#reinventingschool

More about this week's guest:

Lea Waters, Ph.D., is the Founding Director and Inaugural Gerry Higgins Chair in Positive Psychology at the Centre for Positive Psychology, University of Melbourne where she has held an academic position for two and a half decades. Lea holds affiliate positions at Cambridge University and the University of Michigan and serves on the Scientific Board at the University of California, Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center. Lea is a Board Member and the recent Past President of the International Positive Psychology Association (2017-2019), serves on the Council of Happiness and Education for the World Happiness Council, is the Patron of Flourishing Education Japan and Ambassador for the Positive Education Schools Association. She is a registered psychologist (AHPRA) and a full member of the Australian Psychological Society. As a University researcher, Lea turns her science into strength-based strategies to help organizations, educators, and parents around the world build resilience in their employees and children, helping them to thrive. Lea is a Board Member and the 2017-2019 President of the International Positive Psychology Association (IPPA) and founding director of the Centre for Positive Psychology at the University of Melbourne. Lea holds affiliate positions at Cambridge University and the University of Michigan and serves on the Scientific Board at the University of California, Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center. She is the author of The Strength Switch. Lea’s work has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, and more.

 

Howard Blumenthal created and produced the PBS television series, Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? He is currently a Senior Scholar at The University of Pennsylvania, studying learning and the lives of 21st-century children and teenagers. He travels the world, visiting K-12 schools, lecturing at universities, and interviewing young people for Kids on Earth, a global platform containing nearly 1,000 interview segments from Kentucky, Brazil, Sweden, India, and many other countries. Previously, he was a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist for The New York Times Syndicate, and United Features. He is the author of 24 books and several hundred articles about technology, learning, business, and human progress. As an executive, Howard was the CEO of a public television operation and several television production companies, and a state government official. Previously, he was a Senior Vice President for divisions of two large media companies, Hearst and Bertelsmann, and a consultant or project lead for Energizer, General Electric, American Express, CompuServe, Warner Communications, Merriam-Webster, Atari, and other companies.

 

We're a bit off our regular weekly schedule, but we're thrilled to present a full hour with the remarkable Deborah Meier. She has been on the front lines of school and education reform for decades. And she is a delight: exceedingly knowledgable, deeply experienced, passionate, and reflective about all that she has done. She's also frustrated because the change has not been everything we need; in fact, we've fallen quite short. This is one of those interviews that I'm hoping people will pass along so everyone can learn as much as I did--HB

More about this week's guest:

Deborah Meier has been working in public education as a teacher, principal, writer, advocate since the early 1960s, and ranks among the most acclaimed leaders of the school reform movement in the U.S. She started her work as an early childhood teacher in Chicago after graduating from the U of Chicago. Her family moved to NYC in the late 1960s where she worked as a kindergarten teacher in Central Harlem. For the next 20 years, Meier helped revitalize public schools in New York City’s East Harlem District 4. In 1974, she founded Central Park East Elementary School (CPE I), a highly successful public school of choice that served predominantly local African American and Hispanic families. During the next dozen years, Meier opened two other Central Park East elementary schools in District 4 as well as an acclaimed secondary school (CPESS), while also supporting and directing the development of similar schools throughout NYC. She helped found the Coalition of Essential Schools, in the 1980s, under the leadership of Ted Sizer.  In 1987 she received a MacArthur “genius” Award for her work in public education. During the 1990s she also served as an Urban Fellow at the Annenberg Institute. In 1995 she moved to Boston to start Mission Hill, a K-8 school in Roxbury. These schools were part of a network Meier created that helped initiate new small schools, both elementary and secondary, both in NYC and Boston. At Coalition schools, Meier helped foster democratic communities, giving teachers greater autonomy in the running of a school, giving parents a voice in what happens to their children in schools, and promoting intergenerational connections. She has always been a proponent of active, project-based learning, and graduation through a series of exhibitions of high-quality work. She is the author of many books and articles, including The Power of Their Ideas, Lessons to America from a Small School in Harlem, and In Schools We Trust. She is an outspoken critic of state-mandated curriculum and high stakes standardized testing and has written extensively on their unreliability and class/race biases. She is on the board of  FairTest, Save Our Schools, Center for Collaborative Education, and the Association for Union Democracy. She is also on the editorial board of The Nation, The Harvard Education Letter, and Dissent magazines.

 

Howard Blumenthal created and produced the PBS television series, Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? He is currently a Senior Scholar at The University of Pennsylvania, studying learning and the lives of 21st-century children and teenagers. He travels the world, visiting K-12 schools, lecturing at universities, and interviewing young people for Kids on Earth, a global platform containing nearly 1,000 interview segments from Kentucky, Brazil, Sweden, India, and many other countries. Previously, he was a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist for The New York Times Syndicate, and United Features. He is the author of 24 books and several hundred articles about technology, learning, business, and human progress. As an executive, Howard was the CEO of a public television operation and several television production companies, and a state government official. Previously, he was a Senior Vice President for divisions of two large media companies, Hearst and Bertelsmann, and a consultant or project lead for Energizer, General Electric, American Express, CompuServe, Warner Communications, Merriam-Webster, Atari, and other companies.

 

On Thursday, October 29 at 4:00 pm US-EDT, we present the 27th LIVE episode of the new LearningRevolution.com weekly interview series, REINVENTING SCHOOL.

One of the best ways to understand the life of a student is to study the mythology of the Hero's Journey. Over a dozen years, every student leaves the ordinary world of his or her young childhood and responds to a call for adventure. Many students don't want to go. They want the security and comfort of the familiar, so they refuse the call. Then, they meet a mentor, a teacher, a kind soul who guides them toward a threshold. But there are tests along the way, allies, enemies, and eventually, a series of difficult ordeals. The young student becomes the smarter older soul; he or she overcomes the midpoint in the journey and carries the reward along a road back home, much improved by the process. But there are further obstacles, deeper dangers, reasons for doubt, and the very real possibility that the elixir, the magic of personal growth, will be lost. This is the hero's journey, the basis for so many stories, books, movies, videogames, legends. Fortunately, author Christopher Vogler studied the journey and has written about it in great detail. His work, written for writers who use it as a tool to build their own stories (many books, many screenplays), is called The Writer's Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers. Earlier this year, the book was published in a 25th-anniversary edition, and we're here to celebrate. We're also here to discuss the use of this important, and popular book, for learning and in school. To help us do that, we'll be joined by Will Linn, Founder of the Mythology Channel and Founding Chair of the General Education Department at Hussian College--a new film and performing arts school; Julia Torres, Teacher Librarian, Montbello Campus Library, Denver Public Schools; and Julie M. Wilson, Founder & Executive Director of the Institute for the Future of Learning. 

Please join us on Thursdays for our live shows, or visit www.reinventing.school for the recorded versions.

More about this week's guests:

Chris Vogler is the author of THE WRITER'S JOURNEY: Mythic Structure for Writers, now in its 4th (25th Anniversary) Edition.  A synthesis of screenwriting structure and the ancient patterns of mythology, the book has become required reading in movie studios, publishing houses, game design studios, and creative writing programs around the world.  As an Air Force officer, Vogler made documentary films for the military space program, then attended the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts.  He entered the movie business as a story analyst and worked for many years as a story consultant and researcher for the Walt Disney Company, where he contributed to the animated stories of HERCULES, ALADDIN and THE LION KING.  He became a studio executive at 20th Century Fox and helped to develop the films COURAGE UNDER FIRE, VOLCANO, FIGHT CLUB and THE THIN RED LINE.  He now gives workshops on the Hero's Journey pattern in literature and film.

 

Will Linn currently co-hosts a radio show that he created for the Santa Barbara News-Press called Mythosophia, in which he interviews leading story artists and scholars from such territories as myth and religion, sci-fi and fantasy, visions and dreams, rituals, novels, films, comics, and other storytelling formats and mediums. He is in his fifth year as founder and host of the Joseph Campbell Foundation Mythological RoundTable® group of Ojai, CA, which meets beneath the historic Teaching Tree at The Ojai Foundation. He also writes the newsletter for the global grassroots network of Mythological RoundTable® groups (60+ on 6 continents). In the last five years, he has been a leader and participant on research tours through England, Prague, Israel, Jordan, Turkey, Greece, Italy, and the Vatican. These tours were oriented around his mythological interests in Arthurian legend and the Holy Grail, the Golem and alchemy, Abrahamic religion, and Classical mythology. He is the oldest of five closely knit-brothers and has had the good fortune of having lived in Birmingham, AL; Findlay, OH; Detroit, MI; Sewanee, TN; Myrtle Beach, SC; Orlando & New Smyrna, FL; Ojai and Los Angeles, CA.

 

Julia Torres - "For many of our students, the library is the only place on campus they feel truly free," says teacher librarian Julia Torres. Close to 2,000 students attend the five middle and high schools on the Montbello Campus in northeast Denver, where an unstaffed, frequently shuttered school library suffered eight years of neglect. In its place now is a vibrant, student-focused media center, thanks to Torres. A former language arts teacher, Torres describes herself as "book mad," and it is this reputation that led the school administration to court her for a long-overdue library program overhaul. Hired as a full-time school librarian in 2018 with newly allocated funds, Torres jumped right in by "genrefying" the fiction collection. "Many of our students are not familiar with the names of YA authors, and searching the fiction collection by last name simply was not practical," Torres says. In her first year, circulation hit over 3,200 items and by February of the 2019–20 school year, it had increased to over 3,700. "Our library is currently third in the district for top circulation in libraries serving grades 6–12," she says. In addition to reinvigorating the collection, Torres arranged Skype visits with popular authors such as Jason Reynolds and Angie Thomas. "I have experienced a lot of joy in my career helping language arts teachers think in new ways about what is possible in the classroom when students really and truly feel free to shape their unique relationship with reading and with words," says Torres. She is a cofounder of #disrupttexts, described as "a crowdsourced, grassroots effort by teachers for teachers to challenge the traditional canon in order to create a more inclusive, representative, and equitable language arts curriculum." Torres’s teaching is "the practice of education for intellectual and physical liberation," she says. "Some of our most vulnerable students are often in the most restrictive and oppressive environments… We, as adults will do what we must to become facilitators supporting them, rather than enforcers indoctrinating them." She is also a "Book Ambassador" for the Educator Collaborative, a K–12 literacy think tank, and an educational consulting group.

