Hallway Conversations

In this episode, Matt kicks things off by sharing a quote from Brené Brown’s excellent book, Dare to Lead. The key question we consider is, “How do we open our hearts to be receptive to feedback…and also still protect ourselves from criticism that we ought to dismiss?” Educators by the public nature of their work are often targets of critique, whether fairly or unfairly, and we think together abou...

In today’s episode, Abby mentions a tweet that she read recently that prompted wondering about what free reading could (should?) look like in middle school and high school classrooms. We jumped into talking through the joys and challenges of creating a culture of reading–and how it might be more of an expectation at the elementary grades, but could have huge benefits for older students as well. We...

Dave’s Facebook memories recently reminded him of his former role as a Technology Director in K-12, when part of his job involved printing report cards, which got him thinking about the purpose of report cards, and whether they do what we think they do. Dave shares his frustration about the reductionism in trying to compress a whole term’s learning into just one symbol–a letter grade. We candidly...

Consider this a peek behind the scenes...we really are friends, and we really do just hang out together and talk about things. When we get set to record, we usually start with a sound check, and then jump in. But sometimes we go off on a tangent right from the get-go...and that's what happened here. K-pop, fiction we're reading right now, Dave's recent vacation...it all shows up in a 10-minute win...

Our check-in today is about the different rhythms of summer; Matt starts us off with the myth of “summers off” for teachers, but we recognize that we do have different opportunities with the coming of the summer months. Late bedtimes, smoothies for lunch, and changing exercise routines–we have lots to enjoy with the coming of summer! Our main topic of discussion today comes from Matt’s recent re-r...

Many thanks to you, our dedicated listeners! We are in that hectic season of wrapping up our semester with all of the final grading and reporting and final details, so we did not have margin to get into the studio (a.k.a., Dave's office with a cheap microphone) to record a new episode. But you are in luck! We are pulling a classic episode out of the archive. In this episode, we discuss the problem...

We educators are such busy people, aren’t we? In today’s episode, we consider a selection from Jenny Odell’s book, How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy. Maybe this sounds like we are encouraging slothfulness? Not that, exactly…but we discuss the idea of being intentional in planning ways to be fully present in Creation, with family and friends, and perhaps choosing to do different th...

Oh boy, friends…are you ready to talk about dangerous ideas?? In this episode we discuss an essay from the New York Times by Matt Gross entitled “Your Kids Can Handle Dangerous Ideas.” (With thanks to our former professor, Jim Schaap, for recommending it to us!) The key quote from the article: “Parents–or at least the parents who seem to win media attention–are freaking out over everything their k...

For today’s check-in question, Matt asks us what random things we have on our desks or shelves that tell something about us. You might be surprised by what we share…or maybe not! As we are looking towards the end of another academic year, the main topic today is around summative assessment. Dave recently shared a professional development workshop for a local school about the topic, and we spend so...

Are you flourishing? Are your students? Your school community? What do we mean by “flourishing” anyway? This week we wrap up our five-week series discussing Lynn Swaner and Andy Wolfe’s new book Flourishing Together: A Christian Vision for Students, Educators, and Schools. The book is divided into five sections, and in this episode, we discuss part five of the book, which is all about “well-being....

Are you flourishing? Are your students? Your school community? What do we mean by “flourishing” anyway? This is week 4 of our five-week series in which we are reading and discussing Lynn Swaner and Andy Wolfe’s new book Flourishing Together: A Christian Vision for Students, Educators, and Schools. The book is divided into five sections, and in this episode, we discuss part four of the book, which...

Are you flourishing? Are your students? Your school community? What do we mean by “flourishing” anyway? This is week 3 of 4our five-week series in which we are reading and discussing Lynn Swaner and Andy Wolfe’s new book Flourishing Together: A Christian Vision for Students, Educators, and Schools. The book is divided into five sections, and in this episode, we discuss part three of the book, whic...

