Teachers' Voices

Play is essential for learning and development. Typically, we associate play-based learning with young children, but, says Bo Stjerne Thomsen, Chair of Learning Through Play and the Vice-President of the Lego Foundation, an international expert on play, learning and creativity, play is beneficial for all ages.

“Play is inherently about engagement, about motivation to engage in things that are difficult, through different types of play, but there are these mindsets, these states of mind we are in and can be used all across activities and ages.” - Bo

We are also joined by three incredible educators from around the world, who share their fascinating stories of how play allows them to develop meaningful and engaging teaching practices in their particular educational contexts. 

Houdeja, a teacher of English working in a remote and low-resource secondary school in Tunisia, describes the games she finds beneficial for her teaching:

“One helpful game is I-spy with my little eye. I pick a colour and they have to touch things in our class saying this and that so at the same time they are touching, talking and looking at things and simultaneously translating colours.” - Houdeja

Next we hear from Raquel, a teacher working in the UK with autistic children, about how play-based learning is particularly pertinent for children with special needs:

“One of the most rewarding things about this experience is that my child learned how to speak and how to use her words to ask for things. And she then stopped crying a lot and shouting because she knew how to communicate her needs.” - Raquel

Finally we hear from Lê in Vietnam, about what she’s found to be the benefits of learning through play:

“You learn many things like problem solving skills, the knowledge from the lesson as well, and more importantly, when they play together they know how to play with others through conflict, try to solve the conflicts, sharing, and how to compromise.” - Lê

On today’s podcast:

• The relevance of play for learning and development
• What is play based learning 
• The benefits of play based learning
• The importance of play for children with special needs  

Links:

• Email: [email protected]
• bold.expert

To find out more about today’s guests, and for more episodes featuring other teachers and their stories, visit https://bold.expert/podcasts/bold-podcast-series2

In this special episode, Nina is joined firstly by Gemma Wirz, Editor in Chief of BOLD to discuss the show’s journey so far, and to pause and reflect once more on why it’s so important to listen to teachers’ voices:

“I have always been fascinated by oral traditions and communication as a means of disseminating culture and education. I believe that teachers’ stories need to be shared. They deserve the power and intimacy of the voice.” - Nina

Hear why Gemma joined the podcast, why she believes it’s so important to bring educators, researchers, parents and policy makers together, the global challenge of teaching during the pandemic, and the shared passion and creativity that all teachers have for making learning possible for students. 

“Right from the first time I heard your idea for a podcast that brings teachers and researchers together and lets teachers tell their own, powerful stories in their own words, I was hooked.” - Gemma

Next we meet Tobias Heiberg Jorgensen, who has experience as both a teacher and leader of teacher education programmes. Tobias leads the Playful Learning Programme in Denmark, a nationwide partnership between The LEGO Foundation and universities and colleges in Denmark.

“You cannot tell teachers what to do. You can't give them one recipe, one method but  you can give them a frame to develop and reflect and to ask. And this is what I guess you do try to inspire through your podcast and the playful learning programme is basically with the same vision I guess.” - Tobias

Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast so you don’t miss our upcoming episode celebrating World Teachers’ Day.

On today’s podcast:

• Why we need to elevate teachers’ voices
• What all educators have in common
• World Teachers’ Day 
• The role of play in learning
• Creating a community of practice 

Links:

• Email: [email protected]
• bold.expert
• Playful Learning podcast 
• Ben Mardell – Harvard – on Pedagogy of play
• Mitch Resnick – MIT – on Lifelong Kindergarten
• Chris Rodgers and Matt Mueller – Tuft’s University – on PlayLabs and Tinkering

To find out more about today’s guests, and for more episodes featuring other teachers and their stories, visit https://bold.expert/podcasts/bold-podcast-series2

Why is literature and storytelling so important for children and adolescents? This is the topic we explore in this latest episode of Teachers’ Voices with our special guest, Evelyn Arizpe, an expert in children's literature and literacy. Evelyn pioneered research into children’s responses to picturebooks and visual literacy and, in the last decade, her research has focused on migration and displacement, building on this to develop a programme for migrant readers.

