Hallway Conversations: Recent Episodes

View Details

Our semester-long hiatus is over! We’ve missed you, friends, and we wanted to check in this spring. We’ve both been busy with many things—both in our work here in the Education department at Dordt University, and in other things we also get to do. In this episode, Abby shares about her adventures in school leadership, and Dave shares about his adventures traveling all over the place. We talk about things we are continuing to learn even as we teach, the fun things we got to do this year, and a fair bit about the role of AI in education today (which is one of Dave’s favorite topics to talk about lately!) We hope that this episode is also an encouragement to you, dear listeners, as we draw toward the end of this academic year. And don’t worry; we plan to get back on a more regular recording schedule in the fall!

• In this episode, Dave mentioned a professional development opportunity he is leading through the Center for the Advancement of Christian Education. “Teach Like a Human” is a year-long professional development plan that schools can use to be better prepared for the joys and concerns of teaching, learning, and leading in the age of AI. More information is available here: https://cace.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/CACE_AI_PD_Info_Sheet.pdf
• We always love hearing from you, dear listeners. You can drop us a line at hallwayconvospod@gmail.com.
• Hallway Conversations is sponsored by the Center for the Advancement of Christian Education. You can learn more about the good work CACE is doing at https://cace.org/

View Details

Christmas is coming! It’s the end of a very busy semester, and both Abby and Dave have rich and full lives. We start by checking in and talking through the things we’ve been up to in these past few weeks, including international travels and adventures in school leadership. From there, we pivot into our year-end sharing of great things we’ve read this year, and the things we’re hoping to read over Christmas break. We hope that this conversation gives you some inspiration to pick up a book for your own Christmas break time–and maybe take one of our recommendations! Blessings to you as you wrap things up for the fall term, and we hope you’ll experience a true sense of Christmas hope, joy, and wonder in this season of the year.

• We always love hearing from you, dear listeners. You can drop us a line at hallwayconvospod@gmail.com.
• Hallway Conversations is sponsored by the Center for the Advancement of Christian Education. You can learn more about the good work CACE is doing at https://cace.org/

View Details

Today we are delighted to have a guest joining us for our hallway conversation: Abby’s long-time friend and former colleague, Katie Reitsma. Katie currently serves as a high school teacher in Iowa, where she is a master at connecting with kids. Abby invited Katie to her Applied Educational Psychology class as a guest speaker as they focused on classroom management strategies. Abby interviewed Katie, and our future teachers raised questions as well–and we put them in front of the microphone to turn it into a podcast episode. Katie and Abby have all kinds of great ideas for building relationships with students and mitigating challenging classroom behaviors. We hope you’ll learn a few things as you listen in as well!

• We always love hearing from you, dear listeners. You can drop us a line at hallwayconvospod@gmail.com.
• Hallway Conversations is sponsored by the Center for the Advancement of Christian Education. You can learn more about the good work CACE is doing at https://cace.org/

View Details

Today we are delighted to have a guest joining us for our hallway conversation: Dave’s long-time pal, Paul Lapka. Paul currently serves as principal at an elementary school in California, and we’re excited that he will be moving to Northwest Iowa next year to become the principal at the school where Abby’s kids attend! In our conversation, we pick Paul’s brain about the kinds of things he sees successful teachers doing: from exceptional teaching practices, to a learner mindset, to the humility to be willing to keep trying. We talk about the “tricks of the trade,” and also the importance of practice as a key part of ongoing growth and development. We also examine some of the things that make teaching more challenging today than when Paul and Dave started teaching almost 30 years ago. We hope this conversation will spark some conversations of your own about successes you’re seeing, and opportunities for ongoing growth as well.

• We always love hearing from you, dear listeners. You can drop us a line at hallwayconvospod@gmail.com.
• Hallway Conversations is sponsored by the Center for the Advancement of Christian Education. You can learn more about the good work CACE is doing at https://cace.org/

View Details

Abby and Dave start off this conversation reconnecting after a week of not seeing each other, because we were both presenting at different Christian education conferences. After a little catching up and reconnecting, we shift to our main topic: parent teacher conferences. (‘Tis the season!) We share stories of our own experiences as young teachers, learning how to lead a parent-teacher conference, partly through the school of hard knocks. We describe lessons we learned, and things we found that worked well for getting on the same page with parents, because we all care about the kids. We also share a bit from our perspective of parents about what we hope for in a conference with teachers. We hope that this conversation encourages you, educators, when you meet up with parents to collaborate with them for the good of the kids.

