Episodes

  • Critical Race Theory, Racialization, and Schools (w/ Ben Blaisdell and Kevin Currie-Knight)

    Critical Race Theory, Racialization, and Schools (w/ Ben Blaisdell and Kevin Currie-Knight)
    May 26 2021

    In this episode, Ben Blaisdell (East Carolina University, Kevin's department-mate) talks about critical race theory (CRT) and its applicability to k-12 education. Ben's research and work in schools relies heavily on critical race frameworks, and at a time where people are so polarized about CRT, Ben explains what it is, what it's not, what critics get wrong about it, and how it can answer current criticisms leveled against it.

    3:12 - What is critical race theory and what is its significance for a field like k-12 education?
    14:12 - Concrete ways racialization plays out in schools
    26:26 - But aren't we just lowering expectations for black and brown students? Aren't we just devolving into racial stereotype?
    31:06 - Are the people critics of CRT aim at (Kendi, DiAngelo) working within a CRT framework? (Teaser: not really.)
    45:03 - If racism is unavoidable, how can teachers subvert it? If biases are unconscious, how can we become aware of ours?
    54:30 - What are critics (especially legislators and pundits) getting wrong about CRT?
    1:03:55 - Can CRT and antiracism veer into a religious way of thinking?
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    1 hr and 12 mins
  • Ungrading in Schools (w/ Susan Blum and Kevin Currie-Knight)

    Ungrading in Schools (w/ Susan Blum and Kevin Currie-Knight)
    Apr 11 2021

    In this conversation, I talk with higher education anthropologist Susan Blum (Notre Dame) about her work on how students experience higher education. We also talk about an essay collection she recently edited called Ungrading: Why Rating Students Undermines Learning (and What To Do Instead).

    0:58 - How Students Navigate and Experience School; It Ain't Pretty!
    12:35 - Why Do So Many Students Play School Like a Game?
    23:55 - What Makes Grading So Problematic? Can We Motivate Students Without Them?
    36:43 - Ways Different Teachers (including Susan and Kevin) Have Backed Off of Grades in Their Classrooms
    52:50 - How Could Teachers Start Moving Away From Grading?
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    1 hr and 8 mins
  • Critical Race Theory and Antiracism Trainings in K12 Education (w/ Samantha Hedges)

    Critical Race Theory and Antiracism Trainings in K12 Education (w/ Samantha Hedges)
    Mar 16 2021

    Kevin talks with Samantha Hedges (Heterodox Academy, Substack) about recent articles she has written criticizing critical-race-influenced approaches to diversity and equity training in schools. They talk about why Samantha believes that these trainings inadvertently stoke racial division as well as the possibility of an alternative "common humanity" approach to these issues.

    3:41 From Teacher to Education Policy Writer
    14:58 - Samantha's Concerns with Critical Race Approaches to Diversity and Equity in Education
    24:38 - Questions and Concerns About Research on Implicit Bias Tests
    32:50 - Might Critical Race Approaches Misidentify the Cause of Some Educational Disparities?
    44:55 - Juxtaposing Critical Race Approaches to Diversity with a "Common Humanity" Approach
    49:08 - How Much Do (K-12) Students Need Exposure to Antiracism Training?

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    1 hr and 8 mins
  • Academic Freedom in a Social Media Age (w/ David Labaree)

    Academic Freedom in a Social Media Age (w/ David Labaree)
    Feb 22 2021

    Kevin Currie-Knight (East Carolina University) and David Labaree (Professor Emeritus, Stanford University) talk about the history and meaning of academic freedom. They talk about whether there has ever been a “golden age” where academics were safe to be heterodox (no), and what academic freedom means in an age of social media and the in-group policing it fosters.

    00:00:32 - David’s Life as a (Newly) Retired Academic and Kevin’s Life as a Grinding Academic
    00:04:49 - The European Origins of (and the Reasons Behind) Academic Freedom
    11:14:58 - Academic Tenure Comes About at Stanford University
    00:19:32 - Academic Conformity and Why David is Concerned About Two Types of Academics
    00:34:29 - A Tension Between Academic Freedom and University Brand-Consciousness
    00:44:25 - When Academics Tweet
    00:52:56 - Should We Redesign a More Robust Academic Freedom? Can We?

