Klingbrief Archive

Vol 107 - February 2022

Podcast

Of Note: Try on Different Perspectives

Free Range Humans by Jal Mehta and Rod Allen

New this past summer, the podcast Free Range Humans is twenty-five episodes into its exploration of "how we can make schools fit for human consumption." Hosts Jal Mehta and Rod Allen invite guest educators to ponder how schools might create cultures of curiosity and innovation, shift mental health paradigms, dismantle meritocracies, and be intentional about not returning to normal after the pandemic. They probe whether it’s fair to ask kids to change the world, and wonder after the pragmatism of affecting systemic change when "you can’t change anybody but yourself." Particularly thought-provoking is an episode on "Street Data" with Jamila Dugan and Shane Safir, which leads with the query: "Is data actually preventing us from making transformative change in education systems?" Educators rely on data to make evidence-based decisions, but perhaps tests created to assess progress are in and of themselves the issue. A new hour-long episode is released every week and invites the listener to try on a different perspective, all in service of deepening teaching and learning experiences in today's schools.

Submitted by
Susanna Waters, Brooks School, North Andover, MA
Covid-19
Student Wellness & Safety
Teaching Practice
Leadership Practice
Book

A Companion for Reimagining

The Story of Climate Change: A first book about how we can help save our planet by Catherine Barr and Steve Williams
The Quarto Group, March 2, 2021

With the current state of our planet and the climate crisis we face, schools are being asked to reimagine the way we educate our students. Our students must learn to see themselves as stewards of the earth and as citizens who are cognizant of the impact of their actions. One place to begin is by introducing sustainability education during our students' earliest years. The Story of Climate Change is a fantastic book that addresses this need. It is filled with facts and beautiful illustrations and can be introduced in the elementary grades. Bringing both history and science together in one book, it begins with the creation of our planet, travels through industrialization and its effects, and finally ends with where we stand as a civilization today. The Story of Climate Change not only focuses on nature and the environment, but also it taps into more complex ideas of gender, women's rights, consumerism, politics, and the positive impact of student voice and activism. The simplicity in the way it presents these complex ideas, its comprehensiveness, and the fact that it can be used across many different age groups make this book a great addition to any and all class libraries.

Submitted by
Pritika Rebecca Joseph, Ed.M. Candidate, Klingenstein Center, Teachers College, NY
Current Events & Civic Engagement
Curriculum
Book

Budgeting for Change

How Much Does a Great School Cost?: School Economies and School Values by Barbara J. Smith
Rowman and Littlefield Publishers Inc., April 1, 2021

The question at the heart of this book is asked every day in independent schools. Whether it be constructing a curriculum or a strategic plan, mapping student success or an admissions policy, we are always, of necessity, weighing costs and values. The book How Much Does a Great School Cost? places us right at the intersection of school budgets and school mission, a position familiar to many in schools. The opening chapters of the book present and encourage reflections on what makes a great school and what opportunities there are, in most educational contexts, to improve the alignment between school economies and values. The author has interviewed a range of experienced educators to frame the discussion on setting funding priorities, the worthiness of desired innovations, and perceived or real obstacles to change. Next, Brown looks at school funds and expenditures. What emerges has the ring of a familiar truth in many schools: the budget will define what matters in an institution. While acknowledging that every context is different, this book untangles long-held budget beliefs to make room for imagining change. Supporting values costs money but perhaps not in the same ways we are spending money now. While the author's creative imagining of a New School will not suit all, she skillfully illuminates a pathway for rethinking the relationship between the best school we can imagine for our students and how to apportion the funds and live the values to make that vision possible.

Submitted by
Elizabeth Morley, Dr. Eric Jackman Institute of Child Study Lab School, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario
Leadership Practice
Podcast

A Unified and Usable Shared Past

"A Story Of Us?" by Ramtin Arablouei, Rund Abdelfatah, Tamim Ansary
NPR's Throughline, February 3, 2022

An interview with Tamim Ansary, the author of the brilliant book The Invention of Yesterday: A 50,000-Year History of Human Culture, Conflict, and Connection, is the focus of this episode of NPR's essential history podcast, Throughline. The deeper subtext of the episode, however, is the ongoing, cultural, war-inflected discourse around history curricula and our collective grappling for a unified and usable shared past. The insightful context provided by hosts Ramtin Arablouei and Rund Abdelfatah is a helpful crash course in what is really at stake in these culture war controversies as well as their overlap with the broader discourse in the study of history. Ansary, himself a veteran textbook editor and historian, brings a lively and broad perspective, helpfully situating these controversies in the disciplines of history, anthropology, and sociology. For school leaders and teachers looking to broaden their own perspectives on these contemporary controversies and to develop new tools for helping students, families, and colleagues understand the vastness of human experience, this episode is an essential listen.

