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What does it take to keep your voice—and your purpose—strong through every season of life? In this episode of Unstoppable Mindset, I sit down with my friend Bill Ratner, one of Hollywood's most recognized voice actors, best known as Flint from GI Joe. Bill's voice has carried him through radio, animation, and narration, but what stands out most is how he's used that same voice to serve others through storytelling, teaching, and grief counseling. Together, we explore the heart behind his work—from bringing animated heroes to life to standing on The Moth stage and helping people find healing through poetry. Bill shares lessons from his own journey, including losing both parents early, finding family in unexpected places, and discovering how creative expression can rebuild what life breaks down. We also reflect on 9/11, preparedness, and the quiet confidence that comes from trusting your training—whether you're a first responder, a performer, or just navigating the unknown. This conversation isn't just about performance; it's about presence. It's about using your story, your craft, and your compassion to keep moving forward—unstoppable, one voice at a time. Highlights: 00:31 – Hear the Flint voice and what it takes to bring animated characters to life. 06:57 – Learn why an uneven college path still led to a lifelong acting career. 11:50 – Understand how GI Joe became a team and a toy phenomenon that shaped culture. 15:58 – See how comics and cartoons boosted classroom literacy when used well. 17:06 – Pick up simple ways parents can spark reading through shared stories. 19:29 – Discover how early, honest conversations about death can model resilience. 24:09 – Learn to critique ads and media like a pro to sharpen your own performance. 36:19 – Follow the pivot from radio to voiceover and why specialization pays. 47:48 – Hear practical editing approaches and accessible tools that keep shows tight. 49:38 – Learn how The Moth builds storytelling chops through timed, judged practice. 55:21 – See how poetry—and poetry therapy—support grief work with students. 59:39 – Take notes on memoir writing, emotional management, and one-person shows. About the Guest: Bill Ratner is one of America's best known voice actors and author of poetry collections Lamenting While Doing Laps in the Lake (Slow Lightning Lit 2024,) Fear of Fish (Alien Buddha Press 2021,) To Decorate a Casket (Finishing Line Press 2021,) and the non-fiction book Parenting For The Digital Age: The Truth Behind Media's Effect On Children and What To Do About It (Familius Books 2014.) He is a 9-time winner of the Moth StorySLAM, 2-time winner of Best of The Hollywood Fringe Extension Award for Solo Performance, Best of the Net Poetry Nominee 2023 (Lascaux Review,) and New Millennium "America One Year From Now" Writing Award Finalist. His writing appears in Best Small Fictions 2021 (Sonder Press,) Missouri Review (audio,) Baltimore Review, Chiron Review, Feminine Collective, and other journals. He is the voice of "Flint" in the TV cartoon G.I. Joe, "Donnell Udina" in the computer game Mass Effect, the voice of Air Disasters on Smithsonian Channel, NewsNation, and network TV affiliates across the country. He is a committee chair for his union, SAG-AFTRA, teaches Voiceovers for SAG-AFTRA Foundation, Media Awareness for Los Angeles Unified School District, and is a trained grief counsellor. Member: Actors Equity Association, Screen Actors Guild-AFTRA, National Storytelling Network • https://billratner.com • @billratner Ways to connect with Bill: https://soundcloud.com/bill-ratner https://www.instagram.com/billratner/ https://twitter.com/billratner https://www.threads.net/@billratner https://billratner.tumblr.com https://www.youtube.com/@billratner/videos https://www.facebook.com/billratner.voiceover.author https://bsky.app/profile/bilorat.bsky.social About the Host: Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog. Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards. https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/ accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/ Thanks for listening! Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below! Subscribe to the podcast If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can subscribe in your favorite podcast app. You can also support our podcast through our tip jar https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/unstoppable-mindset . Leave us an Apple Podcasts review Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts. Transcription Notes: Michael Hingson ** 00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us.   Michael Hingson ** 01:21 Well on a gracious hello to you, wherever you may be, I am your host. Mike hingson, and you are listening to unstoppable mindset. Today, we get to have a voice actor, person, Bill Ratner, who you want to know who Bill Radnor is, go back and watch the old GI Joe cartoons and listen to the voice of Flint.   Bill Ratner ** 01:42 All right. Lady Jay, you better get your battle gear on, because Cobra is on their way. And I can't bring up the Lacher threat weapon system. We got to get out of here. Yo, Joe,   Michael Hingson ** 01:52 there you go. I rest my case Well, Bill, welcome to unstoppable mindset.   Bill Ratner ** 02:00 We can't rest now. Michael, we've just begun. No, we've just begun.   Michael Hingson ** 02:04 We got to keep going here. Well, I'm really glad that you're here. Bill is another person who we inveigled to get on unstoppable mindset with the help of Walden Hughes. And so that means we can talk about Walden all we want today. Bill just saying, oh goodness. And I got a lot to say. Let me tell you perfect, perfect. Bring it on. So we are really grateful to Walden, although I hope he's not listening. We don't want to give him a big head. But no, seriously, we're really grateful. Ah, good point.   Bill Ratner ** 02:38 But his posture, oddly enough, is perfect.   Michael Hingson ** 02:40 Well, there you go. What do you do? He practiced. Well, anyway, we're glad you're here. Tell us about the early bill, growing up and all that stuff. It's always fun to start a good beginning.   Bill Ratner ** 02:54 Well, I was a very lucky little boy. I was born in Des Moines, Iowa in 1947 to two lovely people, professionals, both with master's degree out at University of Chicago. My mother was a social worker. My father had an MBA in business. He was managing editor of Better Homes and Gardens magazine. So I had the joy of living in a better home and living in a garden.   Michael Hingson ** 03:21 My mother. How long were you in Des Moines?   Bill Ratner ** 03:24 Five and a half years left before my sixth birthday. My dad got a fancy job at an ad agency in Minneapolis, and had a big brother named Pete and big handsome, curly haired boy with green eyes. And moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota, and was was brought up there.   Michael Hingson ** 03:45 Wow. So you went to school there and and chased the girls and all that stuff.   Bill Ratner ** 03:54 I went to school there at Blake School for Boys in Hopkins, Minnesota. Couldn't chase the girls day school, but the girls we are allowed to dance with certainly not chase. Michael was at woodhue dancing school, the Northrop girls from Northrop girls school and the Blake boys were put together in eighth grade and taught the Cha Cha Cha, the waltz, the Charleston, and we danced together, and the girls wore white gloves, and we sniffed their perfume, and we all learned how to be lovers when we were 45   Michael Hingson ** 04:37 There you are. Well, as long as you learned at some point, that's a good start.   Bill Ratner ** 04:44 It's a weird generation. Michael,   Michael Hingson ** 04:46 I've been to Des Moines before. I was born in Chicago, but moved out to California when I was five, but I did some work with the National Federation of the Blind in the mid 19. 1970s 1976 into 1978 so spent time at the Iowa Commission for the Blind in Des Moines, which became a top agency for the Blind in well, the late 50s into the to the 60s and so on. So   Bill Ratner ** 05:15 both my parents are from Chicago. My father from the south side of Chicago, 44th and Kenzie, which was a Irish, Polish, Italian, Jewish, Ukrainian neighborhood. And my mother from Glencoe, which was a middle class suburb above Northwestern University in Evanston.   Michael Hingson ** 05:34 I Where were you born? 57th and union, north, south side, no, South   Bill Ratner ** 05:42 57th union is that? Is that west of Kenzie?   Michael Hingson ** 05:46 You know, I don't remember the geography well enough to know, but I know that it was, I think, Mount Sinai Hospital where I was born. But it was, it's, it's, it's a pretty tough neighborhood today. So I understand,   Bill Ratner ** 06:00 yeah, yeah, my it was tough, then it's tough now,   Michael Hingson ** 06:03 yeah, I think it's tougher, supposedly, than it was. But we lived there for five years, and then we we moved to California, and I remember some things about Chicago. I remember walking down to the local candy store most days, and had no problem doing that. My parents were told they should shut me away at a home somewhere, because no blind child could ever grow up to amount to anything. And my parents said, You guys are you're totally wrong. And they brought me up with that attitude. So, you   Bill Ratner ** 06:32 know who said that the school says school so that   Michael Hingson ** 06:35 doctors doctors when they discovered I was blind with the   Bill Ratner ** 06:38 kid, goodness gracious, horrified.   Michael Hingson ** 06:44 Well, my parents said absolutely not, and they brought me up, and they actually worked with other parents of premature kids who became blind, and when kindergarten started in for us in in the age of four, they actually had a special kindergarten class for blind kids at the Perry School, which is where I went. And so I did that for a year, learn braille and some other things. Then we moved to California, but yeah, and I go back to Chicago every so often. And when I do nowadays, they I one of my favorite places to migrate in Chicago is Garrett Popcorn.   Bill Ratner ** 07:21 Ah, yes, with caramel corn, regular corn, the   Michael Hingson ** 07:25 Chicago blend, which is a mixture, yeah, the Chicago blend is cheese corn, well, as it is with caramel corn, and they put much other mozzarella on it as well. It's really good.   Bill Ratner ** 07:39 Yeah, so we're on the air. Michael, what do you call your what do you call your program? Here I am your new friend, and I can't even announce your program because I don't know   Michael Hingson ** 07:48 the name, unstoppable mindset. This   Bill Ratner ** 07:51 is unstoppable mindset.   Michael Hingson ** 07:56 We're back. Well, we're back already. We're fast. So you, you, you moved off elsewhere, out of Des Moines and all that. And where did you go to college?   Bill Ratner ** 08:09 Well, this is like, why did you this is, this is a bit like talking about the Vietnam War. Looking back on my college career is like looking back on the Vietnam War series, a series of delusions and defeats. By the time I the time i for college, by the time I was applying for college, I was an orphan, orphan, having been born to fabulous parents who died too young of natural causes. So my grades in high school were my mediocre. I couldn't get into the Ivy Leagues. I got into the big 10 schools. My stepmother said, you're going to Michigan State in East Lansing because your cousin Eddie became a successful realtor. And Michigan State was known as mu u it was the most successful, largest agriculture college and university in the country. Kids from South Asia, China, Northern Europe, Southern Europe, South America all over the world came to Michigan State to study agricultural sciences, children of rich farmers all over the world and middle class farmers all over the world, and a huge police science department. Part of the campus was fenced off, and the young cadets, 1819, 20 years old, would practice on the rest of the student body, uniformed with hats and all right, excuse me, young man, we're just going to get some pizza at eight o'clock on Friday night. Stand against your car. Hands in your car. I said, Are you guys practicing again? Shut up and spread your legs. So that was that was Michigan State, and even though both my parents had master's degrees, I just found all the diversions available in the 1960s to be too interesting, and was not invited. Return after my sophomore year, and in order to flunk out of a big 10 University, and they're fine universities, all of them, you have to be either really determined or not so smart, not really capable of doing that level of study in undergraduate school. And I'd like to think that I was determined. I used to show up for my exams with a little blue book, and the only thing I would write is due to lack of knowledge, I am unable to complete this exam, sign Bill ranter and get up early and hand it in and go off. And so what was, what was left for a young man like that was the theater I'd seen the great Zero Mostel when I was 14 years old and on stage live, he looked just like my father, and he was funny, and if I Were a rich man, and that's the grade zero must tell. Yeah, and it took about five, no, it took about six, seven years to percolate inside my bread and my brain. In high school, I didn't want to do theater. The cheerleaders and guys who I had didn't happen to be friends with or doing theater. I took my girlfriends to see plays, but when I was 21 I started acting, and I've been an actor ever since. I'm a committee chair on the screen actors guild in Hollywood and Screen Actors Guild AFTRA, and work as a voice actor and collect my pensions and God bless the union.   Michael Hingson ** 11:44 Well, hey, as long as it works and you're making progress, you know you're still with it, right?   Bill Ratner ** 11:53 That's the that's the point. There's no accounting for taste in my business. Michael, you work for a few different broadcast entities at my age. And it's, you know, it's younger people. It's 18 to 3418 years to 34 years old is the ideal demographic for advertisers, Ford, Motor Company, Dove soap, Betty, Crocker, cake mixes and cereals, every conceivable product that sold online or sold on television and radio. This is my this is my meat, and I don't work for religion. However, if a religious organization calls, I call and say, I I'm not, not qualified or not have my divinity degree in order to sell your church to the public?   Michael Hingson ** 12:46 Yeah, yeah. Well, I, I can understand that. But you, you obviously do a lot, and as we talked about, you were Flint and GI Joe, which is kind of cool.   Bill Ratner ** 13:01 Flynn GI Joe was very cool. Hasbro Corporation, which was based in Providence, Rhode Island, had a huge success with GI Joe, the figure. The figure was about 11 and a half inches tall, like a Barbie, and was at first, was introduced to the public after the Korean War. There is a comic book that was that was also published about GI Joe. He was an individual figure. He was a figure, a sort of mythic cartoon figure during World War Two, GI Joe, generic American soldier, fighting man and but the Vietnam war dragged on for a long time, and the American buying public or buying kids toys got tired of GI Joe, got tired of a military figure in their household and stopped buying. And when Nixon ended the Vietnam War, or allotted to finish in 1974 Hasbro was in the tank. It's got its stock was cheap, and executives are getting nervous. And then came the Great George Lucas in Star Wars, who shrank all these action figures down from 11 and a half inches to three and a half inches, and went to China and had Chinese game and toy makers make Star Wars toys, and began to earn billions and billions dollars. And so Hasbro said, let's turn GI Joe into into a team. And the team began with flint and Lady J and Scarlett and Duke and Destro and cover commander, and grew to 85 different characters, because Hasbro and the toy maker partners could create 85 different sets of toys and action figures. So I was actor in this show and had a good time, and also a purveyor of a billion dollar industry of American toys. And the good news about these toys is I was at a conference where we signed autographs the voice actors, and we have supper with fans and so on. And I was sitting next to a 30 year old kid and his parents. And this kid was so knowledgeable about pop culture and every conceivable children's show and animated show that had ever been on the screen or on television. I turned to his mother and sort of being a wise acre, said, So ma'am, how do you feel about your 30 year old still playing with GI Joe action figures? And she said, Well, he and I both teach English in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania school system, and last year, the literacy level of my ninth graders was 50% 50% of those kids could not read in ninth grade. So I asked the principal if I could borrow my son's GI Joe, action figures, comic books and VHS tapes, recordings of the shows from TV. And he said, Sure, whatever you want to try. And so she did, and she played the video tapes, and these kids were thrilled. They'd never seen a GI Joe cartoon in class before. Passed out the comic books, let him read comics. And then she said, Okay, you guys. And passed out notebooks and pens and pencils, and said, I want you guys to make up some some shows, some GI Joe shows. And so they said, Yeah, we're ready. All right, Cobra, you better get into the barber shop, because the barber bill is no longer there and the fire engines are in the way. And wait a minute, there's a dog in the street. And so they're making this up, using their imagination, doing their schoolwork, by coming up with scenarios, imaginary fam fan fiction for GI Joe and she raised the literacy level in her classroom by 50% that year, by the end of that year, so, so that was the only story that I've ever heard about the sort of the efficacy of GI Joe, other than, you know, kids play with them. Do they? Are they shooting each other all the time? I certainly hope not. I hope not. Are they using the action figures? Do they strip their guns off and put them in a little, you know, stub over by the side and and have them do physical battle with each other, or have them hump the woods, or have them climb the stairs, or have them search the trees. Who knows what kids do? Same with same with girls and and Barbies. Barbie has been a source of fun and creativity for lots of girls, and the source of of worry and bother to a lot of parents as   Michael Hingson ** 17:54 well. Well, at the same time, though, when kids start to react and relate to some of these things. It's, it's pretty cool. I mean, look what's happened with the whole Harry Potter movement and craze. Harry Potter has probably done more in the last 20 or 25 years to promote reading for kids than most anything else, and   Bill Ratner ** 18:17 that's because it's such a good series of books. I read them to my daughters, yeah. And the quality of writing. She was a brilliant writer, not only just the stories and the storytelling, which is fun to watch in the movies, and you know, it's great for a parent to read. If there are any parents listening, I don't care how old your kids are. I don't care if they're 15. Offer to read to them. The 15 year old might, of course, say mom, but anybody younger than that might say either, all right, fine, which is, which means you better do it or read, read a book. To me, sure, it's fun for the parent, fun for the kid, and it makes the child a completely different kind of thinker and worker and earner.   Michael Hingson ** 19:05 Well, also the people who they got to read the books for the recordings Stephen Fry and in the US here, Jim Dale did such an incredible job as well. I've, I've read the whole Harry Potter series more than once, because I just enjoy them, and I enjoy listening to the the voices. They do such a good job. Yeah. And of course, for me, one of the interesting stories that I know about Jim Dale reading Harry Potter was since it was published by Scholastic he was actually scheduled to do a reading from one of the Harry from the new Harry Potter book that was coming out in 2001 on September 11, he was going to be at Scholastic reading. And of course, that didn't happen because of of everything that did occur. So I don't know whether I'm. I'm assuming at some point a little bit later, he did, but still he was scheduled to be there and read. But it they are there. They've done so much to help promote reading, and a lot of those kinds of cartoons and so on. Have done some of that, which is, which is pretty good. So it's good to, you know, to see that continue to happen. Well, so you've written several books on poetry and so on, and I know that you you've mentioned more than once grief and loss. How come those words keep coming up?   Bill Ratner ** 20:40 Well, I had an unusual childhood. Again. I mentioned earlier how, what a lucky kid I was. My parents were happy, educated, good people, not abusers. You know, I don't have a I don't have horror stories to tell about my mother or my father, until my mother grew sick with breast cancer and and it took about a year and a half or two years to die when I was seven years old. The good news is, because she was a sensitive, educated social worker, as she was actually dying, she arranged a death counseling session with me and my older brother and the Unitarian minister who was also a death counselor, and whom she was seeing to talk about, you know, what it was like to be dying of breast cancer with two young kids. And at this session, which was sort of surprised me, I was second grade, came home from school. In the living room was my mother and my brother looking a little nervous, and Dr Carl storm from the Unitarian Church, and she said, you know, Dr storm from church, but he's also my therapist. And we talk about my illness and how I feel, and we talk about how much I love you boys, and talk about how I worry about Daddy. And this is what one does when one is in crisis. That was a moment that was not traumatic for me. It's a moment I recalled hundreds of times, and one that has been a guiding light through my life. My mother's death was very difficult for my older brother, who was 13 who grew up in World War Two without without my father, it was just him and my mother when he was off in the Pacific fighting in World War Two. And then I was born after the war. And the loss of a mother in a family is like the bottom dropping out of a family. But luckily, my dad met a woman he worked with a highly placed advertising executive, which was unusual for a female in the 1950s and she became our stepmother a year later, and we had some very lovely, warm family years with her extended family and our extended family and all of us together until my brother got sick, came down with kidney disease a couple of years before kidney dialysis was invented, and a couple of years before kidney transplants were done, died at 19. Had been the captain of the swimming team at our high school, but did a year in college out in California and died on Halloween of 1960 my father was 51 years old. His eldest son had died. He had lost his wife six years earlier. He was working too hard in the advertising industry, successful man and dropped out of a heart attack 14th birthday. Gosh, I found him unconscious on the floor of our master bathroom in our house. So my life changed. I My life has taught me many, many things. It's taught me how the defense system works in trauma. It's taught me the resilience of a child. It's taught me the kindness of strangers. It's taught me the sadness of loss.   Michael Hingson ** 24:09 Well, you, you seem to come through all of it pretty well. Well, thank you. A question behind that, just an observation, but, but you do seem to, you know, obviously, cope with all of it and do pretty well. So you, you've always liked to be involved in acting and so on. How did you actually end up deciding to be a voice actor?   Bill Ratner ** 24:39 Well, my dad, after he was managing editor of Better Homes and Gardens magazine in Des Moines for Meredith publishing, got offered a fancy job as executive vice president of the flower and mix division for Campbell within advertising and later at General Mills Corporation. From Betty Crocker brand, and would bring me to work all the time, and would sit with me, and we'd watch the wonderful old westerns that were on prime time television, rawhide and Gunsmoke and the Virginian and sure   Michael Hingson ** 25:15 and all those. Yeah, during   Bill Ratner ** 25:17 the commercials, my father would make fun of the commercials. Oh, look at that guy. And number one, son, that's lousy acting. Number two, listen to that copy. It's the dumbest ad copy I've ever seen. The jingles and and then he would say, No, that's a good commercial, right there. And he wasn't always negative. He would he was just a good critic of advertising. So at a very young age, starting, you know, when we watch television, I think the first television ever, he bought us when I was five years old, I was around one of the most educated, active, funny, animated television critics I could hope to have in my life as a 56789, 1011, 12 year old. And so when I was 12, I became one of the founding members of the Brotherhood of radio stations with my friends John Waterhouse and John Barstow and Steve gray and Bill Connors in South Minneapolis. I named my five watt night kit am transmitter after my sixth grade teacher, Bob close this is wclo stereo radio. And when I was in sixth grade, I built myself a switch box, and I had a turntable and I had an intercom, and I wired my house for sound, as did all the other boys in the in the B, O, R, S, and that's brotherhood of radio stations. And we were guests on each other's shows, and we were obsessed, and we would go to the shopping malls whenever a local DJ was making an appearance and torture him and ask him dumb questions and listen obsessively to American am radio. And at the time for am radio, not FM like today, or internet on your little radio tuner, all the big old grandma and grandpa radios, the wooden ones, were AM, for amplitude modulated. You could get stations at night, once the sun went down and the later it got, the ionosphere would lift and the am radio signals would bounce higher and farther. And in Minneapolis, at age six and seven, I was able to to listen to stations out of Mexico and Texas and Chicago, and was absolutely fascinated with with what was being put out. And I would, I would switch my brother when I was about eight years old, gave me a transistor radio, which I hid under my bed covers. And at night, would turn on and listen for, who knows, hours at a time, and just tuning the dial and tuning the dial from country to rock and roll to hit parade to news to commercials to to agric agriculture reports to cow crossings in Kansas and grain harvesting and cheese making in Wisconsin, and on and on and on that made up the great medium of radio that was handing its power and its business over to television, just as I was growing As a child. Fast, fascinating transition   Michael Hingson ** 28:18 and well, but as it was transitioning, how did that affect you?   Bill Ratner ** 28:26 It made television the romantic, exciting, dynamic medium. It made radio seem a little limited and antiquated, and although I listened for environment and wasn't able to drag a television set under my covers. Yeah, and television became memorable with with everything from actual world war two battle footage being shown because there wasn't enough programming to 1930s Warner Brothers gangster movies with James Cagney, Edward G   Michael Hingson ** 29:01 Robinson and yeah   Bill Ratner ** 29:02 to all the sitcoms, Leave It to Beaver and television cartoons and on and on and on. And the most memorable elements to me were the personalities, and some of whom were invisible. Five years old, I was watching a Kids program after school, after kindergarten. We'll be back with more funny puppets, marionettes after this message and the first words that came on from an invisible voice of this D baritone voice, this commercial message will be 60 seconds long, Chrysler Dodge for 1954 blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I watched hypnotized, hypnotized as a 1953 dodge drove across the screen with a happy family of four waving out the window. And at the end of the commercial, I ran into the kitchen said, Mom, mom, I know what a minute. Is, and it was said, it had suddenly come into my brain in one of those very rare and memorable moments in a person's life where your brain actually speaks to you in its own private language and says, Here is something very new and very true, that 60 seconds is in fact a minute. When someone says, See you in five minutes, they mean five times that, five times as long as that. Chrysler commercial, five times 60. That's 300 seconds. And she said, Did you learn it that that on T in kindergarten? And I said, No, I learned it from kangaroo Bob on TV, his announcer, oh, kangaroo Bob, no, but this guy was invisible. And so at five years of age, I was aware of the existence of the practice of the sound, of the magic of the seemingly unlimited access to facts, figures, products, brand names that these voices had and would say on the air in This sort of majestic, patriarchal way,   Michael Hingson ** 31:21 and just think 20 years later, then you had James Earl Jones,   Bill Ratner ** 31:26 the great dame. James Earl Jones, father was a star on stage at that time the 1950s James Earl Jones came of age in the 60s and became Broadway and off Broadway star.   Michael Hingson ** 31:38 I got to see him in Othello. He was playing Othello. What a powerful performance. It was   Bill Ratner ** 31:43 wonderful performer. Yeah, yeah. I got to see him as Big Daddy in Canada, Hot Tin Roof, ah, live and in person, he got front row seats for me and my family.   