No Wrong Answers

Teachers: Greg Brenner (high school government); Jaime Meyers (middle school English); Jason Steliga (high school science).

Summer is here for our teachers! Well, almost here. (Sorry Greg.) And they are in a reflective mood.

First up: what does the alleged assault of a journalist by a politician in Montana say about our societal norms? Does it change, at all, how teachers feel about counseling kids to not use violence to solve their problems? Plus, we tackle teen pregnancy. The story of one girl who was barred from walking at her school’s graduation went viral. What do schools do well (and not so well) about dealing with the challenge of teen pregnancy? Finally, our teachers look back on the students--that for better and worse--made an impact on them this year.

• One conservative commentator called the case of Greg Gianforte a “moral test” for the Republican Party.

• The case of Maddi Runkles in Maryland drew national attention to how her school punished her for her pregnancy.

• The Atlantic’s new audio project “What My Students Taught Me” inspired our teachers to think of students who have impacted them.

Kids These Days:

• Jaime: Fidget spinners are still in and getting ever-more sophisticated.

• Greg: His students are all about getting summer jobs. The most popular places to land? The farmer’s market and a local amusement park.

• Jason: He’s soaking in the graduation parties thrown by his students’ families. He’s now been around long enough that it will be the third child from that family he’s gone to a graduation party for.

Music used in this episode is Inspiring Corporate and Scottish Indie by Scott Holmes; all have been edited.

Teachers: Maddie Burkemper (4th grade … all of it); Princeston Grayson (middle school gifted and talented); and Rebeka McIntosh (elementary alternative education)

This week, we can’t not talk about the crazy week that was in Washington. (Here’s a recap. Believe us: you need it.) Our teachers say they used to read the news to decompress from school. No longer. Then, we tackle President Donald Trump’s proposed federal education budget, which would completely eliminate funding for a variety of programs, from gifted and talented education to civics education. Finally, has your school gone “full Google?” Our teachers’ schools have all gone one-to-one or are in the process of going one-to-one with Google Chromebooks. Is this a good thing?

Read:

•  The Washington Post’s break down of Trump’s proposed education budget.

• The New York Times has a fascinating story about the “Googlification of education.”

Kids These Days:

• Maddie: She says her kids are still talking about the chant their class came up with for their school’s Field Day. (Maddie demonstrates during the episode.)

• Princeston: Signed any student yearbooks lately? Princeston has. A lot.

• Rebeka: It’s that time of the year. The final days of the school year are a time for time-killing games and activities. You know what we’re talking about.

A big trend in public education currently is something called “Maker education” or “Maker learning.” There isn’t one universally settled upon definition though its proponents generally use terms like “hands on” and “learner-focused” to describe it.

Benjamin Herold writing in Ed Week said “maker learning” refers to a “wide variety of activities (from computer programming to sewing) that support the development of a mindset that values playfulness and experimentation, growth and iteration, and collaboration and community.

Maker education is part of the broader, loosely organized ‘Maker Movement’ of tinkerers, DIYers, computer programmers, and hackers who put a lot of stock in the act of creation itself and the experimentation and failure that often goes into that.

As you may be able to tell, there’s a lot of buzzwords to sift through when talking about “Maker education.” But what does this look like in schools?

We wanted to try and answer that question. And in the Kansas City metro area where No Wrong Answers tapes there are few schools to get that answer more clearly than Lewis and Clark Elementary in Liberty, Missouri. The school has undergone a revolution of sorts in how teachers their teach and how students learn. And that’s due in large part to the school’s implementation of Maker strategies.

We went there and did something we’ve never done: a live taping of our podcast in front of a small audience of teachers, parents, and students. We wanted to ask people in Lewis and Clark’s community what “Maker education” has meant to them.

Music used in this episode is Inspiring Corporate and Scottish Indie by Scott Holmes; all have been edited.

Teachers: LuAnn Fox (high school English); Elaine Jardon (middle school math); Jason Steliga (high school science)

This week, Besty DeVos is back. The Secretary of Education gave the commencement address recently at Bethune-Cookman University and boy, did it get ugly. Then, we talk chronic absenteeism, what federal DOE officials have called a “hidden crisis” in American education. But it’s not just the stereotypical trouble-making skippers that miss a lot of class. Finally, we tackle a new Pediatrics study that says bullying is down...way down. So why doesn’t it feel like it to our teachers?

• Watch excruciating video of Betsy DeVos’s Bethune-Cookman commencement address.

• Read some eyebrow-raising federal stats about chronic absences.=

• This Pediatrics study says bullying in American schools is dropping precipitously.

Kids These Days:

• Luann: Students taking Advanced Placement tests aren’t supposed to talk, text, or tweet about the exams on test day. But they do.

• Jason: Chance the Rapper was in town. His students’ heads exploded.

• Elaine: Even though she’s still on maternity leave, her students are grade-grubbing at the end of the semester. Ah, the satisfaction of being able to delete on their emails...

Music used in this episode is Inspiring Corporate and Scottish Indie by Scott Holmes; all have been edited.

Everyone’s talking about the new Netflix series “13 Reasons Why,” and our teachers are no exception. Some praise its frank portrayal of serious adolescent issues like suicide, sexual assault, and drug abuse. Others say it glamorizes suicide and could be a trigger for kids struggling with depression and suicidal thoughts. Good or bad, our teachers say it’s definitely sparked discussion, and not always the ones they were anticipating.

Plus, new research from Johns Hopkins University quantifies further the positive effect black teachers can have on black students. Having at least one black teacher in elementary school enhances the likelihood a black student will graduate high school. But while some say the obvious answer is, “Hire more black teachers!” our teachers say we also need to better train the white teachers who still make up the majority of our nation’s teacher workforce.

Finally, if your school had a room for teachers go to smash things in order to relieve stress, would you use it? One elementary school principal in Maryland got in hot water with parents for creating a “smash space” for her teachers. Our teachers say, “What’s the big deal?”

Music used in this episode is Inspiring Corporate and Scottish Indie by Scott Holmes; all have been edited.

We just completed National Poetry Month in April and we recently asked some of our teachers…for a little bit of show-and-tell to celebrate that. We wanted them to pick examples of a poem, or an excerpt of a poem they have found personally or professionally inspirational as teachers. Or maybe a poem that has been used to particularly good effect in their classroom, that resonated with students.

Maddie Burkemper, Jaime Meyers and David Muhammad brought us their poems. And David started us off. If you didn’t know, he’s a rapper in his spare time outside the classroom.

Music used in this episode is Inspiring Corporate and Scottish Indie by Scott Holmes; all have been edited.

Above photo courtesy of Kevin Dooley

Music used in this episode is Inspiring Corporate and Scottish Indie by Scott Holmes; all have been edited.