Paul Emerich France is a National Board Certified Teacher, instructional coach, keynote speaker, and adjunct professor with over a decade of experience in the classroom, teaching grades transitional kindergarten through fifth grade. He is the author of Reclaiming Personalized Learning: A Pedagogy for Restoring Equity and Humanity in Our Classrooms …

Today we are joined by Nawal Qarooni. Nawal is an educator, writer, and adjunct professor based in Jersey City, who founded and operates NQC Literacy, a consultancy firm serving PreK-8 school leaders and teachers in holistic literacy instruction, equity-driven practice, and family engagement. She also serves on several committees, including the Nat…

“Were we required to characterize this age of ours by any single epithet, we should be tempted to call it, not an Heroical, Devotional, Philosophical, or Moral Age, but, above all others, the Mechanical Age. It is the Age of Machinery, in every outward and inward sense of that word; the age which, with its whole undivided might, forwards, teaches a…

The story my guest will tell today is of her experience growing up and teaching in Memphis, Tennessee before finding a purpose-driven career change in - I am not joking - the heart of Transylvania. Emma Sisson is the School Director of The Mission School in Sighisoara, Romania. The work of The Mission, Romania is deeply rooted in the local communit…

In this episode, Anna Saavedra and Morgan Polikoff explore the polarizing landscape of modern education found in their February 2024 report, "Searching for Common Ground.” The report reveals widespread support for public schools alongside significant partisan divides, particularly on topics like LGBTQ identities and racial inequality. From bipartis…

Join us as we delve into the historical and current relationship between the United States and Puerto Rico, focusing on the island's education system and its role in shaping Puerto Rico's future. Professor Jenaro Abraham shares his expertise on social movements, politics, and education in the Caribbean, offering key insights into Puerto Rico's ques…

“Let's start with the bad news.” is how the conclusion to my guests’ book about changing grading practice begins. “No one is coming to save us. No consultant is going to sweep through and fix things for a fee. No new technology, digital, online, or otherwise, is going to change the game.” The game, of course, is school, and the currency of that gam…

In this episode, we talk with Rethinking Schools first-ever Executive Director, Cierra Kaler-Jones, about the past, present, and future of Rethinking Schools, especially as we enter another potentially contentious year of educational culture wars for 2024, and her vision for how educators can demand power for those who need it the most within our s…

Today we are joined by Dr. Emma McMain. Emma works in the College of Education at Washington State University as a postdoctoral teacher and researcher, focusing on assessment for pre-service elementary teachers, cultural considerations in education, and social and emotional learning (SEL). Her work aims to promote social and ecological justice, see…

Reimagining education is no small feat, but there is hope on the horizon. MINDFOOD, easily digestible content for education. In this series, we'll do the random fun stuff: top 10 lists, current events, things we're thinking about. This is a casual format with limited editing and not as many intense conversations that occur in our mainline HRP inter…

Carissa McCray is a member of Research, Advocacy, Collaboration, and Empowerment Mentoring program, the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, and the American Educational Research Association. She has presented across the United States on topics ranging from implementing social-emotional strategies in the classroom to culturally r…

In this incredible final installment of his exploration of the pedagogy of the Hawaiian Islands, Noah Ranz-Lind talks to educators and students at Hanahau‘oli School, a progressive K-6 school in Honolulu. Hanahau‘oli School promises its students an "intimate and nurturing learning community supports connections between home and school and the world…

Chris sits down with Congressman Jamaal Bowman! serving New York's 16th district since 2021. Bowman was a crisis management teacher in an elementary school in the Bronx, who eventually founded his own public school, the Cornerstone Academy for Social Action, a middle school in Eastchester. For years he maintained a blog on changing school policy an…

Fabiola "Fabi" Torres is an online Ethnic Studies professor and Certified Faculty Developer at Glendale Community College. During the pandemic, she has led nationwide workshops and courses on applying equity-minded methods such as culturally responsive teaching in the online environment, humanizing online teaching and learning as well as ungrading …

On today’s podcast we’re joined by two founders of Ludic Language Pedagogy or LLP. LLP is an open access academic journal and community focused on publishing actionable ideas on “ludic”, or playful, ideas, and language learning, such as through tabletop RPGs, live action role playing, card games, and video games. For example, recently published pap…

Jesse Stommel is a faculty member in the Writing Program at University of Denver. He is also co-founder of Hybrid Pedagogy: the journal of critical digital pedagogy and Digital Pedagogy Lab. He has a PhD from University of Colorado Boulder. He is co-author of An Urgency of Teachers: the Work of Critical Digital Pedagogy. Jesse is a documentary film…

Aloha and welcome to episode 2 in a three part series on Pedagogy in the Hawaiian Islands. My name is Noah Ranz-Lind, and I am a student from the University of Massachusetts - Amherst interning here at the Human Restoration Project. In this episode, we delve into the research of Dr. Stacy Potes and her place-based pedagogical framework for Hawaiian…

