TeachLab with Justin Reich

Today we share another great episode from our friends at Upper MiddleBrow. As students, parents, and teachers happily (or wrenchingly) returned to school, Upper MiddleBrow invited TeachLab host Justin Reich to talk about stories with teachers. They identify many examples of bad teachers and bad teaching in fiction, and while film and TV often present sympathetic teacher protagonists, they wonder if the Great American Teacher novel ...

Civics 101 is a podcast refresher course on the basics of how the U.S. government works, born from the brain trust at New Hampshire Public Radio and hosted by Hannah McCarthy and Nick Capodice. This is the second part in their series about the state of civic education in the US. 

In this episode, TeachLab host Justin Reich joins the Civics 101 team  to talk about how teachers choose what to teach, so-called "divisive concepts laws,"...

Civics 101 is a podcast refresher course on the basics of how the U.S. government works, born from the brain trust at New Hampshire Public Radio and hosted by Hannah McCarthy and Nick Capodice. Today is the first part in their series about the state of civic education in the US. 

In this episode, the Civics 101 team gauges how we're doing civics-wise and then delve into the perpetually controversial history of history; have we ever ...

In our final episode in our Iterate series, we are joined by one of our favorite collaborators here at the Teaching Systems Lab: artist, creative professional and graphic recorder, Haley McDevitt. Haley is a master of listening, synthesizing, and creating visuals that support big ideas. And, Haley is the  illustrator of our host Justin Reich’s new book, Iterate: The Secret to Innovation in Schools.

Justin and Haley go behind the sce...

This week on TeachLab, we continue our series of conversations with innovative educators with Mel Cheng, a lifelong educator and learner. Mel is the Director of Engagement at What School Could Be, and before that worked as a classroom teacher, technology facilitator and coach, and administrator at Hawaiʻi’s first public charter school for 23 years. A maker enthusiast, Mel believes that intentionally designing environments in which ...

This month on TeachLab, we’re releasing a series of conversations with innovative educators to celebrate the release of our host Justin Reich’s new book, Iterate: The Secret to Innovation in Schools.

This week we’re lucky to be joined by Ronni Moore, an educator who is passionate about re-envisioning what school can be. Ronni is the director of high schools for Crystal House Indianapolis, and was part of the founding team of Purdue ...

This week, our host Justin Reich released his new book, Iterate: The Secret to Innovation in Schools. To celebrate the launch and dig into the themes of the book, we’re releasing a series of conversations with innovative educators. 

In this episode, we’re joined by Erik Burmeister, an award-winning teacher, principal, and superintendent who worked as a highly impactful educator in California for over 20 years before launching his st...

In the eighth and final episode of our series on Teacher Speech and the New Divide, we talk  with Katie Rinderle, a 10 year veteran educator from Cobb County, Georgia. Katie is the first teacher in Georgia to be terminated for violating the state's divisive concept laws. What did Katie do? She went to a school book fair, sponsored by her school, and bought the best selling picture book, My Shadow is Purple, which touches on gender ...

In the seventh episode of Teacher Speech and the New Divide, we dive back into our exploration of book bans and challenges throughout the United States. We sit down with Jen Varney and Barb Fecteau of the Massachusetts School Library Association, to hear about how the current climate is impacting the lives of school librarians, and their strategies for navigating these times. And, we talk to Sabrina Baêta, Program Consultant from t...

In the sixth episode of Teacher Speech and the New Divide, we turn our attention to Guilford, Connecticut. Guilford is a small town with a big commitment to equity for their students, and serves as a microcosm for the debates surrounding schools in the US. Our host Justin Reich sits down with Amity Goss, Assistant Superintendent of Guilford Public Schools, to learn more about what’s happening in Guilford, how it impacts teachers, a...

In the fifth episode of our new series, Teacher Speech and the New Divide, we’re taking a look at book bans in schools. We head off to Florida, the epicenter of this conflict, to find out more about what books are being removed, how this affects students, teachers, and the community, and the actions that educators are taking in the face of these controversial transformations in school libraries and classrooms. Our host Justin Reich...

This week, we’re giving the floor to our friends Jesse Dukes and Chris Bagg at UpperMiddleBrow to share one of their summer reading episodes. You’ll listen to teachers offer their summer reading recommendations for teens, and a great conversation about teaching literature. Heads Up: UpperMiddleBrow is a little salty, so there might be a curse word here or there. If you like what you hear, be sure to jump over to UpperMiddleBrow and...

In the fourth episode of our new series, Teacher Speech and the New Divide, we’re taking a look at autonomy. How much autonomy do K-12 teachers really have, how is teacher autonomy being reduced… and what’s being lost as a consequence? We share a profile of David Graf, a veteran educator from Woodland Park, Colorado. And, our host Justin Reich is joined by law professor Derek Black and education professor Sarah Kaka. 

Special thanks...

In the third episode of our new series, Teacher Speech and the New Divide, we take a look at a few of the recent court cases that impact teacher’s freedom of speech, like Kennedy v. Bremerton and Kluge vs. Brownsberg.

Our host Justin Reich talks with Derek Black, Professor of Law at the University of South Carolina School of Law, Brock Boone, senior staff attorney at the Southern Poverty Law Center, and Sara O'Brien, researcher at H...

In the second episode of our new series, Teacher Speech and the New Divide, Justin takes a look at the history of teacher’s first amendment rights, with the help of experts  Brock Boone, senior staff attorney at the Southern Poverty Law Center and Sara O'Brien, researcher at Harvard Graduate School of Education. And, we follow up with educator Dakota Morrison to hear about what happened next as he took on the history of gay rights ...

Our host Justin Reich kicks off our new series, Teacher Speech and the New Divide. To get a sense of the current landscape of divisive content laws, we talk to Brock Boone, senior staff attorney at the Southern Poverty Law Center. Then, we’re joined by Sarah Kaka, Associate Professor and Writer/Researcher at Ohio Wesleyan University, who helps us understand how divisive laws are impacting teachers every day. And, Dakota Morrison sh...

TeachLab is doing a crossover episode with the book podcast Upper Middlebrow hosted by Jesse Dukes and Chris Bagg. Justin Reich was invited on as their guest and are graciously letting us repost the episode under TeachLab.

Upper Middlebrow Notes:

We hit pause on recapping, and talk the intersection of education and technology with a genuine educational technologist, Professor Justin Reich (and the man who introduced Dukes + Bagg). J...

Our host Justin Reich wraps up our series on Subtraction in Action with his reflections, along with highlights from conversations about the act of subtraction with education thought leaders from around the country. 

“We're just not that good as human beings at thinking about subtractive solutions. We've thought about stuff that we could add, but have we really taken the time to think about things that we could subtract?”

We hear hig...