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Epic Theatre Ensemble is dedicated to fostering dialogue about current civic, social, and ethical issues. Epic is at once an off-Broadway theatre company that premieres professional productions and an arts education powerhouse with an array of award-winning programs for students—in school, after school, and during the summer. It’s a collaborative of teaching artists and students who believe that participation in theatre is essential to a healthy democracy, and that this kind of engaging theatre experience should be a hallmark of U.S. education for all students. This episode features highlights of my conversation with Melissa Friedman, Co-Founder and Co-Artistic Director of Epic Theatre Ensemble, as well as some examples of the amazing work Epic does to engage students as citizens. (Photo by Ron Russell.) Transcript Supplementary MaterialsOne episode can hardly do justice to the scope of Epic’s work with young people, let alone the different kinds of shows they mount throughout the year. The Epic website will not only inform you about coming attractions, but also much of the organization’s history that we didn’t have room for. Epic Theatre Ensemble This month’s episode features clips from Laundry City, an original work commissioned by New York Appleseed and Teachers College, Columbia University that was written and performed by Epic students. Dealing with segregated schools in NYC, the title plays on the stark metaphor of keeping white and colored clothes separate. The full performance runs about 30 minutes, followed by student-led discussion with the audience. Featuring Olivia Dunbar, Jeremiah Green Jr., Salma Hassan, Davion Osbourne, and Nakkia Smalls. Laundry City

Listening matters for every relationship, from loved ones at home to civil discourse in community and country. This new year’s episode honors a very cool experiment in listening undertaken at the Library for the Performing Arts in New York City for six weeks at the end of 2018. Dr. Jonathan Hiam, Curator of Recorded Sound, guides us through the room in an experimental episode lit by compositions of the visionary composer and performer Arthur Russell. I think you’ll dig it. Episode Transcript Special thanks to Steve Knutson of Audika Records and Tom Lee of the Estate of Arthur Russell for permitting use of excerpts of these rare recordings. More Arthur Russell, please!

For 25 years, Anne Phinney was a teacher who believed firmly in the power of connecting with animals to influence kids' empathy, compassion, and ideas about teamwork. For all her life, she's been crazy about horses! She now spends full days living her dream on Moose River Farm in the Adirondack Woods with her husband Rod, caring for a menagerie of horses, goats, llamas, chickens, geese, tortoises, dogs, and a pot-bellied pig. Today, she offers llama treks as well as sessions in equi-reflection, providing opportunities for people to learn from and with horses in deep ways. We discuss all of that and more during the 2018 Thanksgiving Special. YouTube version Anne with llamas Adonis, Bravo, Stormy, Bluff, and Majik Episode Transcript Featured Musician Jason Grant is a dear friend and former colleague back in Jersey. His guitar playing has now inspirited three episodes of the podcast, and I’m looking forward to many more. Buy Anne’s book, Finding My Way to Moose River Farm (2013), slot a llama trek, schedule a visit, open right up! Moose River Farm

Leading in Sync with Jill Harrison Berg (016)

This episode probes the value of mathematics and debate for students—and everyone else. Brent Farrand is an award-winning math teacher and kingmaker debate coach who established the debate team at Science High in Newark, NJ in 1979. On a mid-July weekend in 2018, Brent welcomed me and a few bandmates into his Liberty, NY home for music and conversation. Thanks to Jason Grant and Duane Harper Grant for playing guitar on the soundtrack. Episode Transcript Detail from Brent’s painting of a Koch snowflake, one of the first fractal curves to be described. The Koch curve first appeared in a 1904 paper called “On a continuous curve without tangents, constructible from elementary geometry” (Original French title: Sur une courbe continue sans tangente, obtenue par une construction géométrique élémentaire) by the Swedish mathematician Helge von Koch. Brent also painted the picture of infinity used as this episode’s thumbnail. Featured Musicians Jason Grant Duane Harper Grant Related ReadingA 1994 New York Times article from 1994 reporting the last 12 years as those in which Brent’s debate team at Science High in Newark won 12 varsity state championships. "For Student Debaters, Success on Their Terms" A 2010 NJ.com article on Shagun Kukreja, the 17-year-old debater from the Jersey Urban Debate League (led at that point by Brent Farrand), who was invited to the Obama White House as one of the winners of the Urban Debate National Championships.  "There's no debating the value of academic debating" Several times during our conversation, Brent references the National Association for Urban Debate Leagues …  NAUDL

