Freshed

Today we look at educational privatization in Japan. My guest is the renowned Marxist scholar Makoto Itoh. In our two-part conversation, Professor Itoh argues that both the capitalist market and Soviet system have not produced democratic equality. In both systems, schools have been used to sort people by class. Makoto Itoh teaches at Kokugakuin University and is professor emeritus of the University of Tokyo. His newest book, written in Japanese, is A guide to Capitalist Economy, which was published in February.

Tunisia is known for sparking what many in the West call the Arab Spring, the revolutionary protests that swept across North Africa and the Middle East starting in 2010. My guest today is Tavis Jules. Together with Teresa Barton, he co-authored a new book entitled Educational Transitions in post-revolutionary spaces: Islam, security, and social movements in Tunisia. He argues that the Tunisian revolution had everything to do with education. In our conversation, we discuss the history leading up to the 2010 protests that would peacefully toppled the president as well as the fallout 7 years later. Tavis Jules is an Associate Professor of Cultural and Educational Policy Studies at Loyola University Chicago.

My guest today is Gina Athena Ulysse, a professor of Anthropology at Wesleyan University in Connecticut. She has a new book entitled Because when God is too busy: Haiti, me & THE WOLRD. Gina’s is a feminist artist-anthropologist-activist and self-described Post-Zora Interventionist. Her creative projects lie within the intersections of geopolitics, historical representations, and the dailiness of Black diasporic conditions. Her latest work, "Remixed Ode to Rebel's Spirit," involves conversations with ghosts roving the British Museum. www.freshedpodcast.com/ulysse

How do teachers learn to teach? My guests today, Maria Teresa Tatto and Ian Menter, discuss the many paths to become a teacher in England and the USA and the policy environment that is shaping current practice. Learning to be a teacher, they argue, requires much more than simply having a lot of content knowledge. Just because you may know math really well does not mean that you would be a good math teach. Teaching is a skill that must be systematically learned and practiced. Together with Katharine Burn, Trevor Mutton, and Ian Thompson, Teresa and Ian have a new co-written book entitled Learning to Teach in England and the United States: The Evolution of Policy and Practice, which was published by Routledge earlier this year. Maria Teresa Tatto is Professor in the Division of Educational Leadership and Innovation at Arizona State University, and the Southwest Borderlands Professor of Comparative Education at the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College. Ian Menter is Emeritus Professor of Teacher Education at the

Ted Dintersmith is not your normal Silicon Valley venture capitalist trying to save the world through technology. He’s much more complex. After producing the film Most Likely to Succeed, which premiered at Sundance in 2015, Ted embarked on a trip across America. For nine months he visited school after school, meeting teachers in ordinary settings doing extraordinary things. Today Ted joins FreshEd to talk about his new book What School Could Be: Insights and inspiration from teachers across America. Ted is currently a Partner Emeritus with Charles River Ventures. He was ranked by Business 2.0 as the top-performing venture capitalist in the U.S. for the years 1995-1999. In 2012, he was appointed by President Obama to represent the U.S. at the United Nations General Assembly, where he focused on education. www.freshedpodcast.com/dintersmith

Today, we explore the university strikes in the United Kingdom. My guests are Ioannis Costas Batlle and Aurelien Mondon, lecturers at the University of Bath and participants in the Bath Teach Outs. Based on their experiences in the current labor movement sweeping the UK, they find an alternative to the neoliberal university. Their new co-written blog post entitled "University Strikes: Reclaiming a space for emancipatory education" was published by Discover Society. Learn more about the strikes here: https://www.facebook.com/StrikeOnTeachOut/ www.freshedpodcast.com/batlle-mondon

Today we dive into the nightmare that is the growing tide of fascism worldwide and the prospects and perils this nightmare holds for public education. My guest today is the renowned scholar, Henry Giroux. He has a new book entitled American Nightmare: Facing the challenge of Fascism, which will be published in May. Henry Giroux is the McMaster University Professor for Scholarship in the Public Interest and the Paulo Freire Distinguished Scholar in Critical Pedagogy. He has written over 60 books and is considered one of the top educational thinkers today. www.FreshEdPodcast.com/giroux

Today we take a broad definition of education and explore the process of released prisoners re-integrating into American society. My guest is CalvinJohn Smiley, an assistant professor at Hunter College, City University of New York. Calvin is currently co-editing a book with Keesha Middlemass entitled Prisoner Reentry in the 21st Century: Critical Perspectives of Returning Home, which will be published by Routledge. In our conversation, Calvin puts prisoner reentry in a historical context and argues that the American prison system should not simply be reformed but must be abolished altogether.

