reeducated

Goutham Yegappan
  • 5.0 (6)
  • EDUCATION
  • UPDATED WEEKLY

Conversations reimagining, rethinking, and reinventing modern education.

  1. 6D AGO

    Creating Schools With Young People, Not For Them | Gretchen Brion-Meisels | Senior Lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education | Season 12 Episode 14 | #189

    In this episode, I speak with Gretchen Brion-Meisels about what it really means to center young people in education. We begin by talking about her path into youth work and research, and how early experiences with students shaped her belief that education works best when young people are treated as partners rather than passive recipients. She explains why student voice is often misunderstood, reduced to surface-level feedback rather than genuine participation in decision-making. We spend much of the conversation exploring youth adult partnerships and what happens when schools take the perspectives of young people seriously. Gretchen shares examples from participatory action research and school-based initiatives where students help define problems, shape solutions, and influence school culture. We talk about power, trust, and the discomfort adults sometimes feel when authority is shared, as well as how listening itself can become a form of care and belonging. Toward the end, we reflect on what these ideas mean for school climate, equity, and well-being. Gretchen challenges the assumption that adults always know what is best and argues that sustainable change requires collaboration across generations. This episode is ultimately about reimagining education as a relational practice, one grounded in respect, curiosity, and the belief that young people already carry important knowledge about their own lives.

    53 min

  2. JAN 29

    The Illusion of Equal Opportunity in Higher Education | Taylor Odle | Assistant Professor of Educational Policy Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison | Season 12 Episode 13 | #188

    In this episode, I speak with Taylor Odle about how higher education in the United States became a system that promises opportunity while quietly reproducing inequality. We begin with his path from public policy and data science into education research, and why universities are such powerful and complex institutions to study. Taylor explains how metrics, rankings, and quantitative indicators shape policy decisions, while often failing to capture what we actually value about education. Much of our conversation focuses on college access and the application process itself. We unpack how financial, social, and cultural capital quietly shape who gets in and who is filtered out, even at institutions that claim to be open access. We talk about community colleges, admissions fees, essays, letters of recommendation, and why the simple act of raising your hand and saying “I want to learn” is still burdened with unnecessary barriers. Taylor challenges the assumption that access has already been solved and explains why completion narratives often mask deeper inequities. Toward the end, we step back to ask bigger questions about the purpose of college. We discuss credentialism, prestige, and the way education has come to function as a social signal rather than a space for intellectual growth. We also explore whether education should be understood as an individual investment or a collective good, and what it would mean to design a system that truly prioritizes learning over status. This episode is a deep reflection on who higher education serves, who it excludes, and what it might take to imagine something more equitable.

    58 min

  3. JAN 27

    From the Classroom to the Global Library | John Willinsky | Khosla Family Professor Emeritus at the Stanford Graduate School of Education| Season 12 Episode 12 | #187

    In this conversation, I sit down with John Willinsky to explore a question that quietly shapes nearly every part of modern life: who gets access to knowledge, and why. We begin with his early years as a classroom teacher, where his love for literature collided with deeper questions about curriculum, authority, and the hidden values embedded in education. From literary theory and imperialism to the power structures behind what gets taught, John reflects on how education is never neutral and why curiosity alone is not enough without access. As the conversation unfolds, we move into the heart of his life’s work: opening scholarly research to the public. John explains how academic knowledge became increasingly commercialized in the twentieth century, locking publicly funded research behind paywalls that exclude teachers, doctors, and the wider public. He shares why open access is not just a technical issue, but an ethical one, especially in an age of misinformation, global inequality, and digital overload. We also explore the future of learning beyond schools and universities. From Wikipedia and Google Scholar to the idea of “learning in depth,” this episode examines what it would mean to treat knowledge as a shared human resource rather than a private commodity. At its core, this conversation is about trust, responsibility, and the belief that education should not end at the classroom door. Chapters: 00:00 – Introduction and Emeritus Life03:00 – Falling in Love with Literature and Teaching08:30 – Literary Theory, Curriculum, and Power14:30 – Wonder, Critique, and the Humanities20:00 – Libraries vs Schools and Learning Freedom25:30 – Why Public Access to Research Matters31:00 – Jargon, Expertise, and the Public Reader37:30 – Wikipedia, Google Scholar, and Gateways to Knowledge44:00 – Misinformation and Trust in Research50:30 – The Economics of Scholarly Publishing57:00 – Open Access as a Public Responsibility01:01:30 – Hopes for the Future of Knowledge

    1h 3m

  4. JAN 23

    What Education Is Really For? | Rupert Wegerif | Professor of Education at the University of Cambridge | Season 12 Episode 11 | #186

