It is a very easy word to say in education, right? Full-stop: everyone wants to be supported and everyone wants to be supportive.

However, making that support a reality that is experienced and sustainable in our classrooms and schools? For students and teachers alike? Much more complicated.

Today’s conversation with Nathan Parham is 100% about this. Nathan is in his first year as a special education administrator at a trauma-informed alternative school after a decade of his own classroom experience. Given his unique perspective in transitioning into a role where he is now responsible for supporting teachers along with students at his school, Nathan has a lot to share about what support can and should look like in this moment.

Thanks, as always, to Alberto Lugo, one of Jim’s former students, for writing and recording original intro music; and Tom Csatari for allowing us to use his band’s recording of “Woodstock” from their 2020 album, Garden.

* Find Tom’s work at uncivilizedtom.com, and on Instagram @banduncivilized.

* Find Alberto’s work at djsynchro.weebly.com, and on Instagram @djsynchro.

You can email us here with feedback or any other questions as well: [email protected].

The Broken Copier began a little over three years ago with a very simple idea: we wanted to uplift the type of conversations that happen so often between teachers in the margins of the school day: in the hallway between classes; in each other’s classrooms after the school day ends; in the faculty lounge while trying to collaboratively finagle a solution to far-too-frequently broken copiers.

This is exactly one of those conversations.

Lisa Gates is a retired high school English instructor with 34 years of teaching experience who just cannot just seem to quit teaching. Currently, she works as an Instructional Mentor supporting early-career classroom teachers in Virginia and also supervises teaching interns for the University of Mary Washington.

In other words, Lisa is literally a teacher’s teacher.

This conversation dives into the joys of what reading can be in the secondary classroom as well as the challenges, with Lisa sharing observations from her own career teaching as well as what she is noticing now that she is in many classrooms supporting teachers. This is a conversation that goes a lot of directions, but at its heart is driven by a love of reading and, more importantly, a deep belief in a student-centered classroom and the work it takes to make that possible.

Some points of reference from the conversation:

* The Whale Rider by Witi Ihimaera

* Critical Encounters in Secondary English by Deborah Appleman

* “Mirrors, Windows, and Sliding Glass Doors” by Dr. Rudine Sims Bishop

* #SundayMacbethChat on Bluesky Homepage

Thanks, as always, to Alberto Lugo, one of Jim’s former students, for writing and recording original intro music; and Tom Csatari for allowing us to use his band’s recording of “Woodstock” from their 2020 album, Garden.

* Find Tom’s work at uncivilizedtom.com, and on Instagram @banduncivilized.

* Find Alberto’s work at djsynchro.weebly.com, and on Instagram @djsynchro.

You can email us here with feedback or any other questions as well: [email protected].

Over time, school years can fold into each other, in a way, with each eventually becoming indistinguishable from the next. This is why the goal of this episode, quite simply, is to pause before the month of November comes to a close and ask a simple question:

What has this school year taught us so far?

For this reflective conversation, we invited on one of our favorites: Adrian Neibauer, a 5th grade teacher who writes weekly about his own classroom with his Substack, Adrian’s Newsletter.

Along with listening to Adrian and Marcus share their own answers to this question at this point in the school year, we invite you to join in: what lesson have you learned so far?

Feel free to reply in the comments, send us a longer email reflection, or even record your own learning for a future episode! We would love to include more perspectives and voices around this question going forward. As we say often at The Broken Copier, teaching is community work.

What better way to live that out than by sharing our learnings with each other?

Links to follow-up with Adrian’s work:

* “Now Spinning” (mentioned at the beginning of the conversation)

* “The Redress of Teaching” (mentioned at the end of the conversation)

Thanks, as always, to:

Alberto Lugo, one of Jim’s former students, for writing and recording original intro music; Tom Csatari for allowing us to use his band’s recording of “Woodstock” from their 2020 album, Garden; and Courtney Milavec for graphic design.

Find Tom’s work at uncivilizedtom.com, and on Instagram @banduncivilized.

Find Alberto’s work at djsynchro.weebly.com, and on Instagram @djsynchro.

Email us here with feedback or any other questions as well: [email protected].

Thanks for listening (and tell your friends)!

“What happened to helping them interrogate what it means to be human?”

In his book Teaching without Teaching, Scott F. Parker makes a case for re-centering teaching around core human values—and away from what he calls “the whole charade” of the transactional system students and teachers alike are too often confined within.

