In this Have a Life Teaching Podcast episode, we speak with Maureen Chapman and James Simons of Core Creative Partners about their new book, Leaders of the Class. We explore how motivation, perseverance, communication, and collaboration can be intentionally taught alongside academic content—especially at the secondary level. Our guests share…
Making Social Studies Come Alive Through Inquiry In this week’s Podcast episode, I sit down with Charisse Smith Ph.D. (https://www.linkedin.com/in/drsankofaspeaks/) —CEO of Sankofa Educational Consulting and former K–6 Social Studies Supervisor in Trenton Public Schools (https://www.linkedin.com/company/trenton-public-schools/) , NJ—to dig into why inquiry-driven social studies is essential for today’s learners. We…
Cutting Through the Noise with Priority Standards Teachers are asked to do everything — personalization, differentiation, voice and choice, standards-based instruction… but rarely is anything taken off the plate. In this episode of the Podcast, I sit down with Larry Ainsworth (https://www.linkedin.com/in/larry-ainsworth-799572a1/) , the nationwide expert on unwrapping standards, priority…
The Future of Work Is Here — and It’s Changing Everything How do you prepare kids for jobs that don’t even exist yet? In a world where AI is rewriting the rules of work, this isn’t just a nice question — it’s the urgent one. From virtual architects to synthetic…
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…
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…
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…