Jake and I scheduled a phone date in May to catch up after he won a 2018 Pulitzer Prize. In the highlights of our conversation included in today’s show, we talk about storytelling as a project that has run through his wide-ranging work as a journalist for print and radio, and as a best-selling author of young adult fiction. He shares that contending with rejection is an important part of his work, and how learning keeps everything lively. (Note to parents: A few salty words season this conversation between old friends, which is why I added the explicit icon to the feed info for this episode. Omitting them would have cost too much of the character of the given sentiment.)  Thanks as always to Shayfer James for instrumental versions of his songs in the intro ("Weight of the World") and outro ("Villainous Thing") music. In addition, this episode showcases an instrumental version of "Tiny Gods" from Shayfer's album Haunted Things. 

I tripped home to Buffalo this Mother's Day to sit down with my first teacher, Gretchen Meister Brand. A professional violinist and Suzuki violin teacher who has also taught Sunday school, and social studies in public and private schools, Mom taught me how to braid bread, play fiddle, and disagree with others respectfully, to name a couple things. In this month's special episode, we discuss the value of praise in teaching and child-rearing, my grandmother Miriam George Meister, and a method of talent education that aims for world peace.   Thanks to Mom for agreeing to not only guest the show, but to take her fiddle out of the case after three years in order to play on the soundtrack. We rocked out on violin duets by Bach, Béla Bartók, and Jacques Féréol Mazas. With Gretchen at the piano, we played a few Twinkle variations, Bach minuets, and other hits of the Suzuki Violin Method. Thanks as always to Shayfer James for permission to use instrumental versions of "Weight of the World" and "Villainous Thing" from his album Counterfeit Arcade for intro and outro.   Episode Transcript

For our poetry special I got to talk with two phenomenal women. Aja Monet (left, photo by Brandon Guzman) is a Caribbean-American poet, performer, and educator from Brooklyn currently based in Little Haiti, Miami, where she is a cofounder of Smoke Signals Studio, dedicating her time to merging arts and culture with community organizing through her work with the Dream Defenders and the Community Justice Project. Her most recent collection of poetry, My Mother Was A Freedom Fighter (2017), was nominated for an NAACP Image Award. Meghann Plunkett (photo by Adam Courtney) describes herself as a poet, coder, and dog enthusiast. She has won critical acclaim from Missouri Review, Third Coast Magazine, Narrative Magazine, North American Review, and the Academy of American Poets, among others. Later this month she will graduate as a Master of Fine Arts from Southern Illinois University in Carbondale. Aja and Meghann have been friends and trusted readers of each other's work since their undergraduate years at Sarah Lawrence College. Special thanks to director Cam Be for granting permission to use a clip from his brilliant video of Aja's poem "What I've Learned"; to Shayfer James for supplying instrumentals from his album Haunted Things for this special episode; to Roy Chambers for designing the glassed unicorn thumbnail; to Paula Roy for suggesting questions; and to my uncle Peter Meister for reading his haiku "Squirrel in Winter" at the top. It got me wondering about how poems work when I was only old enough to read the words.  Episode Transcript

