Teachers' Lounge

Teachers' Lounge

Host Peter Medlin connects with teachers, students and leaders in education as they discuss the biggest issues impacting classrooms.We want to hear your experiences as an educator. Send us a note to teacherslounge@niu.edu

Episodes

'The Forgottonia Project' student-led local history initiative asks rural students to get curious | Teachers' Lounge Podcast

September 5, 2025 • 55 mins
Joey Brewer has spent the past two decades teaching history and social studies at rural schools in western Illinois -- the region of the state often known as Forgottonia.
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Human rights, Holocaust education & the spark behind LIGHT | Teachers' Lounge CLASSIC

August 29, 2025 • 56 mins
This week on Teachers' Lounge, we're revisiting our 2022 conversation with the founder of the LIGHT education initiative. It's a project to empower students to become human rights leaders in their community.
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Stillman Valley teacher shows the magic of music | Teachers' Lounge Podcast

August 15, 2025 • 63 mins
John Gelasi knows school band can be really meaningful…“Kids tell me, 'the only reason I was able to get up and go to school this morning is because I knew I had band today,'" he said. The award-winning northern Illinois music educator on everything from the magic of learning an instrument to his previous career in actual magic. It's on a new Teachers' Lounge podcast.
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A DeKalb teacher helping other international educators get to the US | Teachers' Lounge Podcast

August 1, 2025 • 58 mins
We talk with a DeKalb teacher from Brazil about helping other international teachers come to the US. We’ll learn about his own journey and much more on new Teachers’ Lounge podcast.
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A Rockford STEM teacher takes flight | Teachers' Lounge Podcast

July 18, 2025 • 55 mins
On a new Teachers' Lounge, a Rockford teacher taking STEM education to new heights…literally. We’ve got airplanes, solar backpacks, medical detectives and more…it’s on a high-flying new Teachers’ Lounge podcast, now!
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'Your Words are Fire' is a new book by two Illinois teachers on why culturally-responsive teaching works

July 4, 2025 • 62 mins
On a new Teachers' Lounge, two local teachers wrote a new book called “Your Words Are Fire” on how culturally-responsive teaching helps kids learn. What it means to be culturally-responsive and what it’s like releasing their book in the Trump era. Learn about all of that and much more...
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We interviewed the same Rockford elementary schoolers every month of the school year | Teachers' Lounge Podcast

June 20, 2025 • 41 mins
On a new Teachers' Lounge, we interviewed a group of Rockford elementary school students every month of the school year this year. And, this spring, we featured students from the Somonauk, Sandwich, & Leland FFA organization!
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A school year in the life of a teacher, 2024-25

June 6, 2025 • 59 mins
Ever curious what the school year is like for a teacher? We interviewed DeKalb 5th grader teacher Dominique Yackley every month to track a school year in her life. Follow her journey on a new Teachers' Lounge podcast!
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Teacher burnout, representation, and a journey from Chicago to Shanghai | Teachers' Lounge CLASSIC

May 30, 2025 • 57 mins
On a classic Teachers’ Lounge episode, it’s a unique burden and responsibility to be the only Black teacher at your school.“I take it so seriously, because a lot of times this is a child's first interaction with an African American person, or at least a positive role model, unlike a stereotype which they may have seen in a movie or something," she said. "It's nerve-racking."Hear that conversation and much more...
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A Marengo music teacher spreads his love of music beyond school band | Teachers' Lounge Podcast

May 16, 2025 • 50 mins
On a new Teachers’ Lounge podcast, a Marengo music teacher breaks down the barrier between students who love music and students who typically join a school band.
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Teaching students high-level music with the Rockford Symphony Youth Orchestra | Teachers' Lounge Podcast

May 2, 2025 • 42 mins
On a new Teachers’ Lounge podcast, a music teacher with the Rockford Symphony Youth Orchestra tells us how students have fun while playing really high-level music.
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A fable to help students plan for an uncertain future | Teachers' Lounge Podcast

April 18, 2025 • 52 mins
How can students be expected to make hard decisions about their future when the world feels like it’s changing faster than ever? A book -- written as a fable -- designed to help students plan their life. It’s on a new Teachers' Lounge podcast.
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The Art of School Counseling | Teachers' Lounge Podcast

April 4, 2025 • 57 mins
On a new episode, it's our chat with Chris Mrofcza. He's a counselor at Hiawatha High School. We had a great conversation about the unique role school counselors play. He helps students consider their future, what career they want to pursue or classes they should take, and also provides meaningful mental health support to students in need.
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A Morris teacher who came home to continue the legacy of the teachers who inspired her | Teachers' Lounge Podcast

March 21, 2025 • 48 mins
Andrea Gustafson! She’s an English teacher, speech team coach, and head of the drama department at Morris Community High School.Morris is her hometown, so it’s been really meaningful to build a career at the same school she went to and continue the legacy of the teachers who inspired her.
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Microwaved rubies and can races: an Aurora educator teaches physics by playing | Teachers' Lounge Podcast

March 7, 2025 • 47 mins
On a brand-new Teachers' Lounge, Julie is a physics teacher who encourages her students to learn through play. Sometimes that looks like rolling food cans down the hallway and sometimes that looks like her students growing synthetic rubies in a microwave!
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The Jazz Problem: how schools fueled the first modern moral panic | Teachers' Lounge Podcast

February 21, 2025 • 42 mins
On a brand-new Teachers' Lounge Podcast, we’re talking about America’s first school culture war: JAZZ!"Jazz was seen as more of a lifestyle, and so if you are interested in jazz, you were, as critics believed, also interested in drinking, in smoking, some degree of sexual activity. The belief was that if you could dissuade young people from not being interested in jazz, that all these other vices would would also go away."How the J...
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What's the purpose of social studies? | Teachers' Lounge Podcast

February 7, 2025 • 45 mins
What’s the point of social studies?"Some students will go on and be doctors and some will be lawyers and some will be blue collar workers, but all of them are members of society," said Teresa Kruger. "The whole point of social studies, to me, is to prepare you to be that really active, participatory person in our in our democracy."Helping students find their voice and use their power in a democracy. That’s on a new Teachers' Lounge...
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The education issues we're watching in 2025 | Teachers' Lounge Podcast

January 24, 2025 • 68 mins
NIU's Jason Klein joins the show to dive into some of the most important education issues of 2025
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Meet the students behind Hinckley-Big Rock's first theater production in a decade | Teachers' Lounge Podcast

January 10, 2025 • 23 mins
A group of northern Illinois students put on their school’s first ever theatre production this fall. Hear the full journey from auditions through opening night. It’s on a new Teachers' Lounge, out now on WNIJ.org or wherever you get podcasts.
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Some of our best education stories of 2024 | Teachers' Lounge Podcast

January 3, 2025 • 53 mins
On a new Teachers’ Lounge podcast, before we kick off 2025…we’re looking back one more time on some of the best education stories we told on Teachers’ Lounge in 2024.
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