Submitted by
Jonathan Gold, Moses Brown School, Providence, RI
Current Events & Civic Engagement
Curriculum
Article

Out of the Vacuum

5 Ways to Teach Climate Change, COVID-19 in Polarized Times by Madeline Will
Education Week, Vol. 41, Issue 14, November 24, 2021

In her article "5 Ways to Teach Climate Change, COVID-19 in Polarized Times," Madeline Will offers solutions to teaching about science that has become caught up in culture wars—vaccines and climate change, specifically. She explores national trends, noting that over a quarter of surveyed teachers devoted roughly equal time to whether humans caused climate change. Additionally, a majority (60%) of surveyed teachers didn't bring up vaccines at all in life science classes for fear of administration or parent backlash. So what do we do? Will suggests emphasizing media literacy, keeping parents in the loop, and helping students evaluate the evidence on their own. There is a difference between thinking independently and thinking differently, and teachers—not just of science—must be aware that nothing we teach exists in a political vacuum. Articles like this one help us acknowledge the diverse perspectives of our student communities, and prepare us to teach the critical thinking skills we promise on admission.

Submitted by
Ned Heckman, Loomis Chaffee School, Windsor, CT
Covid-19
Current Events & Civic Engagement
Curriculum
Teaching Practice
Podcast

Optimism Brain

The Case for Believing in Yourself by Dacher Keltner and Shuka Kalantari
Episode 108, The Greater Good Science Center, January 6, 2022

Do you ever find that students struggle to define their goals? This episode of The Science of Happiness podcast, a co-production of UC Berkeley's Greater Good Science Center, presents both the practice of visualizing your best possible self and the science to support the benefits of optimism and hope during difficult times. In the first half of the episode, professor of psychology at University of California, Berkeley, Dacher Keltner, interviews comedian and co-host of Feeling Asian podcast Youngmi Mayer. In a refreshingly honest manner, Mayer describes what it means to be vulnerable, see herself, and gain perspective on her identity—all in hopes of achieving her dreams. The second half introduces the effect of optimism on the brain as described by senior producer Shuka Kalantari and psychologist and Chair of Experimental Health Psychology at Maastricht University, Madelon Peters. Simply imagining a better future and your role in it can be enough to lower cortisol levels, reduce stress, and allow people to better cope with trying circumstances. In the midst of the Covid pandemic, students and faculty alike should consider making time for a practice that grounds them in optimism and helps to answer the following important question: how do you define your best possible self?

Submitted by
Rebecca T. Wolski, Katherine Delmar Burke School, San Francisco, CA
Science of Learning
Social-Emotional Learning
Teaching Practice
Book

Nothing / But the World

Call Us What We Carry by Amanda Gorman
Viking, December 7, 2021

The youngest poet to perform at a presidential inauguration in United States history, Amanda Gorman has already become a household name and an inspiration to students everywhere. In Call Us What We Carry, her first full collection of poems since President Biden's 2021 inauguration, Gorman gives voice to our collective experience of weathering the last two years. Her poems, with the central metaphor of a shipwreck—and its survival—running through them, speak to the loneliness and despair of living through the COVID-19 pandemic, our country's long-overdue and ongoing reckoning with systemic racism and racial violence, and the political upheaval of the last several years. Perhaps even more important, Gorman's work keeps one eye trained on the horizon. Hers is a voice for "a light so terrific," insisting in the collection's eponymous poem that "We are enough / … / We walk into tomorrow / Carrying nothing / But the world." Throughout the collection's lyrical journey, Gorman demonstrates a variety, playfulness, and allusiveness of style that is exciting and refreshing, for teachers and students alike. Her work blurs the lines between literary genres, and even academic disciplines, making use of survey results, primary source documents, mathematical concepts, the hero's journey, concrete poems, and even a game of hangman. Most of all, however, Gorman's collection is a reminder that poetry can be a form of processing, on an individual and a collective level. As school communities continue thinking about recovery from the trauma we have all experienced, Gorman's poetry provides both a guide and an inspiration for each of us.

Submitted by
Amalia Francisco, Ed.M Candidate, The Klingenstein Center, New York City, NY
Covid-19
Current Events & Civic Engagement