 

Julie Margretta Wilson - "I am driven to help others realize and achieve their potential. Whether that be through my work as the President of the Academic Leadership Group, Founder of the Institute for the Future of Learning, or as an Instructor at Harvard's Extension School. I work with leaders to unlock this potential--so they can thrive as human beings and build organizations that learn and grow. The book that started it all? The Little Engine That Could :)

 

Howard Blumenthal created and produced the PBS television series, Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? He is currently a Senior Scholar at The University of Pennsylvania, studying learning and the lives of 21st-century children and teenagers. He travels the world, visiting K-12 schools, lecturing at universities, and interviewing young people for Kids on Earth, a global platform containing nearly 1,000 interview segments from Kentucky, Brazil, Sweden, India, and many other countries. Previously, he was a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist for The New York Times Syndicate, and United Features. He is the author of 24 books and several hundred articles about technology, learning, business, and human progress. As an executive, Howard was the CEO of a public television operation and several television production companies, and a state government official. Previously, he was a Senior Vice President for divisions of two large media companies, Hearst and Bertelsmann, and a consultant or project lead for Energizer, General Electric, American Express, CompuServe, Warner Communications, Merriam-Webster, Atari, and other companies.

 

On Thursday, October 23 at 4:00 pm US-EDT, we present the 26th LIVE episode of the new LearningRevolution.com weekly interview series, REINVENTING SCHOOL.

All-day, every day, we are exposed to news stories about the dreaded COVID-19 (2019 Novel Coronavirus) Coronavirus. As a result, most people know about six-foot distancing, masks, and we can recite some of the unfortunate statistics by county, state, and nation. There has been a great deal of discussion among teachers, in school board meetings, among parents, and certainly among students about what we must do, what could happen, whether there is a vaccine around the bend, and more. However, most of us don't know much about viruses, about this particular virus, how viruses work, what we can reasonably expect from science and medicine, and whether this is an isolated incident. To answer those questions--keeping politics out of the discussion, we've invited several scientists to help us navigate current knowledge, history, beliefs, and the future. And so, this week, we welcome Tista Ghosh, MD, MPH, Senior Director of Impact Evaluation at Grand Rounds, and former Lieutenant-Commander in the United States Public Health Service; Glenn F. Rall, Ph.D., Professor and Chief Academic Officer for Fox Chase Cancer Center; and Steven Taffet, Ph.D., Professor of Microbiology and Immunology, SUNY Upstate Medical University.

Please join us on Thursdays for our live shows, or visit www.reinventing.school for the recorded versions.

More about this week's guests:

Tista Ghosh, MD, MPH. Senior Director of Impact Evaluation. Dr. Tista Ghosh is a physician trained in both internal medicine and preventive medicine, with her MD from Indiana University and her master’s degree in public health from Yale University. She also has had specialized training in applied epidemiology and public health practice through the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). She has served our country as a Lieutenant-Commander in the United States Public Health Service. Dr. Ghosh has broad experience in population health at the local, state, federal, and international levels. She was the chief medical epidemiologist for Colorado’s largest local health department and has served as Chief Medical Officer of the State of Colorado. She is also an assistant adjunct professor at the University of Colorado. Dr. Ghosh has served in a consulting role to a variety of international organizations, including the World Health Organization and UNICEF. From 2017-2019, she was appointed by the director of the CDC to serve on the United States Community Preventive Services Task Force, a panel of experts who review the evidence and make recommendations to guide population health efforts across the country. Currently, she is the Senior Director of Impact Evaluation/Regional Medical Director for Grand Rounds. Her role is to help maximize and quantify Grand Rounds’ population health impact.

 

Glenn Rall, Ph.D. is a Professor with Temple University and Chief Academic Officer at Fox Chase Cancer Center. His research interests include viral infection, immunity, and disease in the brain: Elucidating how neurotropic viruses spread to, and across, synaptic junctions; Defining principles that govern unique aspects of the host immune response within the brain; Developing mouse models to study immunity to multiple pathogenic encounters; Evaluating long-term neuropathological consequences of viral infections. His laboratory studies viral infections of the brain and the immune responses to those infections, with the goal of defining how viruses contribute to disease in humans, including cancer. Over the past decade, we have developed mouse models that have enabled mechanistic insights into viral replication and spread within neurons, and the roles played by soluble immune mediators, such as chemokines and cytokines, in viral clearance.

 

Steven Mark Taffet, Ph.D.: Recognized as a dedicated educator and an expert in his field, Dr. Steven Taffet has been an indispensable resource at Upstate for 35 years in diverse roles, encompassing the entire spectrum of education, research, and leadership. He has led a research laboratory, authored 79 peer-reviewed publications, and obtained external funding for more than three decades.  Since 1985, he has taught Immunology to the medical students’ class, summer students in and graduate students. In addition, Dr. Taffet has been a member of numerous thesis committees for Ph.D. student research and has successfully guided two students to their MS degrees and 11 students to their PhDs. He is one of the national leaders for teaching an innovative active-learning method to Immunology. His research originally focused on the cell biology of immune function however during a 20-year collaboration he ventured into cardiovascular research making fundamental discoveries into the regulation of the cardiac gap junction protein. Dr. Taffet has chaired the College of Graduate Studies Curriculum Committee and College of Medicine Faculty Appointment and Promotions Committee served as interim chair of the Department of Microbiology and Immunology and as assistant dean for Faculty Development, among many others. He has given 20 years of exemplary service to the American Heart Association (AHA) in his various roles in research, including service on the National Research Committee, a highly competitive committee where members are selected for being outstanding scholars. When not teaching medical students Dr. Taffet is an instructor for the National Ski Patrol teaching first aid skills to patrollers. He is one of the leaders in the local ski patrol educational programs.

 

Howard Blumenthal created and produced the PBS television series, Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? He is currently a Senior Scholar at The University of Pennsylvania, studying learning and the lives of 21st-century children and teenagers. He travels the world, visiting K-12 schools, lecturing at universities, and interviewing young people for Kids on Earth, a global platform containing nearly 1,000 interview segments from Kentucky, Brazil, Sweden, India, and many other countries. Previously, he was a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist for The New York Times Syndicate, and United Features. He is the author of 24 books and several hundred articles about technology, learning, business, and human progress. As an executive, Howard was the CEO of a public television operation and several television production companies, and a state government official. Previously, he was a Senior Vice President for divisions of two large media companies, Hearst and Bertelsmann, and a consultant or project lead for Energizer, General Electric, American Express, CompuServe, Warner Communications, Merriam-Webster, Atari, and other companies.

 

On Thursday, October 15 at 4:00 pm US-EDT, we present the 25th LIVE episode of the new LearningRevolution.com weekly interview series, REINVENTING SCHOOL.

This week's episode looks at the world of school from a different point-of-view. Often, when asked about key classroom and school decisions, people at the local level (teachers, principals, school districts) look to state government. And so, this week, we're joined by people in charge of state education departments. This week: Randy Spaulding, Executive Director of the Washington State Board of Education; and Sydnee Dickson, Utah State Superintendent of Public Instruction.

LINKS from this episode:

https://schools.utah.gov/portraitgraduate

Please join us on Thursdays for our live shows, or visit www.reinventing.school for the recorded versions.

More about this week's guests:

Randy Spaulding has served as the Executive Director for the Washington State Board of Education since 2018. Previously he had served as the Director of Academic Affairs and Policy at the Washington Student Achievement Council (WSAC) and Higher Education Coordinating Board (HECB). His work focused on the intersections of secondary and postsecondary education to improve student transitions and raise educational attainment. Prior to his work at the Council (HECB), Randy worked in student services, admissions, and financial aid at the University of Washington Bothell. Randy received his Ph.D. from the University of Washington in 2003.

 

Sydnee Dickson has been serving as Utah State Superintendent of Public Instruction since June of 2016 and served as interim state superintendent for six months prior to that. She has nearly 10 years of experience working in the office of the Utah State Board of Education (USBE). Prior to that Dickson worked in various counseling, teaching, and leadership capacities in the Davis, Granite and Murray school districts for 27 years. She holds an Ed.D. degree in Education Leadership and Policy from the University of Utah and a master of education degree from Brigham Young University in educational leadership and administration. Her bachelor’s degree in elementary education and teaching is from Utah State University.

 

Howard Blumenthal created and produced the PBS television series, Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? He is currently a Senior Scholar at The University of Pennsylvania, studying learning and the lives of 21st-century children and teenagers. He travels the world, visiting K-12 schools, lecturing at universities, and interviewing young people for Kids on Earth, a global platform containing nearly 1,000 interview segments from Kentucky, Brazil, Sweden, India, and many other countries. Previously, he was a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist for The New York Times Syndicate, and United Features. He is the author of 24 books and several hundred articles about technology, learning, business, and human progress. As an executive, Howard was the CEO of a public television operation and several television production companies, and a state government official. Previously, he was a Senior Vice President for divisions of two large media companies, Hearst and Bertelsmann, and a consultant or project lead for Energizer, General Electric, American Express, CompuServe, Warner Communications, Merriam-Webster, Atari, and other companies.

 

On Thursday, October 8 at 4:00 pm US-EDT, we presented the 24st LIVE episode of the LearningRevolution.com weekly interview series, REINVENTING SCHOOL.

This week's episode continues our one-on-one interviews about Positive Psychology and Positive Education. Our guest is Peggy Kern, an associate professor at Centre for Positive Psychology within the University of Melbourne's Graduate School of Education.

Please join us on Thursdays for our live shows, or visit www.reinventing.school for the recorded versions.

More about this week's guests:

Peggy Kern's research addresses the question of who thrives in life, why, and what enhances or hinders healthy life trajectories. My research involves several related foci: understanding and measuring healthy functioning across the lifespan; identifying individual and social factors that impact life trajectories; developing positive educational communities; and systems-based approaches to wellbeing. She incorporates a lifespan perspective, innovative methodologies, and interdisciplinary collaboration throughout my research. My work is collaborative in nature, and my studies draw on multiple fields of study and a combination of quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methodologies. Peggy is well-respected in the field, and notable for her excellent (and very useful) work in defining, measuring, and building well-being. (You can find several them here: https://www.peggykern.org/research-overview.html).

 

Howard Blumenthal created and produced the PBS television series, Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? He is currently a Senior Scholar at The University of Pennsylvania, studying learning and the lives of 21st-century children and teenagers. He travels the world, visiting K-12 schools, lecturing at universities, and interviewing young people for Kids on Earth, a global platform containing nearly 1,000 interview segments from Kentucky, Brazil, Sweden, India, and many other countries. Previously, he was a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist for The New York Times Syndicate, and United Features. He is the author of 24 books and several hundred articles about technology, learning, business, and human progress. As an executive, Howard was the CEO of a public television operation and several television production companies, and a state government official. Previously, he was a Senior Vice President for divisions of two large media companies, Hearst and Bertelsmann, and a consultant or project lead for Energizer, General Electric, American Express, CompuServe, Warner Communications, Merriam-Webster, Atari, and other companies.

 

On Thursday, October 1, we produced our first one-on-one LIVE hour of the LearningRevolution.com weekly interview series, REINVENTING SCHOOL.

