In January 2021, Nick Covington was a social studies teacher in Iowa fully-immersed in his classroom and students. Successful, purposeful, and thriving. A year later, after being swept up into the culture war against educators and facing targeting and harassment for doing his job, he handed in his resignation later in February 2022.

Once he finished out that school year, Nick moved into his position as a leader of the non-profit he cofounded, The Human Restoration Project—an organization doing the increasingly-important work of moving towards an education system that centers the humanity of all-involved, but most especially students.

In today’s conversation, Nick shares about his experience in the classroom, his exit from it, and why he is more resolute than ever about the importance of and hope within the work he is doing now. (Seriously: if this is your first time hearing about it, go check it out!)

Links to check out from the conversation:

* HumanRestorationProject.org

* Third Coast Learning Collaborative

* “Current Events Do Not Belong in History Class” (the original Medium post detailing Nick’s experience leaving the classroom)

Also: how do you feel as a teacher right now in this current moment? Feel free to answer in the comments or, if you’re inspired, to leave an audio message via Fanlist that we may respond to on a future episode?

Finally, 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: [email protected].

Thanks for listening (and tell your friends)!

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