The Galactic Cow: Conversations about teaching, the Universe, and everything

There is nothing easy about life in the United States right now, and being an educator holds an increasing weight and tension.   Education, as an institution, is facing an existential crisis and without the certainty that education itself still matters, what can give us certainty?   What can we believe in that matters, regardless of our status or position in our institutions? Acknowledging our fea...

For our season's final episode, I wanted to bring as many of our episode themes together as possible.   To make it even more interesting, the conversation takes place outside of education – as an institution – almost entirely.   But so many of our concepts for this season show up – kindness, accountability and restorative processes, where public love shows up, trauma responsivity, generosity, crea...

I sometimes think that if I look inside the workings of truly outstanding teachers I will always find their wildly creative twin secretly pulling the levers!  That more people in academia are not strongly encouraged to not only pursue their creative interests but bring that creativity into their classrooms and scholarship kind of blows my mind.  If you are one of those academics with a tiny creati...

If you've ever been afraid of math, this episode is for you!  Also, if you are a math or art teacher, this episode is for you too!!  My guest this week and I had a conversation that turned out to be one of my personal favorites, partly because I spontaneously burst into math!  I can't believe I just typed that sentence but it is true, and it was called for and I stand by my conclusions 😊 Math is...

I write and talk extensively about the impacts of trauma on learning, educational trauma, and how trauma-responsivity in teachers can provide a counter to the impacts, and interrupt cycles of harm.  I learned these things largely through my own practice, and applying research and observation, but hearing how other people interpret and apply this work is a full-on blessing from the Universe. There...

Prentis Hemphill and Ancestor Andrea Gibson both talked often about how the more difficult the world feels, the more we need to let ourselves soften.  As an educator, it is not easy to know what softeness means, especially in the challenging times we face.  I think often of generosity, and what it means to be a generous teacher, how we practice generosity in the act of teaching.  This week's conve...

Facing all the ways our systems are struggling and failing can feel like a whirlpool of rage, grief, and confusion. Finding some point of stability that we can use to orient ourselves is imperative, especially as we seek our common humanity. In the face of egregious and flagrant violations of our dignity and autonomy, a conversation about accountability may seem like a fantasy, but it is sorely ne...

If you are an educator, chances are things are feeling pretty grim.  And honestly, the educational landscape IS bleak right now, but don't lose hope - this is the time for us to put our imaginations into overdrive and consider what comes next.  In this episode, Dr. Pui-Yan Lam joins me to pull on some of last season's conversational threads about love in education, and what the presence of love in...

Seeking or offering kindness in higher ed can feel, at best, incredibly risky.  But for those of us feeling despondent about teaching and learning in such unkind spaces, Dr. Cate Denial has words of wisdom and encouragement.  Kindness is a missing element in almost every area of higher ed, but turning toward each other, imagining and creating different experiences of teaching and learning, is one...

If you are interested in our relationship to learning, and how that relationship impacts our lives, and humanity as a whole, this is the podcast for you! This season, emareena hosts a series of educators and practitioners in talking about our relationship with learning, and how it impacts our lives. The conversations dig into so many juicy questions, including "What is generosity in teaching?" "Wh...

In Fall 2023, I gave a talk at the second annual Higher Ed in Prison conference organized by the Tennessee Board of Regents, as part of their work with the Tenneesee Higher Education in Prison Initiative.  This was the first keynote I gave outside of the Pacific Northwest region and I thoroughly appreciate the experience.   I am learning that each time I am asked to stretch into something new or u...

Welcome to Episode 8, the final epsiode of Season 1!  Our hope this season has been to start a different conversation about what learning and teaching might be, and we think that is happening.  But as often as we say we don't have any 'final' answers, we also want to know how practitioners apply these ideas to how they already teach, or bring them in as fresh perspectives.  This episode features o...

Of all of the topics we considered for this first season, grief was not one of them.  It didn't become a contender until a few days before we started prepping the episode.  The Abolition X pod had been in the back of my mind all season and it would not go away, so I asked ambar if we could talk about grief, instead of the topic we had on deck.  We started researching and writing, and the episode j...

Are you feeling alone and isolated at the front of your classroom?  Disconnected from your students, your colleagues, maybe even yourself?   Teaching has become a pretty isolated place and connecting with students feels more and more difficult.  But what if we could have a practical conversation about love in education?  How would bringing love and compassion to the front and center of teaching an...

We are finally dropping an episode about the thing no one wants to talk about - boundaries in teaching !  If you are like me, boundaries are confusing enough in my personal life, let alone in the classroom, and there is almost ZERO info on setting boundaries in higher ed (or really any classrooms)!  As teachers, we are constantly being bombarded by demands to set better boundaries or to not be so...

Are you tired of being a brain in a jar?  A content dispensary?  Do you long for a different way to teach and learn, one that welcomes and embraces you and your students in all your full, radiant humanity?  We want that too!  In this episode, emareena & ambar discuss radical self love and how its presence could transform our experience of teaching and learning.   What do you think would change if...

Welcome to our first relisten pod!  We're not quite exaggerating when we say we kind of started this podcast so we could relisten to some of our favorite and most influential thinkers, dreamers, and visionaries, and adrienne maree brown was always going to be first ♥  In this episode, we discuss two of her interviews and how her work applies to transforming teaching and learning.  Join us and expl...

This is our second episode talking about language and the last before we start our podcast relisten series.  This week, we're discussing ability to learn, change/transformation, and practice, connecting all of these our hope for creating a new vision of teaching and learning.  We know part of that work is a different way to relate to education, and that can't happen without a reshaping of how we v...

Welcome to our first full episode!  For this ep, our guiding questions are "How are we defining 'teaching & learning'? How are they different from (organized) education?"  In this episode, we're discussing how we define organized education, teaching, learning, and emerging consciousness.  Talking about new ideas means new language, or old language used in new ways!  If you like what you hear, make...

we recorded this mini-episode to answer the question "why are we here?" but only for the podcast, not to cause an existential crisis!  we liked the idea of introducing ourselves separately, so here we are - it was just that simple.  emareena and ambar are both adult educators and are interested in how teaching and learning need to grow and expand, just as humanity needs to grow and evolve.    we s...