Hallway Conversations

Episode 071: The Work of Imagination in Teaching Christianly

Today’s episode was inspired by Dave’s recent re-reading of David Smith’s book, On Christian Teaching. Dave is wondering about the work of imagination and how it connects to teaching “Christianly.” Smith encourages teachers to “see anew”--to reflect on our practices, and perhaps develop more of an imagination for the work of teaching, and the possibilities and potential of how we can help students to “see anew” through our pedagogy. We talk through different ideas for how this might play out for teachers in their work, and share some examples from our own teaching as well.

We’d always love to hear from you–whether with a question of your own, or feedback on this episode or any other episode. You can always reach out at hallwayconvospod@gmail.com. And if you’d be willing to rate this show, or write a review, we would deeply appreciate it! 

• David Smith’s On Christian Teaching is available here: https://www.amazon.com/Christian-Teaching-Practicing-Faith-Classroom/dp/080287360X/ 
• Along the way in the conversation today, Abby mentioned Wiggins & McTighe’s classic book, Understanding by Design, which is available here: https://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Design-Grant-Wiggins/dp/1416600353/ 

Episode 070: In Praise of Substitute Teachers

Today’s topic is substitute teachers–people we all celebrate! In our conversation we share about some of our happy memories of working with substitute teachers from our K-12 experiences, and some of the joyful experiences we have had serving as substitute teachers. We also have a few ideas about how to equip substitute teachers, so if you know someone who think could be an awesome “teacher on call,” share this episode with them! We love substitute teachers, and hope this conversation helps you celebrate the subs you’ve worked with as well.

We’d always love to hear from you–whether with a question of your own, or feedback on this episode or any other episode. You can always reach out at hallwayconvospod@gmail.com. And if you’d be willing to rate this show, or write a review, we would deeply appreciate it!

Episode 069: Book Talks - Reading, Faith, and Community

We haven’t done book talks for a while, and since we have more time to read in the summer…it’s time to share a bit about the things we’ve been reading! We each brought in one book that we have read recently, and share a bit about our take-aways from the book. At the end of our recording session, we realized that though we didn’t discuss our choices ahead of time, they all seemed to “touch” and flow from one to the next. We hope that listening in on our conversation of some of the things we’re thinking about related to reading, and faith, and community will encourage you to think deeply about what you’re reading.

We’d always love to hear from you–whether with a question of your own, or feedback on this episode or any other episode. You can always reach out at hallwayconvospod@gmail.com. And if you’d be willing to rate this show, or write a review, we would deeply appreciate it! 

Here are the books we discussed in today’s episode:

• Disrupting Thinking: Why How We Read Matters by Kylene Beers & Robert E. Probst. Available here: https://www.amazon.com/Disrupting-Thinking-Why-Read-Matters/dp/1338132903/ 

• When Everything's On Fire: Faith Forged from the Ashes by Brian Zahnd. Available here: https://www.amazon.com/When-Everythings-Fire-Faith-Forged/dp/1514003333/ 
• The Life We’re Looking For: Reclaiming Relationship in a Technological World by Andy Crouch. Available here: https://www.amazon.com/When-Everythings-Fire-Faith-Forged/dp/1514003333/ https://www.amazon.com/Life-Were-Looking-Relationship-Technological/dp/059323734X/ 

Episode 068: The Plate Isn’t Getting Any Bigger

Welcome to “Season 5” of Hallway Conversations! We hope you’ll notice a couple of changes; most notably, we have new microphones, so we hope you’ll find the audio quality a better listening experience. But the basic idea of this show is the same: we hope these are meaningful conversations for you to listen in on that will encourage, challenge, and inspire you.

Today we have a question from a listener! Brenda asks us about what we might be able to “take off of teachers’ plates.” This is an idea we hear talked about quite a bit–and one we’ve even brought up on the show in the past–so we were excited to think this one through. We have a few ideas of the kinds of things school leaders might be able to do to address teachers’ workload. We hope this might spark some creative and courageous conversations at your own schools.