“When you have nothing, when you have lost your home, when you have lost your material possessions, when there are no resources, maybe even when you have lost the power to express yourself in the language of a new place, one of the things that you still have is your own language, your own voice and the potential to tell your own story.” - Evelyn

With Evelyn’s ideas in mind, we hear from educators around the world with a passion for books and storytelling: Susan in Hong Kong, Lina in Athens, and Trini in Santiago.

Susan works in a library in an international primary school in Hong Kong. She says:

“Reading is such a wonderful outlet and I think in times like these, children like to identify themselves in books and picture books as a way of helping [them] to identify feelings that maybe they can't put into words themselves.” - Susan

Next we meet Lina who specialises in teaching language and literature in Athens:

“Using wordless picture books as a starting point, teachers can promote their students' critical thinking and initiate thought provoking conversations… I think the most rewarding outcome as an educator is listening to children’s views, giving them space to express their ideas and making their voices heard.” - Lina

Finally, we hear from Trini, a head teacher with limited resources at a state primary school in Santiago. While she doesn’t have access to many materials, she’s moving heaven and earth to provide books to read and talk about with her students.

“I believe that reading and enjoying a book in whichever form can have a healing aspect. It can have a concept of reflecting on your own life but also learning about other people's experiences, other realities, other fantasies.” - Trini

On today’s podcast:

• What visual image is in literature and storytelling
• How to best support children's reading of picture books
• Why picture books make you engage with stories differently
• Give children books that are mirrors of themselves and others

Links:

• Golden Dragon Book Award
• bold.expert

To find out more about today’s guests, and for more episodes featuring other teachers and their stories, visit https://bold.expert/podcasts/bold-podcast-series2

There are 3 major challenges that teachers around the world have had to respond to during the recent COVID-19 pandemic: changing pedagogy, the mission, and dealing with challenges in their own households while trying to teach online. 

“Many of our concerns have been about kids, and how we make sure that they're still learning. It's wonderful to hear the discourse turn to thinking about those who are doing the teaching, who are providing that care and that education.” - Gillian Hayes

In this episode of Teachers’ Voices, expert Gillian Hayes, who has researched distance learning challenges, discusses the difficulties teachers have faced during the COVID-19 pandemic. She provides commentary on the lived experiences of teaching and learning throughout this time from three fantastic teachers - Rocio from Buenos Aires Argentina, Diana in the Gaza Strip, and Asma, in Gwalior, North India. 

First we hear from Rocio, who teaches physics and chemistry in a secondary school on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Rocio describes an imaginative way she has faced the pedagogical challenge:

“With the help of some of my colleagues from the science department we created a science box. I even took some of those boxes to the students’ houses. The most important thing was that they could touch something, everything is in the cloud these days.” - Rocio

Next we hear how Diana, an English teacher at a United Nations school working with primary school children in the Gaza strip, has had to cope with distance learning despite the frequent power outages and lack of internet connection: 

“One of the moms told me that she go to the dentist, because the dentist clinic has an internet connection, just to attend the session with her son... Palestinians, parents and kids, they have determination to learn, regardless of our circumstances and conditions.” - Diana

Finally we meet Asma, a biology teacher in Gwalior, North India, and hear about the challenges she faced to engage students during the pandemic:

“Flipped learning made my classes super interactive. I was [also] introduced to the concept of Pecha Kucha. Pecha Kucha literally means to chat in Japanese. It is like a show and tell concept.” - Asma

On today’s podcast:

• The 3 challenges of distance learning
• Handling changing pedagogy
• Remote teaching without internet
• The global education inequities highlighted by COVID-19
• Engaging students during the pandemic

Links:

• Gillian Hayes
• bold.expert

To find out more about today’s guests, and for more episodes featuring other teachers and their stories, visit https://bold.expert/podcasts

If you’re an educator supporting children learning various languages, at different developmental stages and in different contexts and geographies, then don’t miss Kaja Jasinska, a cognitive neuroscientist interested in understanding how early life experience changes the brain’s capacity for language and learning. 

“We found that school children who are learning two languages from birth actually outperform monolingual children on tasks that measure a child’s awareness of and ability to manipulate sounds of languages.”

