Speaking of Education Podcast

This episode features Dr. Ryan Carpenter, Superintendent of the Estacada School District in Oregon. Our conversation focuses on Dr. Carpenter's use of an improvement science process as an evidence-based leadership framework to develop and initiative the district's long term plan. We discuss the superintendents' role in involving a wide range of community stakeholders in the planning process and how data can hold everyone accountable for carrying out the district's vision, mission, and values. Information about the work Dr. Carpenter has been doing along with articles he has published can be accessed through the Estacada website https://www.estacadaschools.org and via YouTube Estacada School District.

This episode features our conversation with Dr. Cynthia A. Tananis. Dr. Tananis has been an educator for more than 40 years, serving as a public school teacher and in a variety of administrative positions. Prior to her retirement in 2020, she served as an Associate Professor in Education Leadership at the University of Pittsburgh for 25 years.

At the University of Pittsburgh, she founded and served as the executive director of the Collaborative for Evaluation and Assessment Capacity (CEAC), a School of Education initiative that provides program evaluation services for schools and educational programs. Now in its 22nd year, CEAC continues to offer those services. Dr. Tananis has served in leadership positions in the American Evaluation Association and the Eastern Evaluation Research Society. Throughout her career, she has practiced, studied, and taught educational evaluation. In this conversation, we explore evolving conceptions of evaluation from its early roots in educational research with its emphasis on measurement toward a discursive form of evaluation that provides in-depth information to support decision-making and program improvement.

This episode features Sarah Zeffiro, a Pittsburgh artist, educator, and community builder. An innovative educator and curriculum designer with 20 years' teaching experience in museums, schools, and community organizations, Zeffiro's many projects include designing educational, creative, and therapeutic spaces for all ages. Zeffiro is currently a studio art instructor and art gallery curator at Carlow University. During the conversation we explore the centrality of art as a way of knowing and the importance of integrating the arts throughout curricula at all levels of education. Zeffiro talks with passion about the use of color, space, and scale to create welcoming spaces where learning, healing, and love can flourish.

Today's episode features Dolores Colarosa, the head of youth services at the Baldwin Borough Public Library. In this position, she is responsible for overseeing all aspects of collection development, programming, and community engagement for children ages birth through high school. Colarosa has completed certifications in both early literacy and STEM education. She has been named one of the top five early childhood educators in Pittsburgh. In addition, she earned a Best Practices Award from the Pennsylvania Library Association for her unique work in bringing a summer musical theater program for teens to the library. During this conversation, we explore the role of public libraries in promoting childhood and adolescent literacy.

n this episode we continue our conversation with Jaime Martinez, Jr., a student at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland. Martinez exemplifies, not only an engaged learner, but also an individual who wants to use his considerable talents to make a positive difference in the world. During our conversation we touch on a number of issues including lessons he learned when the COVID pandemic closed his high school shortly before his graduation and delayed his in-person arrival at Hopkins. With sensitivity and insight, he reflects on social inequities that affect schools, changes in schooling that he would like to see, and the ways in which social media can foster or undermine democracy.

In this episode, we resume our conversation with Dr. Sean Freeland, who joined the faculty at Carlow University in 2022. As part of his teaching responsibilities, Dr. Freeland taught one section of Creative Inquiry, the capstone course in the Masters of Education program. The three of us who host Speaking of Education have developed and taught this course for a number of years. We thought it would be interesting to hear Dr. Freeland's impressions of the course and its role in helping teachers to become scholar-practitioners.

In this episode we talk with Dr. Julie Fallon, a board certified pediatrician who has worked with tweens and teens for over 20 years. She is also a certified parenting and teen life coach. Her program, SkillsIRL, (Skills in Real Life), is a six-unit course for girls between the ages of 10 and 18. Dr. Fallon teaches wellness skills that foster confidence, calm, self-care, and self-acceptance. Through instructor-led, engaging activities and practical tools, girls enrolled in the course gain the insight they can use now and for the rest of their lives. These are the skills they aren't taught at school. Dr. Fallon lives in California with her husband and three children.

