Episodes

In this episode of The Have a Life Teaching Podcast , host Dr. John Schembari talks with Illinois educators Paige Timmerman and Courtney Hake , co-authors of Their Stories, Their Voices . Together, they explore how teachers c...

In this episode of the Have a Life Teaching Podcast , I had the privilege of sitting down with David Richards, CEO of Changemaker Education, to discuss the revolutionary world of micro schools. As a leader in the micro school...

Poetry isn’t just “beautiful prose” — it’s a doorway into critical thinking, voice, and perspective. In this episode, I sit down with Jewellyn Forrest, national writing consultant and co-founder of Autonomy Learning, to explo...

Too often, I see learning objectives on the board that say “Students will think about…” — but how do we actually know what students are thinking? This week on the Podcast, I sit down with returning guest Alice Vigors, author ...

When Teachers Believe—in Themselves and Each Other—Students Thrive This week on the podcast, we sit down with Jenni Donohoo and Glenn Forbes to discuss their new book, Collective Impact: Overcoming the Twelve Enemies of Teach...

In this episode, we are joined by Shannon McLeod from Thrive with Outdoor Learning for an inspiring and insightful conversation about the power of taking learning outside the classroom. We cover the how, why, when, and what o...

Our kids are drowning in math failure — and it starts shockingly early. By grade 3, too many students already believe: “I’m just not a math person.” The culprit? Timed tests that reward speed over thinking, worksheets that ki...

Are we grading what really matters? In most cases, no. In this episode, we sit-down with Karin Hess, Jonathan Vander Els and Brian Stack - authors of the book Elevating Competency-Based Learning in a PLC at Work - to discuss ...

We hope you have enjoyed season two. We will be back with brand new episodes and a third season in August 2025. In the meantime, please feel free to catch up on any of our past episodes. Music - Aylex

In this episode, I talk with educator and author Susan Midlarsky about her book The Art of Learning Math: A Manual for Success . We explore how math can be more than numbers—how it can help students see patterns in life, solv...

In this episode of the podcast, we chat with a pioneer in the AI space - Dr. Ken Kahn. Ken walks us through the amazing ways we can increase student creativity through the use of high-powered AI chat bots, not reduce it. We d...

Drama critic George Jean-Nathan once said that "Bad officials are elected by good citizens who do not vote." Although 47% of all young people eligible to cast a ballot in the 2024 presidential election did so, 53% did not. Ho...

In this episode of the podcast, we speak with authors Jenn David-Lang, the Main Idea, and Kim Marshall, the Marshall Memo, about their work in curating the "best of" resources available to educators - particularly leaders wor...

In this latest episode of the Have a Life Teaching Podcast, we chat with education researcher John Hattie - professor at the University of Melbourne. We discuss, despite evidence suggesting it is ineffective, the continued pr...

We waste so much time as educators during the working day. If we are not chatting with colleagues during our prep periods, we are often using many of our precious minutes in our prep periods planning how we will use our prep ...

In an earlier episode, we spoke with Stanford University Professor Robyn Brinks Lockwood on how to better prepare high school students for the rigors of college communication and discourse (making presentations/speeches). In ...

This week on the podcast, I’m joined by journalist Dana Seith, co-creator of the bold new storytelling card game Tell Me a Story — made in collaboration with The Bitter Southerner, We’re not just talking games — we’re talking...

This week on the podcast, we are joined by chief academic officer Samuel Nix who discusses his book - 6 Stepa to a Strong School Culture: A Leadership Cycle for Educational Success. Nix should know - having taken, as principa...

Brak Rosenshine first published his Principles of Instruction in 2010 through the International Academy of Education (IAE) as part of their Educational Practices Series (booklet No. 21). Taking his years of research, Rosenshi...

Per our next guest on the podcast, MLL/STEM specialist Darlyne de Haan, there are over 900K high school MLL students in the USA - a large number of these students living in poverty (2014). While Algebra and other STEM classes...

Do You Know What the Superpower Understandings in Math Are? Recently, I wrote an article for ASCD about modeling Math through a gradual release framework. A common way through which to do this is to teach Math conceptually, r...

In this episode, we speak with Niles North High School Summer Reading Program leads ELA teacher Katie Gillies and librarian Beverly Zbinden. While summer reading may help reduce the potential student summer learning slide, Gi...

Earlier in the second season of this podcast, we had as a guest Bo Stjerne Thomsen of LEGO Education discussing the importance of play in creative learning. In this episode, we continue our look at creativity in learning by d...

When students ask where are they EVER going to use the Math they are learning in middle and high school, there is usually something deeper going on; And that is a disconnect in, disinterest, and lack of curiosity in learning ...