As well as Kaja’s insights, in this episode we hear from three teachers in different geographical regions around the world, all of whom support children whose mother tongue is perhaps not the same as the language in which they are being taught. 

“A child’s first language skills support their second language skills and literacy skills... we want to ensure that children are able to fully learn that first language and that should be the language that parents and caregivers are most proficient at.”- Kaja Jasinska

First we hear from Daniela, an Italian language facilitator supporting young bilingual kids in Luxembourg. Daniela works with young children supporting the link between heritage language, local languages and the development of early literacy.

“After one year of storytelling in Italian, I arrived one day without a voice. I asked them to tell me the story. They narrated me the most beautiful story I have ever heard, mimicking my voice and intonation. It was even more beautiful than the author’s story.” - Daniela

Then we travel to Nigeria to meet Olasunkanmi, an innovative international teacher prize winner who teaches English to lower secondary school students in a public school in a suburban area of Abuja.

“For me as a teacher what is rewarding has always been my results. My students can give me up to 90% pass rate… nothing makes me happier than that… I feel fulfilled seeing that.” - Olasunkanmi

Finally we hear from Jose Luis, who tries to infuse his love of Spanish into older kids in an international private school in Singapore.

“What I try to teach to them is the spirit of the language… how it feels to think in Spanish, how it feels to write in Spanish.” - Jose Luis

Stay tuned until the very end to hear our expert, Kaja, share some observations on how educators might best support bilingual and multilingual children. 

On today’s podcast:

• What’s happening in the brain of a multilingual child in the first few years of development
• How multilingualism affects reading development in children
• A child’s first language skills support their second language skills & literacy skills 
• Quality education is key

Links:

• http://www.haskins.yale.edu/staff/jasinska/

To find out more about today’s guests, and for more episodes featuring other teachers and their stories, visit https://bold.expert/podcasts/bold-podcast-series2

This episode has some discussion around bulimia and mental health issues. Listener discretion is advised. 

If you’re an educator keen to learn more about motivation and self esteem in children’s learning, don’t miss Eddie Brummelman, a researcher studying children's growing understanding of themselves as individuals, how children develop self-views, how these self-views shape mental health and educational outcomes, and how interventions that target self-views can help at-risk children flourish.

“Self esteem shapes how children look at themselves, but also how they look at their social environment, but also how they look at their schoolwork… self esteem can get in the way of learning, and therefore it's important to be aware of the child's level of self esteem.”

From Eddie we then hear from 3 teachers, from 3 different geographies, teaching 3 different age groups a variety of subjects, but they all have in common a special interest in developing motivation strategies that pay attention to individual needs.

First we travel to the Caribbean and meet Kayleigh, who teaches Spanish as a second language to young primary school children. 

“In my classroom, my students are constantly speaking, they have avenues to share their opinions, we've created a space where they feel okay to share. We've also created an environment where our ideas and opinions, although different, are respected.”

We then travel across the world to Australia and meet Mark, who’s developing teenagers’ capacities to learn from their peers through experiential learning with film making techniques. 

Finally we visit Marisa, an English teacher in a private school in a wealthy residential area of Madrid, Spain, who is setting the necessary conditions to support the development of each student’s particular identity in their learning processes.

“Part of the teaching process is to observe your students and to figure out what they need in each moment. For me, that is one of the most rewarding moments in my teaching life.”

On today’s podcast:

• How children develop self esteem
• Self esteem in a learning environment
• The role of praise in building self esteem
• The importance of feeling emotionally supported

To find out more about today’s guests, and for more episodes featuring other teachers and their stories, visit https://bold.expert/podcasts/bold-podcast-series2

In this episode of Teachers’ Voices, we explore the challenges of teaching and learning under adverse conditions with special guest, Willem Frankenhuis. Willem is an expert in developmental psychology, and specialises in social and cognitive skills and abilities that might be enhanced in harsh and unpredictable environments.

Willem discusses why it’s so important to take adversity into account when talking about supporting children's learning, and suggests techniques that teachers can learn or might be able to use to help students who are learning under adverse conditions.

