Human Restoration Project
Education & Explainer
About
Since 2018, the Human Restoration Project Podcast has reimaged education through critical, progressive, human-centered learning! Across nearly 200 episodes, and counting, we've explored every topic in education: ungrading and alternative assessment, interdisciplinary play-based and project-based learning, SEL, education reforms and systemic school change in society with students, teachers, leaders, researchers, and advocates around the world. Join us on our mission to restore humanity to education, together!
Episodes
- We Are Worldbuilders: A Narration
Progressive education is a world-building project rooted in the radical hope that schools can become something fit for human beings. This summer, HRP is reading Pedagogies of Collapse: A Hopeful Education for the End of the World As We Kno…
- The Future of Public Education is a Community School feat. Kelly McMahon, Jitu Brown, Angelia Ebner, and Dave Greenberg
This conversation started 2 years ago, when I ran into Kelly McMahon at a summer conference. Kelly’s a kindergarten teacher at Hoover Community School in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and I was curious about what that label “community school” means…
- The Promise (and Persistent Myths) of Montessori Education w/ Andrew Faulstich, Dr. Ayize Sabater, and Kelly Jonelis
Montessori schools are some of the few that wear their pedagogy on their signage: Cottontail Creek Montessori School. Montessori Children’s House. Acappella Montessori. (just to name a few of the dozen or so in Iowa). While the majority ar…
- Spring Break 2026: HRP Summer Book Club & Montessori Mythbusting
This summer, HRP is reading Pedagogies of Collapse: A Hopeful Education for the End of the World As We Know It, by Ginie Servant-Miklos, and we’re inviting you to join us. Visit humanrestorationproject.org/book-club to sign up for ou…
- Reanimating the Art of Teaching w/ Gary Stager
There’s a quote from the great conservationist John Muir that goes, "When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe." My guest today, Gary Stager, has been working in education since befor…
- What Prison Can Teach Us About School w/ Jennifer Berkshire
Tomorrow, I’ll be trading Iowa for a couple days in Los Angeles, where the HRP team will be presenting for the third year at LearningInspirEd’s Student Power Summit. It’s in LA this year in partnership with Homeboy Industries, the largest…
- Making School Meaningful w/ Lauren Porosoff
Whether it was during her nearly two decades as a middle school humanities teacher or as diversity coordinator or grade-level team leader, my guest today kept returning to the same question: why does school so often feel like the opposite…
- From Meritocracy to Human Interdependence: Redefining the Purpose of Education w/ Yong Zhao
In a 2021 interview, Michael Sandel, author of the book The Tyranny of Merit argues that if merit can be understood as competence, a good thing to be clear, “The principle of meritocracy, simply put, says that if chances are equal, the win…
- Changing My Mind About Schools (and Everything Else) w/ Diane Ravitch
“This is a book about my life, about admitting ‘I was wrong,’ and about how important it is to say it out loud,” is how our guest today, Diane Ravitch, begins her 2025 memoir, An Education: How I Changed My Mind About Schools and Almost Ev…
- Why Fascists Fear Teachers w/ Randi Weingarten
HRP is a nonpartisan 501(c)(3), and the views expressed by our guests are their own and do not constitute an endorsement. “Who’s the most dangerous person in the world? Is it Chairman Kim, is it Xi Jinping?” The most dangerous person in th…
- Crash Course Social Studies Education w/ Raoul Meyer
If you’ve taught or attended a high school course in the last decade, you’ve probably watched a Crash Course video. Their dozens of playlists on topics from Biology and Environmental Science to Economics and World History hold hundreds of…
- Cultivating Creativity and Connection in the Classroom w/ Tom Rendon & Zachary Stier
How do you define creativity? Would you be able to spot creativity in the wild? What about creativity in the classroom ? This endless human quest to define the seemingly undefinable, and somehow make it useful for educators, is what today’…
- Are we Reader or are we Player? w/ Karis Jones, Virginia Killian Lund, Brady Nash, and Trevor Aleo
Most of us probably experienced a homogenous version of literacy in our English classes: read a book, answer a few questions along the way, and compose an essay at the end about how we viewed a key theme. Rinse and repeat. And in our curre…
- Making School Finance As Public As Possible w/ David I. Backer
We’re recording this episode the week the Iowa DOGE Task Force released their final 136 page report – you heard that right, that’s the state-level version of the Department of Government Efficiency convened by our governor back in February…
- The Buzz About the Human Hive w/ Kate McAllister
When I sat down with James Mannion to talk about the educational polycrisis back in July, his long-time colleague, friend, and collaborator Kate McAllister was right there by his side. After the recording, Kate & I spent a long time catchi…
- Lessons in Powerful Learning from the Fringes w/ Dr. Sarah Fine
