A hybrid episode! We run the risk of oversimplifying educational concepts, packaging them in seminars and professional development sessions for sale, and actually HARMING students. Or at least not helping them. Educational theories often carry precious little evidence, but we as educators frequently feel ill equipped to question them. Often times these oversimplifications are simply Utopian visions of education. One of the buzzwords that gets this treatment in my view is “Belonging.” I have been reading a book called “Belonging Through a Culture of Dignity” by Cobb and Krownapple. In that journey, as well as in my conversations on the show, in real life, and online it has become clear to me that there are many questions still to be ASKED about this topic before we can even begin to have enough hubris to think we can answer it.
This episode started out as a car thoughts episode, which I extended with a walkthrough of two graphics that I see as questionable from the book.
Episode 313: Student Centered Voice Pedagogy with Jeanne Goffi-Fynn
What if a voice lesson starts not with what’s wrong, but with what the singer already does well? Dr. Jean Goffi-Fynn teaches student-centered voice pedagogy at Teachers College, Columbia University, and that is where she starts: with the student’s goals, with their strengths, and with a conversation, not a diagnosis. She still brings the teacher’s…
Episode 312: Conformity in an Evidence Based Costume
Watch the ideology baked into your methods. Teach mastery before you set them loose. Give them the tools, and THEN and only then, let them build. Last week I ended with two sentences, and I meant them. Watch the ideology baked into your methods. And teach mastery before you set them loose. This week I…
Episode 311: If They Don’t Know, We Didn’t Teach
The most cited book in education was written for Brazilian adult literacy. Now we use it to build theories to teach American seven-year-olds. The tip of the iceberg of America’s educational decline. Students are struggling in 2026. Standards are decreasing. Pedagogy has gotten worse over the last twenty years. And the education profession is slowly…
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