reeducated

In this conversation, I sit down with Elizabeth Robbin Bonawitz to explore one deceptively simple question: how do humans learn before they can even speak? We begin with early childhood and unpack how infants and young children actively explore the world, test hypotheses, revise beliefs, and build intuitive theories long before formal education begins. Rather than seeing learning as passive absorption, we examine it as a dynamic process driven by curiosity, exploration, and social information.

We dive deep into how learning works across the lifespan, focusing on the underlying rules of thought that remain surprisingly consistent from infancy through adulthood. We discuss intuitive theories, prior beliefs, and how evidence interacts with what we already think we know. Through concrete examples, from touching a hot stove to understanding gravity, we explore how people generalize experiences, revise mistaken beliefs, and decide which explanations to trust. This leads into a fascinating discussion about testimony, expertise, and why trusting others is both a strength and a vulnerability in human learning.

Toward the end, we focus on curiosity itself and why it matters so much for education. Elizabeth explains curiosity as the mental state that prepares the mind to learn, aligning attention, memory, and motivation before new information arrives. We talk about the difference between curiosity and motivation, why grades can sometimes suppress real learning, and how classrooms can be designed to support questioning rather than rote compliance. This episode is a deep reflection on learning as a human capacity that begins far earlier and runs far deeper than most educational systems recognize.

Chapters:

00:00 – Introduction
02:00 – What it means to study learning scientifically
05:00 – How infants learn before language
08:30 – Children as intuitive scientists
12:00 – Exploration, play, and hypothesis testing
16:00 – How prior beliefs shape what we notice
20:00 – Learning from evidence versus learning from people
25:00 – Trust, testimony, and social learning
29:30 – Why humans rely on others to understand the world
34:00 – When trust helps learning and when it misleads
38:00 – Curiosity as a mental state that prepares learning
42:00 – Curiosity versus motivation in education
46:00 – Why grades and rewards can suppress curiosity
50:00 – Designing classrooms that support questioning
54:00 – What education can learn from early childhood

In this conversation, I sit down with Ebony N. Bridwell-Mitchell to explore why so many well-intentioned education reforms fail once they reach real classrooms. We talk about the gap between policy design and day to day school life, and how organizational structures quietly shape what teachers, students, and leaders are actually able to do. Drawing from her experience as both a former classroom teacher and a scholar of organizations, she explains why good ideas often lose their power as they move through complex systems.

We dive into how schools function as layered institutions, from individual classrooms to districts and state systems, and why focusing on only one level misses the larger picture. She shares concrete examples of how schools become more concerned with appearances and compliance than with learning itself, and why efficiency often replaces deeper questions about purpose, meaning, and human development. We also discuss how social norms, professional identities, and unspoken rules influence whose voices are heard and whose ideas get ignored.

Throughout the conversation, we return to a central question: how can schools create conditions where real change is possible? Rather than searching for a single perfect policy or purpose, we explore the importance of making space for questioning, uncertainty, and multiple perspectives. This episode is a deep reflection on what it would mean to treat education not as a machine to optimize, but as a living system that requires trust, patience, and imagination.

00:00 – Introduction
02:00 – Ebony’s path from classroom teaching to organizational research
05:00 – Why education reform often fails in practice
09:00 – The gap between policy design and school reality
13:00 – Seeing schools as organizations, not just classrooms
17:00 – How systems shape teacher and student behavior
21:00 – Compliance, appearances, and institutional pressure
25:00 – Why good ideas lose power as they scale
30:00 – Professional identity and unspoken school norms
34:00 – Whose voices matter in reform conversations
38:00 – Efficiency versus meaning in education systems
42:00 – The danger of searching for one perfect solution
46:00 – Creating conditions for real change
50:00 – Trust, uncertainty, and adaptive leadership
55:00 – Rethinking reform as a long-term process
59:00 – Closing reflections on imagination and institutional change

In this episode, I speak with Jon R. Star, an educational psychologist whose work focuses on how students learn mathematics and how teachers can support deeper understanding rather than rote performance. We begin by discussing the gap between educational research and everyday classroom life, and how Jon has worked to bridge that divide by continuing to teach middle school math while conducting research. He shares how years of studying algebra, problem solving, and student thinking have transformed not only his research questions but also the way he shows up as a teacher.

Our conversation explores what mathematics actually is and why so many students experience it as distant, rigid, or purely about memorizing answers. Jon explains why math is a unique discipline centered on patterns, proof, and the search for truth, and why focusing only on usefulness or test outcomes misses its deeper value. We talk about the tension between abstraction and real-world relevance, the danger of teaching math as a means to future rewards, and how classrooms can instead invite students into genuine mathematical thinking that applies far beyond numbers.