If you miss any of the LIVE sessions, you can always find the recordings on this web page several days after the recording session. You may be familiar with the concept of Positive Psychology--a two-decade-old part of psychology that studies the positive side of the human experience through hope, resilience, mindfulness, relationships, agency, and future mindedness. All of this applies to education in very useful ways. Positive Education incorporates aspects of social-emotional learning, but it goes much further. This week, we're joined for the full hour by Laurie Santos, a psychology professor whose big project at Yale University is to positively influence the culture of the institution by teaching happiness and well-being.

Please join us on Thursdays for our live shows, or visit www.reinventing.school for the recorded versions.

Psychologist Dr. Laurie Santos is an expert on human cognition, its origins, and the evolutionary biases that influence our all-too imperfect life choices. She is also knowledgeable about how behavioral change through positive psychology can lead to a happy and fulfilling life. Currently. the big project of Dr. Santos is to positively influence the culture of Yale University by teaching happiness and well-being. She created a course so meaningful that it became the most popular class taken at Yale in over 316 years. In her course, "Psychology and the Good Life," Santos teaches her 1200 students about behavioral change through positive psychology. Dr. Santos wants her students to be more grateful, procrastinate less, and increase social connections. She believes that those positive habits will decrease mental health issues on campus and create happier and more motivated students. The popularity of the class has prompted Yale to create a free online course. Dr. Santos is the host of the podcast, "The Happiness Lab." From her research, Santos speaks to how we are biologically programmed to be motivated by sex, to be deeply influenced by other people — and to repeat our mistakes. And while Santos often uses subjects from the animal kingdom to help explain our sometimes-illogical behaviors, she also provides advice on how to engage our uniquely human faculties to counteract evolution, choose more wisely, and live happier lives.

 

Howard Blumenthal created and produced the PBS television series, Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? He is currently a Senior Scholar at The University of Pennsylvania, studying learning and the lives of 21st-century children and teenagers. He travels the world, visiting K-12 schools, lecturing at universities, and interviewing young people for Kids on Earth, a global platform containing nearly 1,000 interview segments from Kentucky, Brazil, Sweden, India, and many other countries. Previously, he was a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist for The New York Times Syndicate, and United Features. He is the author of 24 books and several hundred articles about technology, learning, business, and human progress. As an executive, Howard was the CEO of a public television operation and several television production companies, and a state government official. Previously, he was a Senior Vice President for divisions of two large media companies, Hearst and Bertelsmann, and a consultant or project lead for Energizer, General Electric, American Express, CompuServe, Warner Communications, Merriam-Webster, Atari, and other companies.

 

On Thursday, September 24 at 3:00 pm US-EDT, we produced our first LIVE half-hour of the LearningRevolution.com weekly interview series, REINVENTING SCHOOL.

If you miss any of the LIVE sessions, you can always find the recordings on this web page several days after the recording session.

You may be familiar with the concept of Positive Psychology--a two-decade-old part of psychology that studies the positive side of the human experience through hope, resilience, mindfulness, relationships, agency and future mindedness. All of this applies to education in very useful ways. Positive Education incorporates aspects of social-emotional learning, but it goes mufh further. This week, we're joined by Sir Anthony Seldon, Vice-Chancellor of The University of Buckingham since 2015, one of Britain’s leading contemporary historians, educationalists, commentators and political authors.

Please join us on Thursdays for our live shows, or visit www.reinventing.school for the recorded versions.

More about this week's guests:

Sir Anthony Seldon, Vice-Chancellor of The University of Buckingham since 2015, is one of Britain’s leading contemporary historians, educationalists, commentators, and political authors. He was a transformative head for 20 years, first of Brighton College, and then Wellington College. He is author or editor of over 40 books on contemporary history, including the inside books on the last four Prime Ministers, was the co-founder and first director of the Institute for Contemporary British History, is co-founder of Action for Happiness, an honorary historical adviser to 10 Downing Street, UK Special Representative for Saudi Education, a member of the Government’s First World War Culture Committee, was chair of the Comment Awards, is a director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, the President of IPEN, (International Positive Education Network), Chair of the National Archives Trust, is patron or on the board of several charities, founder of the Via Sacra Western Front Walk, and was executive producer of the film Journey’s End. He appeared on the Desert Island Discs in 2016.  For the last fifteen years, he has given all his money from writing and lecturing to charity

 

Howard Blumenthal created and produced the PBS television series, Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? He is currently a Senior Scholar at The University of Pennsylvania, studying learning and the lives of 21st-century children and teenagers. He travels the world, visiting K-12 schools, lecturing at universities, and interviewing young people for Kids on Earth, a global platform containing nearly 1,000 interview segments from Kentucky, Brazil, Sweden, India, and many other countries. Previously, he was a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist for The New York Times Syndicate, and United Features. He is the author of 24 books and several hundred articles about technology, learning, business, and human progress. As an executive, Howard was the CEO of a public television operation and several television production companies, and a state government official. Previously, he was a Senior Vice President for divisions of two large media companies, Hearst and Bertelsmann, and a consultant or project lead for Energizer, General Electric, American Express, CompuServe, Warner Communications, Merriam-Webster, Atari, and other companies.

On Thursday, September 17 at 4:00 pm US-EDT, we present the 21st LIVE episode of the LearningRevolution.com weekly interview series, REINVENTING SCHOOL. If you miss the LIVE show, we'll post the recorded version next week. 

This week's episode tries to make sense of our system of testing, evaluation, and assessment. It's not simple. It is imperfect, controversial, and beginning to change (in part due to the virus, in part because change is overdue). This week: Alfie Kohn, an independent scholar who writes and speaks about education, homework, testing, and other provocative topics; and Jeff Snyder, Chair of Educational Studies at Carleton University whose expertise includes evaluation and assessment.

Please join us on Thursdays for our live shows, or visit www.reinventing.school for the recorded versions.

More about this week's guests:

Jeff Snyder is an Associate Professor in the Department of Educational Studies at Carleton College. His work explores the connections between the history of education and broader trends in American cultural and intellectual history, examining questions about race, national identity, and the purpose of public education in a diverse, democratic society. His teaching focuses on past and present educational policy and school reform movements. Every fall, he teaches a first-year seminar called “Will This Be on the Test? Standardized Testing and American Education.” He writes frequently for newspapers and magazines, including Education Week, the New Republic, and the Washington Post. See a recent essay where Snyder argues that getting rid of college admissions tests will not magically open the doors of educational opportunity for disadvantaged students. You can also visit his website here.

 

Alfie Kohn writes and speaks widely on human behavior, education, and parenting. The most recent of his 14 books are SCHOOLING BEYOND MEASURE…And Other Unorthodox Essays About Education (2015) and THE MYTH OF THE SPOILED CHILD: Challenging the Conventional Wisdom About Children and Parenting (2014).  Of his earlier titles, the best known are PUNISHED BY REWARDS (1993), NO CONTEST: The Case Against Competition (1986), UNCONDITIONAL PARENTING (2005), and THE SCHOOLS OUR CHILDREN DESERVE (1999). Kohn has been described in Time magazine as “perhaps the country’s most outspoken critic of education’s fixation on grades [and] test scores.” His criticisms of competition and rewards have helped to shape the thinking of educators — as well as parents and managers — across the country and abroad. Kohn has been featured on hundreds of TV and radio programs, including the “Today” show and two appearances on “Oprah”; he has been profiled in the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times, while his work has been described and debated in many other leading publications. Kohn lectures widely at universities and to school faculties, parent groups, and corporations. In addition to speaking at staff development seminars and keynoting national education conferences on a regular basis, he conducts workshops for teachers and administrators on various topics. Among them: “Motivation from the Inside Out: Rethinking Rewards, Assessment, and Learning” and “Beyond Bribes and Threats: Realistic Alternatives to Controlling Students’ Behavior.” The latter corresponds to his book BEYOND DISCIPLINE: From Compliance to Community (ASCD, 1996), which he describes as “a modest attempt to overthrow the entire field of classroom management.

 

Howard Blumenthal created and produced the PBS television series, Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? He is currently a Senior Scholar at The University of Pennsylvania, studying learning and the lives of 21st-century children and teenagers. He travels the world, visiting K-12 schools, lecturing at universities, and interviewing young people for Kids on Earth, a global platform containing nearly 1,000 interview segments from Kentucky, Brazil, Sweden, India, and many other countries. Previously, he was a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist for The New York Times Syndicate, and United Features. He is the author of 24 books and several hundred articles about technology, learning, business, and human progress. As an executive, Howard was the CEO of a public television operation and several television production companies, and a state government official. Previously, he was a Senior Vice President for divisions of two large media companies, Hearst and Bertelsmann, and a consultant or project lead for Energizer, General Electric, American Express, CompuServe, Warner Communications, Merriam-Webster, Atari, and other companies.

On Thursday, September 10 at 4:00 pm US-EDT, we celebrate with the twentieth (!) LIVE episode of the new LearningRevolution.com weekly interview series, REINVENTING SCHOOL. If you miss the LIVE show, we'll post the recorded version early next week. 

This week's episode is the second part of a two-parter. REINVENTING SCHOOL looks at the world of the teacher. We've been working with the Council of Chief School Officers (CCSSO), and we'll be joined by three winners of their "Teacher of the Year" awards. This week: Chanda Jefferson, 2020 South Carolina Teacher of the Year, currently Albert Einstein Fellow in Congress; Rodney Robinson, 2019 National Teacher of the Year, senior advisor, Richmond Public Schools; and Tabatha Rosproy, 2020 National Teacher of the Year (Early childhood education, Winfield Early Learning Center, Winfield, KS.

Please join us on Thursdays for our live shows, or visit www.reinventing.school for the recorded versions.

More about this week's guests:

Chanda Jefferson is a ninth through twelfth-grade biology teacher and department chair at Fairfield Central High School in Winnsboro, South Carolina. She is passionate about teaching in underserved communities and building students’ capacity by developing their strengths. Jefferson uses engaging activities to elicit ideas while challenging students to investigate the world around them. She infuses culturally relevant pedagogy, STEM practices, and emotional intelligence strategies to empower students and prepare them for a competitive workforce. Jefferson is an ambassador and advocate for all teachers in South Carolina and serves as the Lead Facilitator of the South Carolina State Teacher Forum. She is also committed to recruiting new teachers by sharing her teaching experiences with hundreds of pre-service teachers throughout the state. Jefferson received many distinguished honors, including the South Carolina Educational Policy Fellowship, in which she collaborates with legislatures and educational stakeholders to develop policy solutions promoting diversity and access in education. She also received the South Carolina Outstanding Biology Teacher Award, the Phi Beta Sigma Lifetime Achievement Award, and was selected for the Princeton Molecular Biology Teacher Institute. In partnership with the National Human Genome Research Institute, Jefferson was granted a proclamation establishing South Carolina DNA Day by the governor of South Carolina, which serves as a day of unity throughout the entire state. Jefferson earned a bachelor of science in biological sciences and a master’s in teaching secondary sciences from the University of South Carolina. Jefferson also earned a master of education in public school building leadership from Columbia University.

