UnTextbooked | A history podcast for the future The History Co:Lab and Pod People

Bonus Episode in Partnership with Getting Smart: On this episode of the Getting Smart Podcast Nate McClennen is joined by three incredible students who recently competed in the Regeneron Science Talent Search, an event co-hosted with Society for Science. Check out our podcast episode with Maya Ajmera to hear more about Society for Science. The students are Christine Ye, a student at Eastlake High School Aseel Rawashdeh, a student at Anderson High School, and Elijah Burks, a student at Caddo Parish Magnet High School. Let’s listen in as they discuss their science projects, what project-based learning has done for them as learners, agency, and much more. 

About Getting Smart: 
This podcast highlights developing trends in K-12 education, postsecondary and lifelong learning. Each week, Getting Smart team members interview students, leading authors, experts and practitioners in research, tech, entrepreneurship and leadership to bring listeners innovative and actionable strategies in education leadership. This podcast is most frequently hosted by Tom Vander Ark, CEO of Getting Smart. Be sure to check out the Getting Smart Newsletter and Twitter Feed to stay on the cutting edge of innovations in learning.

Bonus Episode in Partnership with Changing Course: Host Jonathan Santos Silva speaks with leaders and educators from The Center for Black Educator Development in Philadelphia, PA, about how to create safe spaces that value and invest in young Black leaders. The Center is the first teaching academy in Philadelphia dedicated to investing in the next generation of Black teachers, starting as early as high school. Guided by the lens that excellent education is a political act, Sharif El-Mekki and his team at the Center demonstrate how restoring education to disenfranchised students is the purest form of activism.

Changing Course is a podcast from Teach For America's One Day Studio.

About Teach For America: Teach For America is a diverse network of leaders who work to confront the injustice of educational inequity through teaching, and at every sector of society. Learn how we are driving impact across the country to achieve our vision that one day, all children in this nation will have an opportunity to attain an excellent education.

UnTextbooked is not affiliated with Teach For America.

We’re wrapping up this incredible third season of UnTextbooked by looking back at the great work of our team of young producers. They covered topics and questions that really matter, including the rise of authoritarianism, mass incarceration, unprecedented changes in the Supreme Court, and much more! Each topic highlights how history isn’t just in the past, but also present in all of our lives.

In this episode, our host Gabe Hostin and our Youth Program Coordinator CeCe Payne discuss excerpts from episodes we couldn’t stop thinking about this season:

Did the American Civil War ever truly end?

Is the U.S. government spying on its own citizens?

How do Democracies Die?


MUSIC: Silas Bohen and Coleman Hamilton
PRODUCTION: Pod People - Hannah Pedersen, Danielle Roth, Shaneez Tyndall, and Michael Aquino.

Want to be a part of our team for season 4? Apply Here.

Episodes featured in this compilation:

Episode 312 - Arya Barkesseh (producer) and Dr. Jeremi Suri (guest and author of Civil War By Other Means: America’s Long & Unfinished Fight For Democracy) 

Episode 308 - Victor Ye (producer) and Professor Robert Scheer (guest and author of They Know Everything About You: How Data-Collecting Corporations and Snooping Government Agencies are Destroying Democracy)

Episode 313 - Jessica Chiriboga (producer) and Professor Daniel Ziblatt (guest and author of How Democracies Die)

In 2020, the Supreme Court was on the verge of transformation. Seismic events like the death of former Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the appointment of conservative justice Amy Coney Barrett, and a polarizing presidential election laid the groundwork for major changes in decision-making seen today. 
 
On this episode of UnTextbooked, producer Karly Shepherd  interviews Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times journalist Linda Greenhouse to discuss the Supreme Court’s increasing politicization and domination by the religious right. With a supermajority of conservative Justices, how should we perceive the Supreme Court today and the effects of it’s political changes on the United States’ democracy? 
 
BOOK: Justice on the Brink: A Requiem for the Supreme Court 
GUEST: Linda Greenhouse
PRODUCER: Karly Shepherd
MUSIC: Silas Bohen and Coleman Hamilton
PRODUCTION: Pod People - Hannah Pedersen, Danielle Roth, Shaneez Tyndall, and Michael Aquino.
SHOW NOTES: Link to Linda Greenhouse’s work

Is our democracy in danger? In the years after Trump’s presidency, it’s tempting to say “not anymore,” but nowadays threats to democracy are no longer as obvious as a military coup or revolution. Instead, a democracy in danger manifests in much more subtle ways including: the steady decline of longstanding political norms and weakening of essential institutions such as the United States press and its courts system, both of which are already in jeopardy. 
 
On this episode of UnTextbooked, producer Jessica Chiriboga interviews New York Times best-selling author, Professor Daniel Ziblatt to discuss how to spot the signs of a dying democracy and how American democracy might be salvaged. 
 
BOOK: How Democracies Die
GUEST: Professor Daniel Ziblatt
PRODUCER: Jessica Chiriboga
MUSIC: Silas Bohen and Coleman Hamilton
PRODUCTION: Pod People - Hannah Pedersen, Danielle Roth, Shaneez Tyndall, and Michael Aquino.
SHOW NOTES: Link to Daniel Ziblatt’s work

Although the American Civil War ended many years ago, the fight for “a more perfect union” never quite did. A few months after the union army’s victory, confederate-style, white supremacist resistance emerged even stronger than before. 
 
On this episode of UnTextbooked, producer Arya Barkesseh interviews Dr. Jeremi Suri, who argues that opposition to the union army’s victory started almost immediately after the war ended, preventing Lincoln’s vision of a genuinely united country from actually taking root. Today, these deep wounds of division remain fresh as citizens of the United States continue to wrestle with competing visions of democracy, race, and freedom over 150 years later. 
 
BOOK: Civil War By Other Means: America’s Long & Unfinished Fight For Democracy
GUEST: Dr. Jeremi Suri
PRODUCER: Arya Barkesseh
MUSIC: Silas Bohen and Coleman Hamilton
PRODUCTION: Pod People - Hannah Pedersen, Danielle Roth, Shaneez Tyndall, and Michael Aquino.
SHOW NOTES: Link to Dr. Jeremi Suri’s work 
This is Democracy - podcast