Oskar Eustis founded his first theatre company at the age of 16. From Tony Kushner's Angels in America to Lin-Manuel Miranda's Hamilton, Eustis has been intimately involved in the creation and development of many of the greatest works of American theatre of the past 30 years. Oskar and I sat down in his office at the Public Theater in February to talk about important teachers, Shakespeare, drama, democracy, Hamilton, the state of civil discourse ... and a few new ideas on the horizon. Episode Transcript Thanks to Paula Roy and Robyn Lee Horn for creative feedback throughout production, and to Yinka Rickford-Anguin at the Public, who helped everything come off without a hitch! Soundtrack notes: Thanks to the phenomenal pianist Gil Scott Chapman for his take on certain shapes from the Hamilton soundtrack. Fiddles, frog, and cajon by Peter Horn. The song “Bitten der Kinder” (trans. "Ask the Children,” music by Paul Dessau) underneath the comments about Mother Courage comes from Mr. Wau-Wa, a Brecht band of Gina Leishman, Rinde Eckert, Doug Wieselman, Marcus Rojas, and Kenny Wollesen. Thanks as always to Shayfer James for intro and outro music. Hear and buy his music here!  YouTube version Oskar and some other early Hamilton boosters reunite in March 2016 at the White House, in the room where this happened: just 7 years earlier, Lin-Manuel floated an idea about doing something with the Founding Father who was a bastard immigrant orphan ... Bonus FeaturesReading list from Modern American Drama, Oskar's course at the Middlebury Bread Loaf School of English (2003), reconstructed:  A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry  The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window by Lorraine Hansberry Funnyhouse of a Negro by Adrienne Kennedy The Colored Museum by George C. Wolfe Independence of Eddie Rose by Wm S. Yellow Robe, Jr. The Rez Sisters by Tomson Highway M. Butterfly by David Henry Hwang Short Eyes by Miguel Piñero Fefu and Her Friends by Maria Irene Fornés Broken Eggs by Eduardo Machado Marisol by José Rivera The America Play by Suzan-Lori Parks Angels in America by Tony Kushner A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams The Lisbon Traviata by Terrence McNally Oskar's interview with New Yorker editor David Remnick in June 2016. Other insights about the process of making Hamilton, as well as more on Oskar's Marxist (and quite humane) worldview. WNYC Interview Oskar's interview with NYC Arts host Paula Zahn in December 2012. They discuss for more on the Public’s mission of theatre as a democratic institution that needs to include everybody, providing collective experience in our “increasingly digitized age.”  Channel 13 Interview

Named for the year of its founding, Project '79 has been supporting and reclaiming high school students as learners for four decades. The oldest continuously running alternative education program I know about, it's also--for my money--just about the best way to do school. This month's episode let me sit down with the program's two other coordinators to talk about what matters most in designing and sustaining a program that keeps kids at the center of its work, addressing social and emotional needs as well as academic development. Alan Lantis was the founding coordinator of Project '79, leading the program from the late '70s until 2008, when I succeeded him. Jackie Spring has coordinated Project since 2015. They are two of the most thoughtful educators I've had the honor to call colleagues. Enriched by student voices and music, this episode introduces the unique learning community of Project '79 and presents some of the key ingredients for success that we've shared with hundreds of visitors over the years.  Thanks to current and former Project '79 students for providing comments and music. In order of appearance: Inti Araya ’20, Jack Serzan ’17, Cooper Metzger ’18, Sarah Sherman '19, Jessie Gregory ’11, Patrick McElynn ‘19, Molly Sheil ‘18, Adam Wachtel ‘20, and Juan Suris Morales ‘19. Ukulele and vocals performed by Inti Araya '20 and Lauren Henkel '20. Matt Gero ‘20 played piano, and Jessie Gregory '11 dropped beats. The songs "Tick-Tock Time" and "We Are Not to Blame" were written by p79 juniors in the spring of 2011 as part of a music residency with Shayfer James that featured drum circles and collaborative lyric-writing sessions.  The YouTube playlist below showcases some favorite videos produced by or about Project '79 in recent years.  Project '79 Videos