• We always love hearing from you, dear listeners. You can drop us a line at hallwayconvospod@gmail.com.
• Hallway Conversations is sponsored by the Center for the Advancement of Christian Education. You can learn more about the good work CACE is doing at https://cace.org/

View Details

We are in a season of transition! It’s been a wonderful journey as a trio, but with changing demands, Matt is going to step away from the podcast. We are grateful for the time and conversations we’ve had over the past four and a half years(!) and we wish him well as he moves into other adventures. Abby and Dave have decided to continue to record new episodes, and we hope you’ll continue to join us in the metaphorical hallway.

In today’s episode, we are thinking about what it looks like to be in the middle of the semester when things feel a little stale…or maybe “the honeymoon is over!” We share some ideas and strategies we use to mix things up to look for ways to increase students’ engagement, making the curriculum accessible and meaningful for our students. We hope you’ll be encouraged to talk about your own strategies for mixing things up with colleagues in your hallways as well!

• We always love hearing from you, dear listeners. You can drop us a line at hallwayconvospod@gmail.com.
• Hallway Conversations is sponsored by the Center for the Advancement of Christian Education. You can learn more about the good work CACE is doing at https://cace.org/

View Details

After a summer away, it sure felt good to get back together in front of our microphones. This first episode for season 10 is really just catching up on all the things we’ve been doing since we last recorded in May, and sharing about all the cool stuff we have coming up in the next couple of months as well. We’re excited to be back with you, friends, and we hope and pray that our hallway conversations here on the podcast will be an encouragement for you all to have hallway conversations of your own. Looking forward to connecting with you–here on the pod, or in person when we have the opportunity to see you!

• Dave mentioned his forthcoming book about AI for Christian educators. If you’re interested, you can subscribe to his newsletter (https://drdave.substack.com) for updates about when it is coming out!
• Hallway Conversations is sponsored by the Center for the Advancement of Christian Education. You can learn more about the good work CACE is doing at https://cace.org/

View Details

We are at the end of another semester, and at the end of another season of this podcast adventure. In this episode, we reflect together on our practices, on the things we are taking away from this year, the nature of teaching as “planting seeds,” and the importance of Sabbath for educators. We hope that this conversation encourages you all to wrap up your own academic years well, friends. With this episode, we are going on hiatus for the summer, but we plan to be back with you with new episodes in the fall. We hope you’ll have time to rest, recreate, and re-create this summer!

• In this episode, Abby refers to a blog post by David Smith that gave her great ideas for end-of-term reflections for her students. You can read this post yourself here: https://christianscholars.com/reflections-on-how-to-end-a-semester/
• Matt used the Romero Prayer as a closing blessing for this episode. If you aren’t familiar with this one, you can read it–and the backstory for this prayer–here: http://www.romerotrust.org.uk/romero-prayer
• Hallway Conversations is sponsored by the Center for the Advancement of Christian Education. You can learn more about the good work CACE is doing at https://cace.org/

View Details

After recording our last episode, we left the microphones running as we sometimes do, and had another amazing interaction full of wisdom from our pal, Erik Ringsby. We are including it here as a shorty bonus episode, and we hope it spurs more thinking about how to care well for your students!

• Hallway Conversations is sponsored by the Center for the Advancement of Christian Education. You can learn more about the good work CACE is doing at https://cace.org/

View Details

This week’s episode is a conversation with our good friend and colleague in the Education department, Professor Erik Ringsby. Erik joined our team last year and teaches a variety of courses in special education and learner diversity, and draws on a long career as a special ed teacher and instructional coach. He is a talented, thoughtful educator, and one of our favorite things about Erik is his deep passion for supporting ALL students to make learning come to life. We are confident that this episode will be a blessing and an encouragement to you to think deeply about ways your school can support all the kids you get to serve!