“One of the things we see in research is that making the information concrete and relevant to the lived experience of these children can sometimes enhance their performance.”

We then hear from three educators who each share their inspiring stories about supporting children's learning in challenging conditions. From Deborah organising reading activities for young refugees on the island of Lampedusa:

“You have to connect with what clicks in someone. And to make them understand that a book is something that opens up to a new world.”

Nadia supporting underserved students in the socially deprived neighbourhood of the Bronx, New York:

“We need to make learning accessible in a way that it actually connects to children's lives. But if it doesn't directly connect, how can we make those connections and be intentional about that?”

And Mike teaching dance for social cohesion and children's well being in Africa's largest slum, Kibera in Nairobi, Kenya. 

To learn what different teachers are doing around the world, download and listen today.

On today’s podcast:

• Take adversity into account when supporting children’s learning
• Reading with young refugees in Lampedusa
• Supporting students in the Bronx
• Teaching dance for social cohesion

Links:

• http://www.willem.maartenfrankenhuis.nl/
• https://projectelimu.org/in-the-press/
• http://www.thelopezeffect.com/aboutme/
• https://www.ibby.org/awards-activities/activities/silent-books/silent-books-ibby-camps-in-lampedusa 

To find out more about today’s guests, and for more episodes featuring other teachers and their stories, visit https://bold.expert/podcasts/bold-podcast-series2

Welcome to the inaugural episode of Teachers’ Voices where you’ll hear three very different stories of teachers coming at teaching from very different learning environments, contexts and situations. Yet all of these teachers share a passionate commitment to the particular needs of individual learners. 

Our first special guest is Nora Marketos, co-lead of the learning school’s portfolio of the Jacobs Foundation, and in her role she works with educators around the world. 

“This podcast brings together teachers' voices in a short, but really powerful manner. And it complements their stories with existing research and evidence of what is already working. This provides a bridge between the teaching community on the one hand and those researchers who are seeking to better understand how we can help children learn and develop.”

In today’s episode, we hear about the challenges of accelerating basic literacy in a rural community in Mozambique:

“In our province, which is the most populous province in the country, only one out of 10 children can read Grade Two stories.” (Armando, a teaching facilitator in Mozambique).

About the enjoyment of developing creative ways to stimulate the interest of unmotivated students in mathematics, in a socially deprived area in Brazil. And discover the motivation to improve the reading skills of girls with severe dyslexia in Saudi Arabia:

“I told her [mother] that your daughter is like a gift that is wrapped in gold paper. But this paper is too thick, and it needs careful unwrapping. By the time you unwrap her potential, you will see a star inside that golden box.”

To learn what different teachers are doing around the world, download and listen today. 

On today’s podcast:

• Why now is the time to listen to teachers
• Accelerating basic literacy in Mozambique
• Stimulating an interest in maths in Brazil
• Helping severely dyslexic girls in Saudi Arabia

For more episodes featuring other teachers and their stories, visit https://bold.expert/podcasts/bold-podcast-series2

Teachers are one of the most influential and powerful forces for equity, access and quality in education. They provide children and young people with the knowledge, skills, attitude and tools needed to reach their full potential.

Teachers' Voices is a podcast series from BOLD, the digital platform on learning and development. Join Nina Alonso as she shares powerful stories from teachers around the world, talking in their own words about their experiences, and listen in on inspiring conversations with international experts on learning and child development.

If you're a parent, teacher, or just someone interested in learning and development, this podcast is for you

For more information, visit bold.expert

In this pilot episode the podcast host (educational researcher Nina Alonso) and globally respected leader in education Vikas Pota, introduce some testimonials of the kind of powerful moments that teachers around the world experience on their daily work with children. This pilot serves as a proof of concept of the relevance of the authentic stories that educators around the world can share about their daily experiences supporting children's learning processes.
We listen to the vivid stories 
of Armando, from Mozambique, who tells us about the relevance of engaging his local community in his practice, 
of Mel, who uses simple but creative ideas and materials to engage her students in learning abstract mathematic concepts 
and of Farida, who brings her own experience as a student into her teaching of children with special needs.