    In this conversation, I sit down with Rupert Wegerif to explore one of the most fundamental questions in education, a question that is often avoided or quietly assumed rather than openly discussed. What is education actually for. We begin with personal origin stories and quickly move into a deeper examination of meaning, purpose, and why so many students today feel competent yet disconnected, informed yet without hope. Rupert shares how his early struggles with meaning shaped his path into education and why he believes that learning without purpose can leave people feeling empty rather than empowered. We explore the idea that education has always served as a way of situating people within a larger story, whether cultural, philosophical, or existential. As modern systems have moved away from shared traditions, we discuss what has been lost and what might still be recovered. Much of the conversation centers on dialogic education, not as a teaching technique, but as a way of opening shared spaces of thinking where insight can emerge. We talk about why asking “why” feels threatening in schools, how authority reacts when meaning is unclear, and why humility and listening are essential educational virtues. We also turn toward the future, especially the role of technology and artificial intelligence in learning. Rather than framing AI as the opposite of dialogue, Rupert challenges that assumption and suggests ways technology can expand thinking when used thoughtfully. The conversation ends with reflections on hope, collective intelligence, and the responsibility of education to help people feel connected to something larger than themselves. This episode is an invitation to slow down and reconsider what learning is meant to nourish in us as human beings. Chapter: 00:00 Introduction and Rupert Wegerif’s background 02:00 Early struggles with meaning and entering education 05:30 Why students ask “why” and why schools resist it 08:30 Competence without hope in modern education 11:30 Education, tradition, and the loss of shared meaning 15:00 Authority, fear, and avoiding existential questions 18:00 Connection, belonging, and finding meaning beyond the self 22:30 Education as process rather than product 26:30 Falling in love with learning and asking why 30:30 What cuts people off from connection 33:00 The origins of dialogic education 36:00 Dialogue as shared space rather than debate 39:00 Identity, disagreement, and philosophical humility 43:00 Teaching dialogue without turning it into a rule 47:00 Writing, language, and keeping meaning alive 49:30 AI, technology, and dialogic thinking 54:00 Education, hope, and long term futures 58:00 Daily practices, reflection, and remembering mortality

    1h 1m

  5. JAN 22

    Education in the Shadow of Violence | Diana Rodríguez Gómez | Assistant Professor of Educational Policy Studies at the University of Wisconsin Madison | Season 12 Episode 10 | #185

    In this episode, I speak with Diana Rodríguez Gómez about what education looks like in places shaped by violence, displacement, and fragile state institutions. Our conversation begins with her work in Latin America, particularly near the Colombia-Venezuela border, where schools operate under conditions of uncertainty that most education research rarely addresses. Diana explains how schooling in these contexts cannot be understood as neutral or separate from politics, since classrooms are deeply entangled with state power, security forces, and local forms of governance. We explore how teachers, students, and families navigate education when the state is inconsistent, mistrusted, or present primarily through coercion. Diana shares insights from her ethnographic research, showing how schools become sites where ideas of citizenship, human rights, and belonging are negotiated daily. We talk about refugee labels, migration, and how policy categories often fail to reflect lived experience. In these environments, education can offer stability, but it can also reproduce exclusion and control in subtle ways. Toward the end, we reflect on what this research means for how we study education more broadly. Diana challenges the assumption that schools everywhere function in similar ways, urging researchers and policymakers to take context seriously. This episode is ultimately about humility in educational thinking and about listening carefully to the people living inside systems shaped by violence, uncertainty, and resilience. Chapters: 00:00 – Introduction 02:00 – Diana’s path into education policy and ethnography 05:00 – Why studying education in violent contexts matters 09:00 – Education near the Colombia Venezuela border 13:00 – What state fragility looks like inside schools 17:00 – Schools as political and social institutions 21:00 – Teachers navigating fear, uncertainty, and responsibility 25:00 – Migration, displacement, and the refugee label 29:00 – How policy categories fail lived experience 33:00 – Human rights and education on the ground 37:00 – Citizenship, belonging, and exclusion in schools 41:00 – When education reproduces control rather than care 45:00 – The limits of global education policy frameworks 49:00 – Why context must come before reform 53:00 – What ethnography reveals that data cannot 57:00 – Rethinking neutrality in education research 01:01:00 – Implications for policymakers and researchers

    1h 7m

  6. JAN 17

    Why Understanding Is Harder Than Knowing | Tina Grotzer | Senior Research Scientist at the Harvard Graduate School of Education | Season 12 Episode 9 | #184

    In this conversation, I speak with Tina Grotzer, a leading researcher in the learning and cognitive sciences, about what it actually means to learn in a complex world. We begin by unpacking learning not as the simple acquisition of information, but as preparation for future thinking and adaptation. Tina explains how our minds form causal models, why we rely on default patterns, and how real learning often requires the difficult work of unlearning deeply reinforced pathways. As we move deeper, we explore why schooling so often strips away complexity rather than engaging with it. Tina shares research showing that young children are often capable of sophisticated causal reasoning, yet lose this ability over time as education prioritizes efficiency, surface understanding, and right answers. We discuss procedural knowledge, conceptual understanding, and what she calls getting to the structural bones of ideas. This leads to powerful examples from science education, climate change, and everyday reasoning, where oversimplified models prevent meaningful understanding. In the final part of the conversation, we turn to humility, perception, and truth. We examine confirmation bias, attention, and why different people genuinely experience different realities. Tina reflects on the emotional challenge of confronting complexity, the courage it requires to sit with uncertainty, and the importance of communities that support deep conversation. We end by considering how education could better cultivate wonder, courage, and regenerative hope in a world that is increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous. Chapter: 00:00 – Introduction and everyday learning stories 03:00 – What learning really means 07:00 – Learning as preparation for future thinking 10:30 – Metacognition and knowing how your mind works 14:00 – Reinforced pathways and the challenge of unlearning 18:00 – Why simple models are so hard to let go 22:00 – Critical exceptions and model revision 26:00 – Procedural versus conceptual knowledge 29:00 – Getting to the structural bones of ideas 33:00 – Perception, attention, and confirmation bias 37:00 – Humility, truth, and different ways of knowing 41:00 – Science, uncertainty, and changing explanations 45:00 – Education, inequality, and responsibility 49:00 – AI, human cognition, and epistemology 53:00 – Courage, complexity, and emotional resilience 57:00 – Essential questions and living curricula

