Annick Rauch joins us to talk about how to grow, maintain, and nourish our students' emotional intelligence, plus tackle potential pitfalls. We speak about Canada's school system, as well as what progressive practices school systems should embrace.

Annick Rauch is a 1st and 2nd multiage French immersion teacher at Ecole Sage Creek School in Winnipeg, Manitoba. She maintains an active blog, where she speaks adamantly on new innovative practices in education, embracing the growth mindset, and making waves in educational change.

We talk about the teacher walk out occuring in Oklahoma, West Virginia, and Kentucky, with our opinion on the implications of this movement. We take an aggressive approach on what teachers can do to step up and revolt in their classrooms across the United States.

Photo credit: OKNews

Dr. Molly Ness joins us to talk about encouraging literacy in schools. What are the best practices to promote reading in and outside of the classroom? What should school reformers and progressive thinkers do to invigorate reading?

Molly Ness is a literacy expert, a reading clinician, a researcher and author, and a teacher educator. She holds a doctorate in Reading Education from the University of Virginia. Her research on reading comprehension instruction, student-generated questions, and teachers' instructional decisions has been published in national and international peer-reviewed journals. Her most recent book Think Big with Think Alouds was published in 2018 by Corwin Press. For the past twelve years, Dr. Ness has worked as a teacher educator and doctoral mentor at Fordham University in New York City. You can find her work via her website.

*Since recording this episode, we have made all of our materials free - check them out!

Denis Sheeran, author of "Hacking Mathematics: 10 Problems That Need Solving" speaks with us surrounding the current state of mathematics education. What is the goal of teaching mathematics? What changes do we need to see in the education system to bring about real mathematical thinking?

Denis Sheeran is a prominent speaker, Google Certified Educator, PD specialist, adjunct professor, and former innovative high school math teacher. Denis maintains a blog concerning his ideas on #MakeItReal.

Matt Beaudreau joins us to talk about Acton Academy - his self-directed learning center, as well as the issues that public schools face. How can we most effectively recognize and change the mindset of traditional educators? Is it even possible?

Matt Beaudreau, also known as "The Education Dude", is the school administrator of Acton Academy Placer, a public speaker, an adjunct professor, and professional development consultant. Matt focuses on classroom management and differentiated instruction that helps schools recognize their potential for self-directed learners.

It’s inevitable that you’ll see children lose their passion and love of learning from kindergarten to 12th grade. Why does this happen? What can we do to stop it?

We are joined by educator Brian Huskie, founder of Huskie’s Heroes – a program designed for promoting and administering self-directed learning of children. We talk about the idea of “consent” in education and how those in traditional schools can take charge of their learning.

Brian is a National Board Certified High School English teacher who has taught for ten years, holding a degree in School Administration. Brian is a veteran, who served in Operation Iraqi Freedom. He founded the Albany High/Capital District Refugee Scholarship Endowment and founded/operates Huskie's Heroes - a self-directed learning movement. Furthermore, he is the author of A White Rose: A Soldier's Story of Love, War, and School.

In this episode, we discuss the implementation of “No Tech 20” – a no electronics reading time designed to encourage reading. How do we get students to become lifelong readers? Why do people hate reading?

We are joined by educator Joel Hammon, co-founder of Liberated Learners and the Princeton Learning Cooperative, to talk about the vision, goals, and outlook of self-directed learning centers and the best possible outcomes for students.

Joel was a social studies teacher for 11 years before he became a co-founder and member of the Princeton Learning Cooperative -  a self-directed learning center in Princeton, New Jersey. Joel has an accomplished background including also being a co-founder of Liberated Learners, helping set up self-directed learning centers everywhere.

Joel is the author of The Teacher Liberation Handbook - a guide for teachers who work with students but despise the traditional model, looking into how to start one's own self-directed learning center.

In this episode, we introduce the point of our podcast, as well as our greater vision for education – talking about our journey towards establishing this movement and where we will go from here.

We hope you join us in a movement towards enlightening students, teachers, parents, and the greater community through progressive education.