For many students, writing can be tedious, especially after years of boring grammar, spelling and structure drills. But for kids who have discovered fan fiction, writing about something they’re already passionate about can ignite countless hours of creative writing, music and art.
Culturally relevant teaching strategies help make learning more meaningful to the lives of students and address some of the equity issues in curriculum. When schools closed in March because of COVID-19, about 150 teachers from around the country began creating a resource document to share ideas that would engage students in learning through the events happening in their lives. Students at Washington Heights Expeditionary Learning School in New York City were at the heart of the worst outbreak in...
Seniors missed out on prom, signing yearbooks, sharing the news of college acceptances with friends and teachers in person, and walking across the graduation stage in front of their family and friends. Juniors took AP tests at home and worried what this would mean for their futures. Hear what students recorded in their audio journals as they adjust their expectations for this school year and the future. Further Reading: See photos of the students Check out MindShift's website Sign up for the wee...
When Ashanti Branch started the Ever Forward Club, he was a high school math teacher trying to figure out why the young men in his classes weren’t succeeding. He found they were craving what he desired as a kid too -- a safe place to be themselves, to show emotion, to get support without fear of judgment. When Ashanti gave them that, their success surprised everyone. It’s now his life’s work to support other educators to create spaces where boys can be vulnerable, share their feelings, and feel ...
We’re here just in time to unpack some of the extraordinary circumstances created by emergency distance learning and the COVID-19 pandemic. This season, you’ll hear how teachers and students prioritized what mattered most as school closures dragged on during shelter-in-place. Ki Sung reports on a journal assignment that helped teachers stay in touch with students and check in on their welfare while living in a coronavirus hotspot. Katrina Schwartz will give you an intimate listen into some of th...
Teenagers are demanding to be heard on the issues that matter most to them including climate change, gun control, abortion and immigration. What's different now and what role does public education play?
Art has often been relegated as an additional activity in schools. But schools that put art at the center of a child's learning experience through arts integration are seeing kids thrive.
Adults have designed how kids eat at school for generations, directing students into single-file lines and seating them at long roll-away tables to eat mass-produced food. This is all about efficiency in order to feed hundreds of young people in a matter of minutes. However, baked into the process of feeding kids efficiently are bad food choices, waste, social anxiety and social isolation. Lunch hasn't been working for all students so schools are asking students to design a better lunch experien...
Privilege and power play out in the world all around us everyday. And kids notice. First grade teacher Bret Turner has decided not to avoid the difficult conversations and questions his students bring to class. Instead, he's weaving issues of privilege and power into everything he does.
The kind of free play grown-ups had in previous generations is looked at with nostalgia in today’s era of adult-supervised activities. Children are missing out on the benefits of unstructured play, but a group of dedicated educators are trying to give kids back their play time. For one day in February, class time is dedicated to play time via the Global School Play Day movement. In 2019, more than 530,000 students participated around the world.
Anxiety is running rampant in high schools around the country, both rich and poor. The driving factors may be different, but it’s the same lonely, debilitating feeling. It makes it hard for students to learn and to deal with life. Katrina Schwartz takes us inside the experience of anxiety from two teens’ perspectives and shares strategies educators and parents can use to help them cope.
We asked what issues matter to you most and we listened. The fourth season of the MindShift podcast dives into the question: How can we bring joy back to learning and teaching?
Close to 24-percent of Oakland ninth graders drop out before their senior year of high school. Some of those young people ultimately decide that they need to go back to school in order to get ahead in life. We explore what it takes to support over-aged students to a high school diploma -- and college or a career -- when they’re facing homelessness, juggling family responsibilities, or are navigating criminal records. We hear the stories of three young people: why they dropped out and what brough...
Ask almost any teacher why they teach and they'll give you similar answers: they love the kids. But what does that love look like when it's a community value, shared by every adult in the building, no matter how difficult it feels? At Social Justice Humanitas Academy in Los Angeles' San Fernando Valley, love is baked into everything from academic probation to math class. And it's making a difference for the mostly Latino, mostly low-income student population. We explore how Social Justice Humani...
When kids live in violence-prone neighborhoods, the environment can enable trauma in their lives. One youth center in Richmond, California, is seeking to change the community’s culture by providing something to young people that’s sometimes missing in their schools and home lives: love and support. The RYSE Center is teaching a generation of young people -- and adults -- what it means to have a path for improvement for themselves and their community.