For more information about Julie Fallon's and Mishelle Laws SkillIRL program visit their website https://www.skillsirl.com/

Additional Resources

The Jai Institute for Parenting

The Clarity Catalyst, Jennifer Grace (celebrity coach and author)

Insight for Life for kids

The Joyful Parent

In this episode, we talk with Randy Shine, a Philadelphia native, who has been presenting "real magic for real people," for over a decade. Performing under the stage name Ran'D Shine, this amazing illusionist has been wowing audiences in hundreds of American cities and in over 25 countries. He was featured at the South African African Arts Festival, performed at a Presidential Inauguration in Washington, DC, and entertained troops at the Guantanamo Military Base. He has appeared on CW Network's Penn and Teller: Fool Us and B.E.T. Network's Man on the Street. Shine has been voted the College Magician of the Year three times. In addition to his passion for live performance, Shine has also served as producer for The Heart and Soul of Magic, a show featuring an entirely African American cast. He is the co-founder and past president of the International Association of Black Magical Artists, an organization dedicated to the history, cultural legacy, and sense of community among magicians of color. During our conversation we explore Shine's personal journey to become an illusionist, the philosophy that informs his work, and the reasons behind his advocacy of magic as a fine art. To learn more about this thoughtful and accomplished performer, visit his website https://www.randyshine.com.

In this episode we are joined by two distinguished faculty from Hanze University of Applied Sciences in The Netherlands: Loes Damhof, Senior Lecturer of 21st Century Skills, and Elles Kazemier, Senior Lecturer of Professional Development. Our subject today is Futures Literacy…using our images of the future—our anticipation of the future—to inform our present.

Loes Damhof has always had a strong passion for designing and teaching innovative educational practices. She traveled the world, teaching 21st Century Skills for Communication, Media, and Design, and in 2016, she was elected Lecturer of the Year of all higher education in The Netherlands for her teaching. For this she was given the first Comenius Award. She used this award to establish the UNESCO Chair Futures Literacy in Higher Education at Hanze University of Applied Sciences (HUAS) together with her team. In addition to her research and teaching practices on Futures Literacy, she is responsible for implementing this methodology as a key-component in all professional Master programs at Hanze. Loose consults and trains staff of international organizations; she hosts Futures Literacy Labs around the globe that challenge and raise fundamental questions on gender equality, decolonization, migration, climate change, and technology.

Elles Kazemier is an expert in innovative curriculum design and faculty development. Specifically, she's an expert on professional, hybrid, learning environments, on projects that aim to enhance co-creative learning and interdisciplinary problem-solving, and on professional development. In addition to her work on Futures Literacy, she is a coach in one of Hanze's research and knowledge centers.

This episode features Joe Wos whose passion for drawing mazes and cartoons began at an early age and has shaped his unique career. Over the years, Wos' art has evolved into a whimsical blend of mazes and cartoons that he calls Mazetoons. Regarded as a master maze maker, Wos created the world's largest hand-drawn maze in 2012. Measuring 140 square feet, it features more than 100 illustrations. One of Wos' mural-sized mazes is on permanent display at StarKist's international headquarters, and Wos is the cartoonist who draws the iconic Charlie the Tuna character for the company. For the past 20 years, Wos has been the visiting resident cartoonist of the Charles M. Schulz Museum in Santa Rosa, California. In Pittsburgh, Wos founded the ToonSeum, one of three museums dedicated to cartoon arts in the United States. In addition to creating his own art, Wos teaches cartooning at Central Catholic High School as well as by hosting "Cartoon Academy," a PBS television program that teaches the art of cartooning. Now in its third season, the show recently won two Mid-Atlantic Emmys—Host/Moderator; Educational Content Short Form. During our conversation we explore the challenges and rewards Wos has experienced as he navigated such an unconventional career.

Additional information about Joe Wos is available at www.mazetoons.com. His books are available on Amazon. If you would like to own one of Joe Wos' unique Mazetoons, visit the scholarpractitionernexus.com where you can find several different maze designs depicting the often messy, swampy nature of educational practice.