 

Rodney Robinson is a 19-year teaching veteran. He became a teacher to honor his mother, who struggled to receive an education after being denied an education as a child due to segregation and poverty in rural Virginia. In 2015, Robinson started teaching at Virgie Binford Education Center, a school inside the Richmond Juvenile Detention Center, in an effort to better understand the school-to-prison pipeline. Robinson uses the whole child approach to education to help students who are most vulnerable. His classroom is a collaborative partnership between himself and his students and is anchored in him providing a civic centered education that promotes social-emotional growth. Robinson uses the knowledge he has gained from his students to develop alternative programs to prevent students from entering the school-to-prison pipeline.    Robinson has been published three times by Yale University and has received numerous awards for his accomplishments in and out of the classroom, most notably the R.E.B. Award for Teaching Excellence.  He is a member of Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney’s Education Compact Team, which includes politicians, educators, business leaders, and community leaders, and is working with city leaders and local colleges to recruit underrepresented male teachers into the field of education. He has also worked with Pulitzer Award-winning author James Foreman on developing curriculum units on race, class, and punishment as a part of the Yale Teacher’s Institute. Robinson earned a Bachelor of arts in history from Virginia State University and a master’s in educational administration and supervision from Virginia Commonwealth University.

 

Tabatha Rosproy, a 10-year veteran Kansas teacher, is the first early childhood educator to be named National Teacher of the Year. She teaches preschool for Winfield Early Learning Center (WELC) in Winfield, Kansas. Housed in Cumbernauld Village, a local retirement community and nursing home, her inclusive classroom is an inter-generational program that provides preschoolers and residents with multiple daily interactions and serves special education and typically developing preschoolers in a full-day setting.  As the COVID-19 pandemic forced the closure of school buildings across the country, Rosproy served as a co-chair of the educator task force that helped compile Kansas’s continuous learning guidance. A career preschool educator, Rosproy hopes to bring a voice to the important role early childhood education plays in our society and to highlight the value of social-emotional education at all age levels. Rosproy has served on her building leadership team and as the co-head teacher of WELC and as co-president of Winfield National Education Association. She is also active at the state level with the Kansas National Education Association. Rosproy is a member of the Cowley County Special Services Cooperative Early Childhood Academy Team, which provides training and support in positive behavior interventions for early childhood teachers in her county. Rosproy holds a Bachelor of Arts in unified early childhood education, including special education and typically developing students, from Southwestern College and is near completion of her Master of Science in Education (English as a Secondary or Other Language) at Fort Hays State University.

 

Howard Blumenthal created and produced the PBS television series, Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? He is currently a Senior Scholar at The University of Pennsylvania, studying learning and the lives of 21st-century children and teenagers. He travels the world, visiting K-12 schools, lecturing at universities, and interviewing young people for Kids on Earth, a global platform containing nearly 1,000 interview segments from Kentucky, Brazil, Sweden, India, and many other countries. Previously, he was a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist for The New York Times Syndicate, and United Features. He is the author of 24 books and several hundred articles about technology, learning, business, and human progress. As an executive, Howard was the CEO of a public television operation and several television production companies, and a state government official. Previously, he was a Senior Vice President for divisions of two large media companies, Hearst and Bertelsmann, and a consultant or project lead for Energizer, General Electric, American Express, CompuServe, Warner Communications, Merriam-Webster, Atari, and other companies.

On Thursday, September 3 at 4:00 pm US-EDT, we present the nineteenth LIVE episode of the new LearningRevolution.com weekly interview series, REINVENTING SCHOOL. If you miss the LIVE show, we'll post the recorded version early next week. 

This week's episode begins a two-parter. REINVENTING SCHOOL looks at the world of the teacher. We've been working with the Council of Chief School Officers (CCSSO), and we'll be joined by three winners of their "Teacher of the Year" awards on Episode 19 and three more on Episode 20. This week: Lynette Stant, 2020 Arizona Teacher of the Year; Mandy Manning, 2018 National Teacher of the Year; and Takeru Nagayoshi, 2020 Massachusetts Teacher of the Year.

Please join us on Thursdays for our live shows, or visit www.reinventing.school for the recorded versions.

More about this week's guests:

Lynette Stant is a member of the Navajo Nation and a 15-year veteran elementary teacher who teaches 3rd grade on the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Reservation in Scottsdale, Arizona. She holds a master's degree in education from Grand Canyon University and graduated summa cum laude with a bachelor's degree in elementary education from Arizona State University. Stant is a Gates Millennium Scholar (GMS) and part of the GMS alumni community. In addition to leading her grade level team, she serves on various school and district leadership teams and school improvement committees. She serves as a New Teacher Mentor for Salt River Schools and as a Cooperating Teacher for Northern Arizona University, Arizona State University, and the University of Phoenix to mentor future educators. Stant has presented workshops at state and national education conferences on STEM education and successfully helped write a $500,000 STEM grant for her school, providing teachers with professional development opportunities in STEM implementation and sustainability, as well as providing students authentic STEM learning opportunities. Stant was selected for the 2018 100Kin10 Teacher Forum to address the STEM teacher shortage in American schools. Her mission is to inspire her students to become leaders and remind them that in order to understand where they are going, they must embrace where they come from.

 

Mandy Manning teaches English to newly arrived refugee and immigrant students in the Newcomer Center at Joel E. Ferris High School in Spokane, Washington. In her classroom, Mandy uses experiential projects like map-making to help her students process trauma, celebrate their home countries and culture, and learn about their new community. As 2018 National Teacher of the Year, Mandy will encourage educators to teach their students to overcome their fears and seek out new experiences. “Let’s teach our students to be fearless,” she says. “Let’s teach them to be brave when confronted with uncertainty. Brave when they fail. Brave in meeting new people. Brave in seeking opportunities to experience things outside of their understanding.” Mandy strives to create connections between her students and the community inside and outside of the school. Her students work in the student store and she encourages other students to visit and volunteer in the Newcomer Center. She also invites district leaders, campus resource officers, community members of color, and professional writers to visit her classroom. The visits help her students learn cultural expectations and how to express themselves effectively. In return, her students teach these leaders where they come from, who they are, and the beauty they add to the school district. “All of us together make this world interesting and good. We must teach our students to overcome their fears and seek out new experiences. The only way to teach fearlessness is to show it. We must show kindness by getting to know our students, learning about them, and showing them how to connect,” she says.  Mandy has taught for the past 19 years, seven of which have been in her current role. She earned a Bachelor of Arts from Eastern Washington University, a Masters of Arts from West Texas A & M University, and a Masters of Fine Arts from Northwest Institute of Literary Arts. Mandy is a National Board Certified Teacher.

 

Takeru Nagayoshi is the 2020 Massachusetts Teacher of the Year. He teaches Advanced Placement English at New Bedford High School, an urban low-income public school in New Bedford, Massachusetts. Nagayoshi has also piloted the research-based AP Capstone program, fewer than 10 of which existed in his state. With over 92 percent of his students passing their AP exams, he helped his district lead the state in the number of AP Certificates awarded. As a son of Japanese immigrants and as a gay person of color, Nagayoshi leverages his identities to fight for educational equity. Outside the classroom, he has written op-eds on education issues, coaches developing teachers in high-needs districts, and lends his voice to multiple panels, committees, and an educator diversity task force. He has also participated in several fellowships, including those offered by Teach Plus, the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. This year, he helped launch an educational leadership program, Southern New England Alumni Leadership Initiative (SNEALI), which develops local capacity for teachers in the Southern New England area. Nagayoshi has received recognitions such as the Sue Lehmann Excellence in Teacher Leadership Award (2019), the Boston University Young Alumni Award (2019), and the Sontag Prize in Urban Education (2018). Nagayoshi lived in Japan for five years and currently lives in Providence, RI. He graduated magna cum laude from Brown University with an honors bachelor of arts in international relations and a master of education in curriculum and teaching from Boston University.

 

Howard Blumenthal created and produced the PBS television series, Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? He is currently a Senior Scholar at The University of Pennsylvania, studying learning and the lives of 21st-century children and teenagers. He travels the world, visiting K-12 schools, lecturing at universities, and interviewing young people for Kids on Earth, a global platform containing nearly 1,000 interview segments from Kentucky, Brazil, Sweden, India, and many other countries. Previously, he was a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist for The New York Times Syndicate, and United Features. He is the author of 24 books and several hundred articles about technology, learning, business, and human progress. As an executive, Howard was the CEO of a public television operation and several television production companies, and a state government official. Previously, he was a Senior Vice President for divisions of two large media companies, Hearst and Bertelsmann, and a consultant or project lead for Energizer, General Electric, American Express, CompuServe, Warner Communications, Merriam-Webster, Atari, and other companies.

On Thursday, August 27 at 4:00 pm US-EDT, we present the eighteenth LIVE episode of the new LearningRevolution.com weekly interview series, REINVENTING SCHOOL. If you miss the LIVE show, we'll post the recorded version early next week. 

This week, REINVENTING SCHOOL asks a basic question: if distance learning is the solution, how does this work without 100% broadband coverage in the U.S.? By our count, about 2 in 3 U.S. students (K-12) lack either reliable fast broadband service, the necessary devices, or a quiet space to study and learn. Our discussion will focus on broadband inequality so we can learn the reasons why the system is (wildly) imperfect, and what is being done to correct the situation.

Our guest experts: Dr. Veronica C. Garcia, Superintendent of New Mexico's Santa Fe Public Schools; Matt Dunne, Founder & Executive Director, Center on Rural Innovation; Dee Davis, Center for Rural Strategies; Michael Romano, Senior Vice President of Industry Affairs, NTCA - The Rural Broadband Association; and Evan Marwell, Founder and CEO of EducationSuperHighway.

More about this week's guests:

Dr. Veronica C. Garcia, Superintendent of Santa Fe Public Schools, has extensive experience working in the policy arena in various capacities, including serving as Executive Director for NM Voices for Children, Executive Director of the New Mexico Coalition of School Administrators, and New Mexico’s first Cabinet Secretary of Education. As Cabinet Secretary of Education, she advocated for the passage of many educational reforms including the state’s Pre-K Act, Hispanic Education Act, programs that extend the school year for at-risk children (K-3 Plus), and rigorous academic standards that were recognized nationally. She also pushed for a comprehensive approach to educational reform by advocating for increased funding for programs such as school-based health clinics, breakfast in the schools, and elementary physical education. Under her leadership, New Mexico garnered top rankings for school reform, accountability systems, increased teacher quality, data quality, health and wellness policies, parental involvement, and college and career readiness.

