Second Rail Education Podcast

Gerard Michols is a public philosopher from Upstate New York who had discussed and written prolifically about reflecting on life from nothingness through reason and ethics. On the podcast, John and Gerard discuss:

The primacy of philosophy in all decision-making

Preferences for and against philosophy as a driving force in human lives

The Ivory Tower’s failures

Contextualizing philosophy for everyone’s needs 

Types of decisions most appropriately suited to philosophical framing

Distinctions between philosophy and science

Philosophical frameworks versus philosophical situations

Language and reality

The process of philosophy instead of the idea of philosophy

Nothingness as the starting point for all philosophical applications

Defenses of abstraction in decision-making 

The burden of choice  

Storytelling as necessary for human survival 

Detail as a block to ethical decision making 

The place of aesthetics and ethics in decision making, and

The place of reason and data in decision making

GUEST

Gerard Mikols lives in upstate New York.

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John interviews international Emory student from China, Edward Xue. Edward came from Shanghai to Atlanta and experienced both a full dose of campus and distance learning in only a few months.

What does distance learning mean for students with little or no campus experience? John and Edward discuss a full range of issues about the impact of learning during a pandemic: the experience of moving abroad for a remote college experience, socializing and building friendships online, how universities are seeking to replicate the campus virtually, the relative importance of campus life to the total value offered through university education, the role of gumption in online models, the unique study space needs facing students, the challenges of being separated from families and peers, time management challenges, living abroad in unknown neighborhoods and cities, the pandemic’s effect changing long term planning and short term expectations, the impact of international relations on learning, the focus on outcomes and the pandemic’s effect on the vision, hopes and dreams of new university learners.

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Covid19 staying-at-home has left many of us hoping to write our first novel.

Janice Berliner did it. She finished her first novel well before the current crisis. After a mid-career Cancun inspired revelation, Berliner merged fiction with expertise from her lifelong career in genetic counseling.

Berliner joins the podcast to discuss genetics and writing. She offers frank observations emerging from decades of revelations in genetics, science and the work of genetic counseling.

Berliner discusses her time as a clinician, the ground-breaking book she edited on the ethics of genetics and genetic counseling, her writing process, the shortage of genetic counselors, developing a new genetic counseling graduate program and leadership in a quickly growing field. Berliner provides a perspective on the profession that’s informal, timely and accurate. She offers detailed perspectives on the science of genetics, the politics of genetics, genetics as intellectual property, online learning, uncertainty and risk in genetics practice, scientific advances, international differences in genetic counseling, pop culture, advice for aspiring professionals and her own love of learning.

Janice Berliner is a licensed and board certified genetic counselor, who has more than 30 years of experience in the areas of prenatal, pediatric and cancer genetic counseling, and now academia. She has written many lay and scholarly articles and book chapters on genetics topics, and volunteers extensively within her profession and her community. Brooke’s Promise is Janice’s first novel, derived from her expertise working with patients and their family members facing the risk of disease, and the intensely personal and life-altering nature genetic illness can have on family relationships.

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Ava is sheltering-in-place in Vermont where she’s attending seventh grade. This is an on-the-ground view of her life. This is the first in a series of episodes discussing the sudden worldwide emergence of schooling-at-home. In this episode, Ava explains her daily study habits, the benefits of having control of her time when doing assignments, the effect of losing face-to-face connections and how she and her peer are compensating for that loss, the differing approaches of teachers for different classes, what she would like to see continue from this massive social experiment when sheltering is over, the effect on her family life of studying at home, innovative approaches to learning in classes one might not associate with distributed learning models, Ava’s favorite classes and how those choices have changed since starting e-learning, the impact on social networks, her vision of the future of learning and Ava’s frank advice for professional educators everywhere.

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Genetics Counselor and businesswoman Shelly Cummings joins John from her home in Indy to discuss career, science, learning and the future.

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Elizabeth Rogers discusses stay-at-home life in Coronavirus times and the explosive increased use of educational technologies that will redefine how we think and learn. John and Elizabeth discuss ed tech firms, traditional higher and K12 education, instructional design, best practices for companies developing ed tech products and services, data-driven instruction and the outlook for public, private and nonprofit actors as we all become more comfortable working and learning from home.

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Returning Parsons School of Design Professor Tom Handley joins John with a retrospective. Tom covers his favorite students. Tom’s taught some of the most notable future leaders in the fashion and design industries. He gives Budding professionals will benefit from the value of the contact. This is a pre-pandemic recording, so please excuse us for focusing on traditional careers, connections and thinking that will unquestionably change as the world transitions.

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