16:1 - Education, Teaching, & Learning

In the early 20th century, Afghanistan might have been described as one of the most progressive countries in Central Asia in terms of women's rights. Afghan women first became eligible to vote in 1919 - a year before the United States enshrined a woman's right to vote with the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment. Afghan women were able to attend school, hold jobs, and participate in public life after a series of progressive reforms introduced by King Amanullah Khan, who ruled the country from 1919 to 1929.

Amanullah's wife, Soraya Tarzi, was also a strong advocate for women's rights; she founded the first women's magazine in Afghanistan and worked to improve the lives of women in the country. However, the reforms of Amanullah Khan and Soraya Tarzi were met with resistance from many traditional Afghans. In 1929, a rebellion broke out against Khan, and he was forced to abdicate. He and Soraya fled to Italy, where they lived in exile until their deaths.

The new government reversed many of Amanullah's reforms, including the abolition of purdah (the practice of female seclusion prevalent among some Muslim and Hindu communities) and the right of women to vote and hold office. Women were once again forced to stay in seclusion and were denied access to education, employment, and social opportunity. Rights and progress for women and girls in Afghanistan continued to deteriorate with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 and subsequent rise of various Mujahideen groups that plunged the country into economic chaos and civil war. 

The Taliban came to power in Afghanistan in 1996 and imposed harsh restrictions on women and girls, including banning them from attending school. The US-led invasion of 2001 in response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks resulted in the adoption of some progressive reforms, and in the years following the invasion, the number of girls enrolled in school in the country stabilized at about 3.5 million. However, the Taliban again seized power in Afghanistan after US-led forces withdrew from the region in 2021, which destroyed much of the progress that had been made for women's rights in the country. Secondary schools and universities are presently closed to women in Afghanistan, and girls and women currently pursuing education in Afghanistan do so at great risk to themselves and their families.

Join us as we discuss the increasingly dire situation for women and girls in Afghanistan, the pressures being applied by the international community, and the ways in which Afghan women are fighting back against the dissolution of their rights and freedoms.

Sources & Resources:

BBC News - The secret schools teaching girls in Afghanistan

TED Talk - Shabana Basij-Rasikh: The dream of educating Afghan girls lives on

Britannica - Afghan War

U.S. Withdrawal from Afghanistan

JSTOR - CHAPTER TWO Historical Overview: 20th-Century Security Aid to Afghanistan Before the Soviet Invasion

Aljazeera - Taliban says women banned from universities in Afghanistan

The Guardian - Taliban ban girls from secondary education in Afghanistan by Emma Graham-Harrison

The Economic Times - Taliban claims closure of girl's school "temporary", says not a "permanent ban"

United Nations - Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed’s press conference upon her return from Afghanistan

The White House - FACT SHEET: Let Girls Learn – A Comprehensive Investment in Adolescent Girls Education

Editorials - Boosting Let Girls Learn in Afghanistan

Wikipedia - FCC Fairness Doctrine

Wikipedia - Ed Godfrey

Buried Beneath the Baobab Tree By Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani, Viviana Mazza 

The Guardian - Trump administration may scrap Michelle Obama's health and education programs by Tom McCarthy

Counter Terrorism Guide - Boko Haram

Wikipedia - Boko Haram

Earth Day History

Youth civic engagement and volunteerism are critical components of building and sustaining strong and vibrant communities. Participating in these activities helps us feel a sense of ownership, responsibility, and pride in the places where we live and work. Engaging today's students in volunteerism and civic action can be a significant challenge, particularly given the numerous distractions and pressures that exist in their daily lives.

As we look at the challenges of engaging younger demographics, some of the most significant obstacles we face are structural— but not insurmountable! To address issues of access, inclusion, resource limitations, and awareness that keep youth voting participation low and national rates of volunteerism falling, we must guarantee that the support structures we build around civic activity are designed to help students tackle real problems in their communities and experience the impact of their efforts.