Today I’m talking with Thomas Halpin, a master violinist and teacher. A performer called “undemonstratively excellent” by The Times of London, Halpin has concertized throughout the U.S. and abroad—yet for more than four decades he has focused on teaching. We discuss how Tom learned to teach, including some of his favorite advice about problem-solving (which I used for many years in my English classroom). We talk about why the violin occupies its unusual spot in the collective imagination, and why music is worth studying—for everybody. Thanks to Shayfer James for the music he lets Point of Learning use as intro and outro. His songs can be heard and purchased here. The Point of Learning YouTube channel features video versions of the podcast. For this episode there are a few bonus features, including clips of Tom playing, photographs not included in the gallery below, and one surprise at the very end that I could not resist ... YouTube Version Episode StructureThe soundtrack showcases some of my favorite selections from the dozens of Thomas Halpin performances on YouTube, listed below in order of their use in the episode. Music links connect to full YouTube recordings and available information about collaborators and recording date.*  01:05 MUSIC: Philip Glass, Einstein on the Beach  02:35 MUSIC: Eric Korngold, Concerto in D major for Violin and Orchestra, 1st movement  02:43 What is it about the violin? 03:35 MUSIC: Aaron Copland, Ukulele Serenade* 05:33 MUSIC: Max Bruch, Andante Sostenuto from Scottish Fantasy  05:57 Thomas Halpin biographical sketch 06:04 MUSIC: Larry London, Twisted Waltz from Dance Suite for Violin and Piano 07:17 Learning how to teach 11:12 MUSIC: Philip Glass, Einstein on the Beach  12:43 Why study music? 14:08 Ivan Galamian and “the teeming anthill” a.k.a. Meadowmount 14:12 MUSIC: Ned Rorem, A Final Dance from Sonata for Violin and Piano 17:07 STRATEGY: Identify-Isolate-Integrate 19:00 Becoming an Artist: Jaron Lanier, virtual reality as music, and what “instrument” really means 19:12 MUSIC: Eric Korngold, Concerto in D major for Violin and Orchestra, 3rd movement 19:43 MUSIC: Aaron Copland, Nocturne* 24:18 Zino Francescatti 24:31 MUSIC: Fritz Kreisler, Præludium & Allegro 26:10 Good Teaching and Bad Teaching 29:15 MUSIC: Pablo de Sarasate, Caprice Basque  29:18 The Learning Process * Correction: I discovered soon after production that the Copland recordings were misattributed, based on some mislabeled source tapes uploaded by a third party. Halpin did record these works, but the performances included on the podcast should be credited to violinist Louis Kaufman. The pianist for Ukulele Serenade was Annette Kaufman; for Nocturne, Aaron Copland himself. I regret the error.  RELATED MATERIALS Episode Transcript During Tom's stint with Van Morrison was recorded this version of "Caravan," live at the Troubadour, circa 1973.  Van Morrison gives Tom a shout-out (06:14) Tom on the triangle, his first instrument; his older brother Joe on bass. Circa 1952. During the two weeks surrounding Christmas of 1954, the Calloettes played 23 concerts in the SF Bay Area. Remarkably, Mr. and Mrs. Callo collected fees, while the musicians and their parents received no remuneration for their efforts. By this point, Tom (front row, second from right) plays the violin.  Here's that segment from the radio show The Takeaway in which host Todd Zwillich interviewed virtual reality pioneer Jaron Lanier: Jaron Lanier on "The Takeaway" "Kreutzer Sonata," the painting by René Prinet that Halpin mentions as he discusses the romantic popular idea of the violin. Image from Wikimedia Commons. A response from Zino Francescatti, after Halpin and Yvar Mikhashoff dedicated their transcription of Debussy's "Dance of Puck" to the legendary violinist. Halpin treasures this note from a violin hero.  Mr. Halpin's Learning ProcessBreak new material into manageable chunks--perhaps 4 measures of music at a time. Take three separate looks: once for notes, once for rhythm, once for bowing. A. Notes Say the note names aloud. Promotes conscious awareness of what's going on re: key signature, major/minor, etc. Play the notes, but without regard to rhythm or bowing. Just focus on getting the notes right.  B. Rhythm Mark the beats. Hashmarks flag the quarters of each measure of music in common time (4/4), or whatever the time signature may be. Tap your foot (or metronome) and hum/say/monotone sing-song the rhythm. Ignore slurs and ties. Tap your foot and play, without slurs.  C. Bowing. Tap and pantomime the bowing to rhythm, but without your violin.  Tap and play. Add bowing to rhythm to notes ... The sight gag Mr. Halpin describes during his remarks on bow distribution. 