In this conversation, Scott shares his observations and reflections from his own writing classroom at Montana State University while contemplating more broadly where we are at in education—and why there might be a better direction to reorient ourselves towards.

To get a copy of this book or follow more of Scott’s work:

* One Subject Press’s page for Teaching without Teaching

* Scott’s personal website: www.scottfparker.com

Thanks, as always, to:

Alberto Lugo, one of Jim’s former students, for writing and recording original intro music; Tom Csatari for allowing us to use his band’s recording of “Woodstock” from their 2020 album, Garden; and Courtney Milavec for graphic design.

Find Tom’s work at uncivilizedtom.com, and on Instagram @banduncivilized.

Find Alberto’s work at djsynchro.weebly.com, and on Instagram @djsynchro.

Email us here with feedback or any other questions as well: [email protected].

Thanks for listening (and tell your friends)!

There is a lot of conversation happening in education around the topic of AI—but is it the right conversation? Recently Stephen Fitzpatrick wrote a piece around this, arguing that instead of two different AI conversations in education that seem to be talking past each other, what we need “is a third conversation grounded in intellectual humility.”

Today’s conversation attempts to be just that. A full-time classroom teacher, Stephen brings over three decades of experience into this conversation alongside his own extensive research and experimentation with AI as a practitioner in recent years—which he has documented thoughtfully and generously with his newsletter, Teaching in the Age of AI.

In this conversation, Stephen shares his own journey towards researching as much as he could about AI and its potential intersection with his work as a teacher, his experiences and learnings along the way, and his current perspective on where we are at with AI in education.

To follow more of Stephen’s work or potentially connect with him:

* A link to his recent post about a better conversation (quoted above): AI Whiplash: Every Breakthrough Comes With a Disaster

* His post on The Important Work: Reading With a Custom GPT

* His newsletter: fitzyhistory.substack.com

* His email: [email protected]

* His LinkedIn to connect on that platform, too

Thanks, as always, to:

Alberto Lugo, one of Jim’s former students, for writing and recording original intro music; Tom Csatari for allowing us to use his band’s recording of “Woodstock” from their 2020 album, Garden; and Courtney Milavec for graphic design.

Find Tom’s work at uncivilizedtom.com, and on Instagram @banduncivilized.

Find Alberto’s work at djsynchro.weebly.com, and on Instagram @djsynchro.

Email us here with feedback or any other questions as well: [email protected].

Thanks for listening (and tell your friends)!

This is the third episode of our new Unjammed series, with a topic that a lot of teachers still are struggling with in their classrooms: chronic student absences and the consequent empty desks in the classroom.

In this episode, he shares how difficult it can be as a teacher to encounter so many of these “empty desks”—and in particular how much it takes as a teacher to build and maintain a classroom that is motivating and purposeful for those there and taking care of business while also being a welcoming, affirming space for students who have been absent, sometimes quite regularly.

Straddling this daily as a teacher? It is really difficult—and it felt like it deserved space for reflection in this episode.

Also: have your own potential Unjammed reflection you’d be willing to share or have a conversation about?

* Email [email protected] and let us know what it’s about! We would love to bring different teacher experiences and perspectives into this space.

* You can also share your reflection directly at this Fanlist link—and you never know, it could show up on a future episode! (Note: we would reach out first to let you know and get permission.)

As always, thanks to: Alberto Lugo, one of Jim’s former students, for contributing their music to The Broken Copier podcast—and also Tom Csatari for allowing us to use his band’s recording of “Woodstock” from their 2020 album, Garden.

* Find Tom’s work at uncivilizedtom.com, and on Instagram @banduncivilized.

* Find Alberto’s work at djsynchro.weebly.com, and on Instagram @djsynchro.

Thanks for listening! Share or leave a review if you’re willing, and take care of yourselves as educators as we finish out the school year!

For our second episode of our new Unjammed series, the focus is on a pattern Marcus was noticing in his own responses in the classroom this school year: finding himself losing his patience a bit more quickly than in previous years.

In this episode, he talks through what it is like to notice yourself as a teacher losing your patience in the moment as well as after the moment; what might be the reason this is happening more frequently this school year; and, most importantly, what he is reflecting on as he thinks forward as a teacher in response.

Also: have your own potential Unjammed reflection you’d be willing to share or have a conversation about?

* Email [email protected] and let us know what it’s about! We would love to bring different teacher experiences and perspectives into this space.