Sources & Resources:

Key Club

ScienceDirect - Promoting civic and political engagement among marginalized urban youth in three cities: Strategies and challenges by Brady, Chaskin, and McGregor

University of Maryland - School of Public Policy - Where Are America's Volunteers by Dietz and Grimm

Education Week - Volunteerism Declined Among Young People by Sarah D. Sparks

United States Census Bureau - At Height of Pandemic, More Than Half of People Age 16 and Over Helped Neighbors, 23% Formally Volunteered by Erin Schneider and Tim J. Marshall

Education Commission of the States - 50 State Comparison

Bloomberg - Why Americans Stopped Volunteering by Linda Poon

The Chronicle of Philanthropy - Americans Are Volunteering Less. What Can Nonprofits Do to Bring Them Back? By Leslie Lenkowsky

A Less Charitable Nation: The Decline of Volunteering and Giving in the United States by Dietz and Grimm

Tufts - Tisch College - Half of Youth Voted in 2020, An 11-Point Increase from 2016

Tufts - Tisch College - Growing Voters: Engaging Youth Before they Reach Voting Age to Strengthen Democracy

youth.gov - Service Learning

We Are Teachers - What Is Service Learning?

Center for Public Research and Leadership - Education for Change - Student-Led Civic Engagement Resource List

Twitter - Aretha Franklin singing Nessun dorma

In this special guest episode of 16:1, Katie and Chelsea are joined by Dr. Gisele C. Shorter, the Director of National Education Strategy at the Raikes Foundation, an organization with a mission to "[invest] in youth-serving institutions and systems to make them more effective in supporting and empowering all young people, especially those who have been most marginalized."

Dr. Shorter discusses her work at the intersection of philanthropy and building equitable learning environments in K-12 schools, a role through which she empowers educators, policymakers, grantmakers, schools, support orgs, and communities to center the student experience. The discussion ranges from topics of classroom instruction, funding, and the science of learning and development to the educational policy initiatives that bolster community engagement and drive student success. Gisele and the hosts also explore the processes of defining goals and outcomes and measuring success with partner schools and educators, undertakings that can be difficult against a challenging cultural and political backdrop.

The show concludes with a discussion of the ideal role of philanthropic partners in transforming educational experiences, a few questions about how Dr. Shorter sees her work evolving over the next decade, and a list of resources that she recommends for educators who are striving to build more equitable learning communities. Stick around for "What We Learned" if you're into trivia on transistors, maple syrup bottles, and a parting thought about doing the hard work of naming what's happening in our schools.

Dr. Gisele C. Shorter provides strategy, policy, impact scaling and fundraising consulting services to non-profits, coalitions and advocacy groups to help them expand their reach and strengthen their impact.

Gisele’s career is rooted in a deep belief that an equitable society starts with an equitable education system. For 20 years, she has led large-scale community-based programs, research and policy initiatives to advance justice and equity, close health disparities, and ensure access and opportunities for Black and Brown youth and communities to flourish.

Dr. Shorter has led youth development, education and community-based organizations through programmatic resets, large-scale culture change initiatives and strategic re-engineering. In 2018 she was recruited to the Raikes Foundation to lead the K-12 School & System Redesign portfolio focused on a commitment to grow the foundation’s impact and to advance justice and equity in the redesign of our national public education system by leveraging the science of learning and development.

The heartbeat of the K-12 portfolio is the Building Equitable Learning Environments (BELE) Network. Today she is responsible for impact and strategy coherence across the K-12, postsecondary, education fieldbuilding, and policy portfolios, as the Director of the National Education Strategy. She ensures grantmaking investments advance education policies and practices that support students furthest from educational justice, including those experiencing homelessness, foster care, and the justice system.

Gisele began her career in the private sector with leadership experiences including Volume.com, an AOL Time Warner company, where she was Head of Research and ESPN, Inc. where she was a Program Management Associate. She has successfully leveraged her private sector experience, community connections, and academic training to drive positive change on behalf of the most vulnerable youth and communities.

She is an adjunct professor and founding faculty member of the EdD in Leadership and Innovation degree program at NYU Steinhardt Department of Administration, Leadership, and Technology. She advises doctoral students on a wide range of complex problems of practice, from the role of philanthropy in China’s evolving socio-political context to the role of district superintendents as agents for change.

Dr. Shorter earned her Ed.D. from Columbia University Teachers College. She holds an M.P.A. from Long Island University and a B.A. from Amherst College. She is a Pahara Aspen Fellow and member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network.