• Hallway Conversations is sponsored by the Center for the Advancement of Christian Education. You can learn more about the good work CACE is doing at https://cace.org/

View Details

This episode was prompted by an email Dave sent to the rest of the crew–we’ll let you listen to hear the details–but it has to do with finding lots of joy amidst some frustration. This got us thinking about the nature of joy, and we share some of the joyful memories we have from our growing up years as we begin. Then we shift to talking about finding joy in the work of teaching, even when it is challenging, demanding, and downright frustrating. How can we look for joy, and help our students learn to see joy as well? We hope this will be an encouragement for you too to choose joy, even when things are frustrating!

• In this episode we reference Dave’s newsletter: Positivity. Passion. Purpose. You can read the post we discuss here: https://drdave.substack.com/p/joy-amidst-the-hard-stuff You can subscribe for free and it will come to your inbox every other Wednesday.
• Hallway Conversations is sponsored by the Center for the Advancement of Christian Education. You can learn more about the good work CACE is doing at https://cace.org/

View Details

In this episode we have the opportunity to interview our new friend, Shaun Brooker, who serves as Head of School at Hamilton Christian School in Hamilton, New Zealand. It was a pleasure to meet Shaun in person at the recent Converge conference in Orlando, and we were delighted that Shaun was able to join us for the show, despite the time difference between the Waikato region in New Zealand and Northwest Iowa–he is 18 hours ahead of us! Shaun is a thoughtful, passionate leader, as you will find as you listen. In this wide-ranging conversation about Christian education, Shaun shares his vision for the Kingdom work we get to engage in as Christian educators. We hope you’ll be blessed by this conversation, and we suspect this is not the last time we’ll have Shaun on the show.

• At the end of the episode Dave asks Shaun about an important piece he has written entitled “The Letter,” which we hope everyone will read. You can find this piece here: The Letter.
• Hallway Conversations is sponsored by the Center for the Advancement of Christian Education. You can learn more about the good work CACE is doing at https://cace.org/

View Details

Friends, we know it’s been a bit since we’ve had a new episode. Never fear! We have more fun ideas still to come this spring, including some great interviews. In the meantime, we’d like to share Dave’s side project: another podcast! This one is a STEM-oriented podcast supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation called It’s Good to Be Smart! The idea is that science teachers (grades 5-10) could use the episodes in this podcast to support their teaching. Season 1 is all about matter–the building blocks of the universe. This episode is all about the Periodic Table of the Elements. We hope you enjoy it–and maybe consider sharing this podcast with a science teacher you know!

• It’s Good to Be Smart! is available on all the major podcast apps, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, Amazon Music, and more. You can also find on the web at https://goodtobesmart.podbean.com/
• Dave has created instructional resources to support using It’s Good to Be Smart! with students. You can access these materials at https://goodtobesmart.com/

View Details

Matt noticed that it was four years ago last week that we started this podcast adventure–and what a wonderful time it’s been for us! We’re so grateful to you all, dear listeners, for joining us on this journey. We hope it will continue to be a blessing for you. In honor of that milestone, we start things off with some reflections on what we have learned and what we love about this project.

This week we are joined in the studio (aka, Abby’s office with the creaky table) by our good friend, Darryl De Boer. Darryl brings a wealth of knowledge and experience from his roles as Director of Education at Surrey Christian Schools, and Director of Teaching for Transformation at CACE. Our discussion this week is coming in response to our recent (successful!) accreditation process in the Education program at Dordt University. We wonder together about accountability and trust in Christian education. We hope that the discussion will be an encouragement for you to think about the right role of accountability in your own school context, and the important role of trust in those accountability processes.

• Hallway Conversations is sponsored by the Center for the Advancement of Christian Education. You can learn more about the good work CACE is doing at https://cace.org/

View Details

In this episode we think about whether teaching is best pursued as a solo project, or whether it makes more sense in this day and age to look for ways teachers can collaborate in the work of teaching. We share some stories of our own experiences–in higher ed, and in our K-12 teaching–where we tried co-teaching. We explore the benefits and drawbacks, and try to paint a realistic picture of what a strong co-teaching approach might look like in practice. We hope this will encourage you to have more conversations about what collaborative teaching could look like in your own schools.