Prior to becoming the interim superintendent of Santa Fe Public Schools, Dr. Garcia served as the Executive Director of New Mexico Voices for Children, a state children’s advocacy organization that champions policies meant to improve child well-being in the areas of education, health, family economic security, and racial and ethnic equity. During her time as executive director of NM Voices for Children, she fully integrated the organization’s two major work areas—the KIDS COUNT program and the Fiscal Policy Project—which resulted in the creation of the NM KIDS are COUNTing on Us policy campaign, a blueprint for improving child well-being. Her decades of work within the state’s K-12 education system have also included teaching in the classroom, serving as principal and regional superintendent in the Albuquerque Public Schools, and serving as associate superintendent and superintendent of the Santa Fe Public Schools. As the Superintendent of Santa Fe Public Schools from 1999-2002, the District transformed a $2.6 million deficit into a $2.4 million cash balance.

Matt Dunne is the Founder and Executive Director of the Center on Rural Innovation. He served 11 years in the Vermont House and Senate, enacting the state’s first broadband grants, brownfields revitalization funding, and downtown redevelopment program. He helped grow a VT-based software company to over 100 people and was Associate Director of the Rockefeller Center on Public Policy at Dartmouth College. In 1999 Matt was appointed director of AmeriCorps*VISTA under President Clinton, where he led PowerUp, one of the first national efforts to bridge the digital divide, and launched an Entrepreneur Corps to focus on micro-finance in high-need communities. In 2007, he started Google’s Community Affairs division out of a former bread factory in White River Jct, VT, where he led all local US philanthropy and engagement, including the Google Fiber rollout and orchestrating educational and development initiatives in Google’s data center communities across rural America. Matt has a BA from Brown University, and also held an appointment at the MIT Media Lab. He is a lifelong Vermonter who lives on the 100-acre farm where he was raised.

 

Dee Davis is the founder and president of the Center for Rural Strategies. Dee has helped design and lead national public information campaigns on topics as diverse as commercial television programming and federal banking policy. Dee began his media career in 1973 as a trainee at Appalshop, an arts and cultural center devoted to exploring Appalachian life and social issues in Whitesburg, Kentucky. As Appalshop's executive producer, the organization created more than 50 public TV documentaries, established a media training program for Appalachian youth, and launched initiatives that use media as a strategic tool in organization and development. He is the chair of the Rural Assembly steering committee; a member of the Rural Advisory Committee of the Local Initiatives Support Corporation, Fund for Innovative Television, and Feral Arts of Brisbane, Australia. He is also a member of the Institute for Rural Journalism’s national advisory board. He is a member of the Board of Directors for the Institute for Work and the Economy. Dee is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Commission on the Practice of Democratic Citizenship. Dee is also the former Chair of the board of directors of Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation. Dee received an English degree from the University of Kentucky. He lives in Whitesburg, Kentucky.

 

Michael Romano joined NTCA–The Rural Broadband Association as senior vice president of industry affairs and business development on August 23, 2010. Romano oversees the organization's public policy, government affairs, business development and Foundation for Rural Service initiatives on behalf of its nearly 850 small rural telecom provider members. Before joining NTCA, Romano was of counsel at Bingham McCutchen, LLP, where he advised telecom carriers regarding broadband stimulus and other federal broadband network funding opportunities, and negotiated agreements on a variety of issues including equipment and software licensing and sales, outsourcing arrangements and dispute settlements, among other duties. Prior to joining Bingham McCutchen, Romano served as vice president and general counsel of Global Telecom & Technology, was counsel in the intellectual property group at America Online, and held a number of positions in the legal department of Level 3 Communications. He began his legal career as an associate at Swidler Berlin, LLP.

 

Evan Marwell is a serial entrepreneur, having started companies over the last 25 years in the telecom, software, hedge fund, and consumer retailing industries including INFONXX (now KGB) and Criterion Capital Management. Collectively, these businesses created thousands of jobs and generated billions of dollars of revenues and investment returns. Evan founded the non-profit EducationSuperHighway in 2012. In its first three years, the organization helped shape President Obama’s ConnectED initiative and served as a catalyst for modernization of the Federal Communications Commission’s $3.9 billion E-rate program, earning Evan the 2015 Visionary of the Year award from the San Francisco Chronicle. Evan is an honors graduate of Harvard College ’87 and Harvard Business School ’92.

 

Howard Blumenthal created and produced the PBS television series, Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? He is currently a Senior Scholar at The University of Pennsylvania, studying learning and the lives of 21st-century children and teenagers. He travels the world, visiting K-12 schools, lecturing at universities, and interviewing young people for Kids on Earth, a global platform containing nearly 1,000 interview segments from Kentucky, Brazil, Sweden, India, and many other countries. Previously, he was a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist for The New York Times Syndicate, and United Features. He is the author of 24 books and several hundred articles about technology, learning, business, and human progress. As an executive, Howard was the CEO of a public television operation and several television production companies, and a state government official. Previously, he was a Senior Vice President for divisions of two large media companies, Hearst and Bertelsmann, and a consultant or project lead for Energizer, General Electric, American Express, CompuServe, Warner Communications, Merriam-Webster, Atari, and other companies.

We are producing TWO episodes this week, one on Wednesday and one on Thursday.

On Thursday, August 20 at 4:00 pm US-EDT, we present the seventeenth LIVE episode of the new LearningRevolution.com weekly interview series, REINVENTING SCHOOL. If you miss the LIVE show, we'll post the recorded version early next week. 

This week, REINVENTING SCHOOL considers a serious technology threat to (a) our sanity; (b) our business and industry; and (c) our schools. Could a giant cyberattack disrupt or even disable our access to the internet? (How would we do distance learning with no internet?) Is our national power grid at risk? What happens if a cyberattack strikes in the midst of the pandemic? Are we thinking about any of this clearly? For clear and rational answers, we look authors and experts who presented the Solarium Cyberspace Commission report mandated by the U.S. Congress (see NY Times article)

• “The U.S. government is currently not designed to act with the speed and agility necessary to defend the country in cyberspace,” the final report of the Cyberspace Solarium Commission concludes. “We must get faster and smarter, improving the government’s ability to organize concurrent, continuous and collaborative efforts to build resilience, respond to cyber threats, and preserve military options that signal a capability and willingness to impose costs on adversaries.”

Our guest experts: Frank Cilluffo, Director, McCrary Institute for Cyber & Critical Infrastructure Security at Auburn University, Suzanne Spaulding, Senior Adviser for Homeland Security and leads the Defending Democratic Institutions Project (DDI) at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), and Mark Montgomery, Executive Director, Cyberspace Solarium Commission.

More about this week's guests:

Suzanne Spaulding. Ms. Suzanne E. Spaulding, was appointed to the Commission by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY). Ms. Spaulding is Senior Adviser for Homeland Security and leads the Defending Democratic Institutions Project (DDI) at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Previously, she served as Under Secretary for the Department of Homeland Security, where she led the National Protection and Programs Directorate, now called the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), managing a $3 billion budget and a workforce of 18,000, charged with strengthening cybersecurity and protecting the nation’s critical infrastructure, including election infrastructure. She led the transformation of budget, acquisition, analytic, and operational processes to bring greater agility and unity of effort to an organization that had experienced dramatic growth through acquisition of new entities and missions over several years.

Throughout her career, Ms. Spaulding has advised CEOs, boards, and government policymakers on how to manage complex security risks, across all industry sectors. At DHS, she led the development and implementation of national policies for strengthening the security and resilience of critical infrastructure against cyber and physical risks, including the National Infrastructure Protection Plan and key Presidential Directives and Executive Orders. She worked with industry to establish CEO-level coordinating councils in the electric and financial services sectors; chaired the federal government’s Aviation Cybersecurity Initiative to identify and address key cyber vulnerabilities in the national aviation system; and worked with many foreign governments on critical infrastructure and cybersecurity, including negotiating agreements with China and Israel. Ms. Spaulding also led security regulation of the chemical industry; biometrics and identity management; emergency communications; and the Federal Protective Service. As a member of the Board of Directors for the First Responder Network Authority (FirstNet), Ms. Spaulding helped oversee the complex and unprecedented effort to deploy the first nation-wide broadband network for public safety. She is currently on the Board of Directors for Defending Digital Campaigns (DDC) and for Girl Security; and Advisory Boards for Nozomi Networks, Splunk, MITRE, Harvard University’s Defending Digital Democracy project, Foundation for Defense of Democracies, and the Technology Law and Security Program at American University. She is a member of the Homeland Security Experts Group, sits on the Council of Executives for the Center for Cyber and Homeland Security at Auburn University, and is on the faculty of the National Association of Corporate Directors. Following the attacks of 9/11, Ms. Spaulding worked with key critical infrastructure sectors as they reviewed their security posture and advised the CEOs of the Business Roundtable. In 2002, she was appointed by Governor Mark Warner of Virginia to the Secure Commonwealth Panel to advise the governor and the legislature regarding preparedness issues. She was managing partner of the Harbour Group; a principal in the Bingham Consulting Group; and of counsel to Bingham McCutchen, LLP. Ms. Spaulding has served in Republican and Democratic administrations and on both sides of the aisle in Congress. She was general counsel for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and minority staff director for the U.S. House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. She also spent six years at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), where she was Assistant General Counsel and legal adviser to the director’s Nonproliferation Center. She was a member of the CSIS Commission on Cybersecurity for the 44th Presidency, which developed a bipartisan national cybersecurity strategy in advance of the 2008 election; executive director of the National Commission on Terrorism and the Commission to Assess the Organization of the Federal Government to Combat the Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction; and a consultant on the Advisory Panel to Assess Domestic Response Capabilities for Terrorism Involving Weapons of Mass Destruction and the Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction. She is former chair of the American Bar Association’s Standing Committee on Law and National Security; founder of the Cybersecurity Legal Task Force; and was a member of Harvard University’s Long-Term Legal Strategy Project for Preserving Security and Democratic Freedoms in the War on Terror.

 

Frank Cilluffo is a member of the Cyberspace Solarium Commission and the Department of Homeland Security’s Advisory Council, and he’s routinely called upon to advise senior officials in the executive branch, U.S. Armed Services, and state and local governments on an array of matters related to national and homeland security strategy and policy. In addition to briefing Congressional committees and their staffs, he has publicly testified before Congress on numerous occasions, serving as a subject matter expert on policies related to cyber threats, counterterrorism, security and deterrence, weapons proliferation, organized crime, intelligence and threat assessments, emergency management, and border and transportation security. Similarly, he works with U.S. allies and organizations such as NATO and Europol. He has presented at a number of bi-lateral and multi-lateral summits on cybersecurity and countering terrorism, including the U.N. Security Council.