Many people have experienced some kind of trauma in their childhood, such as loss of a caregiver, substance abuse in the home, homelessness or abuse. There are ten types of trauma classified as “Adverse Childhood Experiences” that came to light in a study conducted in the 1990s, which found higher rates of illness in adults associated with the amount of trauma people experienced as children. In this episode, you’ll hear how a school in Butte County, California takes a trauma-informed approach to...
High school is an important time in the life of any teen: hormones are raging, social cliques are forming and the pressure is on to develop a college resume. Teens gain more independence as they get older, but adults also expect more from teens without providing as much of the nurturing and guidance of their earlier years. Starting high school is a big transition, and it turns out, the ninth grade a pivotal moment for teens’ potential success or failure in high school. At Hillsdale High School i...
Teachers can go an entire school year and only see a child’s parent once: on back to school night. And most parents are conditioned to think the worst when they get a phone call from the school. But what if teachers and parents could build trust with each other earlier? Teachers at schools in at least 20 states are visiting families in their homes to break the ice and occasionally, some bread.
This season, we investigate the intangible, and often overlooked, elements of academic success: emotional safety, trust, and relationships. You’ll hear how teacher home visits can help parents see themselves as a valued a partner in their child’s education; how far a public high school goes to develop an inclusive experience for the crucial transition to ninth grade; how parents and schools can address childhood trauma so it doesn’t become an obstacle to learning, and what parents and communitie...
The KIPP charter school network has made a name for itself preparing kids from low-income communities for college. Its early years were marked by strict and controversial discipline policies meant to hold students to a rigorous standard of behavior. But KIPP Bay Area Schools are leading the network away from this model in favor of restorative discipline practices that build a school culture of understanding, trust and respect.
High School English teacher Michael Godsey found the Serial podcast so compelling, he stopped teaching his favorite work of Shakespeare to teach the wildly popular podcast instead. What does audio have to do with learning traditional English skills? Godsey’s students helped him discover a new side of literacy.
Catlin Tucker and Marika Neto hoped that by redesigning the classroom experience they could shift what students value about learning. Instead of being focused on grades and points, they're pushing students to see the value in self-reflection, self-assessment, and creative thinking. At Windsor High School, Tucker and Neto created a program in which they share sixty students, a mix of freshman and sophomores, every other day. The interdisciplinary program blends science, English and technology lea...
Parents are essential to a child’s development. But when parents get too involved in helping and directing a child’s every move, they can end up doing more harm than good. Former Stanford dean of freshman Julie Lythcott-Haims saw first-hand how parents were interfering with the lives of their college-aged children and keeping them from maturing into self-reliant adults.
When Principal Michael Essien arrived at Martin Luther King Jr. Academic Middle School in San Francisco, he knew his first order of business would be helping teachers struggling to handle routine disruptions to class. But rather than kicking students out of class, he’s trying to a new approach—bringing counselors inside classrooms to help teachers de-escalate conflicts.
We’re back! MindShift is back with a new season of podcast episodes featuring educators, parents and students who are developing effective ways to teach and learn. Listen to this preview of what’s next.
Teachers Alex Fernandez and Al Julius set up their students for an April Fool’s Day prank that ultimately landed Mr. Julius in handcuffs. Once the prank was over, the teachers learned about their students’ character in ways they didn't anticipate.
Great teachers are constantly evaluating what works to help their students learn. But teachers don’t often hear what impact they have made on students. In a rare treat, we hear from one former student reading from a journal he kept during middle school. Patrick Don wrote several journal entries about his favorite teacher, Mr. Albert, who grew to become his friend. Don read some of these entries on stage at a Mortified Live event in Baltimore, and this reading was turned into a Mortified podcast ...
For high school science teacher and basketball coach Jim Clark, coaching went beyond the classroom and the court. More than ten years later, he’s still a big support for one of his former athletes, Marcus Williams, who wouldn’t let go of his dream of becoming a doctor.
For boys, the world of puberty is often a silent one when it comes to meaningful conversations with their dads and adult caregivers. Health educator Dr. Rob Lehman empowers dads and demonstrates helpful ways to answer a boy’s wide-ranging concerns about puberty, including myths about masturbation. He teaches in the Seattle area through his company, "Great Conversations."
Sex education is supposed to be for the kids, but Julie Metzger, known as "The Puberty Lady," also targets her message to moms who are often the ones feeling awkward talking about puberty. A mother and daughter open up about their journey of feeling empowered to talk about sex.