Michael Hingson ** 31:53 Yeah, we weren't in the front row, but we saw it. We saw it on on Broadway,   Bill Ratner ** 31:58 the closest I ever got to James Earl Jones. He and I had the same voice over agent, woman named Rita vinari of southern Barth and benare company. And I came into the agency to audition for Doritos, and I hear this magnificent voice coming from behind a closed voiceover booth, saying, with a with a Spanish accent, Doritos. I thought that's James Earl Jones. Why is he saying burritos? And he came out, and he bowed to me, nodded and smiled, and I said, hello and and the agent probably in the booth and shut the door. And she said, I said, that was James Earl Jones. What a voice. What she said, Oh, he's such a nice man. And she said, but I couldn't. I was too embarrassed. I was too afraid to stop him from saying, Doritos. And it turns out he didn't get the gig. So it is some other voice actor got it because he didn't say, had he said Doritos with the agent froze it froze up. That was as close as I ever got to did you get the gig? Oh goodness no,   Michael Hingson ** 33:01 no, you didn't, huh? Oh, well, well, yeah. I mean, it was a very, it was, it was wonderful. It was James Earl Jones and Christopher Plummer played Iago. Oh, goodness, oh, I know. What a what a combination. Well, so you, you did a lot of voiceover stuff. What did you do regarding radio moving forward? Or did you just go completely out of that and you were in TV? Or did you have any opportunity   Bill Ratner ** 33:33 for me to go back at age 15, my brother and father, who were big supporters of my radio. My dad would read my W, C, l, o, newsletter and need an initial, an excellent journalism son and my brother would bring his teenage friends up. He'd play the elderly brothers, man, you got an Elvis record, and I did. And you know, they were, they were big supporters for me as a 13 year old, but when I turned 14, and had lost my brother and my father, I lost my enthusiasm and put all of my radio equipment in a box intended to play with it later. Never, ever, ever did again. And when I was about 30 years old and I'd done years of acting in the theater, having a great time doing fun plays and small theaters in Minneapolis and South Dakota and and Oakland, California and San Francisco. I needed money, so I looked in the want ads and saw a job for telephone sales, and I thought, Well, I used to love the telephone. I used to make phony phone calls to people all the time. Used to call funeral homes. Hi Carson, funeral I help you. Yes, I'm calling to tell you that you have a you have a dark green slate tile. Roof, isn't that correct? Yes. Well, there's, there's a corpse on your roof. Lady for goodness sake, bring it down and we laugh and we record it and and so I thought, Well, gee, I used to have a lot of fun with the phone. And so I called the number of telephone sales and got hired to sell magazine subscriptions and dinner tickets to Union dinners and all kinds of things. And then I saw a new job at a radio station, suburban radio station out in Walnut Creek, California, a lovely Metro BART train ride. And so I got on the BART train, rode out there and walked in for the interview, and was told I was going to be selling small advertising packages on radio for the station on the phone. And so I called barber shops and beauty shops and gas stations in the area, and one guy picked up the phone and said, Wait a minute, wait a minute. Wait a minute. Are you on the radio right now? And I said, No, I'm just I'm in the sales room. Well, maybe you should be. And he slams the phone on me. He didn't want to talk to me anymore. It wasn't interested in buying advertising. I thought, gee. And I told somebody at the station, and they said, Well, you want to be in the radio? And he went, Yeah, I was on the radio when I was 13. And it just so happened that an older fellow was retiring from the 10am to 2pm slot. K I S King, kiss 99 and KD FM, Pittsburgh, California. And it was a beautiful music station. It was a music station. Remember, old enough will remember music that used to play in elevators that was like violin music, the Percy faith orchestra playing a Rolling Stone song here in the elevator. Yes, well, that's exactly what we played. And it would have been harder to get a job at the local rock stations because, you know, they were popular places. And so I applied for the job, and   Michael Hingson ** 37:06 could have lost your voice a lot sooner, and it would have been a lot harder if you had had to do Wolfman Jack. But that's another story.   Bill Ratner ** 37:13 Yeah, I used to listen to Wolf Man Jack. I worked in a studio in Hollywood. He became a studio. Yeah, big time.   Michael Hingson ** 37:22 Anyway, so you you got to work at the muzack station, got   Bill Ratner ** 37:27 to work at the muzack station, and I was moving to Los Angeles to go to a bigger market, to attempt to penetrate a bigger broadcast market. And one of the sales guys, a very nice guy named Ralph pizzella said, Well, when you get to La you should study with a friend of mine down to pie Troy, he teaches voiceovers. I said, What are voice overs? He said, You know that CVS Pharmacy commercial just carted up and did 75 tags, available in San Fernando, available in San Clemente, available in Los Angeles, available in Pasadena. And I said, Yeah. He said, Well, you didn't get paid any extra. You got paid your $165 a week. The guy who did that commercial for the ad agency got paid probably 300 bucks, plus extra for the tags, that's voiceovers. And I thought, why? There's an idea, what a concept. So he gave me the name and number of old friend acquaintance of his who he'd known in radio, named Don DiPietro, alias Johnny rabbit, who worked for the Dick Clark organization, had a big rock and roll station there. He'd come to LA was doing voiceovers and teaching voiceover classes in a little second story storefront out of the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles. So I signed up for his class, and he was an experienced guy, and he liked me, and we all had fun, and I realized I was beginning to study like an actor at 1818, who goes to New York or goes to Los Angeles or Chicago or Atlanta or St Louis to act in the big theaters, and starts acting classes and realizes, oh my goodness, these people are truly professionals. I don't know how to do what they do. And so for six years, I took voice over classes, probably 4050, nights a year, and from disc jockeys, from ex show hosts, from actors, from animated cartoon voices, and put enough time in to get a degree in neurology in medical school. And worked my way up in radio in Los Angeles and had a morning show, a lovely show with a wonderful news man named Phil Reed, and we talked about things and reviewed movies and and played a lot of music. And then I realized, wait a minute, I'm earning three times the money in voiceovers as I am on the radio, and I have to get up at 430 in the morning to be on the radio. Uh, and a wonderful guy who was Johnny Carson's staff announcer named Jack angel said, You're not still on radio, are you? And I said, Well, yeah, I'm working in the morning. And Ka big, get out of there. Man, quit. Quit. And I thought, well, how can I quit? I've always wanted to be a radio announcer. And then there was another wonderful guy on the old am station, kmpc, sweet Dick Whittington. Whittington, right? And he said at a seminar that I went to at a union voice over training class, when you wake up at four in the morning and you swing your legs over the bed and your shoes hit the floor, and you put your head in your hands, and you say to yourself, I don't want to do this anymore. That's when you quit radio. Well, that hadn't happened to me. I was just getting up early to write some comedy segments and on and on and on, and then I was driving around town all day doing auditions and rented an ex girlfriend's second bedroom so that I could nap by myself during the day, when I had an hour in and I would as I would fall asleep, I'd picture myself every single day I'm in a dark voiceover studio, a microphone Is before me, a music stand is before the microphone, and on it is a piece of paper with advertising copy on it. On the other side of the large piece of glass of the recording booth are three individuals, my employers, I begin to read, and somehow the text leaps off the page, streams into my eyes, letter for letter, word for word, into a part of my back brain that I don't understand and can't describe. It is processed in my semi conscious mind with the help of voice over training and hope and faith, and comes out my mouth, goes into the microphone, is recorded in the digital recorder, and those three men, like little monkeys, lean forward and say, Wow, how do you do that? That was my daily creative visualization. Michael, that was my daily fantasy. And I had learned that from from Dale Carnegie, and I had learned that from Olympic athletes on NBC TV in the 60s and 70s, when the announcer would say, this young man you're seeing practicing his high jump is actually standing there. He's standing stationary, and the bouncing of the head is he's actually rehearsing in his mind running and running and leaping over the seven feet two inch bar and falling into the sawdust. And now he's doing it again, and you could just barely see the man nodding his head on camera at the exact rhythm that he would be running the 25 yards toward the high bar and leaping, and he raised his head up during the imaginary lead that he was visualizing, and then he actually jumped the seven foot two inches. That's how I learned about creative visualization from NBC sports on TV.   Michael Hingson ** 43:23 Channel Four in Los Angeles. There you go. Well, so you you broke into voice over, and that's what you did.   Bill Ratner ** 43:38 That's what I did, darn it, I ain't stopping now, there's a wonderful old actor named Bill Irwin. There two Bill Irwin's one is a younger actor in his 50s or 60s, a brilliant actor from Broadway to film and TV. There's an older William Irwin. They also named Bill Irwin, who's probably in his 90s now. And I went to a premiere of a film, and he was always showing up in these films as The senile stock broker who answers the phone upside down, or the senile board member who always asks inappropriate questions. And I went up to him and I said, you know, I see you in everything, man. I'm 85 years old. Some friends and associates of mine tell me I should slow down. I only got cast in movies and TV when I was 65 I ain't slowing down. If I tried to slow down at 85 I'd have to stop That's my philosophy. My hero is the great Don Pardo, the late great   Michael Hingson ** 44:42 for Saturday Night Live and Jeopardy   Bill Ratner ** 44:45 lives starring Bill Murray, Gilder Radner, and   Michael Hingson ** 44:49 he died for Jeopardy before that,   Bill Ratner ** 44:52 yeah, died at 92 with I picture him, whether it probably not, with a microphone and. His hand in his in his soundproof booth, in his in his garage, and I believe he lived in Arizona, although the show was aired and taped in New York, New York, right where he worked for for decades as a successful announcer. So that's the story.   Michael Hingson ** 45:16 Michael. Well, you know, I miss, very frankly, some of the the the days of radio back in the 60s and 70s and so on. We had, in LA what you mentioned, Dick Whittington, Dick whittinghill on kmpc, Gary Owens, you know, so many people who were such wonderful announcers and doing some wonderful things, and radio just isn't the same anymore. It's gone. It's   Bill Ratner ** 45:47 gone to Tiktok and YouTube. And the truth is, I'm not gonna whine about Tiktok or YouTube, because some of the most creative moments on camera are being done on Tiktok and YouTube by young quote influencers who hire themselves out to advertisers, everything from lipstick. You know,   Speaker 1 ** 46:09 when I went to a party last night was just wild and but this makeup look, watch me apply this lip remover and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, no, I have no lip.   Bill Ratner ** 46:20 You know, these are the people with the voices. These are the new voices. And then, of course, the faces. And so I would really advise before, before people who, in fact, use the internet. If you use the internet, you can't complain if you use the internet, if you go to Facebook or Instagram, or you get collect your email or Google, this or that, which most of us do, it's handy. You can't complain about tick tock, tick tock, tick tock. You can't complain about tick tock or YouTube, because it's what the younger generation is using, and it's what the younger generation advertisers and advertising executives and creators and musicians and actors are using to parade before us, as Gary Owens did, as Marlon Brando did, as Sarah Bernhardt did in the 19 so as all as you do, Michael, you're a parader. You're the head of the parade. You've been in on your own float for years. I read your your bio. I don't even know why you want to waste a minute talking to me for goodness sakes.   Michael Hingson ** 47:26 You know, the one thing about podcasts that I like over radio, and I did radio at kuci for seven years when I was in school, what I really like about podcasts is they're not and this is also would be true for Tiktok and YouTube. Primarily Tiktok, I would would say it isn't as structured. So if we don't finish in 60 minutes, and we finish in 61 minutes, no one's gonna shoot us.   Bill Ratner ** 47:53 Well, I beg to differ with you. Now. I'm gonna start a fight with you. Michael, yeah, we need conflict in this script. Is that it The Tick Tock is very structured. Six. No,   Michael Hingson ** 48:03 no, I understand that. I'm talking about podcasts,   Bill Ratner ** 48:07 though, but there's a problem. We gotta Tone It Up. We gotta pick it up. We gotta there's a lot of and I listen to what are otherwise really bright, wonderful personalities on screen, celebrities who have podcasts and the car sucks, and then I had meatballs for dinner, haha. And you know what my wife said? Why? You know? And there's just too much of that. And,   Michael Hingson ** 48:32 oh, I understand, yeah. I mean, it's like, like anything, but I'm just saying that's one of the reasons I love podcasting. So it's my way of continuing what I used to do in radio and having a lot of fun doing it   Bill Ratner ** 48:43 all right, let me ask you. Let me ask you a technical and editorial question. Let me ask you an artistic question. An artist, can you edit this podcast? Yeah. Are you? Do you plan to Nope.   Michael Hingson ** 48:56 I think conversations are conversations, but there is a but, I mean,   Bill Ratner ** 49:01 there have been starts and stops and I answer a question, and there's a long pause, and then, yeah, we can do you edit that stuff   Michael Hingson ** 49:08 out. We do, we do, edit some of that out. And I have somebody that that that does a lot of it, because I'm doing more podcasts, and also I travel and speak, but I can edit. There's a program called Reaper, which is really a very sophisticated   Bill Ratner ** 49:26 close up spaces. You   Michael Hingson ** 49:28 can close up spaces with it, yes, but the neat thing about Reaper is that somebody has written scripts to make it incredibly accessible for blind people using screen readers.   Bill Ratner ** 49:40 What does it do? What does it do? Give me the elevator pitch.   Michael Hingson ** 49:46 You've seen some of the the programs that people use, like computer vision and other things to do editing of videos and so on. Yeah.   Bill Ratner ** 49:55 Yeah. Even Apple. Apple edit. What is it called? Apple? Garage Band. No, that's audio. What's that   Michael Hingson ** 50:03 audio? Oh,   Bill Ratner ** 50:06 quick time is quick   Michael Hingson ** 50:07 time. But whether it's video or audio, the point is that Reaper allows me to do all of that. I can edit audio. I can insert, I can remove pauses. I can do anything with Reaper that anyone else can do editing audio, because it's been made completely accessible.   Bill Ratner ** 50:27 That's great. That's good. That's nice. Oh, it is. It's cool.   Michael Hingson ** 50:31 So so if I want, I can edit this and just have my questions and then silence when you're talking.   Bill Ratner ** 50:38 That might be best. Ladies and gentlemen, here's Bill Ratner,   Michael Hingson ** 50:46 yep, exactly, exactly. Now you have won the moth stories. Slam, what? Tell me about my story. Slam, you've won it nine times.   Bill Ratner ** 51:00 The Moth was started by a writer, a novelist who had lived in the South and moved to New York City, successful novelist named George Dawes green. And the inception of the moth, which many people listening are familiar with from the Moth Radio Hour. It was, I believe, either late 90s or early 2000s when he'd been in New York for a while and was was publishing as a fiction writer, and threw a party, and decided, instead of going to one of these dumb, boring parties or the same drinks being served and same cigarettes being smoked out in the veranda and the same orders. I'm going to ask people to bring a five minute story, a personal story, nature, a true story. You don't have to have one to get into the party, but I encourage you to. And so you know, the 3040, 50 people showed up, many of whom had stories, and they had a few drinks, and they had hors d'oeuvres. And then he said, Okay, ladies and gentlemen, take your seats. It's time for and then I picked names out of a hat, and person after person after person stood up in a very unusual setting, which was almost never done at parties. You How often do you see that happen? Suddenly, the room falls silent, and someone with permission being having been asked by the host to tell a personal story, some funny, some tragic, some complex, some embarrassing, some racy, some wild, some action filled. And afterward, the feedback he got from his friends was, this is the most amazing experience I've ever had in my life. And someone said, you need to do this. And he said, Well, you people left a lot of cigarette butts and beer cans around my apartment. And they said, well, let's do it at a coffee shop. Let's do it at a church basement. So slowly but surely, the moth storytelling, story slams, which were designed after the old poetry slams in the 50s and 60s, where they were judged contests like, like a dance contest. Everybody's familiar with dance contests? Well, there were, then came poetry contests with people singing and, you know, and singing and really energetically, really reading. There then came storytelling contests with people standing on a stage before a silent audience, telling a hopefully interesting, riveting story, beginning middle, end in five minutes. And so a coffee house was found. A monthly calendar was set up. Then came the internet. Then it was so popular standing room only that they had to open yet another and another, and today, some 20 years later, 20 some years later, from Austin, Texas to San Francisco, California to Minneapolis, Minnesota to New York City to Los Angeles. There are moth story slams available on online for you to schedule yourself to go live and in person at the moth.org as in the moth with wings. Friend of mine, I was in New York. He said, You can't believe it. This writer guy, a writer friend of mine who I had read, kind of an avant garde, strange, funny writer was was hosting something called the moth in New York, and we were texting each other. He said, Well, I want to go. The theme was show business. I was going to talk to my Uncle Bobby, who was the bell boy. And I Love Lucy. I'll tell a story. And I texted him that day. He said, Oh man, I'm so sorry. I had the day wrong. It's next week. Next week, I'm going to be back home. And so he said, Well, I think there's a moth in Los Angeles. So about 15 years ago, I searched it down and what? Went to a small Korean barbecue that had a tiny little stage that originally was for Korean musicians, and it was now being used for everything from stand up comedy to evenings of rock and roll to now moth storytelling once a month. And I think the theme was first time. And so I got up and told a silly story and didn't win first prize. They have judges that volunteer judges a table of three judges scoring, you like, at a swim meet or a track beat or, you know, and our gymnastics meet. So this is all sort of familiar territory for everybody, except it's storytelling and not high jumping or pull ups. And I kept going back. I was addicted to it. I would write a story and I'd memorize it, and I'd show up and try to make it four minutes and 50 seconds and try to make it sound like I was really telling a story and not reading from a script. And wish I wasn't, because I would throw the script away, and I knew the stories well enough. And then they created a radio show. And then I began to win slams and compete in the grand slams. And then I started submitting these 750 word, you know, two and a half page stories. Literary magazines got a few published and found a whole new way to spend my time and not make much   Michael Hingson ** 56:25 money. Then you went into poetry.   Bill Ratner ** 56:29 Then I got so bored with my prose writing that I took a poetry course from a wonderful guy in LA called Jack grapes, who had been an actor and a football player and come to Hollywood and did some TV, episodics and and some some episodic TV, and taught poetry. It was a poet in the schools, and I took his class of adults and got a poem published. And thought, wait a minute, these aren't even 750 words. They're like 75 words. I mean, you could write a 10,000 word poem if you want, but some people have, yeah, and it was complex, and there was so much to read and so much to learn and so much that was interesting and odd. And a daughter of a friend of mine is a poet, said, Mommy, are you going to read me one of those little word movies before I go to sleep?   Michael Hingson ** 57:23 A little word movie, word movie out of the   Bill Ratner ** 57:27 mouths of babes. Yeah, and so, so and I perform. You know, last night, I was in Orange County at a organization called ugly mug Cafe, and a bunch of us poets read from an anthology that was published, and we sold our books, and heard other young poets who were absolutely marvelous and and it's, you know, it's not for everybody, but it's one of the things I do.   Michael Hingson ** 57:54 Well, you sent me pictures of book covers, so they're going to be in the show notes. And I hope people will will go out and get them   Bill Ratner ** 58:01 cool. One of the one of the things that I did with poetry, in addition to wanting to get published and wanting to read before people, is wanting to see if there is a way. Because poetry was, was very satisfying, emotionally to me, intellectually very challenging and satisfying at times. And emotionally challenging and very satisfying at times, writing about things personal, writing about nature, writing about friends, writing about stories that I received some training from the National Association for poetry therapy. Poetry therapy is being used like art therapy, right? And have conducted some sessions and and participated in many and ended up working with eighth graders of kids who had lost someone to death in the past year of their lives. This is before covid in the public schools in Los Angeles. And so there's a lot of that kind of work that is being done by constable people, by writers, by poets, by playwrights,   Michael Hingson ** 59:09 and you became a grief counselor,   Bill Ratner ** 59:13 yes, and don't do that full time, because I do voiceovers full time, right? Write poetry and a grand. Am an active grandparent, but I do the occasional poetry session around around grief poetry.   Michael Hingson ** 59:31 So you're a grandparent, so you've had kids and all that. Yes, sir, well, that's is your wife still with us? Yes?   Bill Ratner ** 59:40 Oh, great, yeah, she's an artist and an art educator. Well, that   Michael Hingson ** 59:46 so the two of you can criticize each other's works, then, just   Bill Ratner ** 59:52 saying, we're actually pretty kind to each other. I Yeah, we have a lot of we have a lot of outside criticism. Them. So, yeah, you don't need to do it internally. We don't rely on it. What do you think of this although, although, more than occasionally, each of us will say, What do you think of this poem, honey? Or what do you think of this painting, honey? And my the favorite, favorite thing that my wife says that always thrills me and makes me very happy to be with her is, I'll come down and she's beginning a new work of a new piece of art for an exhibition somewhere. I'll say, what? Tell me about what's, what's going on with that, and she'll go, you know, I have no idea, but it'll tell me what to do.   Michael Hingson ** 1:00:33 Yeah, it's, it's like a lot of authors talk about the fact that their characters write the stories right, which, which makes a lot of sense. So with all that you've done, are you writing a memoir? By any chance, I   Bill Ratner ** 1:00:46 am writing a memoir, and writing has been interesting. I've been doing it for many years. I got it was my graduate thesis from University of California Riverside Palm Desert.   Michael Hingson ** 1:00:57 My wife was a UC Riverside graduate. Oh, hi. Well, they   Bill Ratner ** 1:01:01 have a low residency program where you go for 10 days in January, 10 days in June. The rest of it's online, which a lot of universities are doing, low residency programs for people who work and I got an MFA in creative writing nonfiction, had a book called parenting for the digital age, the truth about media's effect on children. And was halfway through it, the publisher liked it, but they said you got to double the length. So I went back to school to try to figure out how to double the length. And was was able to do it, and decided to move on to personal memoir and personal storytelling, such as goes on at the moth but a little more personal than that. Some of the material that I was reading in the memoir section of a bookstore was very, very personal and was very helpful to read about people who've gone through particular issues in their childhood. Mine not being physical abuse or sexual abuse, mine being death and loss, which is different. And so that became a focus of my graduate thesis, and many people were urging me to write a memoir. Someone said, you need to do a one man show. So I entered the Hollywood fringe and did a one man show and got good reviews and had a good time and did another one man show the next year and and so on. So But writing memoir as anybody knows, and they're probably listeners who are either taking memoir courses online or who may be actively writing memoirs or short memoir pieces, as everybody knows it, can put you through moods from absolutely ecstatic, oh my gosh, I got this done. I got this story told, and someone liked it, to oh my gosh, I'm so depressed I don't understand why. Oh, wait a minute, I was writing about such and such today. Yeah. So that's the challenge for the memoir is for the personal storyteller, it's also, you know, and it's more of a challenge than it is for the reader, unless it's bad writing and the reader can't stand that. For me as a reader, I'm fascinated by people's difficult stories, if they're well   Michael Hingson ** 1:03:24 told well, I know that when in 2002 I was advised to write a book about the World Trade Center experiences and all, and it took eight years to kind of pull it all together. And then I met a woman who actually I collaborated with, Susie Florey, and we wrote thunder dog. And her agent became my agent, who loved the proposal that we sent and actually got a contract within a week. So thunder dog came out in 2011 was a New York Times bestseller, and very blessed by that, and we're working toward the day that it will become a movie still, but it'll happen. And then I wrote a children's version of it, well, not a children's version of the book, but a children's book about me growing up in Roselle, growing up the guide dog who was with me in the World Trade Center, and that's been on Amazon. We self published it. Then last year, we published a new book called Live like a guide dog, which is all about controlling fear and teaching people lessons that I learned prior to September 11. That helped me focus and remain calm.   Bill Ratner ** 1:04:23 What happened to you on September 11,   Michael Hingson ** 1:04:27 I was in the World Trade Center. I worked on the 78th floor of Tower One.   Bill Ratner ** 1:04:32 And what happened? I mean, what happened to you?   Michael Hingson ** 1:04:36 Um, nothing that day. I mean, well, I got out. How did you get out? Down the stairs? That was the only way to go. So, so the real story is not doing it, but why it worked. And the real issue is that I spent a lot of time when I first went into the World Trade Center, learning all I could about what to do in an emergency, talking to police, port authorities. Security people, emergency preparedness people, and also just walking around the world trade center and learning the whole place, because I ran an office for a company, and I wasn't going to rely on someone else to, like, lead me around if we're going to go to lunch somewhere and take people out before we negotiated contracts. So I needed to know all of that, and I learned all I could, also realizing that if there ever was an emergency, I might be the only one in the office, or we might be in an area where people couldn't read the signs to know what to do anyway. And so I had to take the responsibility of learning all that, which I did. And then when the planes hit 18 floors above us on the other side of the building, we get we had some guests in the office. Got them out, and then another colleague, who was in from our corporate office, and I and my guide dog, Roselle, went to the stairs, and we started down. And   Bill Ratner ** 1:05:54 so, so what floor did the plane strike?   Michael Hingson ** 1:05:58 It struck and the NOR and the North Tower, between floors 93 and 99 so I just say 96 okay, and you were 20 floors down, 78 floors 78 so we were 18 floors below, and   Bill Ratner ** 1:06:09 at the moment of impact, what did you think?   Michael Hingson ** 1:06:13 Had no idea we heard a muffled kind of explosion, because the plane hit on the other side of the building, 18 floors above us. There was no way to know what was going on. Did you feel? Did you feel? Oh, the building literally tipped, probably about 20 feet. It kept tipping. And then we actually said goodbye to each other, and then the building came back upright. And then we went,   Bill Ratner ** 1:06:34 really you so you thought you were going to die?   Michael Hingson ** 1:06:38 David, my colleague who was with me, as I said, he was from our California office, and he was there to help with some seminars we were going to be doing. We actually were saying goodbye to each other because we thought we were about to take a 78 floor plunge to the street, when the building stopped tipping and it came back. Designed to do that by the architect. It was designed to do that, which is the point, the point.   Bill Ratner ** 1:07:02 Goodness, gracious. And then did you know how to get to the stairway?   Michael Hingson ** 1:07:04 Oh, absolutely. And did you do it with your friend? Yeah, the first thing we did, the first thing we did is I got him to get we had some guests, and I said, get him to the stairs. Don't let him take the elevators, because I knew he had seen fire above us, but that's all we knew. And but I said, don't take the elevators. Don't let them take elevators. Get them to the stairs and then come back and we'll leave. So he did all that, and then he came back, and we went to the stairs and started down.   Bill Ratner ** 1:07:33 Wow. Could you smell anything?   Michael Hingson ** 1:07:36 We smelled burning jet fuel fumes on the way down. And that's how we figured out an airplane must have hit the building, but we had no idea what happened. We didn't know what happened until the until both towers had collapsed, and I actually talked to my wife, and she's the one who told us how to aircraft have been crashed into the towers, one into the Pentagon, and a fourth, at that time, was still missing over Pennsylvania. Wow. So you'll have to go pick up a copy of thunder dog. Goodness. Good. Thunder dog. The name of the book is Thunder dog, and the book I wrote last year is called Live like a guide dog. It's le

