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 can use personal narrative writing to help students find and share their authentic voices—while meeting academic standards and preparing for real-world writing. Paige and Courtney discuss how narrative writing builds engagement, supports social-emotional learning, and develops ...

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 movement, David shared his personal journey from traditional education to launching micro schools, emphasizing the importance of personalized learning, project-based learning (PBL), and social-emotional learning (SEL). David’s insights on the benefits of small, community-d...

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 explore how poetry — and especially figurative language — can: ✔️ Help students “read between the lines” ✔️ Unlock reluctant writers ✔️ Build community and celebrate student voice ✔️ Offer an equity lens by honoring culture and personal experience Jewellyn also ...

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 of The Thinking Classroom and her brand-new book The Learning Classroom. We dig into how teachers can make thinking visible by: - Clarifying learning intentions & success criteria - Embedding real-time, actionable feedback - Building student self- and peer-assessment ro...

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 Teacher Efficacy. We explore how collective efficacy—educators’ shared belief in their power to impact student learning—creates school cultures where both teachers and students flourish. Just as we encourage students to see challenges as opportunities, teachers must shift from...

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 of outdoor learning—from practical strategies to deeper reflections on its benefits for students' well-being, engagement, and development. Shannon shares her journey into outdoor education, the philosophy behind her work, and the tangible ways educators can integrate nature...

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 kill curiosity, and assessments that feel like traps, not opportunities. We’re creating a generation terrified of math. The SNAP Solution flips the script: - Math becomes a puzzle full of wonder - Students show thinking in drawings, equations, and real-life examples - T...

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 how competency-based learning and grading can help educators provide students with a clear pathway in learning both standards based academic content while developing higher order life skills. We discuss, in particular, how to create classrooms that are student owned, asses...

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, solve problems creatively, and rebuild confidence after math-related stress or trauma. Susan shares: How recognizing relationships and patterns helps students make sense of math and the world Ways to address math anxiety and trauma with compassion and curiosity ...

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 discuss how students can create games and simulations to demonstrate their knowledge of concepts in all core content areas, without needing to know code, as well as ways to create multimodal resources for students (music and images) and choose your own adventure type activi...

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. How did we get here? Professor Lindsey Cormack, author of the book "How to Raise a Citizen" believes that this situation, overall, is the result of a lack of youth awareness of the political and democratic process. So how then can educators, along with parents, teach stu...

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 working with new teachers as well as new teachers interested in self-growth. New teachers need certain supports beyond what David-Lang calls the boiler plate "where are the keys" training all teachers get at the beginning of each year. Marshall and David-Lang offer ...

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 prevalence of the theory of learning styles and preferences and targeting instruction for individual students towards a specific approach such as visual, auditory, verbal, and/or kinesthetic learning. Rather, Hattie suggests that we think in terms of using a variet...

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 periods. Teacher Ellen Linnihan, author of the book "Teacher Time Management - How to Prioritize Your Day So You Can Enjoy Your Evening", offers us several strategies for making every extra moment in our teaching count in terms of our efficiency. We discuss...

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 episode, college professor and former high school ELA teacher Johanna Tramantano also sounds the alarm as it relates to high school students not having the executive functioning skills necessary to thrive in college and career settings. However, says Tramant...

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 transformation. In this episode, we unpack: - The five essential elements of unforgettable narrative storytelling - How stories boost executive functioning and student focus - Creative ways to use storytelling cards in your classroom to bring narrative ...

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 principal, his school to the top 30 in the nation. Too often, says Nix, school leaders go from crisis to crisis rather than developing a systemic approach to school improvement which lies at the heart of sustainable and strong school culture. Also, many school leaders maintain...

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, Rosenshine paired down what good teachers do to obtain good academic outcomes: review, chunk information, question, model, guide practice, check for understanding, allow student time for independent practice, and scaffold. In this episode, we speak with UK based educator, f...

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 can catapult students into lucrative STEM careers, still, only a very small percentage of MLL students take these courses. I hope you will listen in to my conversation with de Haan, author of the book STEM For All, as we discuss: -Why MLLS are dropped from...

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, representationally, and then abstractly (CRA Framework). However, there are other frameworks that help students understand Math as well. This week on the podcast, I speak with Patrick Sullivan about additional ways to help elementary students see Math holistically. S...

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, Gillies and Zbinden discuss their true purpose in creating this ambitious project at North Niles High School - a large and diverse high school outside of Chicago: - help students see themselves reflected in the literature they read - expand student choice in the...

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 discussing how to infuse art in the four core -content areas. In this discussion, we are joined by Cheri Sterman, Director of Education, for Crayola as well as science teacher Elle LeBlanc who discusses her recent Edutopia article - Integrating the Arts in High Sc...

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 Math which manifests itself in misbehaving students. So says, Jenn Lenhardt - author of the book Common Denominators: Cultivating Engagement and Belonging in Secondary Mathematics 7-12 and former 7-12th grade Math interventionist. In this episode, we talk with Lenhardt...