Digical Education

Millennials & Ed Leadership: Conversation with Daniel Pampuch

Daniel Pampuch is CEO of Christian Schools Australia where he oversees 140 schools and provides advocacy for another 40 - representing 60,000 students. He completed his Ph.D. dissertation on "Next Generation Leadership", and this blog (https://blog.acsi.org/making-way-millennials-leadership) is what led to this podcast conversation.
Millennials have been much maligned and parodied for a perceived lack of work ethic and ambition for leadership, but what Daniel has found in his research on the generations and work with younger leaders is hopefully a renewed interest in thinking differently about schools, the profession, and leadership.

Beautiful Work and the Beautiful Worker: Conversation with Justin Cook

Justin Cook is Director of Learning for the Ontario Aliance of Christian Schools (http://www.oacs.org/author/justinc/).
A few months ago he and I had a conversation where he shared Ron Berger's article "Beautiful Work" (http://www.bie.org/object/document/beautiful_work), and in his own writing Justin states that "our work is beautiful" because it reveals coherence, interconnectedness, craftsmanship, and authenticity.
But the primary conversation that we have pertain to his developing ideas on what he calls the Beautiful Worker.
 

Find Your Calling: Conversation with Bryan Dik

I was recently introduced to Bryan Dik who is Professor of Psychology at Colorado State University, Founder and Chief Science Officer for Jobzology (www.jobzology.com), and author of the book "Make Your Job a Calling."
As an educator and counselor I'm quite interested in this idea of "calling" and finding meaning or purpose in work. Likewise, I've written a number of blogs entitled "Engagement Matters" where I review much of the research on organizations that are more successful than others in developing engagement and meaningfulness (https://cace.org/building-an-engaged-school-educators-crave-it/). I am quite interested in re-thinking schools for both students and adults as we attempt to find meaning in the work we do.
I think you'll be interested in Bryan's definition of "calling" as he points to three commonalities of a calling (1) transcendent summons, (2) purpseful work, and (3) pro-social orientation, and I hope you enjoy the conversation.

Education as Atmosphere: Conversation with Deani Van Pelt

"Education is an atmosphere, a discipline, a life." - Charlotte Mason
In an era of technology and innovation, and especially living at the heart of it all in Silicon Valley I've started to ask questions about some of the 19th and 20th Century innovators like Montessori, Doman, Waldorf, and Froebel.
In this conversation I was able to talk with Charlotte Mason expert, Deani Van Pelt, about Mason's ideas and work, and why it matters in today's world.
Deani Van Pelt is an Education leader in Canada, has been a teacher, professor, researcher, and will soon be president of a new school association.

Professional Learning & Organizational Growth with George Roth

"We're not really good at learning from the past." - George Roth
I met George this past February and we had a conversation prior to the end of the school year, but I've been waiting to post this until educators, innovators, and leaders had a bit of time to listen intently as this is a conversation about topics we don't always discuss with clarity from academic research.
In prior conversations I was having with George that led to this podcast I was asking questions about learning organizations, limits to growth, the impact of networks, and the difference between professional learning and professional training.
I don't want to lead you as a listerner and learner, but I wonder how we might redesign the school year and education profession with some of these concepts.
George Roth is an educator, scholar, consultant, and writer. Over the past 19 years, he has held various lecturer and research appointments at MIT’s Sloan School of Management. During that time he has studied, written about, and lectured on organizational learning, change, culture and leadership. He applies his expertise as a scholar/practitioner to conduct research in those areas, consult to corporations and government, and manage programs for MIT. 
 

Holiness and Wholesomeness in Creative Pursuits: Josh Riebock

This is a conversation that stems from many other conversations and due to the unscripted nature of it you will hear it meander from our prior podcast conversation about creativity into a more recent conversation we've been having about Holiness versus Wholesomeness within our creative pursuits.
I personally like the portions where Josh talks about the 'cocktail' or 'architecure' of creativity and where honesty, depth, and exploration into life fit in the mix. Likewise, I put him on the spot at the end of the podcast to share some of his poetry, so fast forward about 30 seconds as he chooses/finds a poem to share with us.
Josh Riebock is a storyteller, poet, author, and friend. If you haven't read "Heroes and Monsters" check it out and you'll get a taste of what he shares in this podcast.

"Horace Mann Had It All Wrong:" Conversation with Corey DeAngelis

I came across Corey DeAngelis' work on Twitter @DeAngelisCorey, and quickly have enjoyed reading his articles and research. Corey wrote a report for Cato Institute entitled "The Highly Positive Effects of Vouchers," which led to a pretty interesting Twitter battle with public school traditionalists. This drew my attention to Corey's emerging research and led to this conversation on School Choice.
https://www.cato.org/blog/highly-positive-impacts-vouchers
Corey A. DeAngelis is a Policy Analyst at the Cato Center for Educational Freedom. He is also a Policy Advisor and Contributing Editor for the Heartland Institute. His research focuses on the effects of educational choice programs on student achievement and non-academic outcomes such as criminal activity, political and economic freedom, schooling supply, and fiscal impacts.

Innovation & Transformation: Conversation with Revolution Prep's Jake Neuberg

In this podcast, I get to talk with Jake Neuberg who co- founded Revolution Prep in 2002 with a vision of transforming education. I wanted to know about his interest in transforming education and student learning from a non-school perspective.
Likewise, I wanted to ask Jake about innovation as he took Revolution Prep through a complete overhaul and became an online provider of tutoring, test prep, and student engagement.
Check out Revolution Prep at www.revolutionprep.com.
 

School Security & Student Empowerment: Conversation with Paul Timm

In this episode I had a conversation with Paul Timm who is Vice President at Facility Engineering Associates and a School Security expert. This conversation was recorded a week ago, and unfortunately continues to be pertinent to our work in schools creating physically and emotionally safe environments.
For more information on Paul and FEA: www.feapc.com

Future Ready Schools: Conversation with Bill Latham

In this podcast I had a conversation with Bill Latham of MeTEOR Education (www.meteoreducation.com) where we shares that innovation and transformation usually come from pain, and if you take the conversation all the way to the end he talks about the "Future Ready School" that is described in the book Humanizing the Education Machine co-authored with Rex Miller.