The Shape of Education to Come

Teachers, in their ongoing work, must reconcile their roles, histories, communities, and identities. This may be of even greater relevance as we approach the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation and the fall equinox. This is a keynote session and Q&A with The Honourable Murray Sinclair, recorded on May 6th, 2022. It was part of the Professional Learning and Leadership Centre's "Flourishing Communities and Anti-Racist Practice" Speakers Series, funded by Winnipeg School Division.

It’s 2021 – what’s news with you? Maggie Macintosh knows! The Free Press Education reporter talks with me about the relationship between reporter and subjects, what people are interested in reading about, what “counts” as news, how you report on stories, truth in reporting, anonymous sources, and predictions for the news of 2021. And if you, like me, missed this article, here’s is Maggie’s mini-review of education in Manitoba: https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/education-special-568917622.html

This conversation with Michael Fullan packs a lot of big ideas relating to the nature and necessity of change (post-COVID and in general) and the role of technology going forward.

I reach Rebecca from her home (which is not a school but is a place of learning) to talk about her switch from working in the public school system to home schooling. There's lots of talk about what this entails, similarities and differences between home and public schooling, but also the differences between child and learner and teacher and parent.

We're back! Who better to join me than Ellen Bees, middle school teacher and Queen of Data on EduTwitter. We talk about the pandemic (how could we not?), classrooms of the past, present, and future, what success might mean this year, social justice, and media literacy.

President of the Manitoba Teachers Society James Bedford talks with me about the recent WE scandal, the presence of WE in schools, the 2017 MTS decision to not support WE, and what all that means for teachers.

Tara has a great Youtube channel, and you should all check that out! As that loads, you can listen to this! I talk to Tara McLauchlan about graphic novels, what high school literacy can or should look like, using tech in the classroom, using tech, online learning, and the 6Cs.

In a digital conversation, as is the way things go now, Michelle Arnaud talks with me about her experiences teaching in the inner-city, teaching Indigenous perspectives, what remote teaching looks like for her, and being an Online Teacher.

As we come to the end of the year, I chat with Jen Watt on the occasion of her podcast, Schools of Well-Being. She talks with me about what wellness, well-being, and well-making might look like in the context of working with students.

Graphic novelist and former teacher Gene Luen Yang talks with me James Naismith and Historica Moments, finding your footing in your first years as a teacher, a pivotal moment that shifted his teaching, the lessons we can learn about his attempts at video lessons, and what a teacher would need to know in order to teach a graphic novel well. And I geek out about comics.

It is a fact that I was trying to find someone who teaches phys. ed to come on the podcast for a long time. Between not knowing a lot of gym people and gym people being busy…it took awhile. But here we are! This week, I speak with Colin Donato about his remote phys ed teaching, what it means to be ‘good’ at gym and how to work with students who don’t like to participate, assessing success when everyone is running around and more!

I had two reasons to talk to Tim Callahan. First, he wrote about his Five Core Principles of Virtual Learning: something we ought to be thinking about as digital teaching seems like it might be around for awhile. The other reason was more selfish. I read Tim Callahan’s comic criticism yeaaarrs ago, especially his writing on Grant Morrison. So when I found out he’s a principal? Well, this just made sense. In this episode, we talk about Grant Morrison and comics, leadership lessons from Dungeons and Dragons, what’s happening in his school regarding COVID, and the five core principles of virtual learning.

In this episode, Joel Westheimer joins me to talk about what education means in pandemic times, citizenship, assessment and standardization - you know, all the fun stuff.

As we start wondering what school needs to look like and how we can get there, I speak with Didier Jourdan, holder of the UNESCO chair and WHO collaborating center for Global Health & Education, and Nicola Gray, Affiliated Researcher to the UNESCO Chair for Global Health & Education. We talk about their respective roles pre- and mid- COVID, the importance of reliable information, inequalities and those students with long term conditions, the impact of school closures on students and on COVID, conditions for re-opening schools, long-term implications, strategies for re-opening, challenges for social distancing in the classroom, and the actual question we’re asking when we ask “When can we re-open?” You can read their article in The Conversation referenced in the episode here: https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-there-is-an-urgent-need-to-re-open-schools-this-is-how-to-make-it-happen-137818

This is an episode about policing. It's an episode about race. It's an episode about education. It's an episode about identity. Listen carefully.

In another episode recorded back when things were normal, I talk with Marika Schalla! She tells her story of becoming a teacher, and in doing so, shares many lessons for how teachers can support their students, then we talk about teaching in the inner-city, the successes and challenges of being a first-year teacher, Indigenous woman, getting the knowledge to feel confident teaching Indigenous perspectives in the classrooms, teaching the water cycle and water teachings, land-based education, the need for discomfort, and math and science classes with all that in mind.

I talk with Geoff Krall about active caring his role as a coach, the context for teachers where he is, active caring remotely and otherwise, best remote math practices (if such a thing exists), and whether or not math teachers have a problem with caring. Oh, and we hear from his cat, which is genuinely joyful (as you will hear in my voice.) Check out his blog post on active caring here: https://emergentmath.com/2020/04/13/active-caring-now-more-than-ever/

Remember life three months ago? What a simpler time! You might wonder why we don't talk about the anxiety of living in a pandemic. Take a stroll with me back in time to what was approximately the 100th day of school and spoke with Geneviève Sprenger. We talk about Being president, dream MTSPDDay speakers, two different Edward Finneys, math education, unlearning to use textbooks, the pressure of teaching young students math, the 100 day conspiracy exposed, soccer as teaching identity, centres, inquiry, why parents might value French immersion over a full English class, soirees and Festival du Voyager, francophonie, and empathy and compassion.

Superintendents are teachers too. I called Brian O'Leary at his office.

I called Kirsten Thompson at her remote office.