Following the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, Cilluffo was appointed by President George W. Bush to the newly created Office of Homeland Security. There, he was involved in a wide range of homeland security and counterterrorism strategies, policy initiatives and served as a principal advisor to Director Tom Ridge, directing the president’s Homeland Security Advisory Council. Cilluffo then joined George Washington University in 2003, establishing the Center for Cyber and Homeland Security as a prominent nonpartisan "think and do tank" dedicated to building bridges between theory and practice to advance U.S. security. He served as an associate vice president where he led a number of national security and cybersecurity policy and research initiatives. He directed the Center for Cyber and Homeland Security and, with the School of Business, launched the university’s World Executive MBA in Cybersecurity program. Prior to his White House appointment, Cilluffo spent eight years in senior policy positions with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank. There, he chaired or directed numerous committees and task forces on homeland defense, counterterrorism, and transnational organized crime, as well as information warfare and information assurance. He has published extensively in academic, law, business, and policy journals, as well as magazines and newspapers worldwide. His work has been published through ABC News, Foreign Policy, The Journal of International Security Affairs, The National Interest, Parameters, Politico, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, USA Today, U.S. News & World Report, The Washington Quarterly and The Washington Post. He currently serves on the editorial advisory board for Military and Strategic Affairs and has served as an on-air consultant for CBS News and as a reviewer for a number of publications and foundations.

 

Mark Montgomery serves as the Executive Director of the Cyberspace Solarium Commission. He most recently served as Policy Director for the Senate Armed Services Committee under the leadership of Senator John S. McCain. In this position, he coordinated policy efforts on national defense strategy, capabilities and requirements, defense policy, and cyber issues. Mark served for 32 years in the U.S. Navy as a nuclear trained surface warfare officer, retiring as a Rear Admiral in 2017. His flag officer assignments included Director of Operations (J3) at U. S. Pacific Command; Commander of Carrier Strike Group 5 embarked on the USS George Washington stationed in Japan; and Deputy Director, Plans, Policy and Strategy (J5), at U. S. European Command. He was selected as a White House Fellow and assigned to the National Security Council, serving as Director for Transnational Threats from 1998-2000. Mark graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in history. He subsequently earned a master’s degree in history from Oxford University and completed the U.S. Navy’s nuclear power training program.

 

Howard Blumenthal created and produced the PBS television series, Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? He is currently a Senior Scholar at The University of Pennsylvania, studying learning and the lives of 21st-century children and teenagers. He travels the world, visiting K-12 schools, lecturing at universities, and interviewing young people for Kids on Earth, a global platform containing nearly 1,000 interview segments from Kentucky, Brazil, Sweden, India, and many other countries. Previously, he was a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist for The New York Times Syndicate, and United Features. He is the author of 24 books and several hundred articles about technology, learning, business, and human progress. As an executive, Howard was the CEO of a public television operation and several television production companies, and a state government official. Previously, he was a Senior Vice President for divisions of two large media companies, Hearst and Bertelsmann, and a consultant or project lead for Energizer, General Electric, American Express, CompuServe, Warner Communications, Merriam-Webster, Atari, and other companies.

We are producing TWO episodes this week, one on Wednesday and one on Thursday.

On Wednesday, August 19 at 4:00 pm US-EDT, we present the sixteenth LIVE episode of the new LearningRevolution.com weekly interview series, REINVENTING SCHOOL. If you miss the LIVE show, we'll post the recorded version early next week. 

This week, REINVENTING SCHOOL goes deep into the question of the safety, wisdom and controversy associated with opening, and perhaps closing, U.S. schools. For this special episode, we look to Avik Roy, Dan Lips and Preston Cooper, all co-authors of a popular WSJ cover story entitled Why It's (Mostly) Safe to Reopen the Schools. Find out  more about our guests below.

More about this week's guests:

Avik Roy the Policy Editor at Forbes, is President of the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity (FREOPP.org), a non-partisan, non-profit think tank that conducts original research on expanding opportunity to those who least have it. Roy’s work has been praised widely on both the right and the left. National Review has called him one of the nation’s “sharpest policy minds,” while the New York Times’ Paul Krugman described him as a man of “personal and moral courage.” He has advised three presidential candidates on policy, including Marco Rubio, Rick Perry, and Mitt Romney. He is widely known for his work on health care reform. NBC’s Chuck Todd, on Meet the Press, said Roy was one “of the most thoughtful guys [who has] been debating” health care reform. MSNBC’s Chris Hayes calls Roy's Forbes blog, The Apothecary, “one of the best takes from conservatives on that set of issues.” Ezra Klein, in the Washington Post, called The Apothecary one of the few “blogs I disagree with [that] I check daily.” Roy is the author of How Medicaid Fails the Poor, and Affordable Health Care for Every Generation: A Patient-Centered Plan for Universal Coverage and Permanent Fiscal Solvency. He is a senior advisor to the Bipartisan Policy Center, serves on the advisory board of the National Institute for Health Care Management, and co-chaired the Fixing Veterans Health Care Policy Taskforce. Prior to his career in public policy, Roy was a professional healthcare investor, serving as an analyst and portfolio manager at Bain Capital, J.P. Morgan, and other firms.

 

Dan Lips is the Policy Director for the Chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. He has worked on the passage of bipartisan legislation and oversight investigations including as a staff member of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. Dan was the lead staff author of the 2015 minority staff oversight report, “A Review of the Department of Homeland Security’s Missions and Performance.” Before Capitol Hill, Dan served as an intelligence analyst with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He previously was a senior policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation, where he was the lead analyst researching education.  His research has been referenced in the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post. He has testified before Congress and state legislative committees. Dan also served as a member of the D.C. Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. Dan earned his bachelor’s degree from Princeton University. He earned his master’s degree from the Institute of World Politics in Washington, DC, where he wrote his master’s thesis on public diplomacy during the Cold War.

 

Preston Cooper: "I am a Visiting Fellow at the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity, where I study the economics of higher education. Formerly, I worked at the American Enterprise Institute and the Manhattan Institute. In addition to writing for Forbes, my writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the Seattle Times, U.S. News and World Report, the Washington Examiner, Fortune, RealClearPolicy, and National Review. I hold a B.A. in economics from Swarthmore College. Follow me on Twitter: @PrestonCooper93"

 

Howard Blumenthal created and produced the PBS television series, Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? He is currently a Senior Scholar at The University of Pennsylvania, studying learning and the lives of 21st-century children and teenagers. He travels the world, visiting K-12 schools, lecturing at universities, and interviewing young people for Kids on Earth, a global platform containing nearly 1,000 interview segments from Kentucky, Brazil, Sweden, India, and many other countries. Previously, he was a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist for The New York Times Syndicate, and United Features. He is the author of 24 books and several hundred articles about technology, learning, business, and human progress. As an executive, Howard was the CEO of a public television operation and several television production companies, and a state government official. Previously, he was a Senior Vice President for divisions of two large media companies, Hearst and Bertelsmann, and a consultant or project lead for Energizer, General Electric, American Express, CompuServe, Warner Communications, Merriam-Webster, Atari, and other companies.

On Thursday, August 13 at 4:00 pm US-EDT, we present the fifteenth LIVE episode of the new LearningRevolution.com weekly interview series, REINVENTING SCHOOL. If you miss the LIVE show, we'll post the recorded version early next week.

This week, REINVENTING SCHOOL is all about student empowerment, agency, and a model of learning that grows from the needs of children and teenagers. While the education system promises this approach, many students, parents, and teachers see a need for change. In addition to several students who are so important to these conversations, we welcome Chris Lehmann, founding principal and CEO of Science Leadership Academy, Julie Evans is the CEO of Project Tomorrow, an internationally recognized education nonprofit organization that focuses on improving learning opportunities for students through the effective use of STEM resources. Michelle D. Jones founded and now runs a college that she founded, Wayfinding Academy.

Chris Lehmann is the founding principal and CEO of the Science Leadership Academy and the Science Leadership Academy Schools network, a network of three progressive science and technology schools in Philadelphia, PA. The Science Leadership Academy is an inquiry-driven, project-based, 1:1 laptop school that is considered to be one of the pioneers of the School 2.0 movement nationally and internationally. Science Leadership Academy is the Dell Computing Center of Excellence for Technology in Education. The school was recognized by Ladies Home Journal as one of the Ten Most Amazing Schools in the US, was recognized as a “Breaking Ranks” Model School by the National Association of Secondary School Principals, and is recognized as the Dell Computing Center of Excellence in Education.  SLA has been written about in many publications including Edutopia Magazine, EdWeek, and the Philadelphia Inquirer. In 2013, Chris co-founded the non-profit Inquiry Schools with Diana Laufenberg to help more schools create more empowering, modern learning experiences for students. In partnership with Inquiry Schools, Chris opened Science Leadership Academy @ Beeber campus, the second campus in the SLA model, and in 2016, Chris co-founded Science Leadership Academy Middle School. Chris returned to his native Philadelphia after nine years as an English Teacher, Technology Coordinator, Girls Basketball Coach, and Ultimate Frisbee coach at the Beacon School in New York City, one of the leading urban public schools for technology integration.

 

Julie Evans is the CEO of Project Tomorrow (www.tomorrow.org), an internationally recognized education nonprofit organization that focuses on improving learning opportunities for students through the effective use of STEM resources. Dr. Evans has been CEO of this organization since 1999 and during that tenure has created several innovative initiatives to impact education including the heralded Speak Up Research Project which annually collects and reports on the authentic views of 500,000 K-12 students, parents and educators on education issues each year.  Dr. Evans serves as the lead strategist and chief researcher on the Speak Up Project as well as leading research efforts on the impact of mobile devices, digital content, and blended learning models in both K-12 and higher education.  Over the past thirteen years, 5 million K-12 students, teachers, and parents have participated in the Speak Up Project representing over 35,000 schools from all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and around the world.

 

Michelle D. Jones: "A couple of years ago I started my own college. I am in the midst of doing my life's work right now, which is exhilarating and terrifying. During my 15 years of teaching Leadership and Organizational Behavior courses in the traditional college system, I had a front-row seat for what is broken about that system. About 3 years ago, I gathered a group of like-minded badasses around a vision of what a revolution in higher education could look like. After years of helping amazing groups and non-profits organize for social impact (SuperThank, TEDxMtHood, World Domination Summit) I started my own legacy project — Wayfinding Academy was born."

 

Howard Blumenthal created and produced the PBS television series, Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? He is currently a Senior Scholar at The University of Pennsylvania, studying learning and the lives of 21st-century children and teenagers. He travels the world, visiting K-12 schools, lecturing at universities, and interviewing young people for Kids on Earth, a global platform containing nearly 1,000 interview segments from Kentucky, Brazil, Sweden, India, and many other countries. Previously, he was a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist for The New York Times Syndicate, and United Features. He is the author of 24 books and several hundred articles about technology, learning, business, and human progress. As an executive, Howard was the CEO of a public television operation and several television production companies, and a state government official. Previously, he was a Senior Vice President for divisions of two large media companies, Hearst and Bertelsmann, and a consultant or project lead for Energizer, General Electric, American Express, CompuServe, Warner Communications, Merriam-Webster, Atari, and other companies.

