Nested within the national teacher shortage is an equally concerning Black teacher shortage. In response to push out factors that cause Black educators to leave the profession altogether, Mosley founded the Black Teacher Project, an organization that supports the shrinking population of Black teachers through leadership-focused professional development. In this minisode she shares the thinking behind their tagline “Every Student Deserves A Black Teacher” and strategies to improve Black teacher r...
Jan 04, 2022•14 min
We spend a lot of time thinking about how to improve our brains -- from apps to help you focus to games that purportedly keep your mind fresh. But science journalist Annie Murphy Paul says we’re not focusing enough on what’s happening outside of the brain -- with our bodies. When it comes to work that is all about thinking -- like writing, math, reading -- our society is largely designed around sitting still at a desk. Annie will share some of the latest research on embodied learning and how tea...
Dec 07, 2021•20 min
Most teachers feel they have to hide negative emotions from students. That puts them in a tough situation because - as we showed in our episode on toxic positivity - research shows suppressing negative emotions can make stress worse. In this minisode, we look at what happens when teachers show their real emotions in class, from the highs to the lows.
Nov 02, 2021•19 min•Season 6Ep. 7
Glenn Singleton is the author of “Courageous Conversations About Race,” which gives helpful ground rules when talking about race. One Florida school district taught Singleton’s techniques to all their educators so they could develop cultural competency and address systemic inequities. What can their experience teach others?
Sep 28, 2021•28 min
Gholdy Muhammad, a teacher and professor at Georgia State University, spent years researching Black literary societies of the early 1800s, where people debated ideas, cultivated a deeper understanding of themselves and thought critically about change needed in the world. From this model, Muhammad developed the historically responsive literacy framework to help teachers and parents raise the geniuses of tomorrow.
Sep 14, 2021•25 min
For many students, their mental health took a nosedive during the pandemic. But there are bright spots. One Oakland school was able to meet most students' mental health needs – and it didn’t call for anything too drastic.
Aug 31, 2021•25 min
There’s a growing movement to teach data science in schools. Some experts hope it will disrupt the dropouts caused by other math classes and even lead to more diversity in STEM. In this episode, we study how educators have designed the classes to be more engaging for women and people from groups underrepresented in STEM.
Aug 17, 2021•19 min
The pandemic has pushed many educators to their limits. And yet, some teachers are being told a better attitude could make the job easier. Some call this toxic positivity, which is when you focus on the positive and ignore the negative. In this episode, we look at how teachers can combat toxic positivity and help their classrooms avoid a culture of it.
Aug 03, 2021•29 min
By fall 2020, in districts around the country, high school students were failing classes at greater rates than before the pandemic, dragging down GPAs. Teachers are asking: is it time to reevaluate how we grade? Learn common misconceptions about grades in this episode and possible new directions.
Jul 20, 2021•30 min
As we begin a third school year in the coronavirus pandemic, the MindShift team examines sustaining teaching practices that can help educators and their students. This season, we’ll bring you stories and strategies that helped school communities prioritize what’s important in a child’s education. We also welcome Nimah Gobir as co-host! The crises of 2020 created opportunities for change in how teachers grade and how school leaders treat their staff. But not everyone made adjustments, and that le...
Jul 13, 2021•4 min
For parents and teachers looking for a resource on how to talk about race with kids, there's a new book called "Stamped (For Kids): Racism, Antiracism, and You." It's written by educator Dr. Sonja Cherry Paul and is for 7 to 12 year old children. This book is an adaptation of Dr. Ibram X. Kendi and Jason Reynolds' book "Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You."
May 11, 2021•15 min
Once schools went fully remote, learning online during the pandemic became a major struggle for so many students. However, for some students, being online and away from distractions at school helped them do better academically.
Jan 19, 2021•10 min
As a child, Connie Williams learned to read using the “whole word” strategy, which has since been disproven as an effective technique. She graduated high school in Oakland, Calif., but she was functionally illiterate. Since then, her children and grandchildren have attended Oakland public schools, all of them struggling to learn to read. And it wasn’t just her family -- the district is failing thousands of kids. Now, Connie Williams is part of a movement of families advocating for phonics instru...
Sep 08, 2020•27 min•Season 5Ep. 6
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.
Aug 25, 2020•19 min•Season 5Ep. 5
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...
Aug 11, 2020•22 min•Season 5Ep. 4
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...
Jul 28, 2020•33 min•Season 5Ep. 2
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 ...
Jul 14, 2020•24 min•Season 5Ep. 1
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...
Jul 07, 2020•4 min•Season 5Ep. 1
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?
Oct 29, 2019•22 min•Season 4Ep. 6
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.
Oct 15, 2019•23 min•Season 2Ep. 5
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...
Oct 01, 2019•21 min•Season 4Ep. 4
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.
Sep 17, 2019•23 min•Season 4Ep. 3
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.
Sep 03, 2019•24 min•Season 4Ep. 2
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.
Aug 20, 2019•27 min•Season 4Ep. 1
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?
Aug 13, 2019•5 min
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...
Nov 20, 2018•26 min•Season 3Ep. 6
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...
Nov 06, 2018•23 min•Season 3Ep. 5
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.
Oct 23, 2018•28 min•Season 3Ep. 4
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...
Sep 25, 2018•28 min•Season 3Ep. 3
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...
Sep 12, 2018•34 min•Season 3Ep. 2