* You can also share your reflection directly at this Fanlist link—and you never know, it could show up on a future episode! (Note: we would reach out first to let you know and get permission.)

As always, thanks to: Alberto Lugo, one of Jim’s former students, for contributing their music to The Broken Copier podcast—and also Tom Csatari for allowing us to use his band’s recording of “Woodstock” from their 2020 album, Garden.

* Find Tom’s work at uncivilizedtom.com, and on Instagram @banduncivilized.

* Find Alberto’s work at djsynchro.weebly.com, and on Instagram @djsynchro.

Thanks for listening! Share or leave a review if you’re willing, and take care of yourselves as educators as we finish out the school year!

After over twenty Kicking The Copier episodes that focused on specific teaching strategies and mindsets, we’re going to make a slight pivot this school year.

While still designed to be shorter, single-topic episodes, this new Unjammed series instead will feature a specific stories around a problem in the classroom—not necessarily one that was necessarily “solved,” but rather one that led to a worthwhile reflection.

One worth sharing.

Today’s episode? An experience Marcus had after trying to celebrate and also challenge a student in a communication home—a well-intended “move” as a teacher that, unfortunately, didn’t quite land the way he hoped it would.

As always, thanks to: Alberto Lugo, one of Jim’s former students, for contributing their music to The Broken Copier podcast—and also Tom Csatari for allowing us to use his band’s recording of “Woodstock” from their 2020 album, Garden.

* Find Tom’s work at uncivilizedtom.com, and on Instagram @banduncivilized.

* Find Alberto’s work at djsynchro.weebly.com, and on Instagram @djsynchro.

* Email thoughts and feedback to [email protected], and if you want you can record your own thoughts at our Fanlist that might show up on a future episode! (Feel free to also just toss your response in the comments.)

Thanks for listening! Share or leave a review if you’re willing, and take care of yourselves as educators as we finish out the school year!

This is a conversation between two teachers who noticed the same thing early into this school year: it feels heavier than usual.

After Adrian Neibauer wrote a piece in his newsletter around this idea, he joined The Broken Copier to reflect collaboratively with Marcus about how the school year is going, what is creating the “heaviness” they both are feeling, and moving forward what a lighter, more-hopeful path could look like for their respective classrooms.

Links to follow-up with Adrian’s work:

* “The Redress of Teaching” (mentioned many times in this conversation)

* Adrian’s Newsletter (the Substack to follow Adrian’s work—subscribe!)

Thanks, as always, to:

Alberto Lugo, one of Jim’s former students, for writing and recording original intro music; Tom Csatari for allowing us to use his band’s recording of “Woodstock” from their 2020 album, Garden; and Courtney Milavec for graphic design.

Find Tom’s work at uncivilizedtom.com, and on Instagram @banduncivilized.

Find Alberto’s work at djsynchro.weebly.com, and on Instagram @djsynchro.

Email us here with feedback or any other questions as well: [email protected].

Thanks for listening (and tell your friends)!

With the school year underway, the word “assessment” is front-and-center in many classrooms—so what can we do as teachers to shift our thinking and practices around assessment to be more responsive to and uplifting for students?

In today’s conversation, high school math and science teacher Melissa Dean joins to talk all things assessment—sharing her own surprising journey into the classroom, how she aspires towards a better, more-authentic type of assessment in her classroom, and why she is so enthusiastic about the ongoing work of teaching pedagogy as a veteran teacher.

(In other words: if you’re a teacher and like to nerd out listening to other teachers talking about teaching—this is a conversation for you!)

To follow more of Melissa’s work:

* Her own Substack Unravelling: deanofmath.substack.com

* Her book Unravel School: Reimagine Classrooms, Reinvent Assessment, & Revive Learning: https://www.amazon.com/Unravel-School-Reimagine-Classrooms-Assessment/dp/199056612X

Thanks, as always, to:

Alberto Lugo, one of Jim’s former students, for writing and recording original intro music; Tom Csatari for allowing us to use his band’s recording of “Woodstock” from their 2020 album, Garden; and Courtney Milavec for graphic design.

Find Tom’s work at uncivilizedtom.com, and on Instagram @banduncivilized.

Find Alberto’s work at djsynchro.weebly.com, and on Instagram @djsynchro.

Email us here with feedback or any other questions as well: [email protected].

Thanks for listening (and tell your friends)!