On Thursday, August 6 at 4:00 pm US-EDT, we present the fourteenth LIVE episode of the new LearningRevolution.com weekly interview series, REINVENTING SCHOOL. If you miss the LIVE show, we'll post the recorded version early next week.

This week, REINVENTING SCHOOL focuses on the spectacular rise in interest in pod schools--small groups of students studying with one or more teachers in an environment that is both similar to, and different from, traditional school. Our professional guests: Lian Chikako Chang, a "data storyteller," started the Pandemic Pods group on Facebook in July; just weeks later, the group includes more than 35,000 members. Mara Linaberger, EdD is Founder & COO, Microschool Builder, and the author of The Micro-School Builder’s Handbook. Tasha C. Ring, M.Ed. is the Founder, Directress, and Principal Consultant for Meridian Learning.

Lian Chikako Chang: "I'm a data storyteller. I work on a freelance basis, turning your company's data into earned media coverage by telling compelling, data-driven stories through graphics and text. I've researched, written, designed, produced, and pitched data stories in higher education, at the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture, and at a financial technology company called Earnest. My data stories at Earnest have been covered by The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Time, Fortune, Inc., Vice, Fusion, Bustle, Glamour, Bloomberg Markets Most Influential, and in many more local and online media sources.  In my downtime, I've started working on a personal project called Littldata: Data for Families, where my goal is to bring data-rich, informative stories to parents of young children. In a past life, I've written about architecture--specifically, how technology, biology, and culture intersect in our experience of our environments and selves. On the academic side, I've published and lectured on the history of science and technology, early modern representations of architecture and the body, and embodied and situated cognition. Above all, what interests me is asking questions, translating ideas from one context to another, and making connections between people, ideas, and things."

Dr. Mara Linaberger believes that each of us has chosen to be here at this moment in time for a specific reason – that we are each on a mission that we chose for ourselves. And that figuring out what we love, what we’re good at, and how we can be of service, is the engine we need to fuel a lifetime of joyful learning. Mara also believes that school often slows down or stifles that excitement for students. So she is on a mission to create a global network of 100 micro-schools in the next 20 years – to harness education toward helping amazing children to develop their highest potentials while making learning fun again! Mara is a life-long educator, author, technologist, artist, ballroom dancer, and musician, having spent 25 years in service as a public school educator, teacher trainer, and administrator. Completing a doctorate in Instructional Technology, she went on to earn a Superintendent’s Letter of Eligibility in Pennsylvania. Launching “Mindful Technology Consultants” in 2013, she continues to train teachers at the masters level on the use of digital portfolios as alternative assessments, and on bringing mindfulness practices into the classroom. Mara is the international two-time best selling author of HELP! My Child Hates School and The Micro-School Builder’s Handbook. Mara currently lives in Harmony, PA with her husband Michael, while she travels far and wide, directly supporting clients in her global Micro-School Builders programs.

Tasha Ring is a licensed early childhood and elementary educator specializing in multisensory-based methodologies.  She has tutored and taught students of all ages with varied gifts and abilities.  Her broad experience in the education field has included sales, marketing, and administrative positions with prominent companies such as Kaplan, Inc. and Pearson Education, but her passion remains working directly with students in a teaching capacity. As such, she continues to lead classes, as well as some tutoring sessions.  Her desire to create more personalized experiences for youth-led her to the founding of Meridian Learning in 2008.  An early and continuous advocate of a “less is more” approach to learning, she is honored to be among the first innovators of the micro-school movement. Ms. Ring completed her Masterʼs in Education, teacher training and certification at Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio, and her Bachelor’s in Arts and Entertainment Management at Eastern Michigan University.  She received an early childhood credential from the American Montessori Society, one of the premier Montessori advocacy organizations.  She has extensive training in several methods of reading and language instruction, including Orton-Gillingham and Lindamood-Bell®.  Since 2013, she has thoroughly engaged in the study of mindfulness, and she incorporates these exercises into both curriculum and parent-teacher education. She is a longtime practitioner of social-emotional learning and regularly consults with leaders in this field. Committed to best practice, continued professional development, and whole child well-being, her current studies include literature on emotional intelligence and attachment theory.  Ms Ring is also a specialist in arts integration; having spent many years studying dance and designing dance programming for several organizations including Indianapolis Parks, she is a fervent advocate for all art forms and their continuous value in learning and in life. In addition to her work with Meridian Learning, Ms. Ring has written for various publications and websites including The Huffington Post and BabyCenter. In 2017, she started a mindful Montessori lifestyle blog, and she now co-hosts a large and growing online community for others seeking positive change through the application of Montessori principles. Her most meaningful role is that of mother to two young children, her greatest gifts, and wisest teachers.

 

Howard Blumenthal created and produced the PBS television series, Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? He is currently a Senior Scholar at The University of Pennsylvania, studying learning and the lives of 21st-century children and teenagers. He travels the world, visiting K-12 schools, lecturing at universities, and interviewing young people for Kids on Earth, a global platform containing nearly 1,000 interview segments from Kentucky, Brazil, Sweden, India, and many other countries. Previously, he was a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist for The New York Times Syndicate, and United Features. He is the author of 24 books and several hundred articles about technology, learning, business, and human progress. As an executive, Howard was the CEO of a public television operation and several television production companies, and a state government official. Previously, he was a Senior Vice President for divisions of two large media companies, Hearst and Bertelsmann, and a consultant or project lead for Energizer, General Electric, American Express, CompuServe, Warner Communications, Merriam-Webster, Atari, and other companies.

On Thursday, July 29 at 4:00 pm US-EDT, we present the thirteenth LIVE episode of the new LearningRevolution.com weekly interview series, REINVENTING SCHOOL. If you miss the LIVE show, we post the edited version here by Monday over the weekend.

This week, REINVENTING SCHOOL looks at the connection between friendship, learning, school, and education. In the U.S., and in many other countries, questions about opening schools during the pandemic include concerns about social interaction between students. In short, how is it possible to make new friends if you're not interacting with new people? We'll learn more about the study of friendship from four professional guests: Lydia Denworth, Contributing Editor of Scientific American and author of the book, Friendship: The Evolution, Biology and Extraordinary Power of Life's Fundamental Bond. Dr. Caroline Fenkel, Executive Director at Newport Health, which provides teens with the guidance, support, and education to build strong relationships, learn and practice healthy coping skills, grow their personal self-worth, and reestablish trust and communication with themselves and their loved ones. Dr. Lyle Ungar, a multi-disciplinary scholar, and researcher whose technology interests include friendship. Dr. Caroline Connolly has enjoyed a lengthy research interest in the study of friendship, first with Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland, now at The University of Pennsylvania's Psychology Department.

Dr. Caroline Fenkel’s passion lies in helping heal adolescents through the use of experiential therapy, group therapy, and animal-assisted therapy. Her career began with her love for horses: She majored in equine studies and minored in psychology at Delaware Valley University, then completed her master’s degree in social work at Bryn Mawr College. From there, she combined these two focuses through practicing equine-assisted therapy and other forms of experiential therapy, including Relational Trauma Repair and adventure therapy. Caroline has worked with adolescents and young adults at all levels of care, including outpatient and residential, at numerous national programs, including Rehab After School, Adolescent Advocates, Mirmont Treatment Center, Brightwater Landing, and Newport Academy. Caroline recently earned her doctorate in clinical social work from the University of Pennsylvania.  She is often assisted by her therapy dog, Graham.

 

Lydia Denworth: "Pulled by my interest in health and the environment, I felt compelled to dig into science. It mattered. And it affected me and my family. I find the work deeply engaging. I’ve visited brain imaging labs and baboon troops in Kenya, and I’ve written about everything from Alzheimer’s to zebrafish. When I don’t understand what scientists are telling me, I keep asking questions. Then I strive to explain their work in ways that my pre-science writing self, and a broader audience, can understand. I am now a contributing editor for Scientific American and I write the Brain Waves blog for Psychology Today. My work has also appeared in The Atlantic, Newsweek, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Time, Spectrum and many other publications. I’m the author of three books of popular science. Toxic Truth told the story of how a scientist and a doctor risked their careers and reputations to sound alarm bells about how lead was contaminating our environment and endangering children. I Can Hear You Whisper is the story of my investigation into hearing, sound, brain plasticity and Deaf culture after I learned my youngest son couldn’t hear. And now I’ve written Friendship: The Evolution, Biology, and Extraordinary Power of Life’s Fundamental Bond. Working on the book has revitalized my appreciation for friendship and quality relationships and I hope it will do the same for you. I’m honored that the book was supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. A native of Philadelphia and graduate of Princeton, I moved to Brooklyn right out of college and have considered it home ever since even though I have also lived in France, London and Hong Kong."

 

Dr. Lyle Ungar is a Professor of Computer and Information Science at the University of Pennsylvania. He received a B.S. from Stanford University and a Ph.D. from MIT. Dr. Ungar directed Penn's Executive Masters of Technology Management (EMTM) Program for a decade and served as Associate Director of the Penn Center for BioInformatics (PCBI). He has published over 250 articles and holds ten patents. His current research focuses on statistical natural language processing, deep learning, and the use of social media to understand the psychology of individuals and communities. Lyle has consulted for companies ranging from start-ups to Fortune 500 companies on the strategic use of information technology in areas including data mining, business process automation, online auction design, and chatbots. The University of Pennsylvania research group develops explainable machine learning, deep learning, and natural language processing methods for psychology and medical research. Applications include the analysis of social media language and cell phone sensor data to better understand the drivers of physical and mental well-being. We, for example, are trying to better measure and understand empathy, stress, life satisfaction and friendship. His many appointments include bioengineering, computer and information science, genomics and computational biology (in the School of Medicine), Operations / Information / Decisions (in the Wharton School), and Psychology.

Howard Blumenthal created and produced the PBS television series, Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? He is currently a Senior Scholar at The University of Pennsylvania, studying learning and the lives of 21st-century children and teenagers. He travels the world, visiting K-12 schools, lecturing at universities, and interviewing young people for Kids on Earth, a global platform containing nearly 1,000 interview segments from Kentucky, Brazil, Sweden, India, and many other countries. Previously, he was a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist for The New York Times Syndicate, and United Features. He is the author of 24 books and several hundred articles about technology, learning, business, and human progress. As an executive, Howard was the CEO of a public television operation and several television production companies, and a state government official. Previously, he was a Senior Vice President for divisions of two large media companies, Hearst and Bertelsmann, and a consultant or project lead for Energizer, General Electric, American Express, CompuServe, Warner Communications, Merriam-Webster, Atari, and other companies.

