Thinking in the Midst

Cecilia Traugh and Kevin Gary speak with Cara and Derek about descriptive inquiry, the structures of schooling, the nature of boredom, and the cultivation in oneself and one's students of a capacity to attend. For a transcript of the episode, click here . For more of Kevin's work, click here . For more on Ceclia's projects, click here and here . To suggest guests or topics, use the for...

Rachel Wahl and Tony Laden come on the show to speak with Cara and Derek about their work on the dynamics of conversation and its role in the grand project of being with others. For more of Rachel's work, click here , here , and here . For more of Tony's work, click here , here , and here . For the transcript of the episode, click here . And to suggest authors or topics, please use this fo...

Jessica Heybach and Mike Gunzenhauser join Cara and Derek to talk about the moral lives and daily burdens of school and system leaders, and the kinds of training and formation work required to develop good and thoughtful leaders. For more of Mike's work on the subject, see here , here , and here . For Jessica's work in this area, see here and here . For the transcript of this episode, clic...

Kal Alston and Nick Burbules join Cara and Derek to talk about where the field of philosophy of education has been and where it is going, particularly in a US-American context. And fear not: We cover everyone's favorite question -- how do we know who a philosopher of education is, especially as the number of academic appointments with those words in the job title continues to dwindle? For Dr....

Jia Lee and Jason Wozniak sit down with Cara and Derek to talk about educational and organizing practices under various iterations of neoliberal policies directing school reform. For more information on the organizations mentioned here, see The Debt Collective and the Alliance for Quality Education . For a transcript of this episode, click here . To suggest guests/topics for the show, click here .

This week, Larry Blum and Sarah Blum-Smith join the show to talk about the legislation passed in several states (though we focus on Florida and New Hampshire) seeking to regulate what educators can teach with respect to race. For more of Larry's work on this issue, see his books here , here , and here . And you can find all of his other publications on his website , too! For the transcript for...

In this episode, we talk to the University of North Carolina's Ethan Hutt and the University of Massachusetts-Lowell's Jack Schneider about the functions, the histories, and the techniques associated with grades, tests, and transcripts. The two of them cover the topic at length in their forthcoming book , which will be available for pre-order shortly. For more of their coauthored work, see...

In this episode, we hear from Barb Stengel, Jessica Lussier, and Joel Westheimer, as they reflect, in the context of a PES 2023 panel, on Noddings's legacy; and Cara sits down with Noddings's former student and longtime friend, Lynda Stone, to think about what it means for a philosopher's work to live on. For a transcript of this episode, click here . To suggest future guests and topic...

This unusually long episode is the first of two that we recorded at the 2023 PES meeting in Chicago.  It includes an interview about the 2023 Presidential Address and the invited response with the authors of those pieces, PES president Michele Moses and her chosen respondent, Winston Thompson. And with that interview in the background, this episode moves on to the Presidential Address and the resp...

Surprise! Cara and Derek interrupt the regularly-scheduled flow of episodes to talk with one another about the themes or through-lines that are emerging across the conversations that have been hosted on the podcast so far, think through some of the questions we got from our friends and colleagues at the PES conference, and reflect on the field of philosophy of education as a whole. Also, Derek say...

Elizabeth Dutro and Jeff Frank join us to talk about the schools in their -- in schools' -- complicated relations to trauma (as both cause and ameliorator) and to loss, particularly in the conditions of an ongoing pandemic.  "Learning loss" is, after all, not the only kind of loss that matters. For more of Elizabeth's work, see her book . For more of Jeff's work, see his book...

Kathleen Knight Abowitz and Amy Shuffelton join us in this episode to talk about the sharing of authority in education, the recourse to rights language and discourses of expertise in the context of our political moment, and the gendered division of labor with respect to schooling. For more of Kathleen's work, see this piece .  And also her book . For more of Amy's work, see these three pie...

What interferes with people's full participation in various institutional structures, how are those interferences to be mitigated, and how might mitigation strategies unintentionally reproduce elements of the original interference?  In other words, how do concepts like diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging promise certain kinds of benevolent attention to heretofore overlooked matters, an...

Ariana Gonzalez Stokas and Dave Stovall join Cara and Derek to talk about the affordances of critical race theory for contesting destructive simplifications (as Gonzalez Stokas sees in "diversity" discourses in the university) and, as Stovall says, offering reparative alternatives by "telling a layered story." For more of Dave's work, see his book . And for more of Ariana&#...

Stephanie Burdick-Shepherd and Joy Dangora Erickson join Cara and Derek to talk about reading and how to teach it, and about why taking sides in a pitched methodological battle is unlikely to produce the kind of results that kids and parents and teachers would want to see. For more of Joy's work, and especially her new book, Reading Motivation , check out her website . And for more of Stephani...

We are joined by Campbell F. Scribner and Winston C. Thompson, who talk through the many overlapping and sensitive issues involved in imposing punishments in an educational context.  For more from both of them, please see: 1.) Winston Thompson's and John Tillson's Pedagogies of Punishment: The Ethics of Discipline in Education. 2.) Campbell Scribner's and Bryan Warnick's Spare the...

Cara and Derek introduce themselves and the podcast in general.  Here is the transcript .