Are we heading towards another economic crisis? The stock market plunged last week; private debt is at an all-time high; speculative markets are on the rise; wealth remains concentrated at the top; and workers are stuck in precarious low-wage jobs. My guest today, William I. Robinson, says that the Transnational Capitalist Class is facing a crisis of over-accumulation. But what is to be done? Professor Robinson details the social movements that will be necessary to escape the rise of a global fascism. He sees the role of intellectuals as an important part of these broad social movements. William I. Robinson is a professor of sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He has written extensively on globalization, capitalism, and the transnational capitalist class. His latest opinion piece is entitled "The Next Economic Crisis? Digital Capitalism and Global Police State," which was published on teleSUR, an alternative representation for world news. www.freshedpodcast.com

To kick off the new year, we have a special show for you. Today, Linda Darling-Hammond joins me to talk about her new co-authored book Empowered Educators: How high-performing systems shape teaching quality around the world. The book explores how several countries and jurisdictions have developed comprehensive teaching and learning systems that produce a range of positive outcomes, from student achievement to equity and from a professionalized teaching workforce to the integration of research and practice. Linda Darling-Hammond is the president of the Learning Policy Institute and a Professor of Education Emeritus at Stanford University.

This is our last re-run before we air new shows. Today I'm going to play my 2016 conversation with Jane Kenway where she explains multi-sited global ethnography, which she and her team used to study elite schooling in former British colonies. The groups' latest book, Class Choreographies, was just released in paperback. If you want receive 20 percent off the book, please go to FreshEdpodcast.com/classchoreographies where you will find the special offer code. Enjoy the show and please remember to take out listener survey at www.freshedpodcast.com/survey

Happy 2018. The FreshEd team is on break. We'll return in February. Please take our audience survey: http://www.FreshEdpodcast.com/survey On Sunday, Germany's social democratic party voted to enter formal talks with Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union to form a new government. It's been nearly 4 months since the Germans' voted in September. One reason Germany has had difficulty forming a governing coalition is because of the rise of extremist parties. The Alternative for Germany, a right-wing extremist party, is the third largest party in government. I thought it would be timely to replay my conversation with Cynthia Miller-Idriss. Our conversation focused on her book, The Extreme Gone Mainstream, which looks at far right youth subculture in Germany. Cynthia Miller-Idriss is Associate Professor of Education and Sociology at American University. Her book "Extreme goes Mainstream?: the Commercialization of Far Right Youth Subculture in Germany will be published by Princeton University Press in Feb

The FreshEd team is on break. We'll return in February. Please take our audience survey: http://www.FreshEdpodcast.com/survey Lobbyists are paid to influence government officials. They often operate behind closed doors, hidden from public view. In the education sector, for-profit companies rely on the work of lobbyists to promote commercial interests in public policy, from privately operated public schools to the use of education technology inside classrooms. My guest today author, lobbyist, and activist, Tamasin Cave, shines a light on commercial lobbyists in Britain’s education sector. A director of SpinWatch and leader of the Alliance for Lobbying Transparency, Cave talks about her book, co-authored with Andy Rowell, entitled: A Quiet Word: Lobbying, Crony Capitalism and Broken Politics in Britain, which was published in 2014 by Random House. Cave reveals the techniques used by successful lobbyists and discusses the revolving door among government office, lobby firms, and the media. She calls for trans

Happy 2018. The FreshEd team is on break. We'll return in February. Please take our audience survey: http://www.FreshEdpodcast.com/survey Today on the show: social networks analysis in educational research. My guest is Robin Shields. Robin is an Associate Professor at the University of Bath in the United Kingdom. His research broadly investigates the globalization of education, examining patterns of convergence and differentiation in educational policy and practice. He particularly focuses on the innovative application of research methods such as social network analysis and multilevel modeling to address key theoretical debates in the field. He has applied these methods to the study of international higher education and international development education. On today’s show we discuss some of his work looking at twitter feeds of world class universities.

