Posts In Category

Education

EducationPodcastRacism

If you have cared about equality in education in recent decades, you know of the work of America’s foremost advocate for public schools Jonathan Kozol. In schools named after Martin Luther King Jr, he sees a new punitive autocratic pedagogic

Read More
EducationPodcastProtests & ResistanceSexuality

It’s so much easier to break things than to build them. The right wing group Moms for Liberty claimed that “Parental rights do not stop at the classroom door,” but their real goal was to destroy public education. On this

Read More
EducationPodcastRacism

In the Scopes Trial of 1925, William Jennings Bryan spoke against teaching evolution, saying “I have all the information I need to live and die by.” Today’s intense fight against teaching Critical Race Theory is more of the same. To

Read More
EducationPodcast

Is command and control from the top down bureaucrats the best method for teaching kids? How about critical thinking skills? Much of the best results of public education come from democratizing schools, welcoming input from those who best know what

Read More
CultureEducationPodcast

The pressure to prevent active curiosity is a curious thing in a democracy. Our guests today are authors Perry Zurin and Dani Bassett whose new book is Curious Minds, The Power of Connection. As they say, acquiring information is insufficient,

Read More
EducationPodcast

As another school year kicks off, skepticism about quantifying is appropriate. That measure is command and control from the top down bureaucrats. But much of the best results of public education can’t be seen but come from democratizing schools, welcoming

Read More
CultureEducationFreedomPodcastWomen

It’s almost time for the start of schools. Of course all parents want to protect their children from inappropriate material. But when “parental rights” mean teachers are forbidden from mentioning homosexuality or racism because that means teachers are “grooming” kids

Read More
EducationPodcastRacism

America’s suburbs came into being as a way to keep white school kids at the top. But what’s happening with Asian-Americans in upscale places like the sample “Woodcrest” High School? Asian American kids are catapulting to the top. Should teachers

Read More
DemocratsEducationFascism on the RisePodcastRacism

Of course all parents want to protect their children from inappropriate material. But when “parental rights” mean teachers are forbidden from mentioning homosexuality or racism because that means teachers are “grooming” kids for pedophilia or Chinese communism, liberty is under

Read More
CultureEducationPodcastRacism

Rather than just keeping one’s head down and staying safe, addressing that which is uncomfortable can bring new insight and a more complete sense of being. The often rigid structure of colleges is not enough, mentoring: listening, respecting is a

Read More
EducationFascism on the RisePodcast

They hide under the cover of academia. They claim to be local grassroots. But behind the faces we see on the news, there is an interconnected network of fossil fuel and evangelical interests in a very efficient soup-to-nuts approach to

Read More
EducationFascism on the RisePodcastReligionTrump

Since Plato’s allegory of the cave, tyrants have successfully manipulated the projected images the public sees. On January 6th, Trump told the insurrectionists they were being patriots. And they believe him. On this show, philosophy professor Andrew Fiala talks about

Read More
EducationPodcast

If it can’t be seen, it can’t be measured, and it doesn’t count. But a lot of the best results of public education can’t be seen. Quantifying was put there to assure command and control from the top down bureaucrats

Read More
CultureEducationFascism on the RisePodcastReligion

It’s been normalized. Americans who are neither Christian nor white may not necessarily feel open discrimination, but privilege underlies everyday life. The starting point is not neutral, as we’d prefer to believe. On this show Dr. Kyati Y Joshi talks

Read More
EducationFascism on the RisePodcast

It’s not about education reform; Republicans like Florida’s DeSantis and others are actually out to end public education. On this show, New Republic editor Kathryn Joyce looks behind such appealing phrases as Parents Bill of Rights to reveal a long

Read More
Covid 19CultureEducationHistory That Matters NowPodcastPresident Biden

In the Scopes Trial of 1925, William Jennings Bryan spoke against teaching evolution, saying “I have all the information I need to live and die by.” Today’s intense fight against teaching Critical Race Theory is more of the same. To

Read More
CultureEducationFascism on the RisePodcastPopulismPresident BidenRacism

Is it the revenge of the “deplorables?” We’ve seen how a culture of resentment affected Germany in the early 30s, and it has brought us dangerous Trumpism today. On this show, professor of history emeritus Walter Moss looks at the

Read More
EconomyEducationPodcastPresident Biden

Grades 1 through 12 education may have been adequate to the 20th century. But not anymore. With emerging technology and a global economy, at least a two year community college degree is essential for America’s common good. On this show

Read More
Economic IssuesEducationJusticePodcastRacismWomen

When one thinks of people in poverty, what judgements come up? Did you know that the vast majority are working often two or three jobs? When you go to a bank or a mortgage, do they ask you how much

Read More
Civil LibertiesEducationFascism on the RiseHistory That Matters NowPodcast

He called our current history education in our schools “a form of child abuse.” Teaching critical thinking and the real history of America would be shut down in Trump’s “Patriotic Education.” The popular 1619 Project and Zinn’s Education Project which

Read More
CultureEducationPodcast

Democracy requires an educated populace. That means more than just pressure and STEM education, not only well qualified and competent, but we need good moral kids. Private tutoring and other franchises are doing quite well, but they are serving to

Read More
CultureEducationPodcast

How is it that we don’t see four and a half million young Americans? Kids who have fallen through the cracks,not connected to either school or work. People between the ages of 16 and 24 living in their parents basements

Read More
CultureEducationPodcastRacismWomen

All too often, schools function as a pipeline to prison for troubled kids. Kicking out troublemakers, punishing for bad attitudes leaves kids feeling they are disposable. Authoritarian models too often make schools feel like locations for punishment, when they can

Read More
CultureEducationPodcast

We traditional Americans are doing what we can to take on oligarchy, plutocracy, and patriarchy.But our effectiveness is limited if we do not figure out the whys and hows of what our guest Melanie Joy calls “powerarchy.” Her new book

Read More
CultureEducationPodcastRacism

Safe comfortable myth is so soothing, but art, by its nature, is often about challenging the viewer. You may have heard of the controversy about large Depression-era murals on the walls of San Francisco’s George Washington High School. After 80

Read More
CultureEconomyEducationFreedomPodcast

Well into the 21st century, everything has changed except our way of thinking, which remains rooted in 19th century values which unnecessarily hold us back. Millions of people hate their jobs and are relegated to living as passive consumers when

Read More
CultureEducationHistory That Matters NowNational PolicyPodcastRacism

Many reject science and embrace myth instead. But just as technological advance depends on knowledge gained through science, so the future of America relies on knowledge of our history. Until recently it has been tough times for History departments. While

Read More
CultureEducationPodcastRacism

As it did in the 1920s with the Scopes Trial, the American right hates science. It presents them with truths they need to deny. Clearly on climate change but also when it comes to enabling the social change needed to

Read More
EconomyEducationPodcastRacism

Liberal-initiated efforts to eliminate poverty have been top down for about 50 years. But to be successful, development can’t be done to them from on high; it has to be done by the people most affected. We shouldn’t have low

Read More
CultureEducationPodcast

America’s public education still relies on grading practices geared to the industrial revolution of the early 1900s. This antiquated system undermines effective teaching and learning and inadvertently filters students based on privileges. In his new book Grading for Equity: What

Read More