It's Friday, October 24th, A.D. 2025. This is The Worldview in 5 Minutes heard on 140 radio stations and at www.TheWorldview.com.  I'm Adam McManus. (Adam@TheWorldview.com) By Adam McManus Spanish priest acquitted on hate crime charges for criticizing radical Islam A Spanish Catholic priest who was facing three years in prison for making critical remarks about radical Islam nearly a decade ago has been acquitted, reports The Christian Post. The advocacy organization Abogados Cristianos announced in an X post last Friday that “The Malaga Court [acquitted] Pastor Custodio [Ballester], prosecuted for criticizing Islam: there is no hate crime.” In 2016, Ballester was charged with saying, “Islam does not allow for dialogue. You either believe or you are an infidel who must be subdued one way or another.” The Rev. Franklin Graham praised Ballester's acquittal as “good news” in an X post on Monday.  A report published last month by the Spanish Observatory for Religious Freedom and Conscience found that 69% of the attacks were directed at Christians, while instances of antisemitism grew by 38% compared to 2023 and had increased by 867% since 2022. Senator Schumer's shutdown flip flop, afraid of an AOC challenge Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Minority Leader of the U.S. Senate, has historically opposed government shutdowns. He opposed a shutdown on October 16, 2013. SCHUMER: “What if I persuaded my caucus to say I'm going to shut the government down. I'm going to not pay our bills unless I get my way. It's a politics of idiocy, of confrontation, of paralysis.” Then, Senator Schumer opposed a government shutdown on January 25, 2019. SCHUMER: “Shutting down government over a policy difference is self-defeating. We can never hold American workers hostage again.” And, as recently as March 13th of this year, Senator Schumer opposed a government shutdown then. SCHUMER:  “While the [Continuing Resolution] bill is very bad, the potential for a shutdown has consequences for America that are much, much worse. Therefore, I will vote to keep the government open and not shut it down.” But now, Democratic Senator Schumer is leading the fight for the government shutdown, driven by the AOC/Sanders wing of his party. Listen to CNN's John Berman's introduction of his recent appearance. BERMAN: “Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who joins us now from Capitol Hill. Senator, I was saying that every Republican who's gone on TV the last, what nine hours or so, has called this the ‘Schumer Shutdown.” Later, Berman said this. BERMAN: “Everyone in Congress right now, on the Republican side, is really pointing the finger squarely at you personally. And one of the things they're saying is, this is about politics in New York, that you might face a primary from Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.” In fact, Republican Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana said as much. KENNEDY: “Senator Schumer, his relationship with the truth is very casual. The truth is that this is a political shutdown. Senator Schumer is nervous as a pregnant nun about losing his re-election to the socialist wing of his party led by Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez, which is in control. “Now, we will eventually come out of this shutdown. Here's how I think it will happen. Senator Schumer is a smart man. He's been around a long time. His first car was a chariot. Washington is all he's ever known his entire life. He knows he's on shaky ground here in terms of policy. “So, here's how I think it'll end. Schumer will go to six or eight of his colleagues, Democrats of course, and say, ‘I want you to vote to lift the shutdown.' He'll say, ‘I can't vote with you. I've got to appear to be tough. I may even have to criticize you, but' -- wink wink, nod nod – ‘I'm trying to make the loon wing of the party love me, but you bail me out here.' But he's got to be careful with that, because he doesn't want it to look like a mutiny, because then he looks even weaker.” CA teacher to ICE: “They are not the only ones with guns in this city.” The Department of Homeland Security will refer a California teacher for a possible criminal probe after he made threatening comments toward immigration officials, reports WorldNetDaily.com. Listen to Los Angeles Unified School District history teacher Ron Gochez. GOCHEZ: “Don't forget where you're standing. This is South Central Los Angeles. They are not the only ones with guns in this city. They're not the only ones that don't forget that. And I don't say that because we're calling it for violence. I'm saying that because the people have every right to defend themselves against masked, unidentified gunmen with AR-15s and other military rifles.” Gochez founded the Los Angeles chapter of Union del Barrio—a revolutionary socialist movement that demands an end to capitalism and open borders from Alaska to Chile. The group sees communist dictators like Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez, and Che Guevara as heroes. DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said that the teacher's comments endanger ICE agents' lives. New Bible story book injects sexual perversion, gender confusion, and woke ideology And finally, a new children's book of Bible stories claims that the Bible has "made-up" stories and events in its pages, drawing criticism from Focus on the Family, reports The Christian Post. The Just Love Story Bible, authored by Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis and Rev. Dr. Shannon Harris, reimagines 52 stories from the Old and New Testaments, weaving in sexual perversion, gender confusion, and woke ideology. For them, the Bible is not authoritative; they are. In the book's introduction to Genesis, the woke authors, who are part of the leftist Presbyterian Church (USA), write, "Some of the stories had made-up characters and events. Others were about real people and things that really happened." Harris, an associate dean at Auburn Theological Seminary in New York City, explained her motivation behind the project at a Q&A event for the book in September. HARRIS: “I wanted to do this project with Jackie, because when my kids were little, it was really hard to find a children's Bible that I didn't feel like I had to change some of the words. Like there might be stories that talked about God, like God was a boy (laughing) and only used kind of male language for God. Or they might tell a story, but they wouldn't tell enough about the story to understand whether it was about a made-up character or a real person.” Later, to the audience of parents and young children, she read an excerpt from her woke Just Love Story Bible in which she reinterpreted the plagues and other punishments that God had sent to get Pharoah's attention or the attention of His chosen people, the Jews. HARRIS: “Four natural disasters, one after the other. Well, the prophet and the people thought they were to blame. They thought that the disasters were God's way of punishing them. They didn't know that when bad things happen, like swarms of bugs, floods, earthquakes or tornadoes, it's not God's punishment, but it's easy to worry when bad things happen, to feel like God's angry at you, even when that's not true.” Inspired by the Joel 2:28 passage, Harris also imagined what a young person might envision. HARRIS: “So what did the young people prophesy back then? Perhaps one of them bravely announced to the prophets, priests and people: ‘I don't believe that our loving God sends terrible things to teach us a lesson.'” In an op-ed published by Focus on the Family's news arm, Daily Citizen, Paul Batura warned families about The Just Love Story Bible. He said, "[T]he motives of the authors appear broader and far more dangerous than merely trumpeting diversity. They also want to sow seeds of doubt in children's minds that the events depicted in the Bible are literally true, including the Resurrection.” He added, "Questioning the accuracy and authority of the Bible is hardly a new exercise, but so blatantly and openly selling such a heretical interpretation of God's Word to children undermines God's sacred Word in a particularly dangerous and destructive way." Indeed, 2 Timothy 4:3-4 says, “For a time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths."  Close And that's The Worldview on this Friday, October 24th, in the year of our Lord 2025. Follow us on X or subscribe for free by Spotify, Amazon Music, or by iTunes or email to our unique Christian newscast at www.TheWorldview.com.  I'm Adam McManus (Adam@TheWorldview.com). Seize the day for Jesus Christ.