• Hallway Conversations is sponsored by the Center for the Advancement of Christian Education. You can learn more about the good work CACE is doing at https://cace.org/

View Details

Welcome to a crossover episode with our good friend, Dr. Justin Bailey, who hosts the In All Things podcast. Justin reached out to us, because he wanted to interview Dave about his book, which is out now! We agreed, and what you have before you today is a special episode all about the book. Justin, Abby, and Matt ask Dave about his motivations for writing the book, the content, the approach, and really the heart of it all: developing an imagination for teaching “Christianly.”

• Dave’s book, Always Becoming, Never Arriving: Developing an Imagination for Teaching Christianly is available now. You can find it on Amazon and Bookshop.org!
  • Amazon link: https://www.amazon.com/Always-Becoming-Never-Arriving-Imagination/dp/B0DR19KQWH/
  • Bookshop.org link: https://bookshop.org/p/books/always-becoming-never-arriving-developing-an-imagination-for-teaching-christianly-david-j-mulder/22146371?ean=9798385205066
• If you’ve never listened to the In All Things podcast, we highly recommend it to you! You can find the show on all the major podcast apps, and right here on the web: https://justinbailey.podbean.com/
• Hallway Conversations is sponsored by the Center for the Advancement of Christian Education. You can learn more about the good work CACE is doing at https://cace.org/

View Details

Christmas time is here! (Cue the “Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown!” music!) It’s the end of the semester, and we take a little time to reflect on what we’ve done and what we’ve learned this semester. Matt prompts the discussion this week with a two-part question: 1) What gifts did we receive from our students this year? And 2) What gifts would we like to give to educators? We have a lot of great things we have found blessings from our students, from their reflective responses, to their self-knowledge, to their hospitality, welcoming nature, and idealism. We also have gifts we would love to give to our fellow educators, including bravery, collaboration, authentic professional development, and resources for mental health. Thanks, as always, for listening. We appreciate you so much! We hope that this Christmas season is a blessing for you amidst the blur of busyness, friends!

• Hallway Conversations is sponsored by the Center for the Advancement of Christian Education. You can learn more about the good work CACE is doing at https://cace.org/

View Details

For those who have been with us from the beginning, you might remember how this podcast started with just Matt and Dave, and how we didn’t tell each other the question we were going to bring in, and just stumbled our way through thinking on our feet about how we might answer that question. We are recapturing a bit of that feeling in this episode! We sat down at our microphones at our normally-scheduled recording hour…and looked at each other expectantly, waiting for someone to remind us what our topic was for this week’s episode. We quickly realized that we never agreed on a topic! But we decided to go forward, and record anyway. We hope that this conversation gives you a further sense of who we really are behind our podcast personas! Matt gave us a little direction by sharing an Advent piece by Frederick Buechner to begin, and we launched into a ranging conversation about what gives us hope right now. We also talk about recommendation letters, the amazing students we get to teach, some recent adventures in pedagogy, things we are grateful for, and other playful shenanigans. Maybe this episode will be a good reminder to take some time to check in and connect with your colleagues!

• Hallway Conversations is sponsored by the Center for the Advancement of Christian Education. You can learn more about the good work CACE is doing at https://cace.org/
• In this episode, Dave mentions Andy Crouch’s book, The Life We’re Looking For, which is one of his favorites lately. You can order a copy here: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=the+life+we%27re+looking+for&hvadid=593689271884

View Details

In this episode we start off with some random check-in questions from Matt, inviting us to share some things about ourselves. (Be ready for some silliness, dear listeners!) This leads us into Dave sharing a story about teaching while not feeling well…and how he nearly passed out in class. The question Dave raises: how much should we let students see us as “real human beings?” We talk through various aspects of appropriate self-disclosure for teachers, the role of liking students and being liked by students in return, and strategies for giving students glimpses of who we really are beyond being “just the teacher.” We hope you’ll laugh along with our banter, but also that this might spark some introspection and conversation with your colleagues about right relationships with students.

