Barbara Smith: Storming the Gates of Traditional Education

In this episode, I speak with Barbara Smith, a long-time forward-thinking educator and prolific writer. We talk about her upcoming book, The Gatekeepers: Why School Systems Should Rethink Resisting Change. We discuss who the gatekeepers are that keep us from moving education forward and creating a better system. Of course, that includes the U.S. and other countries' obsession with standardized tests, ranking schools and students, and a whole more. This conversation got me riled up, in a good way, to continue the work so many educators like you are doing to overthrow education. And bonus: we talked about the connection between a certain TV franchise and its connection to better education!

Also, this episode’s fauxmercial was borrowed from Episode 60 with Zaynab Baalbaki about creating transformative schools, because this episode is really about overcoming the challenges to create transformative education. Once again, the awesome Jake Miller joined me in this fauxmercial flashback.

I want to thank my special guest, Barbara Smith, and my fauxmercial helper, Jake Miller.

I also want to remind you to please rate and review this podcast so others can find it.

And of course, if you share it with your colleagues, friends, and some of those gatekeepers, we can help make some really positive changes in education. Of course, it couldn’t hurt to get some Overthrowing Education swag to really make your point!

 

Links and Resources:

For all of Barbara’s books and resources: www.z-pd.ca

Contact information: zpdschoolandcurriculumdesign@gmail.com

or

Barbaraj.smith@utoronto.ca