A whistleblower inside the Los Angeles Unified School District has come forward with shocking evidence — stacks of left-wing flyers, posters, and propaganda pulled straight from teachers’ lounges across the district. These weren’t lesson plans or student materials… they were political rally cries — “No Kings,” “Workers Unite,” “Protest!” — the kind of radical messaging you’d expect from activist groups, not classrooms. Grant Stinchfield exposes how these angry liberal educators are using taxpayer-funded schools to push their ideology, not teach America’s kids. This is a deep dive into the political indoctrination hiding behind classroom doors — and why parents must take back control of what’s being taught in our schools. GrantLovesGold.com Get20Now.com www.EnergizedHealth.com/Grant www.PatriotMobile.com/Grant TWC.Health/Grant Use "Grant" for 10% Off See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Following Trump's second term in office, the Los Angeles Unified School District has agreed to uphold their student and community protections while also adding new resources such as legal advice and support hotlines to their plan. LA plans to put their students' education and protection first. KCSB's Fiona Anderson has the story.

Alberto Carvalho, Superintendent of Los Angeles Unified School District., joins Paul E. Peterson to discuss how the district has worked to turn around lower performing schools.

In this week's episode, Sharona and Boz sit down with Marc Aronson, Dean of Students at Cheshire Academy in Cheshire, CT. This fascinating conversations begins with grading what matters but goes into innovation ways of approaching honors classes, using authentic assessments in the form of final demonstrations of learning, and finding ways to use the external motivations of grades to grade things beyond discipline content and practices. LinksPlease note - any books linked here are likely Amazon Associates links. Clicking on them and purchasing through them helps support the show. Thanks for your support!Cheshire AcademyResourcesThe Center for Grading Reform - seeking to advance education in the United States by supporting effective grading reform at all levels through conferences, educational workshops, professional development, research and scholarship, influencing public policy, and community building.The Grading Conference - an annual, online conference exploring Alternative Grading in Higher Education & K-12.Some great resources to educate yourself about Alternative Grading:The Grading for Growth BlogThe Grading ConferenceThe Intentional Academia BlogRecommended Books on Alternative Grading:Grading for Growth, by Robert Talbert and David ClarkSpecifications Grading, by Linda NilsenUndoing the Grade, by Jesse StommelFollow us on Bluesky, Facebook and Instagram - @thegradingpod. To leave us a comment, please go to our website: www.thegradingpod.com and leave a comment on this episode's page.If you would like to be considered to be a guest on this show, please reach out using the Contact Us form on our website, www.thegradingpod.com.All content of this podcast and website are solely the opinions of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily represent the views of California State University Los Angeles or the Los Angeles Unified School District.MusicCountry Rock performed by Lite...

A push to expand publicly-funded school choice programs across the country is gaining steam. In only three decades, the practice has grown dramatically and President Trump is supportive of the idea. But what effect do school choice policies have on the K-12 education system as a whole? And where do charter schools fit in this debate? In this discussion from the 2025 Aspen Ideas Festival, three education experts from various perspectives report on what the data is telling us and highlight the nuances we should be considering. Alberto Carvalho is the superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District, the second largest district in the country. Education journalist Cara Fitzpatrick reports for Chalkbeat and is the author of “The Death of Public School: How Conservatives Won the War Over Education in America.” And Tommy Schultz is the CEO of the American Federation for Children, which advocates for school choice. CBS co-anchor John Dickerson moderates the conversation, which was recorded in June.

(Tuesday Aug 12,2025)Amy King & Neil Saavedra join Bill for Handel on the News. Trump declared federal control of DC police and deployed the National Guard. Los Angeles Unified School District plans new bus routes, safe zones to keep students safe from immigration raids. Judge won't unseal Ghislaine Maxwell grand jury transcripts. Trump extends China tariff truce by three months.

Sharona sits down with MathFest 2025 attendees Drew Lewis, Jennifer Moorehouse, Lipika Deka, Jennifer Narang, and Cory Wilson to discuss what we heard on the ground at this year's conference. From people presenting their experiences to a variety of data and forward looking opportunities, Alt Grading is making the switch to mainstream!LinksPlease note - any books linked here are likely Amazon Associates links. Clicking on them and purchasing through them helps support the show. Thanks for your support!21 – Alt Grading in Large Chemistry Classes: An Interview with Dr. Eden TannerResourcesThe Center for Grading Reform - seeking to advance education in the United States by supporting effective grading reform at all levels through conferences, educational workshops, professional development, research and scholarship, influencing public policy, and community building.The Grading Conference - an annual, online conference exploring Alternative Grading in Higher Education & K-12.Some great resources to educate yourself about Alternative Grading:The Grading for Growth BlogThe Grading ConferenceThe Intentional Academia BlogRecommended Books on Alternative Grading:Grading for Growth, by Robert Talbert and David ClarkSpecifications Grading, by Linda NilsenUndoing the Grade, by Jesse StommelFollow us on Bluesky, Facebook and Instagram - @thegradingpod. To leave us a comment, please go to our website: www.thegradingpod.com and leave a comment on this episode's page.If you would like to be considered to be a guest on this show, please reach out using the Contact Us form on our website, www.thegradingpod.com.All content of this podcast and website are solely the opinions of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily represent the views of California State University Los Angeles or the Los Angeles Unified School District.MusicCountry Rock...

ICYMI: Hour One of ‘Later, with Mo'Kelly' Presents – Updates on the LADWP service outage…PLUS – A look at the top stolen vehicles in the United States AND the Los Angeles Unified School District's fleet of all-electric buses, complete with Wi-Fi - on KFI AM 640…Live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app & YouTube @MrMoKelly

“Every employment case is a story about betrayal,” says George Moschopoulos, who recently convinced jurors that the Los Angeles Unified School District failed to work in good faith to find his disabled client another role in the organization. Host Dan Ambrose unpacks the case, from the six-figure pretrial offer to the juror who compelled the team to pivot their strategy to the $3 million verdict. Tune in for George's insights about presenting clients as resilient survivors and mastering trial skills through deliberate practice.Train and Connect with the Titans☑️ George Moschopoulos | LinkedIn☑️ The Law Office of George Moschopoulos☑️ Trial Lawyers University☑️ TLU On Demand Instant access to live lectures, case analysis, and skills training videos☑️ TLU on X | Facebook | Instagram | LinkedIn☑️ Subscribe Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTubeEpisode SnapshotEngineer by day, law student by night: George traces his path.George describes how his first mentor, a Cornell Law grad with a BigLaw pedigree, guided his early career.At plaintiff's bar panel in the early-2000s, George was impressed by a speaker who discussed sexual harassment and disability discrimination and retaliation law. “I said, ‘Who's discriminating against anybody these days?' Just goes to show how little I knew.”George characterizes every employment case as a story of betrayal: the trusted relationship intentionally broken for the wrong reasons.George's first trial victory came in a disability discrimination case he thought was hopeless until discovering a smoking-gun email that advised the employer to "delete this email, smiley face."George credits TLU bootcamps for helping him change tactics, from focusing on "selling the bad" (victim suffering) to "selling the glad" (client resilience and recovery).In unpacking his recent victory on behalf of an injured school safety officer, George explains how he reframed the case after jury selection, when a 30-year district employee described school safety officers' physical intervention duties. George and Dan role-play cross-examining a defense medical expert.Produced and Powered by LawPods

In this episode, Sharona and Boz explore a recent article from EdWeek in which a middle school principal shares the motivations behind a switch to standards-based grading as well as the initial failures and eventual successes of that move. Join us as we talk about the tension between short term and long term results, the "why" of the switch to alternative grading practices, and the challenges with proper measurement both inside the classroom and outside of it.LinksPlease note - any books linked here are likely Amazon Associates links. Clicking on them and purchasing through them helps support the show. Thanks for your support!ResourcesThe Center for Grading Reform - seeking to advance education in the United States by supporting effective grading reform at all levels through conferences, educational workshops, professional development, research and scholarship, influencing public policy, and community building.The Grading Conference - an annual, online conference exploring Alternative Grading in Higher Education & K-12.Some great resources to educate yourself about Alternative Grading:The Grading for Growth BlogThe Grading ConferenceThe Intentional Academia BlogRecommended Books on Alternative Grading:Grading for Growth, by Robert Talbert and David ClarkSpecifications Grading, by Linda NilsenUndoing the Grade, by Jesse StommelFollow us on Bluesky, Facebook and Instagram - @thegradingpod. To leave us a comment, please go to our website: www.thegradingpod.com and leave a comment on this episode's page.If you would like to be considered to be a guest on this show, please reach out using the Contact Us form on our website, www.thegradingpod.com.All content of this podcast and website are solely the opinions of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily represent the views of California State University Los Angeles or the Los Angeles Unified School District.MusicCountry Rock performed by Lite Saturation, licensed under a

In this episode, Sharona and Bosley explore the ideas from Malcolm Gladwell's iconic book The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference. During the discussion, they explore the key indicators of a tipping point and discuss how we as a community might try to intentionally move towards a tipping point into mass awareness and (hopefully) adoption.LinksPlease note - any books linked here are likely Amazon Associates links. Clicking on them and purchasing through them helps support the show. Thanks for your support!The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, Malcolm GladwellResourcesThe Center for Grading Reform - seeking to advance education in the United States by supporting effective grading reform at all levels through conferences, educational workshops, professional development, research and scholarship, influencing public policy, and community building.The Grading Conference - an annual, online conference exploring Alternative Grading in Higher Education & K-12.Some great resources to educate yourself about Alternative Grading:The Grading for Growth BlogThe Grading ConferenceThe Intentional Academia BlogRecommended Books on Alternative Grading:Grading for Growth, by Robert Talbert and David ClarkSpecifications Grading, by Linda NilsenUndoing the Grade, by Jesse StommelFollow us on Bluesky, Facebook and Instagram - @thegradingpod. To leave us a comment, please go to our website: www.thegradingpod.com and leave a comment on this episode's page.If you would like to be considered to be a guest on this show, please reach out using the Contact Us form on our website, www.thegradingpod.com.All content of this podcast and website are solely the opinions of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily represent the views of California State University Los Angeles or the Los Angeles Unified School District.MusicCountry...