Hallway Conversations is sponsored by the Center for the Advancement of Christian Education. You can learn more about the good work CACE is doing at https://cace.org/

View Details

We start off this episode sharing about the different things we’ve been doing lately, with different conferences where we’ve been presenting lately. (It was marvelous for Abby and Matt to meet up with many listeners at CEA!) Dave’s conference actually sparked the topic for this week’s conversation: so many of the sessions at his EdTech conference dealt with AI in Education. We have questions, and maybe the beginnings of some answers. We discuss a whole range of ideas, from what AI is and what it currently can and cannot do, the potential impacts on teachers’ pedagogy, and how to focus on having humans do the things that humans should do…while also imagining ways that we can have machines do things that machines are good at. These are murky waters, for sure, but we hope this somewhat-longer-than-normal hallway conversation will be encouraging, and might spark some more hallway conversations of your own about the role of AI in education.

• In this episode, we mentioned the fact that Dave recently had a chapter published in a monograph by the Association of Christian Schools International that is all about AI in Education. You can learn more about the book here: https://your.acsi.org/pdp-store/Product-Catalog/Product-Details?productid=%7B03BC9D7A-5D6C-EF11-A670-002248218222%7D&srsltid=AfmBOor-gBOI96z2BNH5J5x9hfa0p_as5MktUIpinVzf75ZYhOfXm4QP
• Hallway Conversations is sponsored by the Center for the Advancement of Christian Education. You can learn more about the good work CACE is doing at https://cace.org/

View Details

This week we start off with a rant about Christmas decorations already being out in the stores (it’s only the middle of October!) which turned into a just-for-fun check-in question about our favorite Halloween treats from our youth. The heart of our conversation today stemmed from an impromptu conversation Matt had with a campus visitor about the Education profession, and the prospective student was definitely not planning to become a teacher. Their conversation prompted our discussion: why aren’t people coming into the profession today? We think around some of the narratives about the profession, and what parts are true, and what parts are…less true. Dave shares his take on why–and how–educators can work to elevate the profession and we brainstorm ideas about how those of us who teach can help encourage other people to join us in the joyful challenges and rewarding work we get to do as teachers. We have some specific words of encouragement for you all, listeners, to help encourage your own students to consider becoming teachers–we hope you’ll have those conversations too!

• Hallway Conversations is sponsored by the Center for the Advancement of Christian Education. You can learn more about the good work CACE is doing at https://cace.org/

View Details

We’re (finally!) back in the studio (okay, Abby’s office with a creaky table) to record again. We’ve missed this so much! We start by catching up about some of the events of our summer, and the things we have upcoming–lots of opportunities for us to meet up with Christian educators in different places. We love connecting with colleagues across North America, and around the world! And along these lines, our main conversation this week is about “connection” in schools–as in, what does it look like for people to be “connected” to their school community? Matt shared some quotes to get the ball rolling, and once we got started, we found we have both lots of ideas as well as plenty of questions about what being “connected” in a school community looks like in the flesh. We discuss the difference between “welcome” and “belonging,” and we wonder together about what it looks like when students (or faculty) are disconnected from their school community. We also wonder about the benefits of “close-knit community” and if there is a shadow-side to this, though it certainly sounds appealing. Throughout this conversation, we share examples and stories from our own experiences, both in schools and in broader communities. We hope, as always, that listening to us thinking out loud will be a spark for some hallway conversations of your own!

• Dave mentioned that he is going to be speaking at ACSI’s Flourishing Schools Institute; this is going to be a pretty phenomenal conference! You can learn more here: https://www.acsi.org/flourishing-schools-institute
• Matt and Abby will be at the Christian Educators Association Convention at the end of October, and if you are going to be there, be sure to connect with them there! More information about the convention here: https://www.ceateachers.org/
• Hallway Conversations is sponsored by the Center for the Advancement of Christian Education. You can learn more about the good work CACE is doing at https://cace.org/

View Details

Our final episode for this season–a little time to reflect on Matt’s question, “What does it look like to end well?” We shared some of the joys and sorrows we feel at the end of a term, ideas for how to end well, and some of the things we deeply believe about the rhythms of the school year. We also took some time to look back over this year and name some of the things we have learned. We recognize that we are all still works in progress and have not yet “arrived” as teachers and leaders. We hope you’ll be encouraged by this conversation to wrap up this year well.

