Jacob Johnson, aka Grade Slayer shares his continuing journey on going gradeless and gives help for any teacher who wants to start. This is my fourth episode that deals specifically with going gradeless or ungrading and each episode adds a different dimension which brings more to the conversation- one of the most important conversations in education right now. And of course, at the end of our discussion, Jacob is subjected to The 5-Minute Game Show.

The fauxmercial is a parody of those old record compilations commercials, and the incredibly talented Barbara Heller was kind enough to record the songs for me. And she actually recorded longer versions and even made-up some verses. Unfortunately, the fauxmercial was already getting long so I had to edit them down. However, Barb has such a stellar voice that I knew I had to put the long, unedited version at the end of the podcast.

My special thanks to Jacob Johnson and to my fauxmercial helpers, Barbara Heller, Yossie Frankel and writer and Assistant Producer, Eve Hirschman.

Don’t forget to check out the Overthrowing Education swag on the website.

Links and Resources:

Jacob on Twitter

Ungrading blog post by Susan D. Blum

Ungrading: Why Rating Students Undermines Learning (and What to Do Instead) by Susan D. Blum

Can Skateboarding Save Our Schools? TedX talk by Dr. Tae