Public Health Careers podcast episode with  Nkechi Michel, MPH

In this episode, Sharona and Bosley sit down for a conversation with Dr. Sean Michael Morris to talk about Critical Digital Pedagogy. What is it? How can we think critically about our grading practices? How do we think critically about AI and it's impact on our grading choices?LinksPlease note - any books linked here are likely Amazon Associates links. Clicking on them and purchasing through them helps support the show. Thanks for your support!https://www.seanmichaelmorris.com/Critical Digital Pedagogy - What Is It?ResourcesThe Center for Grading Reform - seeking to advance education in the United States by supporting effective grading reform at all levels through conferences, educational workshops, professional development, research and scholarship, influencing public policy, and community building.The Grading Conference - an annual, online conference exploring Alternative Grading in Higher Education & K-12.Some great resources to educate yourself about Alternative Grading:The Grading for Growth BlogThe Grading ConferenceThe Intentional Academia BlogRecommended Books on Alternative Grading:Grading for Growth, by Robert Talbert and David ClarkSpecifications Grading, by Linda NilsenUndoing the Grade, by Jesse StommelFollow us on Bluesky, Facebook and Instagram - @thegradingpod. To leave us a comment, please go to our website: www.thegradingpod.com and leave a comment on this episode's page.If you would like to be considered to be a guest on this show, please reach out using the Contact Us form on our website, www.thegradingpod.com.All content of this podcast and website are solely the opinions of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily represent the views of California State University Los Angeles or the Los Angeles Unified School District.Music

Complex problems often assume complex solutions, but recent observations about increased levels of anxiety and depression, increased reports of loneliness, and lower rates of in-person friendships for teens and children in America today have led some school districts across the country to take direct and simple action: Take away the access to smartphones in schools.Not everyone is convinced. When social psychologist and author Jonathan Haidt proposed five solutions to what he called an "epidemic of mental illness" for young adults in America, many balked at the simplicity. Writing for the outlet Platformer, reporter Zoe Schiffer spoke with multiple behavioral psychologists who alleged that Haidt's book cherry-picks survey data, ignores mental health crises amongst adults, and over-simplifies a complex problem with a blunt solution. And in speaking on the podcast Power User, educator Brandon Cardet-Hernandez argued that phone bans in schools would harm the students that need phones the most for things like translation services and coordinating rides back home from parents with varying schedules. But Haidt isn't alone in thinking that smartphones have done serious harm to teenagers and kids today, and many schools across America are taking up the mantle to at least remove their access in their own hallways. In February, Los Angeles Unified School District did just that, and a board member for the school district told the Lock and Code podcast that he believes the change has been for the better. But for those still in doubt, there's a good reason now to look back. Today, on the Lock and Code podcast with host David Ruiz, we revisit a 2024 interview with Dr. Jean Twenge about her research into the differences in America between today's teens and the many generations that came before. A psychologist and published author, Twenge believes she has found enough data tying increased smartphone use and social media engagement with higher strains on mental health. In today's re-broadcast episode, Twenge explains where she believes there is a mental health crisis amongst today's teens, where it is unique to their generation, and whether it can all be traced to smartphones and social media. According to Dr. Twenge, the answer to all those questions is, pretty much, “Yes.” But, she said, there's still some hope to be found.“This is where the argument around smartphones and social media being behind the adolescent mental health crisis actually has, kind of paradoxically, some optimism to it. Because if that's the cause, that means we can do something about it.”Tune in today to listen to the full conversation.You can also find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and whatever preferred podcast platform you use.For all our cybersecurity coverage, visit Malwarebytes Labs at malwarebytes.com/blog.Show notes and credits:Intro Music: “Spellbound” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Outro Music: “Good God” by Wowa (unminus.com)Listen up—Malwarebytes doesn't just talk cybersecurity, we provide...

In Episode 2 of our series on Admission Nutrients, Ethan is joined by Raissa Diamante, the Director  of Admission at Harvey Mudd College, to do a deep dive into collaboration — why is it important to colleges and where does it show up in the application process? Ethan and Raissa get into, among other things: What does the admission review process look like at Harvey Mudd? Why is collaboration particularly important (spoiler: it's one of the main things they look for)? Tips for the supplemental essay (side note: it's a prompt they've kept some version of over the past 15 years) via a brief analysis of a real essay from a past student What does Raissa think about students using Chat-GPT / generative AI for their essays? What do students miss or get wrong about the college admission process? Can students write about race in their college application essays? And more!   Raissa Diamante is the Executive Director of Admission at Harvey Mudd College (HMC) in Claremont, CA. She grew up in a mixed immigration status home and is a proud product of the Los Angeles Unified School District. Raissa believes in the power of data in storytelling as a means to operationalizing change. She takes pride in developing and implementing strategies that help make institutions more representative of our society. Prior to HMC, Raissa was the Director of Multicultural Recruitment at Swarthmore College and worked at the Office for Multicultural Affairs at Barnard College. She earned her Bachelor's degree from the University of California, Berkeley and her Master's degree from Teachers College, Columbia University. In her spare time, she enjoys playing with her child, working on puzzles, and being an introvert.   We hope you enjoy!   Play-by-Play 2:50 – What are some of Raissa's roles and identities?  9:02 – What goes on behind-the-scenes in Raissa's office at Harvey Mudd?  16:50 – Why is collaboration important, from Harvey Mudd's perspective? 21:24 – Where do collaborative qualities show up in the application?  23:18 – What are some qualities of collaboration that students might not think of? 31:28 – Analyzing a past supplemental essay prompt for Harvey Mudd   41:07 – What does Raissa think about students using Chat-GPT / generative AI for their essays? 48:35 – What do students miss or get wrong about the college admission process? 50:56 – What are some ways that Harvey Mudd is approaching access and equity?  54:32 – Can students write about race in their college application essays? 58:31 – Wrap up and closing thoughts     Resources: CEG Podcast Episode 605 - Navigating College Applications with AI (Part 1): How High School Teachers and Students Use Tools Like ChatGPT Navigating College Applications with AI  | foundry10 College Essay Guy's Personal Statement Resources College Essay Guy's College Application Hub  

We made it to episode 100! Join us as we welcome back to the pod, for the first time altogether, David Clark, Kate Owens, and Robert Talbert! With Sharona and Boz we made up the original organizing team for the 2020 Grading Conference. We talk about the journey getting to here, and where we see things going (and what we hope to see) in the next 10 years! ResourcesThe Center for Grading Reform - seeking to advance education in the United States by supporting effective grading reform at all levels through conferences, educational workshops, professional development, research and scholarship, influencing public policy, and community building.The Grading Conference - an annual, online conference exploring Alternative Grading in Higher Education & K-12.Some great resources to educate yourself about Alternative Grading:The Grading for Growth BlogThe Grading ConferenceThe Intentional Academia BlogRecommended Books on Alternative Grading:Grading for Growth, by Robert Talbert and David ClarkSpecifications Grading, by Linda NilsenUndoing the Grade, by Jesse StommelFollow us on Bluesky, Facebook and Instagram - @thegradingpod. To leave us a comment, please go to our website: www.thegradingpod.com and leave a comment on this episode's page.If you would like to be considered to be a guest on this show, please reach out using the Contact Us form on our website, www.thegradingpod.com.All content of this podcast and website are solely the opinions of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily represent the views of California State University Los Angeles or the Los Angeles Unified School District.MusicCountry Rock performed by Lite Saturation, licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

The Los Angeles Unified School District created its own 457(b) plan, and it's excellent. It has won not one, but two awards. We speak with two members of the LAUSD Retirement Investment Advisory Committee who were and are instrumental to its success.   LAUSD 457(b) Deferred Compensation Plan Fund Lineup Learned by Being Burned (short pod series about K-12 403(b) issues) 403bwise.org Meridian Wealth Management Nothing presented or discussed is to be construed as investment or tax advice. This can be secured from a vetted Certified Financial Planner (CFP®). 

In this episode, many of the organizers of this year's conference join Sharona and Bosley to preview the upcoming conference and talk about some of the community aspects of The Grading Conference. We welcome Ashleigh Fox, Jenni Momsen, Emily Pitts Donahoe, and Melanie Lenahan.LinksPlease note - any books linked here are likely Amazon Associates links. Clicking on them and purchasing through them helps support the show. Thanks for your support!In preparation for the conference, please join the Alternative Grading SlackResourcesThe Center for Grading Reform - seeking to advance education in the United States by supporting effective grading reform at all levels through conferences, educational workshops, professional development, research and scholarship, influencing public policy, and community building.The Grading Conference - an annual, online conference exploring Alternative Grading in Higher Education & K-12.Some great resources to educate yourself about Alternative Grading:The Grading for Growth BlogThe Grading ConferenceThe Intentional Academia BlogRecommended Books on Alternative Grading:Grading for Growth, by Robert Talbert and David ClarkSpecifications Grading, by Linda NilsenUndoing the Grade, by Jesse StommelFollow us on Bluesky, Facebook and Instagram - @thegradingpod. To leave us a comment, please go to our website: www.thegradingpod.com and leave a comment on this episode's page.If you would like to be considered to be a guest on this show, please reach out using the Contact Us form on our website, www.thegradingpod.com.All content of this podcast and website are solely the opinions of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily represent the views of California State University Los Angeles or the Los Angeles Unified School District.MusicCountry Rock performed by Lite Saturation, licensed under a

In this episode, Sharona and Bosley discuss different ways to look at the grade wrap up portion of the grading architecture as it relates to learning outcomes as well as assessments. They discuss the well known "more hurdles, higher hurdles" metaphor but expand it into three different types of hurdles instead of the two we have used previously. From different learning outcomes, to different proficiency scale levels, to different levels of difficulty of problems on assessment, there are many way to distinguish an "A" from a "B" from a "C". Also, a preview of some of the sessions at the upcoming Grading Conference!ResourcesThe Center for Grading Reform - seeking to advance education in the United States by supporting effective grading reform at all levels through conferences, educational workshops, professional development, research and scholarship, influencing public policy, and community building.The Grading Conference - an annual, online conference exploring Alternative Grading in Higher Education & K-12.Some great resources to educate yourself about Alternative Grading:The Grading for Growth BlogThe Grading ConferenceThe Intentional Academia BlogRecommended Books on Alternative Grading:Grading for Growth, by Robert Talbert and David ClarkSpecifications Grading, by Linda NilsenUndoing the Grade, by Jesse StommelFollow us on Bluesky, Facebook and Instagram - @thegradingpod. To leave us a comment, please go to our website: www.thegradingpod.com and leave a comment on this episode's page.If you would like to be considered to be a guest on this show, please reach out using the Contact Us form on our website, www.thegradingpod.com.All content of this podcast and website are solely the opinions of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily represent the views of California State University Los Angeles or the Los Angeles Unified School District.MusicCountry Rock performed by Lite Saturation, licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives...

There's a problem in class today, and the second largest school district in the United States is trying to solve it.After looking at the growing body of research that has associated increased smartphone and social media usage with increased levels of anxiety, depression, suicidal thoughts, and isolation—especially amongst adolescents and teenagers—Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) implemented a cellphone ban across its 1,000 schools for its more than 500,000 students.Under the ban, students who are kindergartners all the way through high school seniors cannot use cellphones, smartphones, smart watches, earbuds, smart glasses, and any other electronic devices that can send messages, receive calls, or browse the internet. Phones are not allowed at lunch or during passing periods between classes, and, under the ban, individual schools decide how students' phones are stored, be that in lockers, in magnetically sealed pouches, or just placed into sleeves at the front door of every classroom, away from students' reach.The ban was approved by the Los Angeles Unified School District through what is called a “resolution”—which the board voted on last year. LAUSD Board Member Nick Melvoin, who sponsored the resolution, said the overall ban was the right decision to help students. “The research is clear: widespread use of smartphones and social media by kids and adolescents is harmful to their mental health, distracts from learning, and stifles meaningful in-person interaction.”Today, on the Lock and Code podcast with host David Ruiz, we speak with LAUSD Board Member Nick Melvoin about the smartphone ban, how exceptions were determined, where opposition arose, and whether it is “working.” Melvoin also speaks about the biggest changes he has seen in the first few months of the cellphone ban, especially the simple reintroduction of noise in hallways.“[During a school visit last year,] every single kid was on their phone, every single kid. They were standing there looking, texting again, sometimes texting someone who was within a few feet of them, and it was quiet.”Tune in today.You can also find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and whatever preferred podcast platform you use.For all our cybersecurity coverage, visit Malwarebytes Labs at malwarebytes.com/blog.Show notes and credits:Intro Music: “Spellbound” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Outro Music: “Good God” by Wowa (unminus.com)Listen up—Malwarebytes doesn't just talk cybersecurity, we provide it.Protect yourself from online attacks that threaten your identity, your files, your system, and your financial well-being with our exclusive offer for Malwarebytes Premium for Lock and Code listeners.

In today's episode of The Edge of Excellence podcast, Matt is joined by Sharon Taylor, widely regarded as the greatest headmaster in the history of Southern California schools.During this insightful conversation, Matt and Sharon explore the intricate journey of leadership within a unique and impactful field. They explore how passion for education can evolve into higher leadership roles and the complexities that come with that transition. Through candid reflections, the conversation touches on the balance between nurturing personal connections and managing broader organizational responsibilities, offering a fresh perspective on what it means to lead effectively in a setting dedicated to growth and development.You'll learn about the importance of vision, mission, and values as the cornerstones of any successful endeavor. Sharon shares her experiences of shaping and refining a guiding philosophy that not only supports the internal culture but also helps navigate challenges and capitalize on opportunities for long-term sustainability.This episode offers valuable insights for anyone passionate about education, leadership, or making a tangible difference in the lives of others.Don't miss another episode of The Edge of Excellence podcast. Leave a review and subscribe todayWhat You Will Learn In This Show:Why the values of kindness and curiosity are essential components of excellence. Sharon's desire to become a teacher from a young age and her work ethic, such as working through high school and college.Her involvement in sorority leadership during college, which helped her develop her leadership skills. The importance of clarifying a school's mission, vision, and values to guide decision-making and hiring practices.The value of long-term sustainability and the role of the board of trustees in supporting the school's goals.And much more...Guest Bio:Sharon brings over 30 years of experience in education. She began her career as a grade one teacher in the Los Angeles Unified School District and then a grade two teacher in Washington State. She joined St. Mary's School in 1995. Sharon has served many roles at St. Mary's including classroom teacher, International Baccalaureate Coordinator (Middle Years and Primary Years Programmes), Dean of Academics (All School), Head of Lower School (K-5) and Head of School (All School) Sharon is currently serving as the Chief Advancement Officer , where she is leading the school through a major capital campaign to complete the master facilities plan for the campus. Sharon also serves on the Board of Trustees for St. Mary's. Sharon holds a Bachelor of Arts in Education from California State University, Northridge and a Master of Arts in Educational Administration from Concordia University in Irvine. She also holds a Multiple Subject Lifetime Credential from California State University, Northridge. Sharon is trained through The International Baccalaureate Organization and has attended and led workshops with IBO. She is an active member of the California Association of Independent Schools and has led multiple accreditations for the organization. Sharon serves on the following additional boards: Providence Hospital, Mission Viejo and RiseHyre.

Sharona and Bosley sit down this week to talk with Jennifer Martinez-Montes about her work on professional development surrounding AI for instructors. Jennifer is a 9th grade English teacher at Santee Education Complex in the Los Angeles Unified School District. She is currently researching the impact of AI on teachers and the opportunities for effective use of AI in lesson planning, differentiation, and other areas of a teacher's responsibilities. In this conversation, we explore the need for instructors to understand AI, its opportunities and issues impacting our work as educators, as we try to determine the impact on students and grading.LinksPlease note - any books linked here are likely Amazon Associates links. Clicking on them and purchasing through them helps support the show. Thanks for your support!Teachers Worry About Students Using A.I. But They Love It for ThemselvesCanva AI Image GeneratorOpen Art AIResourcesThe Center for Grading Reform - seeking to advance education in the United States by supporting effective grading reform at all levels through conferences, educational workshops, professional development, research and scholarship, influencing public policy, and community building.The Grading Conference - an annual, online conference exploring Alternative Grading in Higher Education & K-12.Some great resources to educate yourself about Alternative Grading:The Grading for Growth BlogThe Grading ConferenceThe Intentional Academia BlogRecommended Books on Alternative Grading:Grading for Growth, by Robert Talbert and David ClarkSpecifications Grading, by Linda NilsenUndoing the Grade, by Jesse StommelFollow us on Bluesky, Facebook and Instagram - @thegradingpod. To leave us a comment, please go to our website: www.thegradingpod.com and leave a comment on this episode's page.If you would like to be considered to be a guest on this show, please reach out using the Contact Us form on our...