The episode closes with a wider reflection on education, motivation, and the culture of competition that surrounds grades, college admissions, and achievement. Jon challenges the idea that learning must always be driven by external rewards, while also acknowledging the realities teachers and families face. Together, we explore whether it is possible to cultivate curiosity, wonder, and love for learning inside systems built around outcomes. This conversation is ultimately about math, but it is also about what it means to learn something deeply enough that it becomes a way of seeing the world.

Chapters:00:00 – Introduction
02:00 – Jon’s path into mathematics education
05:00 – Bridging research and real classrooms
08:00 – What mathematics actually is as a discipline
12:00 – Why students experience math as rigid and mechanical
16:00 – Process versus answers in math learning
20:00 – Flexibility, strategies, and mathematical thinking
25:00 – The role of abstraction and proof
30:00 – Real world relevance and its limits
35:00 – Grades, motivation, and external rewards
40:00 – Teaching curiosity inside outcome driven systems
45:00 – What deep understanding really looks like
50:00 – Learning for its own sake
55:00 – What math education could become

In this episode, I speak with Gabrielle Oliveira, an anthropologist whose work explores migration, parenting, and the lives of children moving across borders. We begin with her reflections on raising her own children and how becoming a parent reshaped the way she understood her research. She describes the gap between ideals and practice, the constant need for flexibility, and how every phase of parenting reveals something new about ourselves. That tension between theory and lived experience becomes a guide for understanding the families she studies.

Our conversation opens into the deeper human realities of global movement. Gabrielle explains why migration has always been a basic part of human life and how modern borders, surveillance, and fear have changed the story. She shares examples of children bringing memories of detention into classroom moments, showing how experiences of displacement appear in small, unexpected ways. We talk about xenophobia, inequality, and the narratives that shape who society considers deserving. Through her stories, it becomes clear that migration is not only about crossing a border but about carrying entire worlds of culture, memory, and hope into a new place.

The episode becomes personal as we explore what it means to not know. Gabrielle describes the humility required for ethnographic work, the thousands of hours she spent inside families’ homes, and the courage it takes to sit in discomfort without trying to control the narrative. We reflect on the importance of listening in education, on what it means for teachers to build trust with students, and on how curiosity can become a way of honoring the lives of others. This conversation is about migration, but it is also about wonder, responsibility, and the ongoing work of learning how to see.

00:37 — Meeting Gabrielle and her work on migration and parenting
02:00 — What parenting teaches us about uncertainty
04:30 — Ideals versus real life in teaching and caregiving
07:00 — Cultural stories about love, parenting, and childhood
09:00 — Migration as philosophy and lived experience
11:00 — How movement today differs from the past
13:30 — Borders, surveillance, and the politics of fear
16:00 — Racism, xenophobia, and narratives of who belongs
19:00 — Religion, culture, and the idea of "Western civilization"
21:00 — Immigration debates, infrastructure, and real constraints
24:00 — Fear of difference and how stories shape perception
25:30 — Education, assimilation, and the role of schools
28:00 — Why teachers rarely ask about students’ lives
30:00 — Classroom examples and the challenge of deep listening
33:00 — Trauma, trust, and how children express migration histories
36:00 — Teaching practices that help children feel seen
39:00 — How little we know and the humility to keep learning
41:30 — Expertise, lived knowledge, and the limits of certainty
45:00 — The nature of ethnographic research and deep hanging out
48:00 — Following conversations rather than directing them
51:00 — What fieldwork does to the researcher
55:00 — Curiosity, ego, and the meaning of attention

In this episode, I share the personal story of my car and the strange comfort it has given me over the years. It is more than a vehicle to me. It is a space where I have had some of my clearest thoughts, most honest conversations with myself, and a kind of quiet that I rarely find anywhere else. The car became a place where I could be alone without feeling lonely, where long drives opened up space to think about my life, my choices, and the direction I wanted to go.

I talk about how small moments with the car began to feel meaningful. The weight of the steering wheel, the first long drive I ever took, the times I sat in a parking lot just trying to breathe, and the sense of control and freedom that only driving can give. These moments became stories that shaped how I understand myself. I also reflect on the challenges the car has brought me, from unexpected breakdowns to the constant maintenance that mirrors the work we have to do on our own lives.

This episode is not really about a car. It is about the ways we attach meaning to the ordinary objects that travel with us through joy, confusion, heartbreak, and growth. My car became a companion during times when I needed stillness, movement, or escape. Sharing these reflections helped me see how something as simple as a drive can become a doorway into a deeper understanding of who we are becoming.