• A programming note: we are going on hiatus for the summer. The hallway is going to be a little quiet for the next few months! But we anticipate picking up again in August. We hope that you too will find time to rest, recharge, and recreate during your summer season.
• Hallway Conversations is sponsored by the Center for the Advancement of Christian Education. You can learn more about the good work CACE is doing at https://cace.org/

View Details

This week we are delighted to have a long-time listener and friend of the podcast joining us for a conversation: master educator, Al Bandstra. Al teaches 6th grade at Sioux Center Christian School, and has written substantially about effective classroom management. His forthcoming book is about what he calls “infectious behaviors,” and this conversation is all about what Christian educators can do to address the challenges of individuals and groups that aren’t behaving as we hope and expect they will. We share a variety of stories we’ve experienced, and Al shared with us from his ongoing research and exploration of ways he has found success to address challenging behaviors and broken relationships. If you have ever had a student–or group of students–that has been a challenge for you, we are confident that you’ll find both stories of solidarity as well as words of encouragement here about classroom culture, appropriate authority for teachers, and even acknowledging our own humanity.

• Hallway Conversations is sponsored by the Center for the Advancement of Christian Education. You can learn more about the good work CACE is doing at https://cace.org/

View Details

This week we are joined in the hallway by our friend and colleague, Gwen Marra. Dr. Marra teaches courses in Dordt’s undergraduate Teacher Preparation Program and Master of Education Program related to early childhood education and literacy. Her academic focus is especially on supporting all learners in developing essential skills for literacy. The hallway crew keeps hearing about “the Science of Reading,” and we have a varied understanding of what this means. Since we wanted to learn more, we connected with our resident expert on all things literacy! Gwen shares from the deep well of her education and experience to help us understand better. We hope that by listening in you’ll likewise be informed and better equipped to understand what research actually says about how people learn to read, and how we can help all students learn and succeed with literacy.

• Dr. Marra mentioned the Sold a Story podcast in this episode. You can listen to the whole podcast here: https://features.apmreports.org/sold-a-story/
• Dr. Marra also mentioned the book Fish in a Tree by Lynda Mullaly Hunt. You can find it on Amazon here: https://www.amazon.com/Fish-Tree-Lynda-Mullaly-Hunt/dp/0142426423
• Dr. Marra mentioned several resources for teachers and parents, which you can access here:
  • Reading Rockets: https://www.readingrockets.org/
  • International Dyslexia Association: https://dyslexiaida.org/
• Hallway Conversations is sponsored by the Center for the Advancement of Christian Education. You can learn more about the good work CACE is doing at https://cace.org/

View Details

This week we are privileged to host our friend, Darryl De Boer, as a special guest. Darryl is a longtime leader in Christian schools, and currently serves as Director of Learning at Surrey Christian School in Surrey, British Columbia. Darryl is also a Senior Fellow at the Center for the Advancement of Christian Education where he serves as the Director of Teaching for Transformation. Darryl is one of the co-creators of Teaching for Transformation (TfT), which is a framework being used by many Christian schools across North America to more intentionally ground their curriculum, instruction, and professional development to a Christ-centered biblical worldview. In this conversation, Darryl shares about the development of TfT, the core practices that are integral to TfT, and many other topics related to teaching and leading Christianly. Darryl’s wisdom, thoughtfulness, and passion are on full display in our conversation, as is his way of encouraging and agitating (in the most positive sense!) to help schools become more intentional about taking seriously the integral nature of faith and learning. No matter your role in education, if you are part of a Christian school, we’re confident you’ll be encouraged and challenged by listening to this conversation!

• Hallway Conversations is sponsored by the Center for the Advancement of Christian Education. You can learn more about the good work CACE is doing at https://cace.org/

View Details

We start off today’s episode by checking in about our spring break shenanigans; we were all out traveling, and found it a wonderful time to recharge–a good reminder for us (and hopefully for you too!) that we need to take breaks, get a change of scenery, and recharge. The main topic for our discussion today came from Dave’s questions: “What is teacher leadership? And how do teachers function as leaders in school?” We discuss different ways that teachers can function as leaders–for good, or for ill–in school, even if they don’t have a formal title. We hope that this conversation will prompt some valuable discussion in your own hallway about the ways you and your colleagues serve as leaders in your school.