The December edition of Point of Learning is a holiday special, but one that follows this first season’s theme of strong influences on me as I began to think about what and how and why we learn. I grew up listening to my father read Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. The late Rev. Gilbert J. Horn was a Presbyterian minister who for thirty years performed his own abridged version of the classic tale for the congregations he served in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, and Colorado. For me as a very young child, Dad's distinctive vocal characterizations gave the story flesh and bone. Through his voice, it leapt from the page into my imagination every Christmas Eve. I was amazed, delighted, and a little scared, all at once. It’s not hard to draw a line from these childhood experiences to my career as an English teacher. I don’t know of any way I more surely internalized the power of story. I began reading A Christmas Carol in Westfield, New Jersey in 1998, and I am honored to continue the tradition. Today's episode includes the 20th annual performance, recorded live at First Baptist Church on December 16th, 2017. donation informationSince 2000, all proceeds from this reading have been donated to Grace’s Kitchen in Plainfield, New Jersey, which serves hungry families the last 5 days of every month, every year. If you’d like to make a contribution, mail a check made out to PLAINFIELD COMMUNITY OUTREACH to Plainfield Community Outreach at 600 Cleveland Avenue Plainfield, NJ 07060. All donations are tax-deductible.  With John Brzozowski, Michael Rosin, and Justin Rosin at the 2016 performance Today’s episode features Michael Rosin on organ, including his original remix of Shayfer James' "Weight of the World" that we're using for intro and outro. During the live performance, piano preludes are usually performed by Justin Rosin. The Westfield High School Concert Choir was prepared by its directors, John Brzozowski and Maureen Francis. I'm grateful to the Choir and all other participants, this and every year, for donating their time. Members of the Westfield Concert Choir rehearsing before the 2017 performance Episode Transcript More thanks: During the reading, Robyn Lee Horn played the part of Ebenezer’s onetime fiancée Belle. Kevin Johnson engineered sound for the live taping, and Ed Lara assisted with video for the YouTube version.  Capturing Michael Rosin's improvisations on a theme by Shayfer James  With Bill Mathews Marley to my Scrooge for so many years, it was William R. Mathews who invited me to read at First Baptist, the church which has welcomed me back for two decades. Bill was then the organist and choirmaster of First Baptist Church, as well as a colleague of mine at Westfield High School. It's a pleasure to continue performing with him in Delaware these days.    

These guys taught me everything from how to drive to how to recognize a I-IV-V chord progression in a song. The weekend before Thanksgiving, I sat down with my older brothers, John, a trial attorney (right), and Gregory, a firefighter (center), to talk about learning and music. From them I learned as a boy that the characters on M*A*S*H have distinctive traits that might be played up or down in a given episode, and more recently how to gut and remodel the pink and black tile bathroom in Robyn's and my 1951 home. This episode drops on November 29th, 2017, which is, as it happens, John's 50th birthday. Maybe this explains why some brotherly discourse on parenting high school students and what's different about learning music descended periodically into roasting the eldest brother. All love, my man! Happy birthday. It's not just that John and Greg taught me lots of discrete things. They were models of how and who to be. Part of how they did that was during conversations not all that different from the one curated in this 36-minute episode. If you dig it as much as I did, we'll bring them back in Season 2 to talk about how we grow interested in what we open ourselves up to. Lemme know.  YouTube Version The ad hoc studio afforded this episode by Dognanny, an urban oasis offering unusually perfect pet care.  Episode Transcipt Greg's bathroom mirror, with material to be memorized for Buffalo Fire Department examinations

Today I'm talking with Maureen Mazzarese, an expert in social and emotional development. A therapist and counselor with four decades of experience, Maureen has worked with kids and parents of all ages, but this conversation focuses on adolescence--and the particular challenges it can present. We discuss "givens" of adolescent development, those normal tendencies that adults often forget. Then we talk about some basics of how to connect with teens (and a couple things to avoid). Parents, educators, employers, and friends of teens, this one's for you! For this episode's James Taylor-inspired soundtrack, special thanks to guitarists Justin Rosin and Jason Grant, and pianist Gil Scott Chapman. Opening and closing music by Shayfer James, whose songs should be heard and purchased here.  Above, a favorite shot of Maureen and me at the Princeton-Blairstown Center in New Jersey, the site of our annual retreat for high school students in Project '79 (photo by Ellen Muir). Below, what we look like facing the camera (photo by Gretchen M. Brand).  EPISODE STRUCTUREAct 1. Kids Today! What has changed—and what hasn’t—about adolescence. (04:02) Act 2. A few "givens" of adolescent development. The Personal Fable, The Invisible Audience, Not/Not-Now, and much more. (10:38) Act 3. Some basics of connecting with kids. (21:18) Act 4. Advanced Guidance: suicide, referral networks, and owning vulnerability. (32:39) Episode Transcript  SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIALSOne of Maureen's superpowers is listening. Here are some pointers that have stood me in good stead: When in doubt, listen. Two powerful tips I learned from Maureen about how and when to have difficult conversations.  Tone, tempo, timing, HALT! Where people sit (or stand) during conversations significantly influences the meeting's outcome.  Form follows function: some psychodynamics of re-arranging the furniture FEATURED MUSICIANSMaureen is a huge James Taylor fan, so I asked some friends connected to Westfield High School if they'd be willing to work up some stylized takes on JT hits for the soundtrack. Justin Rosin ("Fire and Rain") and Gil Scott Chapman ("Shed a Little Light") were once Westfield High School students. Justin Rosin Gil Scott Chapman Jason Grant recently retired from Westfield High School, where he taught social studies for nearly 20 years. He put his stamp on "Carolina in My Mind," "You've Got a Friend," and "Shower the People." Jason Grant

