I edited the fifth, sixth, and part of the 7th season of MindShift, a podcast that explores the future of learning and how we raise our kids. The show looks at how teaching is evolving to better meet the needs of students and how caregivers can better guide their children. This means examining the role of technology, discoveries about the brain, racial and gender bias in education, social and emotional learning, inequities, mental health and many other issues that affect students. In addition to the longform episodes released each summer, MindShift also produced monthly minisodes that include interviews with experts and perspectives from students.
By fall 2020, in districts around the country, high school students were failing classes at greater rates than before the pandemic, dragging down GPAs. Teachers are asking: is it time to reevaluate how we grade? Learn common misconceptions about grades in this episode and possible new directions.
With social distancing, stay-at-home orders and remote learning during the pandemic, many caregivers allowed more screen time than usual. Teenagers’ screen time doubled during COVID, and now many caregivers and parents are afraid their kid’s screen time has gone overboard. Dr. Anna Lembke, author of “Dopamine Nation,” makes the case for how technology, with its promise of nonstop engagement and flashing lights, can be addictive.
As a child, Connie Williams learned to read using the “whole word” strategy, which has since been disproven as an effective technique. She graduated high school in Oakland, but she was functionally illiterate. Since then, her children and grandchildren have attended Oakland public schools, all of them struggling to learn to read. And it wasn’t just her family -- the district is failing thousands of kids. Now, Connie Williams is part of a movement of families advocating for phonics instruction, hoping that different teaching strategies will help their kids finally learn how to read well enough to access the rest of their education. After all, equal access to education is supposed to be a civil right.
When Ashanti Branch started the Ever Forward Club, he was a high school math teacher trying to figure out why the young men in his classes weren’t succeeding. He found they were craving what he desired as a kid too -- a safe place to be themselves, to show emotion, to get support without fear of judgment. When Ashanti gave them that, their success surprised everyone. It’s now his life’s work to support other educators to create spaces where boys can be vulnerable, share their feelings, and feel supported by other boys.