A game-changing chat with one of my educational heroes | Rethinking Ed 2023 special offer

Hello friend

I am super excited to share with you the latest episode of the Rethinking Ed podcast - the first episode of Season 4, in fact - which features a game-changing conversation with one of my all-time educational heroes.

Ron Berger is an incredible educator who is perhaps best known for the short video ‘Austin’s Butterfly’. If you’ve never seen it, I recommend you do so:

Ron is the Chief Program Officer for the non-profit school improvement network Expeditionary Learning, a national network of over 160 public project-based schools in 30 states in the US. Before this, he was as a public school teacher and carpenter in rural Massachusetts for 25 years.

Ron’s work focuses on inspiring quality and character in students - specifically through project-based learning, original scientific and historical research, service learning, and the infusion of arts. He is the author of two books - An Ethic of Excellence and A Culture of Quality - the former of which is the focus of this podcast, in its 20th anniversary year.

This was a game-changing conversation in which Ron provides a way out of the trad-prog debate - a debate that has perhaps occupied a little too much of my attention in recent years - and explains how to transform the culture of a school so that the students really start to care about their learning, and to consistently produce work to a staggeringly high standard.

You can find a trailer, and full video, audio and show notes here - or wherever you get your podcasts!

RETHINKING ED 2023

Final preparations are underway for the Rethinking Ed conference, which is a week on Saturday (Eek!). Three things:

• Tickets are available here 

• The full programme is available here 

• You can get a 35% discount with the promo code BACKTOSCHOOL

Until the next time…

James

Dr James Mannion
Director, Rethinking Education