Writer detail from "Kitchen Mural" by Roy Chambers (2008). A quick trip through some ideas about writing that I want to live forever—a companion to last month’s crowdsourced theme “The Idea about Writing You Most Want to Die” that I discussed with that brilliant panel of educators at Bread Loaf (004). Afterwards, several people asked if I would be willing to highlight some ideas I have found most useful as a teacher of writing for two decades who continues to work with writing instructors as part of my consulting work in schools, so here are six of my favorites.   YouTube version Thanks as always to Shayfer James for our intro and outro. Buy his music here. Thanks to Roy Chambers and John Opera for suggestions for this episode's format and content. Thanks to you for listening, sharing, and offering feedback!  episode structureSome Ideas About Writing I Want to Live Forever: Ask students what they think. #stuvoice (01:46) Develop assignments based on your own favorites. (03:41) The Artist and the Editor (05:04) Alternatives to the 5-Paragraph Essay (08:09) Some questions I ask when designing assignments (10:36) Some thoughts on grading. (12:23) What writing sometimes looks like to me these days! Here's my podcast desk when I was making episode 004.  Episode Transcript Not a bad way to picture the Artist and the Editor ready to roll to a literary costume ball some July Saturday night in Vermont. Exploiting a less effective method to try to keep certain ideas about writing alive, Roy Chambers (who painted this episode's cover) appeared as Hunter S. Thompson. I went as F. Scott Fitzgerald--whose work, you may recall, would not have been so memorable but for his partnership with editor Maxwell Perkins.   Supplementary MaterialsNo. 3, The Artist and the Editor segment, refers to Anne Lamott’s book Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life (Anchor, 1994). Click for Goodreads review, etc. No. 6, Some thoughts on grading, cites Linda Christensen and her book Teaching for Joy and Justice: Re-Imagining the Language Arts Classroom (Rethinking Schools, 2009). The last chapter is called "Grading: Moving Beyond Judgment," which includes the eminently re-readable essay “My Dirty Little Secret: I Don’t Grade Student Papers.”   Toward the end of the show, I rail on standardized testing. Click button for some more thoughts about that ... High-stakes testing will always backfire.