• In today’s episode, Abby mentions an excellent piece from Cult of Pedagogy entitled Find Your Marigold. We recommend you read it! You can access it here: https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/marigolds/
• Hallway Conversations is sponsored by the Center for the Advancement of Christian Education. You can learn more about the good work CACE is doing at https://cace.org/
• In the past few episodes, Matt has mentioned an upcoming webinar with Dr. Owen Webb about restorative practices. This webinar is free, and we urge you to join in and learn.
  • More information about the webinar is available here: https://www.facebook.com/events/1600343174138846?ref=newsfeed
  • You can register here: https://dordt-edu.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_NdZFsoTsSiuEAF58gvGfcA#/registration

View Details

This week we are privileged to host our friend, Chad Dirkse, as a special guest. Chad is a longtime school leader in Christian schools, and currently serves as Head of School at Annapolis Area Christian School where he serves more than 870 students and 100 staff. Chad is an expert in management and has a wealth of wisdom to share about both recruiting and retaining really excellent faculty members, and we were thrilled to have the opportunity to ask him a lot of questions. From Chad’s high-level idea of “revering the profession” to specific advice to leaders for how to both recruit new faculty members as well as retain great teachers, we know you’ll be blessed and encouraged, whether you are a school leader, a board member, or a teacher yourself.

• Hallway Conversations is sponsored by the Center for the Advancement of Christian Education. You can learn more about the good work CACE is doing at https://cace.org/

View Details

We took the show on the road recently as we had the opportunity to provide some professional development workshops with our friends at Sioux Falls Christian School, and while we were there, they invited us to record an episode with their whole PreK-12 faculty. We had a great time, as usual! (Our apologies for the slightly less-than-optimal audio quality that comes with recording in a large room.) The theme of the professional development day was “empowered learning,” so we leaned into that as our theme for this episode as well. We start with a silly check-in question about songs we randomly find ourselves singing–you know you want to hear these! From there we share stories about our own teachers who empowered us as learners in our own school journeys. And, of course, as we usually do when we record live, we solicited questions from the crowd related to empowering learners. We hope that you will find encouragement and ideas for how you can empower you own students as you listen in!

Hallway Conversations is sponsored by the Center for the Advancement of Christian Education. You can learn more about the good work CACE is doing at https://cace.org/

View Details

In this episode we begin with a check-in about our favorite fashion choices from our high school days that we kind of wish would come around again. (You might be surprised…or maybe not at all!) From that silliness, we take a hard turn into a very serious topic–power in the classroom. Dave set the stage by sharing a quote from a book that got him thinking about the nature of power, how teachers use their power, and the way students respond. We think through our own growth as teachers and how we needed to assert power at some points in our teaching experiences. This got us talking about the way we grow as teachers throughout our careers, the difference between “power” and “authority,” and even how teachers can share power with students without diminishing their authority. We hope this episode will help you reflect on the power held by teachers, and ways to use your authority appropriately in light of your office as Christian educator.

• Dave brought up the book On Christian Teaching: Practicing Faith in the Classroom by David I. Smith. We urge you to read this book if you haven’t already: https://www.amazon.com/Christian-Teaching-Practicing-Faith-Classroom/dp/080287360X/
• Abby brought up the book Hacking School Discipline by Nathan Maynard and Brad Weinstein. You can learn more here: https://www.amazon.com/Hacking-School-Discipline-Responsibility-Restorative/dp/1948212137
• Hallway Conversations is sponsored by the Center for the Advancement of Christian Education. You can learn more about the good work CACE is doing at https://cace.org/

View Details

Welcome to Season 8! We’re excited to be back with you for another set of hallway conversations. We start off with a check-in about what sparked joy for us since the last time we’ve been recording, and we hope this is an encouragement for you all to practice check-ins with your students and/or colleagues as well. Matt brought the question for our discussion this week, asking us to think about how things have changed–for better, or for worse–since we began teaching. There are so many things we named from the “Good Old Days,” from technologies, to student engagement, to interactions with parents, and so many more. We hope that listening in to this conversation will prompt some reflection for you about the changing nature of our profession.

• Hallway Conversations is sponsored by the Center for the Advancement of Christian Education. You can learn more about the good work CACE is doing at https://cace.org/

View Details

It’s Christmastime! Thanks so much for listening in throughout 2023, friends, and we hope that this Christmas season will be full of peace, love, and joy for you. We hope that this short episode is a word of encouragement that will bless you as you close out 2023.

