Hallway Conversations

Spring Break 2022 Bonus - Awards

Many thanks to you, our dedicated listeners! We are on Spring Break this week, and so we are pulling one of Dave's favorite episodes out of the archive. In this episode, we discuss a question from a listener about end-of-the-year awards ceremonies--maybe this will be good food for thought for you at this point in the spring as you might be thinking ahead to the end of this school year? We hope you'll be challenged and encouraged by listening.

• Friends, we are preparing for our first book discussion! We are going to be reading and discussing Flourishing Together: A Christian Vision for Students, Educators, and Schools by Lynn Swaner and Andy Wolfe. We would love it if you would read along, and even submit questions you might have! The book has five sections, and we will be discussing one section each week beginning on March 30, 2022. We would love it if you would read along with us, and even submit your questions, comments, wonderings. Drop us a note at hallwayconvospod@gmail.com You can order your copy of the book here: Amazon link

Episode 054: Not Just the Icing on the Cake

We jump in with a check-in question this week, things we are currently learning. A diverse set of answers to this question among the three of us: a new computer programming language, running a caulk gun, and getting out of our comfort zones to meet new people. (Care to guess who said which one of these?)

In this episode, we have a question from a listener! Susan asks, “Many teachers struggle with integrating faith and learning well–doing it more than a devotional activity or an add-on to a lesson. How can we do this in a God-honoring and natural way?” In response, Matt shares a bit from an article by one of our colleagues, Dr. Leah Zuidema, entitled “Integral, Not Integrated” and we think through some different ideas of what faith-informed teaching might look like in practice. In particular, we discuss ways of moving beyond “sprinkling on a little Jesus,” to teaching in a way that makes faith more than just icing on the cake.

• Friends, we are preparing for our first book discussion! We are going to be reading and discussing Flourishing Together: A Christian Vision for Students, Educators, and Schools by Lynn Swaner and Andy Wolfe. We would love it if you would read along, and even submit questions you might have! The book has five sections, and we will be discussing one section each week beginning on March 30, 2022. We would love it if you would read along with us, and even submit your questions, comments, wonderings. Drop us a note at hallwayconvospod@gmail.com You can order your copy of the book here: Amazon link

Episode 053: Righteous Non-Compliance?

Today we started with a check-in about our favorite books or series that we would love to go back and read again for the first time. One of us said The Chronicles of Narnia, one said Henry Huggins, and one said The Hunger Games. Care to guess who claimed each one? We’d love to hear about your favorite books as well; you can share yours with us at hallwayconvospod@gmail.com.

The question we tackle for our discussion today came from our dear friend and colleague, Ed, who asked us to think through this question: “While compliance is not the goal of schooling, what do we and our students miss if we don’t ever emphasize compliance? Should we prepare students for aspects of life that expect our compliance whether or not we agree?” Together, we think through the nature of why we have expectations for students’ behavior, and when they definitely should comply…and when a healthy (or even a righteous) non-compliance is a good thing? We’ll be very curious to hear what you think!

• We are going to start a short series in a few weeks in which we will be reading and discussing the new book, Flourishing Together: A Christian Vision for Students, Educators, and Schools by Lynn Swaner and Andy Wolfe. We would love it if you would read along, and even submit questions you might have! More information about this coming next week, but if you are interested, you can order your copy of the book now. - Amazon link

Episode 052: Preserving, Pruning, and Pioneering

Today’s check-in question caused us to reminisce about our favorite road trips, and you definitely don’t want to miss Matt’s story about a mysterious stranger who just might have been an angel in disguise. After this, Dave raises a question inspired by another podcast he was listening to recently: thinking about education today, what is something we should preserve, something we should prune, and something we should pioneer? As we share our ideas, we grapple with the role of librarians, whether we should chuck standardized tests or not, the value of Accelerated Reader, the challenge of managing the work teachers are expected to do outside of school hours, and more. As always, we would love to hear your feedback; email us at hallwayconvospod@gmail.com.