This week we welcome Joe Zeccola back to the podcast. In this episode, Sharona, Boz and Joe look at how we give feedback, how students use it, and how we make both the giving of feedback and the student use of feedback easier, more useful, and more in line with our goals for our students. LinksPlease note - any books linked here are likely Amazon Associates links. Clicking on them and purchasing through them helps support the show. Thanks for your support!Instructional Feedback: The Power, the Promise, the Practice 1st Edition, by Dr. Thomas GuskeyGrading With Integrity: A Research-Based Approach Grounded in Honesty, Transparency, Accuracy, and Equity, by Dr. Thomas GuskeyResourcesThe Center for Grading Reform - seeking to advance education in the United States by supporting effective grading reform at all levels through conferences, educational workshops, professional development, research and scholarship, influencing public policy, and community building.The Grading Conference - an annual, online conference exploring Alternative Grading in Higher Education & K-12.Some great resources to educate yourself about Alternative Grading:The Grading for Growth BlogThe Grading ConferenceThe Intentional Academia BlogRecommended Books on Alternative Grading:Grading for Growth, by Robert Talbert and David ClarkSpecifications Grading, by Linda NilsenUndoing the Grade, by Jesse StommelFollow us on Bluesky, Facebook and Instagram - @thegradingpod. To leave us a comment, please go to our website: www.thegradingpod.com and leave a comment on this episode's page.If you would like to be considered to be a guest on this show, please reach out using the Contact Us form on our website, www.thegradingpod.com.All content of this podcast and website are solely the opinions of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily represent the views of California State University Los Angeles or the Los Angeles Unified School District.Music

This edWeb podcast is sponsored by the National Math Improvement Project. You can access the webinar recording here.Algebra I is a critical gateway to advanced mathematics and future academic success, yet systemic barriers continue to limit access and opportunity for many students, particularly those from historically underserved communities. Listen to this illuminating discussion with leaders from three of the nation's largest school districts who are pioneering innovative approaches to ensure all students can thrive in Algebra I.Drawing from a new case study examining successful district initiatives, this edWeb podcast brings together academic officers from Chicago Public Schools, Los Angeles Unified School District, and Miami-Dade County Public Schools who discuss how districts can transform Algebra I from a gatekeeper into a gateway of opportunity. Don't miss this chance to hear directly from district leaders about concrete strategies for:Creating multiple on-ramps to algebra successBuilding teacher content knowledge and instructional expertiseExpanding early access programs and acceleration pathwaysFostering positive math identity and student belongingUsing data to inform and improve algebra readiness effortsListen to this edWeb podcast about making Algebra I success achievable for all students. This edWeb podcast is of interest to middle and high school district leaders.National Math Improvement ProjectNMIP elevates best practices in support of academic outcomes, educator capacity, and math mindsets. Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Learn more about viewing live edWeb presentations and on-demand recordings, earning CE certificates, and using accessibility features.

This week Sharona and Boz share some ideas, tools and methods for making assessment writing easier including AI, CheckIt (programmable assessment generation) and intentional alignment of content and assessments. LinksPlease note - any books linked here are likely Amazon Associates links. Clicking on them and purchasing through them helps support the show. Thanks for your support!CheckItChatGPTGemini (Google AI)ResourcesThe Center for Grading Reform - seeking to advance education in the United States by supporting effective grading reform at all levels through conferences, educational workshops, professional development, research and scholarship, influencing public policy, and community building.The Grading Conference - an annual, online conference exploring Alternative Grading in Higher Education & K-12.Some great resources to educate yourself about Alternative Grading:The Grading for Growth BlogThe Grading ConferenceThe Intentional Academia BlogRecommended Books on Alternative Grading:Grading for Growth, by Robert Talbert and David ClarkSpecifications Grading, by Linda NilsenUndoing the Grade, by Jesse StommelFollow us on Bluesky, Facebook and Instagram - @thegradingpod. To leave us a comment, please go to our website: www.thegradingpod.com and leave a comment on this episode's page.If you would like to be considered to be a guest on this show, please reach out using the Contact Us form on our website, www.thegradingpod.com.All content of this podcast and website are solely the opinions of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily represent the views of California State University Los Angeles or the Los Angeles Unified School District.MusicCountry Rock performed by Lite Saturation, licensed under a

In 2022, California voters passed Proposition 28, a law meant to address the paltry and inequitable arts education funding in most schools. Vicky Martinez, a parent of three sons in Los Angeles Unified School District, says her children need a robust arts education in the wake of the pandemic, but the district isn't providing that. Martinez and other parents joined a lawsuit against LAUSD and superintendent Alberto Carvalho, claiming that the district was misusing its Prop. 28 funds. Guests: Vicky Martinez, LAUSD parent Mallika Seshadri, Reporter at EdSource Karen D'Souza, Reporter, EdSource Related: Lawsuit charges misuse of arts education funding at LAUSD schools Shortage of teachers and classrooms slows expansion of arts education in Los Angeles and beyond LAUSD's new magnet film school gives students hands-on learning about entertainment industry Education Beat is a weekly podcast. This episode was hosted by EdSource's Emma Gallegos and produced by Coby McDonald. Are you attending SXSW EDU? We'll be there! Learn more.

Today on AirTalk, what do students and parents need to know about the Los Angeles Unified School District cellphone ban and how has rollout been on the first day of implementation? Location sharing has become very popular in relationships. What do you think, is it a must for trust or a violation of privacy? We're also looking back at the biggest weather events in SoCal history. For today's Tripleplay, we're talking season outlooks from the Dodger's spring training. The author of a new book on Dodger's legend, Don Drysdale, joins us for a preview. Today on AirTalk: LAUSD cellphone ban begins today (0:15) The pleasures and pitfalls of location sharing with partners (30:08) SoCal History: Major weather events (51:01) Tripleplay: Dodgers Spring Training season outlooks (1:09:56) New book on the legacy of Dodger Legend Don Drysdale (1:25:30)

DescriptionIn this episode, Sharona and Bosley talk with Dr. Corin Bowen, an Engineering Education researcher and assistant professor in the Civil Engineering department at California State University Los Angeles. We talk about student motivation and engagement, the opportunities that standards-based grading has provided Dr. Bowen's students, and what it was link to come in to a course that had already been redesigned to use standards-based grading as a new instructor. Join us as we talk grading structures, critical pedagogy, the power of undergraduate instructional student assistants and so much else.ResourcesThe Center for Grading Reform - seeking to advance education in the United States by supporting effective grading reform at all levels through conferences, educational workshops, professional development, research and scholarship, influencing public policy, and community building.The Grading Conference - an annual, online conference exploring Alternative Grading in Higher Education & K-12.Some great resources to educate yourself about Alternative Grading:The Grading for Growth BlogThe Grading ConferenceThe Intentional Academia BlogRecommended Books on Alternative Grading:Grading for Growth, by Robert Talbert and David ClarkSpecifications Grading, by Linda NilsenUndoing the Grade, by Jesse StommelFollow us on Bluesky, Facebook and Instagram - @thegradingpod. To leave us a comment, please go to our website: www.thegradingpod.com and leave a comment on this episode's page.If you would like to be considered to be a guest on this show, please reach out using the Contact Us form on our website, www.thegradingpod.com.All content of this podcast and website are solely the opinions of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily represent the views of California State University Los Angeles or the Los Angeles Unified School District.MusicCountry Rock performed by Lite Saturation, licensed under a

In this conversation, Manish Singh, Director of Foodservices at LA Unified School District and Marlon discuss the evolution of food services within the Los Angeles Unified School District. Manish speaks about the transition to a 100% Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) district, innovative programs like farm-to-table, and the introduction of food trucks. He emphasizes the importance of creating a joyful work environment, addressing complaints, and changing perceptions about school meals. The conversation also touches on partnerships with culinary institutions and the impact of training on food quality, as well as future initiatives to enhance student engagement and meal offerings. =========================== Connect with our Guests! =========================== Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cafela_lausd/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CafeLALAUSD Website: https://www.lausd.org/cafela =========================== Connect with us! =========================== Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nxtgen_network/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nextuptalkshow/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nxtgenmarlon/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NxtGenNetwork365 Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/nxtgen-network/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/NxtGen_Network TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@nxtgen.network Media Kit: https://the.nxtgennetwork.com/MediaKit Served Digizine December 2024 | Gifting Gratitude: https://nxtgennetwork.serveddigizine.com/view/674102441/ =========================================== Subscribe and Listen to the Next Up Podcast HERE:

Sue Kim and Myuriel Von Aspen, Building Productive Partnerships   ROUNDING UP: SEASON 3 | EPISODE 10 In this episode, we examine the practice of building productive student partnerships. We'll talk about ways  educators can cultivate joyful and productive partnerships and the role the educator plays once students are engaged with their partner.  BIOGRAPHIES Sue Kim is an advocate for children's thinking and providing them a voice in learning mathematics. She received her teaching credential and master of education from Biola University in Southern California. She has been an educator for 15 years and has taught and coached across TK–5th grade classrooms including Los Angeles Unified School District and El Segundo Unified School District as well as several other Orange County, California, school districts.  Myuriel von Aspen believes in fostering collaborative partnerships with teachers with the goal of advancing equitable, high-quality learning opportunities for all children. Myuriel earned a master of arts in teaching and a master of business administration from the University of California, Irvine and a bachelor of science in computer science from Florida International University. She currently serves as a math coordinator of the Teaching, Learning, and Instructional Leadership Collaborative. ​ RESOURCES Catalyzing Change in Early Childhood and Elementary Mathematics by National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Purposeful Play by Kristine Mraz, Alison Porcelli, and Cheryl Tyler  Hands Down, Speak Out: Listening and Talking Across Literacy and Math K–5 by Kassia Omohundro Wedekind and Christy Hermann Thompson TRANSCRIPT Mike Wallus: What are the keys to establishing productive student partnerships in an elementary classroom? And how can educators leverage the learning that happens in partnerships for the benefit of the entire class? We'll explore these and other questions with Sue Kim and Myuriel von Aspen from the Orange County Office of Education on this episode of Rounding Up.  Well, hi, Sue and Myuriel. Welcome to the podcast. Myuriel von Aspen: Hi, Mike.  Sue Kim: Thanks for having us. Mike: Thrilled to have you both.  So, I first heard you two talk about the power of student partnerships in a context that involved counting collections. And during that presentation, you all said a few things that I have been thinking about ever since. The first thing that you said was that neuroscience shows that you can't really separate emotions from the way that we learn. And I wonder what do you mean when you say that and why do you think it's important when we're thinking about student partnerships? Myuriel: Yes, absolutely. So, this idea comes directly from neuroscience research, the idea that we cannot build memories without emotions. I'm going to read to you a short quote from the NCTM [National Council of Teachers of Mathematics] publication Catalyzing Change in Early Childhood and Elementary Mathematics that says, “Emerging evidence from neuroscience strongly shows that one cannot separate the learning of mathematics content from children's views and feelings toward mathematics.”  So, to me, what that says is that how children feel has a huge influence on their ability to learn math and also on how they feel about themselves as learners of math. So, depending on how they feel, they might be willing to engage in the content or not. And so, as they're engaging in counting collections and they're enjoying counting and they feel joyful and they're doing this with friends, they will learn better because they enjoy it, and they care about what they're doing and what they're learning. Mike: You know, this is a nice segue to the other thing that has been on my mind since I heard you all talk about this because I remember you said that students don't think about a task like counting collections as work, that they see it as play. And I wonder what you think the ramifications of that are for how we approach student partnership? Sue: Yeah, you know, I've been in so many classrooms across TK through fifth [grade], and when I watch kids count collections, we see joy, we see engagement in these ways. But I've also been thinking about this idea of how play is even defined, in a way, since you asked that question that they think of it as play.  Kristine Mraz, teacher, author, and a consultant, has [coauthored] a book called Purposeful Play. And I remember this was the first time I hear about this reference about Vivian Paley, an American early childhood educator and researcher, stress through her career, the importance of play for children when she discovered in her work that play's actually a very complex activity and that it is indeed hard work. It's the work of kids. It's the work of what children do. That's their life, in a sense. And so, something I've been thinking about is how kids perceive play is different than how adults perceive play. And so, they take it with seriousness. There is a complex, very intentionality behind things that they do and say. And so, when we are in our session, and we reference Megan Franke, she says that when young people are engaging with each other's ideas, what they're able to do is mathematically important. But it's also important because they're learning to learn together. They're learning to hear each other. They're developing social and emotional skills as they try and navigate and negotiate each other's ideas. And I think for kids that this could be considered play, and I think that's so fascinating because it's so meaningful to them. And even in a task like counting, they're doing all these complex things. But as adults we see them, and we're like, “Oh, they're playing.” But they are really thinking deeply about some of these ideas while they're developing these very critical skills that we need to give opportunities for them to develop. Myuriel: I like that idea of leaning into the play that you consider maybe not as serious, but they are. Whether they're playing seriously or not, that you might take that opportunity to make it into a mathematical question or a mathematical reflection. Sue: I totally agree with you. And taking it back to that question that you asked, Mike, about, “How do we approach student partnerships then?” And I think that we need to approach it with this lens of curiosity while we let kids engage in these ways and opportunities of learning to hear each other and develop these social-emotional skills, like we said. And so, when you see kids that we think are “playing” or they're building a tower: How might we enter that space with a lens of curiosity? Because to them, I think it's serious work. We can't just think, “Oh, they're not really in the task” or “They're not doing what they were supposed to do.” But how do we lean into that space with a lens of curiosity as Megan reminded us to do, to see what mathematical things we can tap into? And I think that kids always rise to the occasion. Mike: I love that. So, let's talk about how educators can cultivate joyful and productive student partnerships. I'm going to guess that as is often the case, this starts by examining existing beliefs that I might have and some of my expectations. Sue: Yeah, I think it really begins with your outlook and your identity as a teacher. What's your outlook on what's actually possible for kids in your class? Do you believe that kids as young as 4-year-olds can take on this responsibility of engaging with each other in these intelligent ways? Unless we begin there and we really think and reflect and examine what our beliefs are about that, I think it's hard to go and move beyond that, if that makes sense.  And like what we just talked about, it's being open to the curiosity of what could be the capacity of how kids learn. I've seen enough 4-year-olds in TK classrooms doing these big things. They always blow my mind, blow my expectations, when opportunities are given to them and consistently given to them. And it's a process, right? They're not going to start on day one doing some of these more complex things. But they can learn from one another, and they also learn from you as a teacher because they are really paying attention. They are attending to some of these complex ideas that we put in front of them. Mike: Well, you hit on the question that I was thinking about. Because I remember you saying that part of nurturing partnerships starts with a teacher and perhaps a pair of children at a table. Can you all paint a picture of what that might look like for educators who are listening? Sue: Yeah, so actually in one of the most recent classrooms, I went in, and this teacher allowed me to partner with her in this work. She wanted to be able to observe and do it in a structured way so that she could pick up on some details of noticing the things that kids were doing. And so, she would have a collection out, or they got to choose. She was really good about offering choice to kids, another way to really engage them. And so, they would choose. They would come together. And then she started just taking some anecdotal notes on what she heard kids saying, what she saw them doing, what they had to actually navigate through some of the things, the stuck moments that came up.  From that, we were able to develop, “OK, what are some goals? We noticed Students A and B doing this and speaking in these ways. What might be the next step that we might want to put into a mini lesson or model out or have them actually share with the class what they were working on mathematically?” Whether it was organization, or how they decided they wanted to represent their count, how they counted and things like that.  And so, it was just this really natural process that took place that we were able to really lean into and leverage that kids really responded to because it wasn't someone else's work or a page from a textbook. It was their work, their collection that was meaningful to them and they had a true voice and a stake in that work. Mike: I feel like there have been points in time where my understanding of building groups was almost like an engineering problem, where you needed to model what you wanted kids to do and have them rehearse it so specifically. But I think what sits at the bottom of that approach is more about compliance. And what I loved about what you described, Sue, is a process where you're building on the mathematical assets that kids are showing you during their time together—but also on the social assets that they're showing you. So, in that time when you might be observing a pair or a partnership playing together, working together with something like counting collections, you have a chance to observe the mathematics that's happening. You also have a chance to observe the social assets that you see happening. And you can use that as a way to build for that group, but also to build for the larger group of children. And that just feels really profoundly different than, I think, how I used to think about what it was to build partnerships that were “effective.” Myuriel: You know, Mike, I think it's not only compliance. It's also that control. And what it makes me think about is, when we want to model ourselves what we want students to do, instead of—exactly what you said, looking at what they're doing and bringing that knowledge, those skills, that wisdom that's in the room from the students to show to others so that they feel like their knowledge counts. The teacher is not only the only authority or the only source of knowledge in the room—we bring so much, and we can learn from each other. So, I think it's so much more productive and so effective in developing the identity of students when you are showing something that they're doing to their peers versus you as an adult telling them what to do. Mike: Yeah. Are there any particular resources that you all have found helpful for crafting mini lessons as students are learning about how to become a partnership or to be productive in a partnership? Myuriel: Yes. One book that I love, it's not specific to counting collections, but it does provide opportunities for teachers to create micro-lessons when students are listening and talking to each other. It's Hands Down, Speak Out: Listening and Talking Across Literacy and Math K–5 by Kassia [Omohundro] Wedekind and Christy [Hermann] Thompson. And the reason why I love this book is because it provides, again, these micro-lessons depending on what the teacher is noticing, whether it is that the teacher is noticing that students need support listening to each other or maybe making their ideas clear. Or maybe students need to learn how to ask questions more effectively or even reflect on setting and reflecting on the goals that they have as partners. It does provide ideas for teachers to create those micro-lessons based on what the teacher is noticing. Sue: Yeah, I guess I want to add to that, Mike, as well, the resources that Myuriel said. But also, I think this is something I really learned along the process of walking alongside this teacher, was looking at partnerships through a mathematical lens and then a social lens. And so, the mini lesson could be birthed out of watching kids in one day. It might be a social lens thinking about, “They were kind of stuck because they wanted to choose different collections. What might we do about that?” And that kind of is tied to this problem-solving type of skill and goal that we would want kids to work on. That's definitely something that's going to come up as kids are working in partnerships. These partnerships are not perfect and pristine all the time. I think that's the nature of the job. And just as humans, they're learning how to get along, they're learning how to communicate and navigate and negotiate these things. And I think those are beautiful opportunities for kids and for teachers, then, to really lean into as goals, as mini lessons that can be out of this. And these mini lessons don't have to be long and drawn out. They can be a quick 5-, 10-minute thing. Or you can pause in the middle of counting and kind of spotlight the fact that “Mike and Brent had this problem, but we want to learn from them because they figured out how to solve it. And this is how. Let's listen to what happened.” So, these natural, not only places in a lesson that these opportunities for teaching can pop up, but that these mini lessons come straight from kids and how they are interacting and how they are taking up partnerships, whether it be mathematical or social. Mike: I think you're helping me address something that if I'm transparent about was challenging for me when I was a classroom teacher. I got a little bit nervous about what was happening and sometimes I would shut things down if I perceived partnerships to be, I don't know, overwhelming or maybe even messy. But you're making me think now that part of this work is actually noticing what are the assets that kids have in their social interactions in the way that they're playing together, collaborating together, the mathematics? And I think that's a big shift in my mind from the way that I was thinking about this work before. And I wonder, first of all, is this something that you all notice that teachers sometimes are challenged by? And two, how you talk to someone who's struggling with that question of like, “Oh my gosh, what's happening in my classroom?” Myuriel: Yes, I can totally understand how teachers might get overwhelmed. We hear this from, not only from teachers trying to do the work of counting collections, but even just using tools for students to problem-solve because it does get messy. I like the way Sue keeps emphasizing how it will be messy. When you have rich mathematical learning happening, and you're using tools and collections and you have 30 students having conversations, it definitely will get messy. But I would say that something that teachers can do to mitigate some of that messiness is to think about the logistics ahead of time and be intentional about what you are planning to do. So, some of the things that they may want to think about is: How are students going to access the counting collections? Where are you going to [put] the tools that they're going to be using? Where physically in the classrooms will students get together to have collections so that they have enough room to spread out and record and talk to each other? And just like Sue was mentioning: How do I partner students so that they do have a good experience, and they support each other? So, all of these things that might cost a bit of chaos if you don't think about them, you can actually think about each one of those ahead of time so that you do have a plan for each one of those.  Another thing that teachers may want to consider thinking about is, what do they want to pay attention to when they are facilitating or walking around? There's a lot that they need to pay attention to. Just like Sue mentioned, it is important for them to pay attention to something because you want to bring what's in the room to connect it and have these mini lessons of what students actually need. And also, thinking about after the counting collections: What worked and what didn't? And what changes do I want to make next time when I do this again? Just so that there is a process of improvement every time. Because as Sue had mentioned, it's not going to happen on day one. You are learning as a teacher, and the students are learning. So, everybody in that room is learning to make this a productive and joyful experience. Sue: Yeah, and another thing that I would definitely remind teachers about is that there's actually research out there about how important it is for kids to engage with one another's mathematical ideas. I'm so thankful that people are researching out there doing this work for us. And this goes along with what Myuriel was saying, but the expectations that we put on ourselves as teachers sometimes are too far. We're our biggest critique-ers of the work that we do. And of course we want things to go well, but to make it more low-risk for yourself. I think that when we lower those stakes, we're more prone to let kids take ownership of working together in these ways, to use language and communication that makes sense while doing math and using these cognitive abilities that are still in the process of developing. And I think they need to remember that it takes time to develop, and it's going to get there. And kids are going to learn. Kids are going to do some really big things with their understanding. But giving [yourself] space, the time to learn along with your students, I think is very critical so that you feel like it's manageable. You feel like you can do it again the next day. Mike: Tell me a little bit about how you have seen educators use things like authentic images or even video to help their students make sense of what it means to work in a partnership. What have you seen teachers do? Sue: Yeah. Not to mention how that is one sure way to get kids engaged. I don't know if you've been in a room full of first graders or kindergartners, but if you put a video image up that's them counting and showing how they are thinking about things, they are one-hundred-percent there with you. They love being acknowledged and recognized as being the doers and the sensemakers of mathematics. And it goes into this idea of how we position kids competently, and this is another way that we can do that. But capturing student thinking in photos or a short clip has really been a powerful tool to get kids to engage in each other's ideas in a deeper way. I think it allows teachers and students to pause and slow down and really focus in on the skill of noticing. I think people forget that noticing is a skill you have to teach. And you have to give opportunities for kids to actually do these things so they can see mathematically what's happening within the freeze-frame of this image, of this collection, and how we might ask questions to help facilitate and guide their thinking to think deeply about these ideas. And so, I've seen teachers use them with partners, and they may say, “Hey, here's one way that they were counting. How do you think they counted within the frame of this picture or this photo that we took?” And then kids will have these conversations. They'll engage mathematically what they think, and then they might show the video clip of the students actually counting. And they get to make predictions. They get to navigate the language around what they think. And it's just, again, been a really nice tool that has then branched out into whole-group discussions. So, you can use it with partnerships and engage certain kids in specific ways, but then being able to utilize that and leverage that in whole-group settings has really been powerful to see. Myuriel: I also recently observed a teacher with pictures, showing students different tools that different partners were using and having those discussions about, “Why did this tool work and why didn't this one?” or “What will you have to do if your collection gets bigger?” So, it is a great opportunity to really show from what they're using and having those discussions about what works and what doesn't, and “Why would I use this versus this?” from their own work. Mike: Myuriel, what you made me wonder is if you could apply this same idea of using video or images to help support some of those social goals that we were talking about for students as well. Myuriel: I think that you could. I can just imagine that if you see two students working together and supporting each other or asking some good questions and being curious, you could record them and then show that to the others to ask them what they're noticing. “How are these two students supporting each other in their learning?” Even “How are they being kind to each other when they make a mistake?” So, there is so much power in using video for not just the mathematical skills, but also for the social skills. Sue: Myuriel, when you're talking, you're reminding me about two particular students that we have watched, and we have recorded video around, actually, when they came to a disagreement.  There was this one instance when a couple of students came to a disagreement about what to call the next number of the sequence. And that was a really cool moment because we actually discovered, “Wow, these two peers had enough trust in each other to pause, to listen to both sides.” And then when it came time to actually call the number and the sequence, the other student actually trusted enough and listened to the reasoning of the other student to say, “OK, I'm going to go along with you, and I think that should be what the sequence is.” And it was just a really neat opportunity and—that this teacher actually showed in front of kids just to see what kids would say in response to that particular moment. Myuriel: It was actually one very cute, but very interesting moment when you see that second student who's listening to the other one. And actually at first she kind of argued with him a little bit about, “No, it's not this number.” But the second time around, when she counted, she paused right at that same spot where she had trouble before, and she set the number that he had suggested the earlier time so that you see that she's listening, she's considering someone else's ideas, and she's learning the correct sequence. Yes, that was really amazing to see. Sue: So, it's the sequence of numbers that they're working on, but think about all the social aspects of what is happening and developing, and I think that they're addressing it and that they're having to engage with [it]. It's [a] very complex situation that they're learning a lot of skills around in that very moment. Mike: You know, I wonder how an educator might think about their role once students are actually engaged with a partner. How do you all think about goals, or the role of the teacher, once students are working with a partner? Sue: I think that one of the things we're really thinking about and being more intentional about is: When do we actually interject, or when do we as teachers actually say something? When and how do we make those decisions? And for several years now, I've really taken on this notion that we are facilitators. Yes, we're teachers. But more than anything, we are facilitators of the students in our class, and we want to really give them the opportunity to work through some of these ideas. And we will have set up partnerships based on what we've seen and notes that we took as kids have been working. But it's an ever-innovated process, I think. And I think something that's always going to be on the forefront is that idea: How are we facilitating? How are we deciding when we want to say something or interject, and why? And what is it that we are trying to get kids to think about? Because I think we need to help students realize that they are always in the driver's seat of what they're doing, especially if they're in a partnership. And there are targeted things that we can have them maybe think about when we drop a question based on what we're noticing. Or maybe when they're stuck, and they're in the middle of negotiating something. But I really think that it starts there with us kind of thinking about: What is our role? Is it OK that we step back and we just watch even if they have to problem-solve through something that feels like, “Oh, I don't know if they're going to get through that moment.” But we've got to let them. We've got to give them opportunities to do that without having to rescue them every single time. Myuriel: And you're right, Sue, we've seen it so many times when if you just bite your tongue, 10 seconds later, it's happening, right? They're helping each other, and they get to the idea that you thought you had to bring up to them. But they were able to resolve it. So, if we only allow that time for them to process the idea or to revise their thinking or to allow the other partner to support their partner, it will happen. Sue: Yeah, and I think that doesn't mean that we can't set kids up. I've seen teachers launch the lesson with something a partner did before yesterday, and they will have referred to a protocol or something they're working on. And then as facilitators, we can then go out, and we might already be thinking about, “Oh, I want to be watching these two partnerships today”—having in mind, “OK, this is my target idea for them, my target goal for them.” So, there are definite ways that we can frame and decide who we want to watch and observe, but while in the balance of letting kids do what they're going to do and what the expectation of being surprised. Because kids always surprise us with their brilliance. Mike: Yeah, there's multiple things that came to mind as I was listening to you all talk about this. The first one is how it's possible to inadvertently condition kids to see the teacher coming and look and stop and potentially look for the teacher to say something. We actually do want to avoid that. We want to see their thinking.  The other piece is the difference between, as you said, potentially dropping a question and interjecting, as you said, Myuriel, biting your tongue and letting them persist through—whether it's an idea they're grappling with or a struggle for what to do next—that there's so much information in those moments that we can learn or that might help us think about what's next. It's a challenge, I think, because math culture in the United States is such that we're kind of trained to see something that looks like a mistake. “Let's get in there.” And I hear you giving people permission to say, “Actually, it's OK to step back and watch their thinking and watch them try to make sense of things because there's a big payoff there.” Sue: Absolutely. Yeah.  Myuriel: Yes. And, Mike, I think we as teachers—you feel the need of having to address every single “mistake” per either individual student or per partnership. And sometimes you feel like, “I have 30 students, how can I possibly do that?” And I think that's where the power of doing a share out from what you've observed, bringing everyone together, learning from what was in the room, right? Because just like Sue was saying, it's not that you don't ever set up kids with knowledge of what you've observed, but you bring the power. It's what you're bringing, what's in the room, what you've noticed. But you share it out, or you have students share it out, with everyone so that everyone is moving forward. Mike: I have a follow-up question for you all about goals for partnerships. I'm wondering how you think about the potential for partnerships as a way to help develop language, be it academic or social, for students. Are there particular practices that you imagine educators could take up if language development was one of their goals? Myuriel: I'm so glad you're asking that question because I don't think we can learn math without language. I don't think we can learn anything without language. And I think that working in partnerships provides such an authentic, meaningful way of developing language because students are in conversations with each other. And we know that conversation is one way that ideas develop conversations or even sharing your thinking. Sometimes we notice that as students are sharing their thinking, and they're listening to themselves, they catch themselves making a mistake, and they are able to revise their thinking based on what they are saying. So again, I think it is the perfect opportunity for students to mathematically learn counting sequence or socially learn how to negotiate and make sense of what they're going to represent, when they're counting, or to explain their thinking. And we know, of course, that one of the mathematical practices is justifying, explaining your thinking. So, it's important to provide those opportunities for students to do that in this kind of structural way. I also think that working in partnerships provides this opportunity for teachers to listen and notice if there's any language that students are starting to use that can be shared with others. So again, this idea that you hear it from someone in the room and that's going to help everybody else grow. Or that if students are doing something and you can name it, provide those terms to students. So, for example, just like I mentioned, somebody's explaining their thinking and through that they change their mind. They revised their thinking. Actually sharing that with the whole class and naming it: “Oh, they were revising their thinking” or sharing how they were explaining something with academic language so that others can also use that language as they're explaining their own thinking. So, I think that those are powerful ways to provide opportunities for everyone's academic language or social skills through language to be developed. Sue: Yeah, I think that another big idea that comes out of that language piece is just how kids are learning to make sense of how to be partners, especially our younger students, our younger mathematicians. They're really needing to figure out like, “Oh, what does it mean to take turns to speak about this and how I use my words in this way versus another?” And I think that's another big opportunity for kids to build those skills because we can't just assume that kids come into our classrooms knowing how to talk in these ways, how to address each other, how to engage respectfully, that they can disagree respectfully, even in partnerships. And we want them to have the time and space to be able to develop those skills through language as well. Mike: You know, I think the mental movie that I have for the point in time after children have engaged in any kind of partnership task, be it counting collections or something else, has really shifted. Because I think beforehand the way the movie ended was potentially sharing a student's representation if they had represented something on a piece of paper that showed what they had physically done with their things. And I still think that's valid and important, particularly if that's one of your goals.  But you're making me think a lot more about the potential of images of students at work as they're going through the process or video and how closing, or potentially opening the next time, with that really just kind of expands this idea of what's happening. Being able to look at a set of hands that are on a set of materials or in the process of moving materials or listening to language that's emerging from students in the form of a short video. There's a lot of richness that you could capture, and it's also a little bit more of a diverse way of showing what's going on. And it feels like another way to really position what you're doing—not just the output in the form of the paper representation—but what you're actually doing is valuable, and it's a contribution. And I think that just feels like there's a lot of potential in what you all are describing. Sue: I think you hit the nail on the head. We're trying, and it's hard work. But to be open to these ideas, to these possibilities. And like you said, it's positioning kids so drastically different than how we've been doing it for so many years. And how you're actually inviting kids to be contributors of this work that they are now. They have the knowledge. They are the ones that hold the knowledge in the room. And how we frame kids and what they're doing is I think very critical because kids learn from that, and kids have so many things to offer that we need to really be able to think about how we want to create those opportunities for kids. Myuriel: And, Mike, something that you said also made me think of just like we want to provide those opportunities for students to be creative and to show what they know. What you were talking about, having this new perspective, makes me think about also teachers being creative with how they use counting collections, right? There isn't just the one way. It doesn't mean that at the end of every counting collection, I have to have a share out right at the end and decide at that moment. I could start the day that way. I could start the next session that way. I could use a video. I could use a picture. I could have students share it. So, you can get creative. And I think that's the beauty also, because I think as a teacher, it's not only the students that are learning; you are learning along with them. Mike: That's a great place to stop. This has been an absolutely fabulous conversation. Thank you both so much for joining us. Myuriel: Thank you. Thank you so much for this opportunity. Sue: Thank you. Thanks for having us. Mike: This podcast is brought to you by The Math Learning Center and the Maier Math Foundation, dedicated to inspiring and enabling all individuals to discover and develop their mathematical confidence and ability. © 2025 The Math Learning Center | www.mathlearningcenter.org  

The firestorms in Los Angeles have destroyed at least nine schools and displaced hundreds of teachers and students. A teacher shares the story of her family's escape, and a reporter describes the physical and emotional damage to schools and communities. Guests: Tanya Reyes, teacher in Los Angeles Unified School District and parent in Pasadena Unified School District Mallika Seshadri, Reporter, EdSource Read more from EdSource: Los Angeles schools close, brace for more fire, wind and ash Education Beat is a weekly podcast hosted by EdSource's Zaidee Stavely and produced by Coby McDonald.