Sources + Resources:

Raikes Foundation - Introducing Gisele C. Shorter

Building Equitable Learning Environments Network

The BELE Resource Library

NYU Steinhardt Faculty

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention - Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACES)

Search Institute - The Developmental Relationships Framework

National Assessment of Educational Progress

Communities for Just Schools Fund

Kingmakers of Oakland

Council of Chief State School Officers

WestED

Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL)

The BARR Center

The School Superintendents Association

Resource Equity Funders Collaborative

Ipsos

Middle school is a period of intense growth and change for students in K-12 schools in America. In this episode, Katie and Chelsea return to their developmental psychology 101 days to discuss the academic, social, and behavioral challenges and changes faced by middle schoolers and their families.

As 11-15 year olds develop their identities, uncover new insecurities and anxieties, and prepare for the increasing responsibilities of middle school academics, it's important to keep a pulse on their mental health. Middle school is the world of emergent cliques and social hierarchies, and the pressure to fit in is keenly felt. Social media also plays a role in the social dynamics of middle school, and the cyberbulling epidemic doesn't look to be abating any time soon. Despite these challenges, middle school is also a time of tremendous growth and discovery. Adolescents are developing critical thinking skills, empathy, and social awareness. Middle school is a chance for students to explore new interests, join clubs or sports teams, and form friendships that may end up lasting for decades.

If you're a middle school teacher, we'd love to hear from you. Tell us about the challenges and rewards of making a difference in the lives of young students!

Sources & Links:

American Psychological Association - Middle school malaise

CDC - Young Teens (12-14 years of age)

A Comparison of Program Development at Elementary, Middle, and High Schools in the National Network of Partnership Schools Mavis G. Sanders and Beth S. Simon

Harvard Ed. Magazine - Do Middle Schools Make Sense? by Mary Tamer

How the Junior High School Came To Be

New York State School Boards Association - What the research says about K-8 schools vs. separate elementary and middle schools By Paul Heiser

Science Direct - How does grade configuration impact student achievement in elementary and middle school grades? by Kai Hong, Ron Zimmer, John Engberg

This week, we're tackling big questions about how technology is evolving classroom learning. From the unsolved problem of search (just Google it!) to 1:1 device programs, from the possibilities of virtual reality to the intricacies of ChatGPT and its competitors: we're analyzing current trends, platforms popular with students in 2023, and what might come in the future as we brace for a digital dystopia potentially populated with deep fakes.

Correction: During the show, the number of circulations of digital titles commonly used by publishers to "expire" eBooks in circulation was underestimated; rather than 10 circulations, the accepted standard seems to be closer to a whopping 26.

Sources:

EdTech Magazine: Tech-Savvy School Librarians Provide Value to Modern Learners by Amy Burroughs

Jacobs Media Strategies: Getting Schooled By A Bunch Of High School Students by Paul Jacobs

Inside Higher ED: Pandemic Boost for Digital Course Materials by Doug Lederman

Study Finds: Libraries are more popular than ever — even as people borrow fewer books by Chris Melore

UNICEF - Accessible Digital Textbooks

Science Direct - Understanding the role of digital technologies in education: A review by Abid Haleem, Mohd Javaid, Mohd Asim Qadri, Rajiv Suman

WordsRated: Educational Publishing Statistics

Scientific American - The Reading Brain in the Digital Age: The Science of Paper versus Screen by Ferris Jabr

jaltcalljournal - Virtual reality in education: The promise, progress, and challenge by Ryan Lege and Euan Bonner

stream - 36 EdTech Statistics & Facts: The State of Technology in Education by Sarah F. 

TechCrunch - US teens have abandoned Facebook, Pew study says by Amanda Silberling

eLending Position Paper

The Surprisingly Big Business of Library E-books

In this episode, we'll be going in-depth covering graduation requirements for high school students in the United States. Graduation requirements vary by state, district, and school, but we’ll cover credits and courses, standardized tests, and several alternative pathways to graduation for students pursuing career readiness or military enlistment.