What you just heard were public comments from three community members of Houston Independent School District, the largest school district in Texas, at the center of a controversial state takeover by the Texas Education Agency. The bell you hear in the audio is a hard cut-off for speakers, whose mics were immediately turned off. After working its wa…

Mike Flanagan is the CEO of the Mastery Transcript Consortium (MTC), a growing group of high schools creating a digital high school transcript that opens up opportunity for each and every student—from all backgrounds, locations, and types of schools—to have their unique strengths, abilities, interests, and histories fostered, understood, and celebr…

Welcome to the first of a three-part series on Pedagogy in the Hawai'ian Islands, where we explore history, philosophy, and progressive developments in Hawai'ian Pedagogy. My name is Noah Ranz-Lind, and I am a student at the University of Massachusetts - Amherst, interning at the Human Restoration Project. In this episode, we delve into the history…

This keynote address was part of Conference to Restore Humanity! 2023: Breaking the Doom-Loop, sponsored by Holistic Think Tank, Cortico & Local Voices Network, Antioch University, Education Evolving & Teacher-Powered Schools, and Unrulr. You can also find a video of the keynote and community Q&A on our YouTube page by searching for Human Restorati…

Alex Shevrin Venet is an educator, author, and professional development facilitator based in Vermont. She teaches community college and graduate teacher education. Previously, she was a teacher and leader at an alternative therapeutic school. She is the co-founder of the Nurturing the Nurturers collective, a healing community for educators. Her fir…

Today we’re joined by Drs. Tanu Biswas and Toby Rollo. Tanu is an interdisciplinary philosopher of education, focused on challenging children’s historical marginalization. She serves as an advisory board member of The Childism Institute at Rutgers, and is an associate professor of pedagogy at the University of Stavanger and an associate researcher …

This keynote address was part of Conference to Restore Humanity! 2023: Breaking the Doom-Loop, sponsored by Holistic Think Tank, Cortico & Local Voices Network, Antioch University, Education Evolving & Teacher-Powered Schools, and Unrulr. You can also find a video of the keynote and community Q&A on our YouTube page by searching for Human Restorati…

Today, we wanted to provide a brief update on major upcoming projects at Human Restoration Project. Within we'll talk about: Ongoing work of the Human-Centered Schools Network (apologies for the audio quality...we are at a "beach house" in Michigan...) Our upcoming conference in 2 weeks! (July 24-27) Upcoming announcements and podcasts Thank you fo…

Today we’re joined by Aaron Schorn, Head of Growth and Community at Unrulr. Aaron is an experienced educator who runs an afterschool social entrepreneurship program for young people. And recently, he introduced Unrulr to us at HRP — in short, it’s one of the only edtech tools we’ve ever recommended, and it’s one of the few edtech tools we’d be comf…

Today we’re joined by Meredith Broussard. Meredith is a data journalist whose research and reporting centers on ethical AI and data analysis for the social good. She’s an associate professor at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute of New York University and research director at the NYU Alliance for Public Interest Technology. And she’s an auth…

On today's podcast, we're joined by Dave Runge, co-founder and director of Future Schools. Future Schools is an Australian-based innovative schools organization, centered on exploring what's possible in schools by connecting together like-minds across over 100 school partners. Both in and outside of Australia, Future Schools helps educator teams ex…

Nate Bowling teaches Social Studies at a US Embassy School in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates. He is a past Washington State Teacher of the Year and National Teacher of the Year Finalist. He and his wife blog about living and teaching overseas at BowlingsAbroad.com and he is the host of the Nerd Farmer Podcast on the Channel 253 Podcast Netwo…

In the late 2000s, the concept of “solarpunk” emerged. In 2022, YouTube channel Our Changing Climate with, my guest today, Andrewism published a video titled “How We Can Build a Solarpunk Future Right Now”, in which they make that the case that "Ultimately Solarpunk envisions a world that might be slower, but more intentional. One that ties humanit…

Dr. Juuso Nieminen is an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Education, University of Hong Kong and a Banting Fellow at Ontario Tech University, Canada. He studies the social, cultural, and political aspects of assessment. Why do we assess the way we do? Dr. Nieminen’s research focuses on the student perspective in assessment. He is particularly …

Gamification is a long-standing practice across lesson planning and educational technology, but it doesn’t always work out the way we expect. At the end of the day, if the nature of the task is not interesting, then what we’re creating is more about compliance than engagement. In this session, we will host a conversation on what it means to gamify …

Vanessa Ellis is an 8th-grade social studies teacher at Veterans Memorial Middle School in Columbus, Georgia. In 2017, Vanessa was named a Georgia Economics Teacher of the Year, and in 2018, she was selected as a Harvard Fellow to study research-based practices in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In 2022, she was honored as Teacher of the Year for her sch…

