One result of the pandemic is THREE (3!) quality podcasts where I’ve had the opportunity to tell the North Star story. Listening to the final, polished versions of these conversations makes me appreciate the curiosity and interviewing skills of these hosts. I find each of them entertaining and valuable.
Thank you to Shannon Falkenstein and The New Schools Podcast for a thoroughly fun and thoughtful conversation. Shannon is the co-founder of the Acton Academy in El Salvador and has a solid grasp of self-directed learning and the various models and approaches in the movement.
Over the past several years, I’ve enjoyed numerous visits and lengthy conversations with Carrie Lobman and Gwen Lowenheim of The East Side Institute in New York City. Our discussions lean towards developmental psychology and human growth, and I’m delighted we finally had this chance to record our banter.
Greg Mullen focuses on educational innovation, mainly in public school reform, and his desire to understand our approach to self-directed learning was a moment to build bridges and make connections.
I value each of these people providing me the time to speak to their audiences. I hope these efforts are spreading the message to fresh ears. Most of you reading this blog have heard me say many of these ideas before, but I would love your feedback. If there is one podcast that you particularly enjoy, please take a moment to leave a comment below.
1. All Power to the Developing! A podcast of the East Side Institute, an international center for social change efforts that reinitiate human and community development. Gwen Lowenheim and Carrie Lobman.
2. The Exploring the Core Podcast with Greg Mullen, Educational Innovation Consultant.
3. The New Schools Podcast. Shannon Falkenstein, Acton Academy, El Salvador,
Hi Ken – just finished listening to your interview on the “All Power to Developing!” podcast. Loved every minute! I listened while taking a walk in my neighborhood tonight, and had to keep stopping to text myself things I wanted to remember. Like: the disconnect that exists between the mission & vision of any given conventional school and what actually happens within its walls. Here’s an example of what one local school posts on their website: “All students can learn what they need if we have high expectations and they have the right support. [Our schools are] committed to instilling a love of learning into our students and making them ready for college, careers, and lifelong education.” (My brief comment: actually, kids are born with a love of learning; it doesn’t need to be instilled. And they are perfectly capable of and in fact biologically wired to “learn what they need.” It’s often their experience in school that drills this out of them.) This podcast sparked other thoughts, including how refreshing it is to hear you, Ken, say that starting North Star was like you putting on your own oxygen mask first. That you did it for yourself, basically. Not sure I’ve heard anyone else who’s started an alternative center or school put it quite like that, but I think this would be fascinating to follow up on: interviewing people who’ve started spaces for kids to self-direct their own learning, and ask how that work feeds the founders/directors themselves. Not how it benefits the kids but how it benefits the founder – I think learning these things would be fascinating, human, enriching. Here’s another note I texted to myself: “badmouthing students at college level speaks to kens discussion of how he can’t live like that.” What I actually meant was: I’ve sat in my share of faculty meetings at the college level. Some instructors bad-mouth their students as unmotivated, unresponsive, lazy and cheaters. Their students need mid-semester progress reports and attendance check-ins to keep them on the ball. It seems to me that instructors have coping mechanisms for surviving the cognitive dissonance that you, Ken, decided you couldn’t live with. They either emotionally disconnect from their work and choose to stop caring, stop attending faculty meetings; or they play the blame game with their students (as in the badmouthing example) without bothering to examine the system itself, the system that creates passive, “just get it done and over with” students and feeds those students into those college classrooms; or they leave the system and start something new; or…? I texted myself other thoughts but I’ll end here. All this to say – loved this interview and I’m looking forward to listening to the other two. (I want to subscribe to “All Power to Developing!” but it doesn’t want to be found – I tried two different apps.) Ok one last thing – I love that this interview was conducted by someone who breathes academia so deeply. Gives me hope!