Hallway Conversations

This week’s conversation starts with Matt’s check-in question of, “What brought you joy this week?” (Are you using check-in questions with your students? We’d love to hear from you about this. You can always contact us at hallwayconvospod@gmail.com ) The main discussion this week stems from a quote Dave brought from the book Orbiting the Giant Hairball by Gordon MacKenzie: “Orville Wright did not...

Happy New Year! The Hallway Conversations crew is excited to be back with you for a new season and more conversations about teaching and our ongoing learning. After some silliness and laughter checking in with our New Year’s resolutions, we get down to the question of the week. Dave raises the question, “How do we cope with new things?” This is the time of the year where educators are in the thick...

Welcome to the final week of 2021! This week, Matt brings us a quote from Steven Garber’s excellent book, Visions of Vocation, which is a thoughtful exploration of what “vocation” is about in light of a biblical worldview. After sharing a quote that draws on imagery from Jeremiah 29 (“seeking the prosperity of the city” where God has placed us) Matt raises the question, “Do schools have a responsi...

Like last week...we are taking a short break from recording new content in light of the busyness of the end of our semester. This week's bonus episode: the first episode where Matt and Dave invited Abby to join us in front of the microphone. Obviously, the quality of the discourse improved as soon as Abby was here, so we quickly encouraged her to join the team--and the podcast is better because sh...

Many thanks to our dedicated listeners! You encourage us so much. We are at that crazy-busy time at the end of the semester, and we haven't had the time to get together to record new content. So this week...a little Hallway Conversations history: the first ever episode of the podcast re-released for your listening pleasure. (Or, you know...to see how far we've come.) This episode was all about goa...

We have a lot of silliness in the intro to this episode, with Dave complaining about having a cold, an argument about whether real or fake Christmas trees are superior, and a surprise visit from our good friend and colleague, Ed. When we finally pull things together, Abby brings us a quote from a TED Talk by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie entitled “The Danger of a Single Story,” and prompts us to contin...

This week, Dave brought a passage from Kieran Egan’s book, Teaching as Storytelling and raised the question, “How do we invite students to see their learning as part of a storyline?” We talk about the way stories can grab not just students’ minds (intellect) but their hearts (emotions) as well. Matt brings up the idea of human beings as “story-formed people” and we discuss the way that stories can...

This week, Abby raises the question, “What are you thankful for?” (She jokes that it’s the cliche question...but it *is* Thanksgiving week in the U.S., and we *do* have plenty to be thankful for.) The three of us share things about our work that bring us joyful gratitude in spite of the challenges that come with the work of teaching. Our deep hope for this episode is that it might give you some en...

This week, Dave brought a quote from David Smith’s book, On Christian Teaching and closed with the question, “What really matters when we are teaching?” We spend some time thinking through the wide range of things that happen simultaneously when we are teaching, and how we can focus on the things that really matter amidst all of the complexity in what happens in the classroom. As Matt says it, “Ho...

This week, Abby—fresh off of parent-teacher conferences for her own kids—prompted us to think about the question, “What are some ways that we, as schools and teachers, can partner well with parents in the education of their kids?” We think both broadly about what “partnership” means, and more specifically about some particular things educators can do to build bridges between home and school, inclu...

This week we have a question from a listener! Alex asked the question, “In the pandemic we suddenly saw schools scrambling to operate online. Many schools were not truly ready for this. When you look at the role of online in the realm of education, what do you see as its place in the fabric of what schools do?” We think through the things schools and teachers experienced in the early days of the p...

This week, we have a question from a listener! An anonymous listener asked the question, “If you could share one thing with a middle school student who is having a rough week…what would you tell them?” We think through ways to help encourage and support students, and we consider the importance of responding with empathy. Along the way we consider taking our students’ world seriously...and we learn...

This week, we have a question from a listener! One of our students, Lindsey, asked the question, “What are your favorite questions to ask or tools you use to get to know students?” We discuss the importance of building positive relationships, and why we believe that time taken for relationship building is never “wasted.” We then share some ideas for strategies we have found useful for connecting w...

We recently had the opportunity to record an episode in front of a live audience! We were at the Heartland Christian Educators Convention held on the campus of Dordt University in early October. We started by sharing some stories in response to Matt’s question, “Why did you become an educator...and what keeps you in education?” After this, we tackled a variety of questions submitted from our audie...

This week, we have a question from some listeners--students of ours, who listen to the show!--who are wondering about what to do if they realize the negative environment of the school they are serving is affecting their mental and emotional well-being. We recognize that this actually describes what many educators are currently experiencing in their work today! We think out loud together about ways...

This week, we discuss the idea of classroom protocols, which are ways of structuring learning activities to elevate reflection and get more students sharing their ideas as part of the learning process. We think through how we have encountered protocols for the first time, how we came to value them for getting students engaged and invested in the classroom, and the benefits we have seen from using...

This week we conclude our mini-series in which we reflect upon and share about our areas of expertise. This week, we ask Matt to share about one of his areas of expertise and passion: school leadership. Matt shares his story of how he became a school leader, and some of the key lessons he learned along the way. Abby shares that her kids’ school is currently looking for a school leader, and asks Ma...

This week we continue our mini-series in which we reflect upon and share about our areas of expertise. This week, Abby shares from her well of wisdom about one of her several areas of expertise: Literacy. We focus especially on content-area literacy, and Abby helps us expand our understanding of what literacy looks like in content areas beyond language arts courses--and how it actually shows up in...

This week we are beginning a mini-series in which we reflect on and share about our areas of expertise. This week, Dave shares his thoughts about his area of expertise: Educational Technology. We talk about how technology is changing the teaching and learning environment. Dave tells his story of how he got started in Educational Technology, the things he’s learned along the way, and some tips for...

Welcome to Season 3 of Hallway Conversations! We are excited to keep playing with ideas with you all, and we look forward to continuing to grapple with what teaching Christianly looks like as we begin this new academic year and new season of topics and questions. As we record this episode, we are at the end of our first week of the new academic year. To kick off this season, Dave asks the question...

It's a busy time of preparation for the new academic year for all of us who serve in education, and because of this, we are taking a week off from recording a regular episode. But...we wanted to leave you, our dear listeners, with this word of encouragement and blessing as you begin again. This poetic prayer comes from Ted Loder's book, Guerrillas of Grace. Grace and peace to you all, friends.

This week, Matt asks the question, “How do we go about setting good rhythms for the first day of school?” We think through some of our favorite activities for the first day--ways to get students actively involved, setting the culture of the classroom, and engaging in real learning from day 1. Along the way, we discover that Abby loves scavenger hunts, that Matt has passion for knowing kids by name...

In today’s episode, we have a question from a listener! Nate is wondering about how schools emphasize “service” and how we expect students to develop the skills and attitudes to engage in acts of service. Specifically, he asks, “How can schools cultivate a heart of service in students?” We share some of our own experiences as students being expected and required to participate in service projects....

Our second “book talks” episode! Perhaps you’ll still have time to pick up a read for this summer? We each brought two books to recommend, and we are trying to refine our sharing protocol that we call “2 by 2 by 2”: 2 books, 2 things about each book, and 2 minutes to talk about the book. (We again totally failed at sticking to this protocol, so we will certainly need to keep refining it…) But wher...

This week, Dave asks the question, “What happens in the staff room? What *should* happen in the staff room?” We discuss some of the positive and negative aspects of what can happen in the staff room. We share stories from our own experiences for good or ill that happened in the teachers’ lounges or faculty workrooms we’ve been part of. We also wonder about the benefits of explicitly deciding on no...