This conversation is nearly a year in the making, from the first messages with my guest back in 2022 - which also happened to be the last of my 9 years teaching AP European History. That year there were over 4.7 million AP Exams taken by 2.6 million students from 23,000 secondary schools. At about $100 per exam…well, you don’t need to get a 5 on th…

“I learned so much about viewing the world, especially mass media, through a critical eye this year. I learned about what traps we fall into while viewing media and how we can prevent that. I also learned about good vs. questionable journalism tactics and how this can affect how accurate a news source is.” My guest today, Sam Shain, is a musician, …

It only takes a few seconds on Hanaa Elmi’s Twitter timeline for even the most oblivious observer like myself to know that what she is doing is magical. One post from February details several images of student contributions from reflections on Stone Soup and other related readings - child’s handwriting draws your eye to the center of each poster - …

TG2 team member, Michelle Cottrell-Williams, interviews Jan McArthur, Senior Lecturer in Education and Social Justice in the Department of Educational Research, Lancaster University, UK. Jan’s research focuses on the nature and purposes of higher education and how these relate to practices of teaching, learning, and assessment. Jan McArthur coautho…

Welcome to a brief HRP update with me, Nick Covington, Creative Director here at Human Restoration Project! As you may have hear, Chris & I are coming off a whirlwind of a week in Columbus, Ohio, where we hosted a team from our Poland-based partners at Holistic Think Tank, Polish teacher representatives from the Polish-American Freedom Foundation, …

Reimagining education is no small feat, but there is hope on the horizon. MINDFOOD, easily digestible content for education. In this series, we'll do the random fun stuff: top 10 lists, current events, things we're thinking about. This is a casual format with limited editing and not as many intense conversations that occur in our mainline HRP inter…

Because it is so well researched and presented, Cutting School: The Segrenomics of American Education, is a frustrating read. To tell the story of privatization, segregation, & the end of public education requires a massive cast. In her book Dr. Noliwe Rooks, my guest today, runs a precise thread from Reconstruction, Nelson Rockefeller, & Brown v B…

Liz Norell is passionate about great teaching and student success. As a political scientist (well, really, a political psychologist), she's motivated to understand how/why we develop the political beliefs we do...and how to have more productive dialogue across differences. As a faculty member and mentor, she loves brainstorming ways to make classro…

The thing I appreciate most about Michael Weingarth, and that will become clear as you listen to this episode, is his passionate intensity. He comes off like a man who has received wisdom, like a divine revelation. Yet bolstering that intensity and passion is the deep understanding of a body of literature from subfields of neuroscience calling into…

Reimagining education is no small feat, but there is hope on the horizon. MINDFOOD, easily digestible content for education. In this series, we'll do the random fun stuff: top 10 lists, current events, things we're thinking about. This is a casual format with limited editing and not as many intense conversations that occur in our mainline HRP inter…

Mike Rutherford is a lifelong teacher and learner. Eight years ago, he returned to the classroom as a middle school English and Social Studies teacher after many years in the education private sector with Blackboard and Just ASK Publications & Professional Development. Prior to his time in the private sector, Mike was a middle school teacher and te…

Today we’re joined by Susan Harris MacKay and Matt Karlson, the people behind the Center for Playful Inquiry. Susan is a former teacher and pedagogical director at Opal School and Portland Children’s Museum. Her recent book, Story Workshop: New Possibilities for Young Writers showcases the relationship between play, art, and writing. Matt is a form…

I’m speaking today with freelance journalist Andy Kopsa whose work has appeared seemingly everywhere: The New York Times, the Atlantic, the Guardian, Cosmo, and her most recent piece from the December issue of In These Times that we’ll be discussing today - and that you heard an excerpt of in the introduction - is about her investigation of Des Moi…

Because ungrading is essentially an emancipatory practice, it cannot be held to one formula or singular standard. Instead, ungrading relies on a robust community of educators to circulate, celebrate, and elevate the practice in its various forms. Lisa Wennerth, welcomes four trailblazing educators—Liz Leininger, Rita Shah, Firas Moosvi, and Taylor …

Today we are joined by Dr. Linda Darling-Hammond. Joining us on election day, there’s frankly a lot of anxiety around the current state of our world…not just who will win the election but if those results will be accepted, a general cynicism about our future, and especially in the classroom, teachers are reporting extraordinary rates of burnout and…

In this episode, co-founders of Human Restoration Project Nick Covington & Chris McNutt detail the impact of the organization in 2022, our plans for 2023, and how we're envisioning the future of our work in reimagining education. Detailed within includes... How HRP grew this year and the impact we've made Our goals for 2023, including a new pay-as-…

This conversation comes at an interesting time in the broader context of the future of education. In the wake of progress 8 results in the UK and NAEP scores in the United States, there appears to be a narrowing of educational possibilities toward a very particular model of schooling, or at least a model whose proponents have been the loudest in pr…