Sources:

Fordham Institute - Ohio Education by the Numbers

Ohio Department of Education - Ohio Graduation Requirements

Public Policy Institute of California - Does Raising High School Graduation Requirements Improve Student Outcomes? by Niu Gao

National Center for Education Statistics - Graduation Rate

High School Graduation Requirements - CalEdFacts

Demonstrating Readiness | Graduation Seals - Ohio Department of Education

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics - 61.8 percent of recent high school graduates enrolled in college in October 2021

Foreign exchange student programs offer students the opportunity to study abroad and immerse themselves in a new culture. These programs provide a unique opportunity to broaden a student's perspectives and to learn a new language through immersion. They also give young learners a chance for personal growth and development, as students must navigate unfamiliar social, political, economic, and cultural landscapes during the course of their programs. Learn about the exchange student experience on this week's episode of 16:1!

Exchange Visitor Visa - U.S. Department of State

Study in Europe with Student Visas and ETIAS

About International Student Exchange (ISE)

Twitter - New York Metro Weather

Wikipedia - Emo of Friesland

IMDB - Abbott Elementary

Wikipedia - Schengen Area

Gizmodo - Dungeons & Dragons Scraps Plans to Update Its Open Game License By Linda Codega

Special education encompasses policies, classroom practices, and legislative approaches to advancing the learning of exceptional students. These students may require specialized instruction, resources, or other support services. Special education programs may include individualized education plans (IEPs), 504s, or other accommodations to meet the unique needs of each student. The goal of special education is to provide students with the skills and knowledge they need to reach their full potentials and to participate as fully as possible in their communities. This week on 16:1, we're diving into the details and analyzing the work of intervention specialists, administrators, and policy makers who advance the goals of special education for students across the country.

Sources:

The Ohio State University - Special Education

Ohio Department of Education - Special Education

Ohio Department of Education - Ohio Positive Behavioral Interventions & Supports

Encyclopaedia Britannica - Special Education

US Department of Education - The Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP)

U.S. Department of Education’s Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)

Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) - Data

The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) - Overview of Funding for Pre-K–12 Education

Understood - The difference between IEPs and 504 plans

B.I.G Solutions - 13 Categories of Disability Under IDEA Law

There are millions of content creators around the world generating and sharing educational content (videos, articles, photos, podcasts, and other resources) intended to help students and teachers learn across a wide array of subjects, crafts, and disciplines. These creators provide media and materials that can be useful in classrooms or as supplementary materials for self-directed learning. At 16:1, we love to see creators sharing their love of learning, and in this episode, we're highlighting some of our favorites. Happy 2023, listeners!

Sources:

YouTube - In A Nutshell

TED - Education

Crash Course

SciShow

How Stuff Works

NatGeo - How Things Work

Laura Randazzo

TikTok - Risha Allen

TikTok - Mr. Hamilton

Twitter - Big Bird Joke

Taylor Jenkins Reid - The Book Loft

Episode Transcript:

A Love Letter to Learning

Happy holidays, 16:1 listeners, and welcome to another special episode of the podcast. Several weeks ago in episode 72, you heard my co-host and co-creator Katie’s audio essay called “A Love Letter to Teaching.” If you haven’t listened to that episode yet, check it out— it’s a timely and heartfelt reflection on what it means to be an educator. 

As many of you know, I’m not a classroom teacher. I thought I wanted to be for quite a long time, and part of me occasionally still wonders whether I missed my calling. The fact that I get to do this podcast about education, teaching, and learning fills some of that hole in my heart left by my decision to pursue a career outside of academia, and the thought that you listeners have been willing to tag along with me on this journey is hugely inspiring.

Katie and I started this podcast in part because we found ourselves asking a lot of big questions about education in our down time. Many of these questions have been rattling around in my head for years, and I came to many of them because I have benefitted from exceptional educational opportunities in my life. As a kid, my parents supported a voracious reading habit and stood by patiently to help with homework, college applications, and managing an absurd extracurricular schedule. My public school teachers were patient, hardworking, and dedicated to nurturing each and every one of their students’ pilgrimages toward growth and success. In college and grad school, the habits of curiosity that I’d been developing and deepening for years helped me navigate some of the most lasting questions of philosophy, mathematics, language, music, physics, and more.

Asking difficult questions is a skill. Finding out which questions matter most to you is also a skill. I’ve been so lucky to be in educational contexts where these skills are recognized as such— techniques to be practiced, expanded, refined, and forged in the fires of an increasingly interconnected and polarized world. 