This week, REINVENTING SCHOOL changes its perspective. Our guests are not professional educators. Instead, this is a moderated discussion among students about what school is, and what it could be. Given the uncertainty of the next school year and the potential for new solutions, we're very excited about this episode.

Special thanks to our student guests, and to our one adult guest:

Dr. Mary Jo Podgurski’s life work is serving young people and their families. She has a background in nursing, education, and counseling; and she is certified in sexuality education and sexuality counseling through AASECT. Currently, she serves as the President and Founder of the Academy for Adolescent Health, Inc. In her vast career, she is responsible for presenting sexuality education to over 250,000 young people! She also has authored 34 books, including The Nonnie Series, for children on challenging topics, and she has presented over 750 workshops locally, nationally, and internationally. Dr. Podgurski bases her numerous education programs and books on her foundational belief of #EachPersonIsAPersonofWorth. Her ability to respect all people, listen to young people, and develop inspiring and empowering curricula create a safe environment for learning. She considers herself an Ambassador for Respect and models respect daily, in her professional and personal lives.

Dr. Podguriski founded The Washington Health System Teen Outreach in 1988 and a peer education program in 1995. Through the Teen Outreach Program, Dr. Podgurski mentors young parents and trains peer educators. She has trained over 15,000 peer educators and over 10,000 young parents.

In honor of her noteworthy accomplishments, Dr. Podgurski was awarded the Athena Women of Wisdom Award (2004), the NAACP Human Rights Award (2008), The ARC Community Award (2014), the Healthy Teen Network Excellence in Sexuality Education Award (2014), and the Carol Mendez Cassell Award for Excellence in Sexuality Education (2014).

Howard Blumenthal created and produced the PBS television series, Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? He is currently a Senior Scholar at The University of Pennsylvania, studying learning and the lives of 21st-century children and teenagers. He travels the world, visiting K-12 schools, lecturing at universities, and interviewing young people for Kids on Earth, a global platform containing nearly 1,000 interview segments from Kentucky, Brazil, Sweden, India, and many other countries. Previously, he was a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist for The New York Times Syndicate, and United Features. He is the author of 24 books and several hundred articles about technology, learning, business, and human progress. As an executive, Howard was the CEO of a public television operation and several television production companies, and a state government official. Previously, he was a Senior Vice President for divisions of two large media companies, Hearst and Bertelsmann, and a consultant or project lead for Energizer, General Electric, American Express, CompuServe, Warner Communications, Merriam-Webster, Atari, and other companies.

On Thursday, July 16 at 4:00 pm US-EDT, we present the eleventh LIVE episode of the new LearningRevolution.com weekly interview series, REINVENTING SCHOOL. If you miss the LIVE show, we post the edited version here by Monday over the weekend.

This week, REINVENTING SCHOOL digs into the numbers, the trends, the policies that shape the contours of school, education, and learning in our 21st-century world. Jonathan Supovitz is a Professor at The University of Pennsylvania's Graduate School of Education, and the Director of the Consortium for Policy Research in Education. Jean-Marc Bernard is a Senior Education Economist with Global Partnership for Education. 

Jean-Marc Bernard is a Senior Education Economist at the GPE Secretariat. He joined GPE in 2012, working first in the Country Support Team and then as team lead of the Monitoring and Evaluation Team. Jean-Marc has extensive experience in the education sector both on analytical and evaluation work and policy dialogue. He has worked in more than 25 countries including France, Palestine, Jordan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Cameroon, Guinea-Bissau, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Senegal, South Sudan, and Uganda. He started his career as a Technical Assistant in Cameroon and Mauritania, focusing on planning, monitoring and evaluation issues. He was lead advisor of the Program for Analysis of Educational Systems (PASEC) from 2001 to 2005, where he was in charge of implementing assessments and analyses of learning outcomes in primary schools in African French-speaking countries. From 2007 to 2009, he was the country sector work adviser at Pôle de Dakar (UNESCO) where he led the support to countries, essentially through education sector analyses and financial simulation models. In addition, before joining the Global Partnership for Education, he worked as a freelance consultant for several multilateral agencies (UNESCO, UNICEF, World Bank and UNRWA). Jean-Marc holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Burgundy and was a research fellow at the Institute of Research on Education (IREDU, Dijon). In addition to his extensive field experience, he has authored several publications on education policy, education reform, teacher policy, and learning achievement. He has also taught education policies and the economics of education at several universities.

 

Jonathan Supovitz, of The University of Pennsylvania's Graduate School of Education, conducts research on how education organizations use different forms of evidence to inquire about the quality and effect of their systems to support the improvement of teaching and learning in schools. Dr. Supovitz also leads the evidence-based leadership strand of Penn’s mid-career leadership program and teaches courses on how current and future leaders can develop an inquiry frame of thinking about continuous improvement and the skills necessary to compile, analyze, and act upon various forms of evidence. While studying policy analysis at Duke University, Dr. Supovitz first focused on education leadership and policy. Before earning his doctorate at Harvard's Graduate School of Education, he gained middle and high school teaching experience in Queretaro, Mexico, and Boston, Massachusetts. His dissertation at Harvard focused on the classroom and accountability uses of portfolio assessment in an urban school district. Upon completing his degree, Dr. Supovitz worked as a research associate at Horizon Research in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, where he directed the evaluation of the New Jersey Statewide Systemic Initiative and evaluated the effectiveness of electronic “net courses” for teacher enhancement. He joined the Consortium for Policy Research in Education (CPRE) in 1997 as a senior researcher and the faculty at Penn GSE in 2005. His current research interests include the national evaluation of the America's Choice comprehensive school reform design; a study of high school strategies for instructional improvement; and a study of district improvement efforts.

 

Howard Blumenthal created and produced the PBS television series, Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? He is currently a Senior Scholar at The University of Pennsylvania, studying learning and the lives of 21st-century children and teenagers. He travels the world, visiting K-12 schools, lecturing at universities, and interviewing young people for Kids on Earth, a global platform containing nearly 1,000 interview segments from Kentucky, Brazil, Sweden, India, and many other countries. Previously, he was a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist for The New York Times Syndicate, and United Features. He is the author of 24 books and several hundred articles about technology, learning, business, and human progress. As an executive, Howard was the CEO of a public television operation and several television production companies, and a state government official. Previously, he was a Senior Vice President for divisions of two large media companies, Hearst and Bertelsmann, and a consultant or project lead for Energizer, General Electric, American Express, CompuServe, Warner Communications, Merriam-Webster, Atari, and other companies.

On Thursday, July 9 at 4:00 pm US-EDT, we present the tenth LIVE episode of the new LearningRevolution.com weekly interview series, REINVENTING SCHOOL. If you miss the LIVE show, we post the edited version here by Monday over the weekend.

This week, REINVENTING SCHOOL has fun. Our topic is one of the most important aspects of growing up--playing with friends, playing with peers, playing with family members, making new friends through play, learning through play. Three professional guests will join two students. Becky Wolfe is the Director of School Programs and Educational Resources for The Children's Museum of Indianapolis. Stephen Nachmanovitch, Ph.D. first caught our attention some 20 years ago with a terrific book entitled Free Play. Lenore Skenazy is the President of Let Grow and the founder of the Free-Range Kids movement.

Becky Wolfe started her career as a fifth-grade teacher. Thirteen years ago, she joined the staff of The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis, working her way up to Director of School Programs and Educational Resources. She's an expert in combining education with fun, but her lighter side is well-supported with serious work in science education, skilled inquiry-based learning, curriculum development, museum education, and volunteer management. The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis is to create extraordinary learning experiences across the arts, sciences, and humanities that have the power to transform the lives of children and families. With 472,900 square feet and five floors of family learning in addition to 7.5-acre outdoor Riley Children’s Health Sports Legends Experience, The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis is the world’s biggest and best children’s museum. Becky earned her Master's Degree in Science Education at the University of Louisville.

 

Stephen Nachmanovitch performs and teaches internationally as an improvisational violinist, and at the intersections of music, dance, theater, and multimedia arts. He is the author of Free Play (Penguin, 1990) and The Art of Is (New World Library, 2019). Born in 1950, he graduated in 1971 from Harvard and in 1975 from the University of California, where he earned a Ph.D. in the History of Consciousness for an exploration of William Blake. His mentor was the anthropologist and philosopher Gregory Bateson. He has taught and lectured widely in the United States and abroad on creativity and the spiritual underpinnings of art. In the 1970s he was a pioneer in free improvisation on violin, viola and electric violin. He has presented masterclasses and workshops at many conservatories and universities and has had numerous appearances on radio, television, and at music and theater festivals. He has collaborated with other artists in media including music, dance, theater, and film, and has developed programs melding art, music, literature, and computer technology. He has published articles in a variety of fields since 1966 and has created computer software including The World Music Menu and Visual Music Tone Painter. He lives with his family in Charlottesville, Virginia. He is currently performing, recording, teaching, and writing.

 

Lenore Skenazy spent 14 years at The New York Daily News as a reporter-turned-opinion columnist, and two more at The New York Sun. In 2008, after her column "Why I Let My 9-Year-Old Ride the Subway Alone" landed her on every talk show from The Today Show to Dr. Phil, Lenore founded the book and blog “Free-Range Kids.” These launched the anti-helicopter parenting movement and garnered her the nickname, “America’s Worst Mom.” She got a promotion of sorts when Discovery Life tapped her to host the reality TV show, World’s Worst Mom. Lenore has lectured internationally from Microsoft to DreamWorks to the Sydney Opera House, and been profiled everywhere from The New York Times to The New Yorker. (She was even on The Daily Show!) Over the years, she has written for everyone from The Wall Street Journal to Mad Magazine. Yes -- Mad. After 10 years of watching parents nod along as she described how our culture has force-fed them fear, her aim at Let Grow is to turn the agreement into action, making it easy and normal to give kids the same kind of freedom most of us had -- and loved. Lenore received her B.A. from Yale and her Master's Degree from Columbia. She lives in New York City with her husband and beloved computer. Her sons have (safely!) flown the coop.

 

Howard Blumenthal created and produced the PBS television series, Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? He is currently a Senior Scholar at The University of Pennsylvania, studying learning and the lives of 21st-century children and teenagers. He travels the world, visiting K-12 schools, lecturing at universities, and interviewing young people for Kids on Earth, a global platform containing nearly 1,000 interview segments from Kentucky, Brazil, Sweden, India, and many other countries. Previously, he was a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist for The New York Times Syndicate, and United Features. He is the author of 24 books and several hundred articles about technology, learning, business, and human progress. As an executive, Howard was the CEO of a public television operation and several television production companies, and a state government official. Previously, he was a Senior Vice President for divisions of two large media companies, Hearst and Bertelsmann, and a consultant or project lead for Energizer, General Electric, American Express, CompuServe, Warner Communications, Merriam-Webster, Atari, and other companies.