Firefighters are racing to contain the wildfires ravaging the Los Angeles area during a lull in the winds, which are set to strengthen again Sunday night. The Los Angeles Unified School District is the second-largest in the nation, with 500,000 students, and all of its campuses have been closed since Thursday. John Yang speaks with Alberto Carvalho, the district's superintendent, for more. PBS News is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders

It has finally happened!! We have found an instructor who uses emoji's MORE than Sharona does!! Join us as we talk with Patrick Morriss, professor of Mathematics at Foothill College about his proficiency scales and grading system in Higher Ed Math. LinksPlease note - any books linked here are likely Amazon Associates links. Clicking on them and purchasing through them helps support the show. Thanks for your support!Patrick's Qualitative Grading SystemThe 5 Lemon Sheet - Daily CheckinResourcesThe Center for Grading Reform - seeking to advance education in the United States by supporting effective grading reform at all levels through conferences, educational workshops, professional development, research and scholarship, influencing public policy, and community building.The Grading Conference - an annual, online conference exploring Alternative Grading in Higher Education & K-12.Some great resources to educate yourself about Alternative Grading:The Grading for Growth BlogThe Grading ConferenceThe Intentional Academia BlogRecommended Books on Alternative Grading:Grading for Growth, by Robert Talbert and David ClarkSpecifications Grading, by Linda NilsenUndoing the Grade, by Jesse StommelFollow us on Bluesky, Facebook and Instagram - @thegradingpod. To leave us a comment, please go to our website: www.thegradingpod.com and leave a comment on this episode's page.If you would like to be considered to be a guest on this show, please reach out using the Contact Us form on our website, www.thegradingpod.com.All content of this podcast and website are solely the opinions of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily represent the views of California State University Los Angeles or the Los Angeles Unified School District.Music

This is our Favorite Episode for 2024! Friends Like Us with host Marina Franklin features guests Dr. Donna J Nickel and Nonye Brown-West.  Dr. Donna J. Nickel, an academic from California, discussing her latest book on Claudia Hampton's contributions to affirmative action and black education. The discussion extends to contemporary issues, including the repercussions of ending affirmative action, historical context of race-based discrimination, and the attack on DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) initiatives. The episode aims to shed light on the broader history of race and conservative philanthropy while examining current racial and educational policies. Dr. Donna J. Nicol is the Associate Dean of Personnel and Curriculum in the College of Liberal Arts and a professor of history at California State University Long Beach. She is the immediate past department chair and professor of Africana Studies at CSU Dominguez Hills, a post she held from 2017-2023. She earned her doctorate degree in Educational Studies (with a specialization in History and Philosophy of Higher Education and a graduate minor in African American and African Studies) from The Ohio State University in 2007.  Dr. Nicol's research focuses race, conservative philanthropy, and U.S. higher education, and the history of African American women's educational activism. Her work has been published in Race, Ethnicity and Education, The Feminist Teacher (twice), History of Philanthropy, Palimpsest: A Journal of Women, Gender and the Black International, The Encyclopedia of American Women's History, Encyclopedia of Multiracial America, and Habitus of the Hood. In February 2021, Dr. Nicol was a featured guest expert for the Al Jazeera English documentary, The Big Picture: A Race for America. Dr. Nicol has also published opinion columns on racism in philanthropy for Al Jazeera Digital and has appeared on the Insufferable Academics podcast, the Fresh Off the Vote podcast, and the Peace and Justice Radio Show. Prior to becoming an academic, Dr. Nicol spent three years teaching secondary language arts and social studies for Los Angeles Unified School District and seven years in various academic administrative roles at Mt. St. Mary's College and The Ohio State University. She serves on the board of directors for the Historical Society of Southern California, co-principal investigator for the State of Black Los Angeles County Report (2023) and is active in a number of professional academic and social service organizations. Black Woman on Board: Claudia Hampton, the California State University, and the Fight to Save Affirmative Action examines the leadership strategies that Black women educators have employed as influential power brokers in predominantly white colleges and universities in the United States. Author Donna J. Nicol tells the extraordinary story of Dr. Claudia H. Hampton, the California State University (CSU) system's first Black woman trustee, who later became the board's first woman chair, and her twenty-year fight (1974–94) to increase access within the CSU for historically marginalized and underrepresented groups. Nonye Brown-West is a New York-based Nigerian-American comedian and writer. She has been featured in the Boston Globe's Rise column as a Comic to Watch. She has also appeared on Amazon, NPR, PBS, ABC, Sway In The Morning on Sirius XM, and the New York Comedy Festival. Always hosted by Marina Franklin - One Hour Comedy Special: Single Black Female ( Amazon Prime, CW Network), TBS's The Last O.G, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, Hysterical on FX, The Movie Trainwreck, Louie Season V, The Jim Gaffigan Show, Conan O'Brien, Stephen Colbert, HBO's Crashing, and The Breaks with Michelle Wolf.  

Happy New Year! On the podcast this week we replay our episode (Episode 21) with Dr. Eden Tanner, Assistant Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry at The University of Mississippi. Listen to hear about using alternative grading in the context of a 170 person general chemistry course. Eden has a fascinating take on approaching alternative grading from a research mindset, and how that led her to adopt the principles of alternative grading.LinksPlease note - any books linked here are likely Amazon Associates links. Clicking on them and purchasing through them helps support the show. Thanks for your support!The Tanner LabThe University of Mississippi - Dr. Eden TannerResourcesThe Center for Grading Reform - seeking to advance education in the United States by supporting effective grading reform at all levels through conferences, educational workshops, professional development, research and scholarship, influencing public policy, and community building.The Grading Conference - an annual, online conference exploring Alternative Grading in Higher Education & K-12.Some great resources to educate yourself about Alternative Grading:The Grading for Growth BlogThe Grading ConferenceThe Intentional Academia BlogRecommended Books on Alternative Grading:Grading for Growth, by Robert Talbert and David ClarkSpecifications Grading, by Linda NilsenUndoing the Grade, by Jesse StommelFollow us on Bluesky, Facebook and Instagram - @thegradingpod. To leave us a comment, please go to our website: www.thegradingpod.com and leave a comment on this episode's page.If you would like to be considered to be a guest on this show, please reach out using the Contact Us form on our website, www.thegradingpod.com.All content of this podcast and website are solely the opinions of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily represent the views of California State University Los Angeles or the Los Angeles Unified School District.

Send us a textWhat's up PE Nation!I'm back with a series of interviews, starting with my friend Octavio Fierros, a seasoned expert who has recently navigated the transition from a charter school to the bustling environment of the Los Angeles Unified School District. With over 15 years of experience, Coach Fierros shares his insights into the unique challenges and opportunities presented by these different teaching landscapes, especially regarding resources and administrative support. Discover how innovative approaches during the pandemic have reshaped his teaching strategies, enabling him to create more engaging and effective learning experiences for his students.Explore the vibrant world of physical education as Coach Fierros introduces exciting activities like Nitro Ball and Ultimate Frisbee, which have quickly become student favorites. These games not only enhance physical skills but also promote teamwork and student autonomy, as learners take charge of setting up equipment and managing games. The episode delves into the strategies for building a robust class culture, emphasizing the importance of clear expectations and routines from the start of the school year. Gain valuable insights into how these practices can foster a positive and inclusive environment in PE classes.For those new to the field of physical education, Coach Fierros offers a wealth of advice on classroom management, relationship-building, and creating a supportive atmosphere that encourages student growth. He reflects on a career dedicated to forming lasting connections with students, highlighting the profound impact these relationships have on their educational journey. Listen in for practical tips and inspiration to elevate your teaching practice, whether you're a seasoned educator or just embarking on your career. Connect with the broader fitness community by joining us on Substack for additional resources and insights.Take care,DaveJoin my Substack newsletter, where I will be sharing PE tips, games and strategies.FREE Large Group E-Book: https://supersizedphysed.us18.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=289486a5abf1f1b55de651a5e&id=4c476cb01My website: https://www.supersizedphysed.comWebsite for the book: https://www.teacherchefhockeyplayerbook.com/

In this episode Sharona sits down with Dr. Josh Eyler, Director of Faculty Development at the University of Mississippi and author of the new book Failing our Future: How Grades Harm Students and What We Can Do About It. Join us as we talk about the book, about change efforts at the classroom, department, college and institutional levels, and what individual instructors can do to lead change efforts.LinksPlease note - any books linked here are likely Amazon Associates links. Clicking on them and purchasing through them helps support the show. Thanks for your support!Failing Our Future: How Grades Harm Students, and What We Can Do about ItResourcesThe Center for Grading Reform - seeking to advance education in the United States by supporting effective grading reform at all levels through conferences, educational workshops, professional development, research and scholarship, influencing public policy, and community building.The Grading Conference - an annual, online conference exploring Alternative Grading in Higher Education & K-12.Some great resources to educate yourself about Alternative Grading:The Grading for Growth BlogThe Grading ConferenceThe Intentional Academia BlogRecommended Books on Alternative Grading:Grading for Growth, by Robert Talbert and David ClarkSpecifications Grading, by Linda NilsenUndoing the Grade, by Jesse StommelFollow us on Bluesky, Facebook and Instagram - @thegradingpod. To leave us a comment, please go to our website: www.thegradingpod.com and leave a comment on this episode's page.If you would like to be considered to be a guest on this show, please reach out using the Contact Us form on our website, www.thegradingpod.com.All content of this podcast and website are solely the opinions of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily represent the views of California State University Los Angeles or the Los Angeles Unified School District.MusicCountry Rock

This and all episodes at: https://aiandyou.net/ . We're extending the conversation about AI in education to the front lines in this episode, with four very experienced and credentialed educators discussing their experiences and insights into AI in schools. Jose Luis Navarro IV is the leading coach and consultant at the Navarro Group. He previously served as a Support Coordinator, leading innovative reforms in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Zack Kleypas is Superintendent of Schools in Thorndale, Texas, and named 2023 Texas Secondary Principal of the Year by the Texas Association of Secondary School Principals. Jeff Austin is a former high school teacher and principal who now works as a coach for Teacher Powered Schools and Los Angeles Education Partnership. And Jose Gonzalez, Chief Technology Officer for the Los Angeles County Office of Education and former Vice Mayor of the city of Cudahy near Los Angeles. In the conclusion, we talk about whether students need to read as much as they used to now they have AI, fact checking, some disturbing stories about the use of AI detectors in schools, where the panel sees these trends evolving to, what they're doing to help students learn better in an AI world, and… Iron Man. All this plus our usual look at today's AI headlines. Transcript and URLs referenced at HumanCusp Blog.          

This and all episodes at: https://aiandyou.net/ . We're extending the conversation about AI in education to the front lines in this episode, with four very experienced and credentialed educators discussing their experiences and insights into AI in schools. Jose Luis Navarro IV is the leading coach and consultant at the Navarro Group. He previously served as a Support Coordinator, leading innovative reforms in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Zack Kleypas is Superintendent of Schools in Thorndale, Texas, and named 2023 Texas Secondary Principal of the Year by the Texas Association of Secondary School Principals. Jeff Austin is a former high school teacher and principal who now works as a coach for Teacher Powered Schools and Los Angeles Education Partnership. And Jose Gonzalez, Chief Technology Officer for the Los Angeles County Office of Education and former Vice Mayor of the city of Cudahy near Los Angeles. We talk about how much kids were using GenAI without our knowing, how to turn GenAI in schools from a threat to an opportunity, the issue of cheating with ChatGPT, the discrepancy between how many workers are using AI and how many teachers are using it, how rules get made, confirmation bias and AI, using tools versus gaining competencies, and whether teachers will quit. All this plus our usual look at today's AI headlines. Transcript and URLs referenced at HumanCusp Blog.          

ICYMI: Hour One of ‘Later, with Mo'Kelly' Presents – A look at the official launch of Waymo Robotaxis in Los Angeles AND the Los Angeles Unified School District's decision to delay the district-wide policy banning student cell phones on campus until February 2025…PLUS – Thoughts on the “California Exodus” coming to an end - on KFI AM 640…Live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app

Dr. Anita J. Turner, Educational Consultant to Los Angeles Unified School District and Clark County School District in Las Vegas, Nevada.  Info: harvest4success.com. Let's Connect and Engage: Leave a Google Review Today on what you enjoyed about Black Entrepreneur Experience Podcast.  Connect on YouTube and Sign up for our newsletter and get updates.

In this episode, Sharona and Bosley speak with Mariah Muller, an English teacher at Santee Education Complex in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Mariah works with Bosley at his school and is in her second year of teaching. In this interview, we explore what it is like to start your teaching career from the beginning using alternative grading practices, and what Mariah's experience with grading has been like as she adapts to being a new teacher. We also thought that this would be an interesting contrast with last week's episode about a long term teacher who teaches new teachers!LinksPlease note - any books linked here are likely Amazon Associates links. Clicking on them and purchasing through them helps support the show. Thanks for your support!How Learning Works: Eight Research-Based Principles for Smart Teaching, by Susan Ambrose, et al.The Case Against The Zero, by Douglas ReevesEpisode 55 – Alternative Grading as a Healing Process Part 1 of 2: Exploring the Harmful Wordviews that Undergird the Letter Grading System, an Interview with Dr. Jeff AndersonEpisode 56 – Alternative Grading as a Healing Process Part 2 of 2: Exploring the Harmful Wordviews that Undergird the Letter Grading System, an Interview with Dr. Jeff AndersonResourcesThe Grading Conference - an annual, online conference exploring Alternative Grading in Higher Education & K-12.Some great resources to educate yourself about Alternative Grading:The Grading for Growth BlogThe Grading ConferenceThe Intentional Academia BlogRecommended Books on Alternative Grading (Please note - any books linked here are likely Amazon Associates links. Purchasing through them helps support the show. Thanks for your support!):Grading for Growth, by Robert Talbert and David ClarkSpecifications Grading, by Linda Nilsen

Here are the morning's top stories on Tuesday, September 23, 2024… In January of 2025 the Los Angeles Unified School District will ban cellphones on campus. More California school districts will follow suit, as Governor Gavin Newsom signed a law Monday that will require districts to restrict phones on campus. It's part of a growing movement to help students improve academically, socially and emotionally. But one school has a cell phone ban already in place... and the students seem to be thriving. At least 18 cities and counties across California have put in place new bans on homeless encampments since the Supreme Court in June gave them more power to do so. One of those cities is Fresno. California is suing ExxonMobil for an alleged "campaign of deception" around the true impact of plastic recycling. What One CA School Learned When They Banned Cell Phones Governor Gavin Newsom signed a bill this week that will direct schools to create policies to restrict student cell phone use. But at Marina Del Rey Middle School in Los Angeles, cell phones have already been banned. There, Principal Sidra Dudley requires students to power off their phones each morning, then enclose them in neoprene pouches secured by a magnetic lock, created for that purpose by a company called Yondr. The pouches stay locked throughout the day.. Six months after the school implemented the ban, the Los Angeles Unified School District followed suit. With a 5-2 majority, the school board passed a resolution forbidding cellphones in all public schools. Students at Marina Del Rey Middle School say this ban has made them less distracted in class. And teachers say test scores are improving. Fresno Rolls out Plans for Homeless Ban Fresno city leaders on Monday laid out plans for enforcing one of the state's harshest crackdowns on homeless encampments, which bans public camping anywhere, anytime. Since the Supreme Court in June empowered cities to crack down on homeless encampments, and Gov. Gavin Newsom seized on the opening to push for ramped-up sweeps, at least 18 jurisdictions around the state have put in place new camping bans — the most of any state, according to a tally maintained by the National Homelessness Law Center. CA Sues ExxonMobil California is suing ExxonMobil for an alleged "campaign of deception" around the true impact of plastic recycling. The lawsuit was filed by The California Department of Justice on Monday. The lawsuit alleges that Exxon knowingly misled Californians by promoting all plastic as recyclable. The company is the world's largest producer of fossil fuel materials that are used to make single-use plastics. The lawsuit is seeking billions of dollars. This comes at a time when California Environmental groups, including Sierra Club and Baykeeper, have also announced a separate lawsuit against ExxonMobil over the same issues. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kelley Coleman is a feature film development executive turned author, who is active in the disability advocacy community. She serves on committees for Children's Hospital Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Unified School District, and Canine Companions. Her book Everything No One Tells You About Parenting a Disabled Child: Your Guide to the Essential Systems, Services, and Supports stems from her own parenting experience, giving parents the tools to spend less time navigating the stuff and more time just loving their kids exactly as they are. Her book is available for sale on Amazon. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, two children, and her son's service dog. To learn more, please visit:Kelley's Website Connect with Kelley on:Instagram Facebook Looking to save money on quality, bulk foods? Shop Azure StandardWatch on YouTubeVisit The Motherhood Experience WebsiteFollow us on Instagram

ICYMI: Hour One of ‘Later, with Mo'Kelly' Presents – A look at the latest earthquake to rattle SoCal and the growing concerning over the “Big One” … PLUS – LA Metro is rolling out an all new GoPass Program, to more than 400,000 Los Angeles Unified School District students offering “free fare for unlimited travel to school, work and leisure activities” AND the Los Angeles City Council is seeking recommendations for a citywide program to “limit RV parking, while also providing restrooms, septic waste removal, help finding housing and other services” - on KFI AM 640…Live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app

Today on Valentine in the Morning: We commemorate the first day of school in Los Angeles with a very special guest; Mr Alberto M. Carvalho, the Superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District.Listen live every weekday from 5-10am pacific: https://www.iheart.com/live/1043-myfm-173/ Website: 1043myfm.com/valentine Instagram: @ValentineInTheMorningFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/valentineinthemorning TikTok: @ValentineInTheMorning

Plus, Los Angeles Unified School District votes to ban cellphones in schools. And electric-vehicle maker Fisker files for bankruptcy. Zoe Thomas hosts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

So many monster headlines are coming out that the media have worked feverishly to silence and "fact check." The bombshell this hour is a headline in a British mainstream paper - "Study Shows 3 Million Excess Deaths In 37 Countries Linked to Covid Vaccine." We cannot and will not be silent, because the details are absolutely damning. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in California strikes a devastating blow to the Los Angeles Unified School District and rules the Covid jabs are NOT vaccines, opening a Pandora's box of litigation whose limits we can't even begin to imagine for those injured by tyrannical rules.