The Learning and Forgetting Podcast Kevin Currie-Knight

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?

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 Classrooms52:50 - How Could Teachers Start Moving Away From Grading?

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 Academic00:04:49 - The European Origins of (and the Reasons Behind) Academic Freedom11:14:58 - Academic Tenure Comes About at Stanford University00:19:32 - Academic Conformity and Why David is Concerned About Two Types of Academics00:34:29 - A Tension Between Academic Freedom and University Brand-Consciousness00:44:25 - When Academics Tweet00:52:56 - Should We Redesign a More Robust Academic Freedom? Can We? 

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?

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.

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.