Education Conversations
Latest Episodes
Episode 18: Choosing a School for Your Child with Lindsey Nelson
Our newest episode features a conversation with Lindsey Nelson, Literacy Coordinator at the Tennessee State Department of Education. Lindsey has served as a MNPS classroom teacher, instructional coach, and the Regional Manager of Literacy for a...
Episode 17: Educators' Cooperative Roundtable
In this episode you will hear a roundtable discussion with teachers in the . Greg O'Loughlin, who you'll remember from Episode 16, is back for this episode, along with teachers Alecia Ford, Jennifer Weinblatt, and Marc Anthony Peek. The Educators'...
Episode 16: The Educators' Cooperative with Greg O'Loughlin
Today's guest, Greg O'Loughlin, is the founder of the . In our chat you will hear about Greg's path to creating the Cooperative and the myriad ways the Cooperative is benefitting teachers and students in the Nashville area. A local teacher, Greg...
Episode 15: Protecting Our Children from Sexual Abuse with Cary Rayson
Today's guest, Cary Rayson, is the community engagement coordinator at . Cary facilitates training, which is a program to help adults learn how to prevent, recognize, and react responsibly to child sexual abuse. I went through Cary’s training...
Episode 14: What Middle Schoolers Wish We Knew
This summer I had the pleasure of teaching a podcasting camp at the Westwood Baptist Church. This year’s camp theme is Wise, creative, innovative thinkers, and Minister Elois Freeman, the last guest on the podcast, thought that podcasting could be a...
Episode 13: Lessons from North Nashville with Elois Freeman
This week's guest is North Nashville educator, Elois Freeman. Elois is direct, authentic, and carries a wisdom that can only be acquired through a long and meaningful life. Elois grew up going to segregated schools in North Nashville and went on to...
EC012: Making the Unequal Metropolis with Dr. Ansley T. Erickson
This week's guest is Dr. Ansley T. Erickson, author of . Ansley is an Associate Professor of History and Education at Teachers College Columbia University, and I think her book should be required reading for anyone interested in how politics, policy,...
EC011: Trauma-Informed Schools with Mary Crnobori
Dr. Mary Crnobori is the trauma-informed coordinator for Metro Nashville Public Schools and she is doing incredibly important work to raise awareness about trauma-informed practices and ). Common ACEs are violence in the home, divorce, a parent...
EC010: Teaching Civil Discourse with Amanda Smithfield
What do you say when a student asks, "Did you vote for Donald Trump?" In this episode, we discuss how to respond to difficult questions, how to get students to engage in civil discourse in these turbulent political times, and what happened when Tarana...
EC009: Corporal Punishment in TN Schools with Alanna Autler
Today’s episode is about corporal punishment in Tennessee schools. Did you know that 109 districts in TN still allow corporal punishment? Did you know that students with disabilities are hit at higher rates than students without disabilities? Alanna...