Normal (Season 1, Episode 4)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Show note: At the end, I mention my guest blog post about differences between charter and public schools for Alma at the Voices podcast. This is focused toward music teachers, but it applies to other educators, too. Read it on Alma’s blog here.

“Before 2005 when I worked a night desk job at Wilson Hall…
And long before it was renovated and converted from an old women’s dorm…
Decades before my mom learned to skateboard just a few feet from there on a wide sidewalk they then called Broadway, beside the largest maple tree on campus…
Before James Michener saw the library that would bear his name, and before he taught here, and before he was a student here…

Read the full transcript here.

Sources:

http://www.weldcounty150.org/EducationinWeldCounty/UniversityofNorthernColorado.html

http://www.unco.edu/pres/sh.htm

http://mje.mcgill.ca/index.php/MJE/article/viewFile/7991/5919

https://www3.nd.edu/~rbarger/www7/normal.html

http://waterandpower.org/museum/Early_Views_of_UCLA.html

https://www.ssa.gov/oact/babynames/decades/names2000s.html

Transcript: Normal (Season 1, Episode 4)

Listen to this episode here.

Before 2005 when I worked a night desk job at Wilson Hall…
And long before it was renovated and converted from an old women’s dorm…
Decades before my mom learned to skateboard just a few feet from there on a wide sidewalk they then called Broadway, beside the largest maple tree on campus…
Before James Michener saw the library that would bear his name, and before he taught here, and before he was a student here… Continue reading “Transcript: Normal (Season 1, Episode 4)”

October First (Season 1, Episode 3)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

A quick show note: This one is pretty personal. I’m definitely a big advocate for schools and the people who run them. But sometimes the best way to initiate important systemic change is to stop shouting and hold up a mirror.

___

“Ben walked into class late. Again. And Ben left early. Again. He told me it was going to happen, and I wouldn’t have been surprised, even without a warning. Because it was late October, and Ben was on his way out…

Read the full transcript here.

 

Music:
Minimalist Study in F Minor by Nathan Howe.

Sources:

Transcript: October First (Season 1, Episode 3)

Listen to this episode here.

Ben walked into class late. Again. And Ben left early. Again. He told me it was going to happen, and I wouldn’t have been surprised, even without a warning. Because it was late October, and Ben was on his way out.

Ben isn’t his real name, but he stands out in my mind: a lanky teenager with shock of white-blond hair and a face that always teetered on the edge of genuine surprise and familiar regret. Some piercings, some chains, all the normal teenage “Don’t mess with me” signals.

Continue reading “Transcript: October First (Season 1, Episode 3)”

Susan (Season 1, Episode 2)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

“Susan was a teacher. And she must have been a good one, because she was hired to be the headmistress at the Academy at Canajoharie, New York in 1846. It wasn’t her first teaching job; she had worked for several years at a Quaker boarding school, and in many ways she was a good stereotypical Quaker girl, still wearing intentionally plain dresses when she first came to town, her speech peppered with thees and thous. But while she worked at Canajoharie, her dresses became a bit more modern, maybe a bit more colorful, and most of her thees and thous turned to yous…

Read the full transcript here.

Sources:

Transcript: Susan (Season 1, Episode 2)

Listen to this episode here.

Transcript:

Susan was a teacher. And she must have been a good one, because she was hired to be the headmistress at the Academy at Canajoharie, New York in 1846. It wasn’t her first teaching job; she had worked for several years at a Quaker boarding school, and in many ways she was a good stereotypical Quaker girl, still wearing intentionally plain dresses when she first came to town, her speech peppered with thees and thous. But while she worked at Canajoharie, her dresses became a bit more modern, maybe a bit more colorful, and most of her thees and thous turned to yous.

Continue reading “Transcript: Susan (Season 1, Episode 2)”

Tiny Bubbles (Season 1, Episode 1)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Welcome to the first episode of Pounding Erasers. If you enjoy it, please rate and review on iTunes or your other podcast platform of choice.

“It’s hard to remember – over a hundred years ago now – but there was a time when it was usually fine not to have one right answer. A time when judgment calls were the norm. A time when, I suppose, we invested a little more trust in our teachers. Or maybe we didn’t know anything different back then…

Read the full transcript here.

Sources:

Transcript: Tiny Bubbles (Season 1, Episode 1)

Listen to this episode here.

It’s hard to remember – over a hundred years ago now – but there was a time when it was usually fine not to have one right answer. A time when judgment calls were the norm. A time when, I suppose, we invested a little more trust in our teachers. Or maybe we didn’t know anything different back then.

And then came Frederick Kelly. If it wasn’t him, it would have been somebody else, so don’t be too hard on the guy. But Frederick wanted things to be a little more uniform, a little less arbitrary. And you can see his point.

Continue reading “Transcript: Tiny Bubbles (Season 1, Episode 1)”