with the racial disparities we see between and within schools. Richard Rothstein is a Distinguished Fellow of the Economic Policy Institute and a Senior Fellow (emeritus) at the Thurgood Marshall Institute of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. He is the author of The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America, which recovers a forgotten history of how federal, state, and local policy explicitly segregated metropolitan areas nationwide, creating racially homogenous neighborhoods in patterns that violate the Constitution and require remediation. He is also the author of many other articles and books on race and education, which can be found on his web page at the Economic Policy Institute: http://www.epi.org/people/richard-rothstein/.Here is a link to the USA Today article on de facto school segregation I mention in my intro: https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020/06/23/why-segregation-still-plagues-americas-schools-and-how-fix-column/3234499001/

On this episode, Robert Pondiscio (Fordham Institute, author of How the Other Half Learns) discusses his experience writing about the Harlem Success Academy Charter School in the South Bronx. He spent a year immersed in this school and came away with some interesting insights - both praise and concern - about what life is like at this charter school. We talk about the role of charter schools in the education system, the merits and drawbacks of charters, the importance of school culture, and even lessons he learned about the importance of how lessons are designed and planned.

In this episode, I talk with teacher-turned-psychologist K. Ann Renninger to talk about the psychology of human interest. How do learners (and people in general) become interested in something? Is interest 'hardwired' and hard to change, or can teachers influence what learners are interested in? How can teachers make subjects more interesting for students? We go over what all the best data - including Anne's own research - says.