This episode's panel (pictured left to right)--Stacy Rodgers, Amy McNeill, Robyn Lee Horn, and Sarah Murphy--just outside their rented farmhouse in Goshen, Vermont, August, 2017.  Five-paragraph essays. Writing for the teacher only. That careful writing is for English compositions, but not lab reports. That there's a formula for "good" writing. What is the idea about writing (or the teaching of writing) you'd most like to die? For this episode, a panel of current Master's students at the Middlebury Bread Loaf School of English consider a range of answers to this question.  Thanks to those who contributed responses to this crowdsource experiment, including Warren Hynes, Nancy Latimer, Eleanor Lear, Susan Lytle, Anthony Mormile, Alexis Anderson-Urriola, Cindy Casazza Assini, Jenni Brand, Kevin Amidon, Steve Ruskin, Noni Thomas Lopez, Heather Rocco, Daniel Turkeltaub, Al Morales, Jeff Nunokawa, and Lisa Marie Basile. Special thanks to Mark Wright (BLSE '89), whose magic piano scores this edition. (As usual, intro and outro appear courtesy of Shayfer James, whose music may be heard and purchased here.) Finally, thanks to Freakonomics Radio and Edge.org for inspiring the This Idea Must Die theme.  As you'll hear, the panelists are good friends who work in a range of settings, from the library of a K-12 independent school in New York City (Sarah Murphy) and the theater of a New Jersey county magnet performing arts high school (Robyn Lee Horn) to the English departments of public schools in Austin, Texas (Stacy Rodgers) and Salt Lake City, Utah (Amy McNeill). I find their voices helpfully distinct once you listen a little while, but if you want to be crystal clear on who said what, consult the detailed outline or transcript.  EPISODE STRUCTURE Sarah Murphy maintains composure during soundcheck. Here's the Teen Vogue article on "fake news" mentioned in her intro.  Act 1: Essays, including the dreaded 5-paragraph variety (05:12) Act 2: More authentic audiences for writing (13:15) Act 3: Author(s) and voice (18:37) Act 4: Purpose, grades, rules (23:41) Act 5: Process, difficulty, honesty, and doodling (32:31) Amy McNeill's Notebook Project Detailed Episode Outline Snapped this smile while Mark Wright was working out some harmonies for the soundtrack. Could have listened to him all day!  Episode Transcript

Second-year teacher English teacher Peter Horn with his supervisor Paula Roy in September, 1998 for Back-to-School Night at Westfield High School in New Jersey.  What's at the center of my educational philosophy? Student voice as a means to citizenship. Who taught me how to get at that? Nobody more than Paula Roy, the teaching supervisor who hired me to work at Westfield High School in New Jersey in 1997. In our conversation, we address the possibilities and the challenge of supervising teachers; how to establish a safe, yet challenging space for classroom discussion; why sarcasm doesn't work in groups; feminism as an f-word anybody can embrace; and poetry as a way to see how everything is connected.  Special thanks for this month's show to Shayfer James, whose amazing music charges the soundtrack. Thanks also to Roy Chambers throughout editing and production, and Al Morales for his inspired illustration. Episode StructureAct 1: Supervision (04:22) Act 2: Establishing a safe, yet challenging space for group discussion (11:02) SIDEBAR: Sarcasm vs. Humor (20:12) Act 3: The F-Word: Feminism (25:05) Act 4: Only Connect (31:18) For more details, see transcript and supplementary materials.  Episode Transcript "Curriculum" by Al Morales (2017). Used by permission. All rights reserved.  SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIALSPaula Alida Roy has published chapters in Women in Literature: Reading through the Lens of Gender (Greenwood, 2003)--addressing Lord of the Flies, Oedipus Rex, and Tess of the D'Urbervilles. Her essay "Language in the Classroom: Opening Conversations about Lesbian and Gay Issues in Senior High English" appeared in Overcoming Homophobia in the Classroom: Strategies that Work (Columbia University Press, 1997).  ACT 1: Supervision. Supervising other teachers can broaden your perspective, but you also have to decide who stays and who goes. Because Paula keeps kids at the center of her thinking, click for a related piece. It's the kids, stupid. ACT 2: Establishing a safe, yet challenging space for group discussion. Many of Paula's ideas for fostering a learning community in the high school classroom apply equally to any kind of team environment, as I comment at the end of the story. Click for more information.  36 Ideas for Leading Better Teams ACT 3: The F-Word: Feminism. Paula makes a case for understanding feminism as a lens for any issue related to social justice. At one point she mentions studies by the American Association of University Women (AAUW). Here’s their page with research links to 1991: Shortchanging Girls, Shortchanging America and 1992: How Schools Shortchange Girls.     ACT 4: Only Connect. Paula advocates using poems to make connections between disciplines, and between texts and the world. As somebody long fascinated with the idea that the word text comes from a Latin root (texere) meaning "to weave," I wrote this tribute to Jenny Holzer, John Dewey, and the relatedness of everything.  All things are delicately interconnected. Toward the end of the segment, I made a joke about the "Committee of Ten" that in 1892 exercised undue influence over the ways we still tend to conceptualize secondary education and its subject-based silos.  