    1h 1m

  7. JAN 15

    The Unintended Consequences of School Reform | David Labaree | Professor Emeritus of Education at Stanford University | Season 12 Episode 8 | #183

    In this episode, I sit down with David Labaree, one of the most influential historians of education in the United States, to examine how schooling came to occupy such a powerful and complicated role in American life. We begin with his personal journey into the field and quickly move into a deeper discussion of education as both a promise and a problem. Schooling, he explains, has long served two competing purposes at once: helping people get ahead while also helping families stay ahead. That tension, he argues, sits at the core of many of our current educational struggles. We spend much of the conversation unpacking how education became a primary marker of identity, status, and worth. From elite college branding to standardized testing, we explore how learning slowly gave way to credentials, metrics, and competition. David shares striking examples of how pressure, particularly in high performing communities, can turn schools into sites of anxiety, fear, and even harm. We talk about how reforms focused on efficiency, accountability, and measurable outcomes often narrow what counts as learning and push aside curiosity, beauty, and depth. Toward the end, we reflect on what it means to change complex systems responsibly. Rather than offering quick solutions, David argues for humility, historical awareness, and caution. Reform, he suggests, should begin with understanding how schools actually function before trying to fix them at scale. This episode is a thoughtful exploration of why education so often fails to live up to its ideals, and what it might mean to slow down, ask better questions, and take the human consequences of reform seriously. Chapters: 00:00 – Introduction 02:00 – David’s path into the history of education 05:00 – Why education carries so much social weight 08:00 – Schooling as opportunity versus schooling as status 12:00 – How credentials replaced learning 16:00 – The rise of competition and educational anxiety 20:00 – Why reforms often deepen inequality 24:00 – Measurement, accountability, and narrow definitions of success 28:00 – High performing schools and hidden human costs 32:00 – Why good intentions lead to bad outcomes 36:00 – The limits of large scale reform 39:00 – Humility, history, and rethinking change

    43 min

  8. JAN 13

    Curiosity as the Engine of Learning | Elizabeth Bonawitz | Professor of Psychology at Harvard University | Season 12 Episode 7 | #182

    In this conversation, I sit down with Elizabeth Robbin Bonawitz to explore one deceptively simple question: how do humans learn before they can even speak? We begin with early childhood and unpack how infants and young children actively explore the world, test hypotheses, revise beliefs, and build intuitive theories long before formal education begins. Rather than seeing learning as passive absorption, we examine it as a dynamic process driven by curiosity, exploration, and social information. We dive deep into how learning works across the lifespan, focusing on the underlying rules of thought that remain surprisingly consistent from infancy through adulthood. We discuss intuitive theories, prior beliefs, and how evidence interacts with what we already think we know. Through concrete examples, from touching a hot stove to understanding gravity, we explore how people generalize experiences, revise mistaken beliefs, and decide which explanations to trust. This leads into a fascinating discussion about testimony, expertise, and why trusting others is both a strength and a vulnerability in human learning. Toward the end, we focus on curiosity itself and why it matters so much for education. Elizabeth explains curiosity as the mental state that prepares the mind to learn, aligning attention, memory, and motivation before new information arrives. We talk about the difference between curiosity and motivation, why grades can sometimes suppress real learning, and how classrooms can be designed to support questioning rather than rote compliance. This episode is a deep reflection on learning as a human capacity that begins far earlier and runs far deeper than most educational systems recognize. Chapters: 00:00 – Introduction02:00 – What it means to study learning scientifically05:00 – How infants learn before language08:30 – Children as intuitive scientists12:00 – Exploration, play, and hypothesis testing16:00 – How prior beliefs shape what we notice20:00 – Learning from evidence versus learning from people25:00 – Trust, testimony, and social learning29:30 – Why humans rely on others to understand the world34:00 – When trust helps learning and when it misleads38:00 – Curiosity as a mental state that prepares learning42:00 – Curiosity versus motivation in education46:00 – Why grades and rewards can suppress curiosity50:00 – Designing classrooms that support questioning54:00 – What education can learn from early childhood

    57 min
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About

Conversations reimagining, rethinking, and reinventing modern education.

Information

  • Creator
    Goutham Yegappan
  • Years Active
    2022 - 2026
  • Episodes
    189
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Goutham Yegappan
  • Show Website
    reeducated