Both professionally and personally, I’ve adopted what I suppose you could call a learning-focused worldview. Learning drives me. It gets me out of bed in the morning. We can always learn! About everything! We can learn about our jobs and academic interests. We can learn how to be better partners and family members. We can learn to be better citizens and stewards of the environment. We can learn to affect sociopolitical change. We can learn about our own bodies and how to take better care of them. We can even learn how to be better learners.

We have so many opportunities to learn. Public libraries provide vast resources for the edification of a global citizenry. Nonprofits and educational organizations around the world are investing in initiatives that reach underserved communities and introduce more equity in educational opportunity. 

While most people look at the internet and see the havoc wrought by various social platforms and media engines (and, trust me, I also see all of that mess), the internet has also democratized access to humankind’s accumulated knowledge. There are so many people out there creating so many deeply compelling and informative videos, courses, books, articles, and podcasts. (I listen to SO. MANY. PODCASTS.) There is an app for every kind of learning— you can learn languages, you can learn to build a business, you can learn about space travel and playing tennis and how to train your dog. There are millions of volunteers dedicating their time to moderating and curating online communities built entirely around learning. All of this contributes to the increasingly important idea that internet access should be treated as a fundamental human right. Though we’ve got a long way to go on this front, there’s plenty of inertia in the right direction.

Amidst all of this overabundance of educational opportunity, however, there’s a growing undercurrent of skepticism about learning, the kinds of learning that we do, and the politics and purpose of learning. Inspiring curiosity is the primary and most difficult job of an educator, and this job becomes more arduous with every passing day. Our attention spans are waning; cultural and political forces reward being loud and controversial as opposed to being thorough, disciplined, and logical. Earnestness and an eagerness to learn are seen as cringeworthy; propaganda and conspiracy theories inundate us. 

Learning is highly politicized, and that’s probably because learning is (among other things) a political act. Alongside our families, friends, and coworkers, it is what shapes our values and helps us decide what is important and what is just. Knowledge is transformational; it is what turns passive people into engaged citizens. Learning makes leaders— good ones and bad ones. Learning shapes our electorate. Some of our leaders recognize the power of learning, and some of them are afraid of that power. We are banning books, we are cutting humanities programming, and we are reducing the rich and complex undertaking of education to the task of “job preparation.” We need a cultural reset, and education is the best antidote for our collective sickness.

So what do we do about this? I think the first and simplest step each of us can take is to make a concerted effort to bring our friends and peers with us on our journeys of learning. On our podcast episodes each month, Katie and I always share at least one thing that we’ve learned since the last episode. This can make for some random tangents, but sharing about learning is how learning takes hold of our hearts and catches fire. Did you read an interesting article or book? Listen to an interesting podcast? Go to an interesting event? Tell your friends about it. Start book clubs. Write blog posts. Dive deep into difficult conversations. Become more than a passive consumer of information— pay attention to your own habits of learning and the sources from which that learning originates. Be willing to be wrong, and be willing to adapt to the feedback you will receive along your learning journey.

Turn down the volume of your conversations online, and turn up the value. Share generously. Replace political and cultural labels and generalizations with collections of thoughts, beliefs, and convictions. Realize that, despite appearances, most people are not out to get you. Most people are doing the best they can with the information that they have. Think of how much better we could do if we all expanded our horizons, listened to more voices from communities outside of our own, and approached learning as a process undertaken for the purpose of liberation.

Learn for learning’s sake, and learn broadly. This probably sounds like a chore to some people; I’m going to ask you simply to trust me that the effort is worth it. Read about topics in which you’ve never before been interested. Go deeper into the topics you already think you understand. Carve some time out of each day (even if it’s just a few moments) to learn something new. And support the teachers in your life! These are the people who have decided that liberation through learning is fundamental to humanity’s collective undertakings. Embrace the responsibility that we all have to guarantee a better future through education.

As we head into 2023, 16:1 would like to thank each one of you for walking with us on our own path of learning. We created this podcast primarily because we wanted to learn about the topics and ideas that we cover every other week on the show. We’re eternally grateful to those of you who have joined us in this adventure, and we’re looking forward to the next year of learning with you.