What a year! 2017 was a year of massive growth for FreshEd. We put out 44 shows that received over 25,000 listens. We covered a range of topics, including – but certainly not limited to –educational privatization, student unions, intercultural competencies, the militarization of childhood in Japan, and, of course, PISA. We spoke to professors, students, politicians, and development practitioners from around the world. All of this is huge for a show that is basically a hobby for a group of education enthusiasts.  There are some changes in the works for next year, but I’ll announce those details once everything is finalized.  For now, let’s take stock of the year. What were the big ideas in educational research in 2017? What was missing? And where are we going in 2018? For the final show of the year, I’ve invited Susan Robertson and Roger Dale to reflect on the year in research and point to future directions. They are co-editors of the journal Globalisation, Societies, and Education, which — like FreshEd

To celebrate the 100th episode of FreshEd, I’ve saved an interview with a very special guest. Back in October, I had the privilege of sitting down with Professor David Harvey during his visit to Tokyo. For those who don’t know him, David Harvey is considered “one of the most influential geographers of the later twentieth century.” He is one of the most cited academics in the humanities and social sciences and is perhaps the most prominent Marxist scholars in the past half century. He has taught a course on Marx’s Capital for nearly 40 years. It is freely available online, and I highly recommend it. You can go online and find all sorts of interviews with David Harvey where he explains his work and understanding of Marx in depth. For our conversation today, I thought it would be best to talk about higher education, a system David Harvey has experienced for over 50 years. Who better to give a Marxist critique of higher education than David Harvey himself? David Harvey is a Distinguished Professor of Anthrop

Many students move across national borders to attend university.  Although the number of these globally mobile students is small compared to the total number of students enrolled in higher education, there numbers are increasing.   But the patterns are changing, with more regional and south-south mobility. The role of scholarships in promoting these new patterns of student mobility is gaining attention by researchers and development aid alike. My guests today, Joan Dassin and Aryn Baxter, have recently contributed to a new edited collection entitled International Scholarships in Higher Education: Pathways to Social Change, which was edited by Joan Dassin, Robin March, and Matt Mawer. Joan Dassin is a Professor of International Education and Development and Director of the Masters Program in Sustainable International Development at the Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University. Aryn Baxter is an Assistant Professor in the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College and Director of the Maste

Today we talk about a television show that was hugely popular in Latin America called El Chavo del Ocho. The show crossed boarders across Latin America, taking on a multiplicity of meaning. My guests today, Daniel Friedrich and Erica Colmenares, have a new edited collection that explores how the show worked and produced particular visions of Latin American childhood, schooling, and societies. They also contend that their approach to studying El Chavo del Ocho is a new direction in comparative education research. Daniel Friedrich is an Associate Professor of Curriculum at Teachers College, Columbia University where Erica Colmenares is a doctoral candidate in the Curriculum and Teaching department. Their new edited collection is entitled Resonances of El Chavo del Ocho in Latin American Childhood, schooling and societies. It is the first book in the new Bloomsbury series “New Directions in Comparative and International Education.”

Finland is known to have an excellent education system. Its high scores on the Programme for International Student Assessment have convinced people around the world that Finland is a country worth copying. In 2011, Pasi Sahlberg detailed Finland’s educational reforms that helped achieve these world-class results in his book Finnish Lessons. As Pasi traveled the world talking about his award-winning book to academics, policy makers, and educators, he was always asked if it is a good idea to copy the Finnish education system. Today, Pasi Sahlberg – a regular on FreshEd -- sits down with me to talk about his latest book, FinnishEd Leadership: Four Big, inexpensive ideas to transform education. FinnishEd Leadership is, in some sense, a sequel to his earlier book, Finnish Lessons. FinnishEd Leadership offers ideas to make a difference in other schools inspired by Finnish practice. In other words, he provides an answer to those people asking if their country should copy Finland’s education system.

Ever since the 1983 Nation at Risk report, America has seemingly gone through one educational reform after another. Have these reforms worked? My guest today, Paul Reville, thinks the reforms have correctly focused on the goals of excellence and equity but have not addressed the systemic problems impacting schools. Paul Reville is the founding director of the Education Redesign Lab at the Harvard. Prior to his time at Harvard, he was the Education Secretary for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. As Governor Patrick’s top education adviser, Paul brings valuable insights to his work of the real-life political challenges that sometimes slow educational change. Paul is the Francis Keppel Professor of Practice of Educational Policy and Administration at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.