Today’s episode is Dr. Sarah Fine’s keynote, the Quest for Authenticity: Lessons in Powerful Learning from the Fringes, from our Conference to Restore Humanity back in July of this year. As Dr. Fine argues, the limits of our grammar of sch…
- Will Work for Food: Labor Across the Food Chain w/ Laura-Anne Minkoff-Zern & Teresa M. Mares
The reach and impact of our food systems – that is, the complex, interconnected, and globalized web of institutions, resources, and processes that bring food from the farm, to the table, and into the waste stream – is universal: every sing…
- From the Classroom to the Capitol: A Conversation w/ New Mexico Lt. Gov. Howie Morales
Please note that Human Restoration Project is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization and that this interview is not an endorsement of Morales as a candidate for office. Before Howie Morales became Lieutenant Governor of New Mexico, before he was…
- Taming the Turbulence in Educational Leadership w/ Jennifer D. Klein
In the opening pages of my guest’s book, she recounts a colleague's bumpy plane ride that provided the insight for the title of the book, Taming the Turbulence in Educational Leadership : “We are facing turmoil in education, and the job of…
- BS Universities: The Future of Automated Education w/ Rob Sparrow & Gene Flenady
“Any assessment of the potential of AI to contribute to education must begin with an accurate understanding of the nature of the outputs of AI,” my guests today write, “The most important reason to resist the use of AI in universities if t…
- Cultivating Mental Health Mindsets in The Empathetic Classroom w/ Maria Munro-Schuster
Back in December 2024, I got an email from Tom Rademacher raving about an upcoming book from a teacher who is now a licensed counselor that read, “The thing that hooked me when I read it the first time was a whole part on teachers recogniz…
- Confronting the Education Polycrisis w/ Dr. James Mannion
“The problems we face are not the fault of any single individual or organisation. They are often the by-product of good intentions. And yet, alongside children and young people and their parents and carers, it’s educators who are most expo…
- DIY, Mutual Aid, and Human-Centered Learning for Neurodivergent and Disabled People w/ Stimpunks
“We are a community affair. We’re Autistic, ADHD, OCD, PTSD, Tourettes, schizophrenic, bipolar, apraxic, dyslexic, dyspraxic, dyscalculic, non-speaking, and more. We’ve collectively experienced rare diseases, organ transplants, various can…
- Reclaiming Teaching & Learning in an Age of AI w/ Chanea Bond
At the time of recording, New York Magazine had released an article titled “Everyone is Cheating Their Way Through College: How ChatGPT has Unraveled the Entire Academic Project” which launched a thousand takes. The piece outlines an arms…
- Parenting with Purpose w/ Steven Shapiro & Nancy Shapiro-Rapport
For as much as schools are a necessary collaboration of communities and families, we haven’t spent much time, if any at all, on this podcast focused on parenting itself. Well that changes today, as I’m joined by Steve Shapiro and Nancy Sha…
- Teaching Contentious Topics in a Divided Nation w/ Ryan Sprott
Our conversation today is with educator, author, and Director of National Faculty at PBLWorks, Ryan Sprott, about one of the most contentious topics in education today, that is Teaching Contentious Topics in a Divided Nation: A Memoir and…
- "It's Like a Baby Jail!" Power & Early Childhood Education w/ Dr. Chloë Keegan
I’m joined today by Dr Chloe Keegan. Chloe Keegan is Lecturer of Early Childhood Education in the Froebel Department of Primary and Early Childhood Education in Maynooth University, Ireland. Dr Keegan is an early childhood expert with over…
- Conference to Restore Humanity! Quest for Connection 2025 Trailer
https://www.humanrestorationproject.org/conference “True light is dependent on the presence of other lights. Take the others away and darkness results. Yet the reverse is not true: take away darkness and there is only more darkness. Darkne…
- Beyond Anthropology For Kids w/ Nika Dubrovsky
My guest today is Nika Dubrovsky. Nika is an artist and writer whose work has been exhibited internationally, her children’s books have been translated into several languages and, remarkably, as you’ll hear in the episode, Nika is directly…
- Showcase: Spotlight on Bismarck Public Schools' Empower[Ed]
This is the latest in our “spotlight series”, the first of 2025, where we reach out to schools who are engaged in awesome work, and talk to teachers, school leaders, and students about it to shine a light, inspire, and influence others to…
- From Pixar to the Classroom: Teaching Storytelling w/ Story Xperiential
With the help of Teacher-Powered Schools, Socol-Moran Partners, Stimpunks, and What School Could Be, we’ve completed the lineup for our 4th annual virtual Conference to Restore Humanity for July 21-23, focused this year on the Quest for Co…
- Sensemaking and Cybernetics in Classroom Teaching w/ Christian Moore-Anderson
With the help of Teacher-Powered Schools, Socol-Moran Partners, Stimpunks, and What School Could Be, we’ve officially announced our 4th annual virtual Conference to Restore Humanity for July 21-23, focused this year on the Quest for Connec…
- Inquiry, Play, and Early Childhood Education w/ Heidi Echternacht
