Ep. 22: Disrupting Education with Peter Hostrawser

In this episode, Ziz and Pam are discussing the connection between academia and reality with an innovative education specialist, Peter Hostrawser. On his podcast, Disrupt Education, Peter features educational reformers and their innovative approaches to education. He’s also the co-founder of HallPass Education, an educational think tank specializing in innovative educational solutions designed to guide people through their hallway of life.

As an educator, Peter’s passion is to transform people to become energetic learners through personal interest discovery. He says students in the 21st century need to learn focus management and be creative problem solvers who are adaptable to change. We need to make it okay for them to fail because that is how we learn. Enlightened teachers like Peter Hostrawser are making a difference inside and outside of the classroom!

Resources:

Peter Hostrawser

Sir Ken Robinson

Jo Boaler

Viktor Frankl

Quotes:

Peter: “We are going to be uncomfortable and we need to be uncomfortable. You’re going to need to pivot and learn some things…this is the place where we can start to shake things up.”

Pam: “What COVID did do is it highlighted the rigidity of the structure we have and how inflexible it is to adapt to the changes in the world.”

Peter: “You’re either on board with this, or you’re fighting. You can fight all you want, it’s just a lot of things that you can’t control.”

Peter: “People are starting to learn the agile way of doing things…I like to think of us not as teachers anymore. We are now becoming accountability partners. We’re becoming people who are really there for the student individually.”

Peter: “We got away from really giving students an opportunity to show what they’re pursuing, their purpose, and trying to have them figure out what their ‘why’ is and we got into checking boxes. The college realm, the AP realm… I don’t think those work for a large percentage of our kids.”

Peter: “I think people are realizing this whole thing isn’t a race. It’s really, let’s try to figure out where kids are right now and let’s try to move them.”

Peter: “I’m super excited about this year because we are forced to pivot. We have to look at things differently and we can learn more from our students.”

Peter: “You do see a lot of teachers who are the owner of knowledge starting to realize that a real win in a classroom isn’t a grade or an ACT/SAT score…So when you make it safe to fail and then you teach the learning beyond it, that’s really what makes an educator a true educator.”