00:00 – Introduction
02:00 – How my car became a personal space
05:00 – The quiet moments that shaped my thinking
08:00 – Driving as freedom and escape
11:00 – The emotional weight of long drives
14:00 – Breakdowns, repairs, and learning responsibility
17:00 – Why the car feels like a companion
20:00 – Memories tied to familiar roads
23:00 – The comfort of solitude while driving
26:00 – What the car taught me about myself
29:00 – Letting go, holding on, and moving forward

In this episode, I speak with Jonathan Zimmerman, Professor of the History of Education at the University of Pennsylvania, about how schools shape democratic life and the tensions that sit at the heart of public education. We begin with the origins of modern schooling and how ideas about intelligence, ability, and citizenship became woven into the structure of the American school system. Jonathan explains how IQ testing, industrial labor needs, and nation-building all influenced what schools began to value and what they ignored.

Our discussion moves into the cultural and political forces that shape the curriculum. We talk about why certain topics like sex, religion, and race get censored or avoided, and how fear plays a powerful role in determining what children are allowed to learn. Jonathan describes how both order and liberty are essential to a functioning democracy, and how schools must teach students to follow rules while also giving them the courage to question them. This tension sits at the center of nearly every modern debate about schooling.

We close by reflecting on what true democratic education requires. Jonathan argues that teaching is an intellectual and moral craft, one that requires humility, curiosity, and a willingness to embrace uncertainty. He offers insights on how schools can cultivate independent thinking while still grounding students in shared norms, and why understanding history in all its complexity is essential for helping young people learn how to live with others in a diverse society.

00:00 – Introduction and Jonathan’s path into education history
03:00 – What intelligence has meant throughout U.S. schooling
06:00 – IQ tests and the rise of educational sorting
09:00 – Mass schooling and the needs of the economy
13:00 – Who gets to become a scientist and why
17:00 – Schools as “pillars of the republic”
21:00 – Nationalism, patriotism, and public identity
25:00 – Censorship, fear, and taboo topics in education
30:00 – Balancing order and liberty inside the classroom
34:00 – Sex education, religion, and the discomfort of disagreement
38:00 – Teaching young people how to think, not what to think
43:00 – Democracy, diversity, and the struggle for shared norms
48:00 – Why teaching is an intellectual and moral practice
51:00 – Closing reflections and hopes for the future of public education

In this episode, I sit down with Shaun M. Dougherty, Professor of Education and Policy at Boston College, to talk about how we measure learning and what our systems of assessment often miss. Shaun’s research focuses on education policy, equity, and the impact of accountability systems, and he brings both an analytical and deeply human perspective to the question of what counts as a good education.

We explore the evolution of standardized testing, the limits of quantitative measures, and the philosophy behind how societies define success. Shaun shares how his time as a teacher and administrator shaped his approach to research and why purpose and meaning must be at the center of any educational framework. We talk about literacy, curiosity, and the tension between learning for life and learning for advancement, asking how education can balance rigor with relevance.

This conversation moves between data science, ethics, and lived experience, connecting policy to purpose and measurement to meaning. It invites us to imagine an education system that values curiosity as much as compliance and measures growth not only by numbers, but by how deeply we connect to what we learn.

Chapter:

00:00 – Introduction: Who is Shaun M. Dougherty

02:00 – From Camp Counselor to Economist to Educator

05:00 – The Moment That Sparked His Interest in Education Research

08:00 – What Should We Measure in Education and Why

11:00 – Why Purpose and Meaning Matter More Than Metrics

15:00 – Can Curiosity and Connection Be Measured?

19:00 – The Problem of Test Preparation and the Loss of Authentic Learning

23:00 – Campbell’s Law: When Over-Measuring Changes What We Measure

27:00 – How Policy Shapes Schools and Student Motivation

31:00 – Grades, Purpose, and the Philosophy of Educational Signals

35:00 – Human Capital vs. Meaning: The Debate Behind Learning’s Purpose

39:00 – Inequality and the Uneven Impact of Standardized Testing

43:00 – The Role of Career and Technical Education as a Counterbalance

46:00 – What the Future of Educational Metrics Could Look Like

49:00 – Closing Reflections: Curiosity, Connection, and the Evolving Mind

Beyond Small Talk Summarized | Hosted By Mylon Kemp

Chapter 6: Conclusion | Beyond Small Talk: A Modern Framework for Understanding Someone Deeply.

Chapter Five: Challenges | Beyond Small Talk: A Modern Framework for Understanding Someone Deeply