The Critical Teacher Podcast

This week’s topic Hope and how to keep it

Paulo Freire, a founder of something called critical pedagogy, wrote in his book Pedagogy of Hope, “ The idea that hope alone will transform the world, and action undertaken in that kind of naïveté, is an excellent route to hopefulness, pessimism, and fatalism.  But to attempt to do without hope, in the struggle to improve the world, as if that struggle could be reduced to calculated acts alone, or a purely scientific approach, is a frivolous illusion.”

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On this week's episode we say goodbye to Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos and talk about future Secretary of Education possibilities. 

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Once a month I will be releasing an interview based podcast in addition to my five minute Episodes on Fridays. 

This week I had the privilege of interviewing a friend and discussing the intersection of queer identity and schooling.  

Links:

Jim's Instagram

My Cup of Tea

Key Words: LGBTQ+, Schooling, Education, Policy, Podcasts, 

Pearson is a curriculum publishing and scholastic assessment service. In fact, they are the company that makes Tennessee's K-12 state tests.  They are also the company that creates what is called the praxis tests and EdTPA, Praxis tests are standardized tests preservice teachers take andEdTPA is a portfolio that must be completed and passed if teachers are to get their certification. 

Pearson with so much influence and with so much profit to gain compromises democracy within education. 

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The project, authored by Nikole Hannah Jones,  and the new curriculum use what is called critical race theory to analyze history and explain why the present is the way that it is. There a myriad of Critical theories: Critical Marxist theory, Critical Gender theory, and settler colonial theory are just few and each are simply acknowledging that the present is not made up rational individual choice, but that there structures and patterns at play that cause the world, and in the case of the 1619 project, this nation, to be that way that it is.   Now you may disagree with a particular critical theory but the idea that there are patterns and structures at play that cause humans to act in a subconscious way doesn’t need to be controversial.

Keywords: 1619 Project, Curriculum, Education, Podcast

Resources:

EDreports - A Website that evaluates curriculums

Parent Blog- Even during online learning high quality curriculum and materials should be accessible to your child. 

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In honor of Ruth Bader Ginsberg this weeks topic is Education Law. Specifically, The decision of Brown v. Board of Education.

Oliver Brown, a Black Man, wanted to enroll his daughter in a neighborhood elementary school. The school refused to admit his daughter because she was black and was to be bussed to a segregated elementary school. Oliver Brown with twelve other families filed a class action law suit that went all the way to the Supreme court. On May 17, 1954 The Supreme Court in a 9 to 0 decision ruled in favor of the Browns. This overturned Plessy v. Ferguson ending segregation in public schools.

The end

What a great story.

Well it actually isn’t because laws don’t actually matter.

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The profession of teaching is the fascinating nexus individual beliefs, historic moments, policies, and ideologies.  Each of these streams play a significant role in how teachers see themselves, their jobs, the communities they teach in, and the students the interact with. 

On this week's Episode I discuss how ideologies define what is good in policy making as well as how teachers are impacted by it. 

Music by:

 Rhodesia by Twin Musicom is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

In this episode I focus is answering the question of what is policy? What are some criteria for good policy?  And where can we start creating and supporting good policy making in education?

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Each week we will explore an education related topic, but today I wanted to explain the whys behind making a weekly five minute podcast and the fears that I have in broadcasting my ideas for others to hear.

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