• The podcast Dave mentioned that inspired today’s conversation was Episode 496 of the Holy Post podcast, which you can access here: https://www.holypost.com/holy-post-podcast/episode/2b3b958e/episode-496-the-embrace-of-tyrants-and-the-despair-of-pastors

Bonus Episode: A Word of Encouragement

This bonus episode is made up of a couple of leftovers that didn’t make the cut from our last episode about teaching and technique, but we thought you might still find this part of the conversation interesting, and maybe even helpful. We hope that this is a word of encouragement for any educators out there who might feel like they are losing their fire in the face of all the challenges of teaching today. May God bless you and give you what you stand in need of to serve well!

Episode 51: Good Teaching Can’t Be Reduced to Technique (Can It?)

As we check in at the beginning of this episode, we reflect on our first year in this podcasting adventure. Listeners, we are SO grateful for you! And we want this show to be the sort of thing that encourages, challenges, and blesses you, so we would love to hear your feedback, questions, comments, and wonderings. You can always contact us at hallwayconvospod@gmail.com.

In this episode, Matt brings us a quote from Parker Palmer’s book, The Courage to Teach, and shares a story of a recent interaction with a fellow educator who is grappling with the idea of the standardization of education–and wondering whether “teaching” is just being reduced to “technique.” We think through some of the challenges of developing as educators, and the difference between thinking of teaching as a science, as an art. After some disagreement about this, we settle on the idea that teaching is both an art and a science, and think through some of the ramifications for how that impacts our work as educators.

Episode 050: Digital Devices, and Riding into Battle

In this episode, Dave kicked things off with a weird check-in question about fantasy beasts and riding into battle. (We’ll see if we let him ask the check-in question in the future…this got a little strange!) Today we have a question from a listener! Joseph asked us a question about what to do when school leaders begin to realize that students are misusing school-issued devices. Drawing on our various experiences in school leadership, teaching, and educational technology, we think through some different ways schools and parents can partner together to help students learn about the ways digital devices are shaping their behavior for good or ill.

• In this episode, Dave recommends the book Digital Life Together: The Challenge of Technology for Christian Schools by David Smith, Kara Sevensma, Marjorie Terpstra, and Steven McMullen. It is not prescriptive, but raises helpful questions that Christian educators can and should grapple with related to technology. - Amazon link

Episode 049: Design, Creativity, and Cruising the Loop

Our check-in question today brought us back to our high school experiences, and we wind up talking about cruising the loop, mullets, and how we know every single word of some songs. (And, of course, we would LOVE to hear your stories related to this check-in question; please drop us a line at hallwayonvospod@gmail.com.) We then turn to more substantial topics of discussion, prompted by a quote Abby brings us from Dan Pink’s book A Whole New Mind related to the design of toilet brushes (of all things!) and how this illustrates the importance of good design. This has us thinking about the role of design in education, and the role of beauty in teaching, and how we can foster creativity in design in our work as educators.

• A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers will Rule the Future by Daniel Pink - Amazon link
• In this episode, we reference a previous episode about protocols. We recommend that you revisit this one! Episode 033: Protocols

Episode 048: Flourishing (Like that Disgusting Dish in the Fridge?)

This week we start off by discussing who left that nasty dish in the fridge over Christmas break (we’ll let you figure out who…) From there, we find our way into talking about what teachers need to flourish in their work–and it’s a bit of a convoluted road! Matt shares some questions he used to help his students articulate what they need to flourish, and then we start thinking about what we ourselves need to flourish. We hope you’ll be encouraged by listening…and we’d love to hear from our listeners what they find helps them flourish in their work. Drop us a line at hallwayconvospod@gmail.com!

Episode 047: Atomic Habits

In this week’s conversation, we focus in on the idea of habits, and how small changes to our habits can have big impact overall in our work as educators. Matt brings in a quote from James Clear’s book Atomic Habits to kick off the conversation. We share a variety of micro-habits we use in our own teaching practices that we have found make a big difference for supporting students’ learning. We’d love to hear your ideas as well! Please feel free to share your ideas at hallwayconvospod@gmail.com. We’d love to hear your stories and questions too!

• Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear - Amazon link