If you go back through the HRP podcast archives, and I encourage you to do just that, you’ll see that we’ve covered just about every topic imaginable in the world of education, with some that keep returning again and again. One area you’ll…
- Sustaining Love, Hope, and Community Through Nonviolence Pedagogy w/ Mike Tinoco
Today we're joined by Mike Tinoco. Mike is a full time public school teacher from California, and author of Heart at the Center: An Educator's Guide to Sustaining Love, Hope, and Community Through Nonviolence Pedagogy. Gholdy Muhammad call…
- A Danish Perspective on American Education w/ Pernille Ripp
I’m thrilled to be joined today by Pernille Ripp — a passionate educator, author, and literacy advocate. She is the author of Passionate Readers: The Art of Reaching and Engaging Every Child , Passionate Learners: How to Engage and Empower…
- The Privateers: How Billionaires Creates a Culture War and Sold School Vouchers w/ Josh Cowen
There are any number of narratives that emerged from the 2024 election and that will be hotly debated over the next four years. However, one of those is not up for debate: that vouchers and school choice lost everywhere they were on the ba…
- The Landscape Model of Learning w/ Dr. Kapono Ciotti
Today we are joined by Dr. Kapono Ciotti. Dr. Ciotti is the Executive Director of What School Could Be, an organization offering a whole host of things: free resources, a flourishing community, coaching services, graduate coursework, and m…
- A Measure of Intelligence: One Mother's Reckoning with the IQ Test w/ Dr. Pepper Stetler
Today we are joined by Dr. Pepper Stetler. Pepper’s recently released book, A Measure of Intelligence: One Mother’s Reckoning with the IQ Test documents her journey alongside her daughter, Louisa, who was diagnosed with Down syndrome. It d…
- Meritocracy, Anxiety, & the Chinese College Entrance Exam w/ Zachary Howlett
I was not familiar at all with China’s national college exam, the gaokao, until reading about it in Susan Blum’s book, Schoolishness, and talking with her about it on a podcast episode we released in August – episode 152, you should check…
- 2024 Title IX Update w/ the ACLU
It’s not every day that you get an email from ACLU. If you aren’t aware, since being co-founded in part by Hellen Keller in New York City in 1920, the American Civil Liberties Union has been involved in dozens of major cases defending the…
- How Grades Harm Students & What We Can Do About It w/ Joshua Eyler
If education had a Hippocratic Oath - First, do no harm - grades and grading would be among the first practices on the chopping block. And in the conversation about grades and grading in school, there are any number of books and blog…
- The Fantasy Economy w/ Neil Kraus
Stop me if you’ve heard these before: American public schools are failing, American students are falling behind their global peers, The future of American innovation, economic equality, and global competitiveness depends on schools today p…
- The Solutionary Way w/ Zoe Weil
A “solutionary” has multiple definitions, one of which reads, “A person who identifies inhumane, unjust, and/or unsustainable societal systems and then develops solutions to transform them so that they do the most good and least harm for p…
- Pedagogical Documentation w/ Angela Stockman
Today we are joined by Angela Stockman. Angela is a veteran secondary English/Language Arts teacher, author, and professional learning facilitator. She has presented at state, national, and international levels and has led curriculum, asse…
- Back to School Special: Teaching Love & Learning Freedom w/ Dr. Carla Shalaby
Many of you are already working to get your classrooms ready and will be welcoming students for the first day in the next couple of weeks, if you haven’t already. It’s a magical and stressful time of year, so we wanted to release Dr Carla…
- Schoolishness w/ Dr. Susan Blum
My guest today is Dr. Susan Blum. Susan Blum is Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Notre Dame. She is the author of I Love Learning; I Hate School and My Word!, as well as the editor of Ungrading . Her n…
- 151: Nourishing Caregiver Collaborations w/ Nawal Qarooni
Today we are joined by Nawal Qarooni. Nawal is an educator, writer, and adjunct professor based in Jersey City, who founded and operates NQC Literacy, a consultancy firm serving PreK-8 school leaders and teachers in holistic literacy instr…
- Toward a Luddite Pedagogy in the "Age of AI" w/ Charles Logan
“Were we required to characterize this age of ours by any single epithet, we should be tempted to call it, not an Heroical, Devotional, Philosophical, or Moral Age, but, above all others, the Mechanical Age. It is the Age of Machinery, in…
- Roma Education: Emma Sisson's Mission From Tennessee to Transylvania
The story my guest will tell today is of her experience growing up and teaching in Memphis, Tennessee before finding a purpose-driven career change in - I am not joking - the heart of Transylvania. Emma Sisson is the School Director of The…
- How do Americans really feel about controversial topics in school? w/ Anna Saavedra and Morgan Polikoff
In this episode, Anna Saavedra and Morgan Polikoff explore the polarizing landscape of modern education found in their February 2024 report, "Searching for Common Ground.” The report reveals widespread support for public schools alongside…