Today’s Broken Copier conversation centers around the idea of teacher agency—the trust and freedom afforded to teachers to make choices in designing and facilitating the learning that takes places in their classrooms.

Joining this conversation is Dylan Kane, a National Board Certified Teacher in Colorado who has written extensively about his work in the math classroom on his Substack Five Twelve Thirteen—and who had his own “teacher agency” featured in The Atlantic in an April article, “What Happened After a Teacher Ditched Screens.”

Some questions that we explored in this conversation:

• Do we sometimes undervalue “the basics” in our classrooms?

• What matters more in a school: teacher agency or teacher consistency?

• How do we stay focused on student learning amidst all the other things going on?

• Teacher agency can also add pressure to teachers—how can it be sustainable?

As always, feel free to offer your own feedback and perspective about these questions and the topic of teacher agency overall in the comments, and definitely check out Dylan’s writing on his Substack if you’re intrigued by what he shared in this conversation!

Thanks, as always, to Alberto Lugo, one of Jim’s former students, for writing and recording original intro music; and Tom Csatari for allowing us to use his band’s recording of “Woodstock” from their 2020 album, Garden.

• Find Tom’s work at uncivilizedtom.com, and on Instagram @banduncivilized.

• Find Alberto’s work at djsynchro.weebly.com, and on Instagram @djsynchro.

You can email us here with feedback or any other questions as well: thebrokencopier@substack.com.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thebrokencopier.substack.com