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    1 hr and 8 mins
  • What is the Grade Economy and What's Wrong With It (w/ Robert Gressis)

    What is the Grade Economy and What's Wrong With It (w/ Robert Gressis)
    Feb 12 2021

    Robert Gressis (California State Northridge) and Kevin Currie-Knight (East Carolina University) hae a wide-ranging conversation about the (fraught?) relationship between schooling, learning, and A-F grading. The discussion centers around an essay Currie-Knight wrote called Against the Grade Economy: https://theelectricagora.com/2020/12/...

    00:02:36​​ Rob and Kevin make small talk 00:07:01​​ Kevin describes and laments the grade economy 00:36:07​​ What's the relationship between grades and learning? 00:57:19​​ Bryan Caplan's "The Case Against Education" and how it has traumatized Rob 01:05:58​​ Unschooling 01:21:35​​ If schools sucks so much, how did Rob and Kevin learn?
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    1 hr and 35 mins
  • What's Wrong with Normal? (w/ Jonathan Mooney)

    What's Wrong with Normal? (w/ Jonathan Mooney)
    Jan 8 2021
    This episode's guest is not normal... and that is a GREAT thing. Jonathan Mooney is an author, speaker, entrepreneur, and activist within the disability rights community. Before all that, he was a kid struggling in school with various diagnosed disabilities, told that he just wasn't normal. Today we talk about his recent book Normal Sucks, where he interrogates and examines this idea we have of normality, and how we've built a culture that strives for it. We talk about how we can - teachers, students, parents - build a culture that welcomes and supports difference and diversity instead.
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    45 mins
  • Why Do Teachers Quit? (w/ Doris Santoro)

    Why Do Teachers Quit? (w/ Doris Santoro)
    Dec 4 2020
    In this episode, I talk with Education Professor Doris Santoro about why teachers leave the profession. She distinguishes between teacher burnout and teacher demoralization and argues that, if we want to counteract the persisting and large teacher attrition problems, we need to treat these as different sets of reasons. We also talk more generally about why teaching is such a demanding field and what teachers and administrators can do to guard against attrition.

    Doris A. Santoro is Professor of Education at Bowdoin College. She teaches courses in educational studies and teacher education. Her philosophical and qualitative research examines teachers’ moral concerns about their work and their moral arguments for resistance. She has taught high school English in Brooklyn and San Francisco, GED prep at an alternative to incarceration program in Manhattan, and worked as a bilingual literacy consultant in Jersey City. She is the author of the book Demoralized: Why Teachers Leave the Profession the Love and How They Can Stay.
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    47 mins
  • What Do Racial Disparities in Schools Have to Do with Government Housing Policy? (w/ Richard Rothstein)

    What Do Racial Disparities in Schools Have to Do with Government Housing Policy? (w/ Richard Rothstein)
    Nov 13 2020
    On this episode, I talk with Richard Rothstein (Economic Policy Institute) about his book Color of Law: The Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America. While the book is not about education, Rothstein’s research is an outgrowth of prior research on racial disparities in education. In the book, Rothstein tells the story of how government policy has been used to create and sustain residential and financial segregation that, it turns out, may have a lot to do with the racial disparities we see between and within schools.

    Richard Rothstein is a Distinguished Fellow of the Economic Policy Institute and a Senior Fellow (emeritus) at the Thurgood Marshall Institute of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. He is the author of The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America, which recovers a forgotten history of how federal, state, and local policy explicitly segregated metropolitan areas nationwide, creating racially homogenous neighborhoods in patterns that violate the Constitution and require remediation. He is also the author of many other articles and books on race and education, which can be found on his web page at the Economic Policy Institute: http://www.epi.org/people/richard-rothstein/.

    Here is a link to the USA Today article on de facto school segregation I mention in my intro: https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020/06/23/why-segregation-still-plagues-americas-schools-and-how-fix-column/3234499001/
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    45 mins