Are you flourishing? Are your students? Your school community? What do we mean by “flourishing” anyway? This week we continue our five-week series in which we are reading and discussing Lynn Swaner and Andy Wolfe’s new book Flourishing Together: A Christian Vision for Students, Educators, and Schools. The book is divided into five sections, and In this episode, we discuss part two of the book, whi...

Are you flourishing? Are your students? What do we mean by “flourishing” anyway? This week we begin a five-week series in which we are reading and discussing Lynn Swaner and Andy Wolfe’s new book Flourishing Together: A Christian Vision for Students, Educators, and Schools. The book is divided into five sections, and In this episode, we discuss part one of the book, which is all about “purpose.” W...

We start off today’s show with a check-in question, wondering about who we would like to interview if we each had our own talk show. Our responses probably say quite a bit about each of our own unique personalities! Our main topic today is a question from a listener; Loretta asks, “In the past few years, our school has embraced Project Based Learning as a preferred teaching method. What are your t...

Many thanks to you, our dedicated listeners! We are on Spring Break this week, and so we are pulling one of Dave's favorite episodes out of the archive. In this episode, we discuss a question from a listener about end-of-the-year awards ceremonies--maybe this will be good food for thought for you at this point in the spring as you might be thinking ahead to the end of this school year? We hope you...

We jump in with a check-in question this week, things we are currently learning. A diverse set of answers to this question among the three of us: a new computer programming language, running a caulk gun, and getting out of our comfort zones to meet new people. (Care to guess who said which one of these?) In this episode, we have a question from a listener! Susan asks, “Many teachers struggle with...

Today we started with a check-in about our favorite books or series that we would love to go back and read again for the first time. One of us said The Chronicles of Narnia, one said Henry Huggins, and one said The Hunger Games. Care to guess who claimed each one? We’d love to hear about your favorite books as well; you can share yours with us at hallwayconvospod@gmail.com . The question we tackle...

Today’s check-in question caused us to reminisce about our favorite road trips, and you definitely don’t want to miss Matt’s story about a mysterious stranger who just might have been an angel in disguise. After this, Dave raises a question inspired by another podcast he was listening to recently: thinking about education today, what is something we should preserve, something we should prune, and...

This bonus episode is made up of a couple of leftovers that didn’t make the cut from our last episode about teaching and technique, but we thought you might still find this part of the conversation interesting, and maybe even helpful. We hope that this is a word of encouragement for any educators out there who might feel like they are losing their fire in the face of all the challenges of teaching...

As we check in at the beginning of this episode, we reflect on our first year in this podcasting adventure. Listeners, we are SO grateful for you! And we want this show to be the sort of thing that encourages, challenges, and blesses you, so we would love to hear your feedback, questions, comments, and wonderings. You can always contact us at hallwayconvospod@gmail.com . In this episode, Matt brin...

In this episode, Dave kicked things off with a weird check-in question about fantasy beasts and riding into battle. (We’ll see if we let him ask the check-in question in the future…this got a little strange!) Today we have a question from a listener! Joseph asked us a question about what to do when school leaders begin to realize that students are misusing school-issued devices. Drawing on our var...

Our check-in question today brought us back to our high school experiences, and we wind up talking about cruising the loop, mullets, and how we know every single word of some songs. (And, of course, we would LOVE to hear your stories related to this check-in question; please drop us a line at hallwayonvospod@gmail.com .) We then turn to more substantial topics of discussion, prompted by a quote Ab...

This week we start off by discussing who left that nasty dish in the fridge over Christmas break (we’ll let you figure out who…) From there, we find our way into talking about what teachers need to flourish in their work–and it’s a bit of a convoluted road! Matt shares some questions he used to help his students articulate what they need to flourish, and then we start thinking about what we oursel...

In this week’s conversation, we focus in on the idea of habits, and how small changes to our habits can have big impact overall in our work as educators. Matt brings in a quote from James Clear’s book Atomic Habits to kick off the conversation. We share a variety of micro-habits we use in our own teaching practices that we have found make a big difference for supporting students’ learning. We’d lo...