Peter Horn and Bob Petix The current state of political discussion shows that somebody's got to provide a place for people to learn to listen and challenge each other respectfully. Speaking from 26 years of experience as a high school principal, Dr. Robert G. Petix shares some ideas about the importance of learning civil discourse for citizens, as well as the difference between really leading a school and merely managing it. Great thanks to Kevin Johnson, Al Morales, Shayfer James, Gregory Horn, Warren Hynes, Roy Chambers, and Robyn Horn for their assistance in helping me produce this episode. Songs sampled for intro ("Weight of the World") and outro ("Villainous Thing") from Counterfeit Arcade by Shayfer James. Used with permission, and available for listening and purchase at shayferjames.com. Episode StructureAct 1: Establishing and Maintaining a Culture of Learning That Takes Kids Seriously (including Preparing Students to Contend with Controversy, Hard Conversations, and Differencesof Perspective (06:28) SIDEBAR: Interpretation vs. Analysis (19:25) Act 2: The Role of the Principal, and Leading vs. Managing (23:57) For more details, check transcript and supplementary materials.  EPISODE TRANSCRIPT "Summertimes" by Al Morales.  SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIALSFor reasons described within, the soundscape of this episode samples 10 different versions of George Gershwin and DuBose Heyward's classic song "Summertime." The full versions appear as playlists on the podcast's YouTube channel. (There's also a YouTube version of the podcast audio for people who prefer this format.) Point of Learning YouTube Channel In Act 1, we discuss the formation of the first Gay-Straight Alliance in Union County, New Jersey, at Westfield High School. Hit the button for more information about the WHS GSA, and how to support LGBTQ students in your school. GSA Information We also discuss The Lysistrata Project, a worldwide demonstration against the second (and ongoing) War in Iraq. Here's the original article in the school newspaper, from March, 2003. Hi's Eye on The Lysistrata Project If you're interested in promoting civil discourse in your school, here are some ways to get started:  Teach Kids How (not What) to Think This article on engaging students as citizens was translated for use in the National Teachers Exam of France. Engage Students as Citizens The following article takes up the topic of individual perspective, and why our interpretations of the world always include some degree of bias. We see the world as we are, not as it is.

ILLUSTRATION: "Best ideas, every day" by Al Morales My pilot episode showcases a conversation with Kevin Johnson, sound engineer, director, television teacher--and a former student of mine. We open with Quentin Tarantino's definition of the frame as the basis for cinema. From there, we consider the technical (but useful) distinction between learning and acquiring skills, characters' names on Cheers, the many demands facing teachers today, and a different take on designing a school's master schedule.  Great thanks to Robyn Horn, Kevin Johnson, Shayfer James, John Opera, Jonathan Hiam, Roy Chambers, and Meghann Plunkett for helping me navigate the technical and creative challenges of this process. The cool ideas are mostly theirs; the cheesy ones, mine alone! Songs sampled for intro ("Weight of the World") and outro ("Villainous Thing") from Counterfeit Arcade by Shayfer James. Used with permission, and available for listening and purchase at shayferjames.com. Episode StructureAct 1: Teaching Media-Savvy Students (04:00) SIDEBAR: Acquisition vs. Learning (08:08) Act 2: Rethinking Scheduling (12:42) For more details, check out the transcript and related materials below.  EPISODE TRANSCRIPT   FOR FURTHER READING Act 1 of this podcast addresses the difference between learning and acquiring skills--a key concept for schools to consider, but also useful for businesses, families, and other learning organizations. For a quick overview, here's a blog post (and a reference worth checking out):  LEARNING VS. ACQUISITION Act 2 approaches an unconventional idea about assigning teachers differently, which involves a critical document--the master schedule--that every school has, but that few treat as a concrete expression of their values. To see why I believe you get a clearer sense for a school's mission from its schedule than from its mission statement:  WHERE TO READ WHAT A SCHOOL REALLY VALUES As I note in the conclusion, every school may not have a Kevin Johnson, but every organization has members (and clients and students) that it can learn from. This quick article paints a vivid picture of the difference it can make:  LEVERAGE THE HIDDEN TALENTS OF YOUR FACULTY AND STAFF