We’d love to hear from you–whether with a question of your own, or feedback on this episode or any other episode. You can always reach out at hallwayconvospod@gmail.com. And if you’d be willing to rate this show, or write a review, we would deeply appreciate it!

Summer 2022 Replay - When It All Seems Like Too Much

Due to some unforeseen circumstances related to our summer travel schedules and other responsibilities, we were not able to get into the studio to record a new episode this week. (Sorry, loyal listeners!) But we have one from the archive: a question from some of our students prompted this discussion about the challenges of teaching today, and how to cope when it all seems like too much. We hope this is a word of encouragement to all educators who have completed a very trying, taxing year. Grace and peace to you all, and we hope to be back with a new episode very soon.

Episode 067: Dealing with Criticism

In this episode, Matt kicks things off by sharing a quote from Brené Brown’s excellent book, Dare to Lead. The key question we consider is, “How do we open our hearts to be receptive to feedback…and also still protect ourselves from criticism that we ought to dismiss?” Educators by the public nature of their work are often targets of critique, whether fairly or unfairly, and we think together about the ways we personally take feedback, and how we deal with criticism. We hope that you’ll be encouraged in this episode to be resilient in the face of critique, and continue to discern what feedback you should listen to…and what feedback you can disregard.

• Brené Brown’s book Dare to Lead is available here: Amazon link

Episode 066: Why Free Reading Is Important (Or, Just Say No to Accelerated Reader)

In today’s episode, Abby mentions a tweet that she read recently that prompted wondering about what free reading could (should?) look like in middle school and high school classrooms. We jumped into talking through the joys and challenges of creating a culture of reading–and how it might be more of an expectation at the elementary grades, but could have huge benefits for older students as well. We question the role of accountability programs like Accelerated Reader, and discuss the ways AR actually doesn’t promote a healthy, positive culture of reading within a school. Abby shares from her expertise as a literacy instructor about ways to scaffold reading instruction as part of fostering choice-based reading. Lots of dreaming in this episode, but we hope you’ll be encouraged to think about the culture of reading in your school, and possibly imagine ways to strengthen that culture.

Episode 065: What Are Report Cards For?

Dave’s Facebook memories recently reminded him of his former role as a Technology Director in K-12, when part of his job involved printing report cards, which got him thinking about the purpose of report cards, and whether they do what we think they do. Dave shares his frustration about the reductionism in trying to compress a whole term’s learning into just one symbol–a letter grade. We candidly share our own school experiences with getting grades and how they were reported on report cards. We wonder together about alternative ways we could think about communicating learning in ways that would be helpful for students, families, and teachers. Grades, comments, narratives, gradeless reports, standards-based approaches…we talk a little about it all! We’d love to hear your thoughts and ideas in response; please drop us a line at hallwayconvospod@gmail.com.

Bonus: Chit Chat in the Hallway

Consider this a peek behind the scenes...we really are friends, and we really do just hang out together and talk about things. When we get set to record, we usually start with a sound check, and then jump in. But sometimes we go off on a tangent right from the get-go...and that's what happened here. K-pop, fiction we're reading right now, Dave's recent vacation...it all shows up in a 10-minute window. We hope you enjoy this bonus episode!

Episode 064: Teaching Who We Are

Our check-in today is about the different rhythms of summer; Matt starts us off with the myth of “summers off” for teachers, but we recognize that we do have different opportunities with the coming of the summer months. Late bedtimes, smoothies for lunch, and changing exercise routines–we have lots to enjoy with the coming of summer!

Our main topic of discussion today comes from Matt’s recent re-reading of Parker J. Palmer’s impactful book, The Courage to Teach. (Which is one of Dave’s very favorite books ever.) A central concept in the book is one we’ve mentioned on the show before: “teaching who you are.” Matt shares a passage from the book that introduces Palmer’s idea of teacher identity, and we take a little time to think out loud together about what this means for us, and how it shows up in our own practices. We hope you’ll be encouraged and inspired by listening–and that it might spark a hallway conversation for you with a colleague about your own teacher identity.

• Parker Palmer’s book, The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of the Teacher’s Life is one every educator should read. You can order a copy here: Amazon link