• We are taking a break for a few weeks, but will be back in the studio in late January with some new and exciting things to share with you! Look for new episodes around the beginning of February.
• In this episode, Dave mentions his newsletter, and a story about Advent devotionals he included there. If you would like to read (or subscribe) you can do that here: https://drdave.substack.com/p/doubt-at-christmas

View Details

This week, kind of an old-school Hallway Conversation like we did back in the early days of the show: Dave springs a question about assessment on Abby and Matt, and we just think out loud together about what assessment really, and what it is “for.” In particular, a conversation Dave had with a friend who is a K-12 teacher sparked a wondering about “just how much time should we devote to assessing learning vs. actually teaching the content?” We hope the discussion might prompt some wondering of your own–and that you might have a hallway conversation with a colleague about your own assessment practices.

• Exciting news for us! We have an official sponsor: the Center for the Advancement of Christian Education! You can find out more about CACE and the good work they are doing at https://cace.org/

View Details

This week: three short pieces stitched together that we hope will prompt a little thanksgiving, and will give you a word of encouragement for the work you are called to do as an educator. This episode includes a section we snipped out of our previous episode in which we interviewed our friend, Lynn Swaner. (See episode 099 - it’s a really good one!) It also includes two short pieces from Dave’s now-defunct blog that we hope will give you a little boost. Also, it’s been an insane couple of weeks between a few of us teaching an overloaded schedule this semester as well as some travel a couple of us needed to do. So…we hope (and plan!) to be back to record a full episode for you all soon!

• Original post from Dave’s old blog: Keep Your Eye on the Donut: https://iteach-and-ilearn.blogspot.com/2016/11/keep-your-eye-on-donut.html
• And another post from Dave’s blog: A Case of the Blah’s (And Teaching Anyway): https://iteach-and-ilearn.blogspot.com/2021/02/a-case-of-blahs-and-teaching-anyway.html

View Details

It’s our 100th episode!!! We’re proud–and a little surprised, honestly–that we’ve made it to this milestone. Thanks to you loyal listeners for being with us throughout the journey to this point! Coincidentally, we had the joy of recording a live episode at the Christian Educators’ Association Convention held in South Bend, Indiana in October 2023, which became a fun celebration for our 100th episode as well; it was great to connect with some fans of the show while we were there. We solicited a bunch of questions from the audience, and it was fun to think on our feet and interact with the crowd who joined us. It’s wide-ranging conversation about a bunch of different issues in education today–from living out our calling, to teacher retention, to teacher preparation, to effective homework (Dave’s favorite axe to grind)...there is a lot of ground we cover! We hope you enjoy listening in on this live session, because we sure enjoyed recording it!

In this episode we reference the following, which we recommend to you:

• Steven Garber’s powerful book, Visions of Vocation: Common Grace for the Common Good, which you can find here: https://www.amazon.com/Visions-Vocation-Common-Grace-Good/dp/0830836667
• Dave’s newsletter: Positivity. Passion. Purpose. Which you can access here for free: https://drdave.substack.com/

View Details

This week was a treat for us: the opportunity to have our good friend, Lynn Swaner, joining us for a recording session while she was on our campus. Lynn serves as Chief Strategy and Innovation Office at the Association of Christian Schools International. She is one of the co-authors of the book Flourishing Together, which we read and discussed on the podcast in the spring of 2022 (see episodes 056 through 060 for our discussion of this excellent book.)

On today's episode, Lynn shares from her wealth of experiences and the research she has conducted; we wind up with a wide-ranging conversation about flourishing, calling, weathering the challenges of education today, leadership, and imagining the future of education. Lynn a wise voice that Christian educators should be listening to, and we hope you’ll be encouraged by this week’s conversation.

View Details

This week is part two of our conversation with our co-host Abby De Groot along with our friends Rikki Brons and Gayle Doornbos as they share about their adventure this summer on pilgrimage on the Camino de Santiago in Spain. We recommend that you go back and listen to our last episode before diving into part two of the conversation. In this part of the conversation, we focus on what pilgrimage is, what it is all about, and how pilgrimage might even be educational—an adventure in pedagogy. We discuss the difference between pilgrimage and “going for a walk,” the role of community in our pilgrimage through life, and the way Christian educators might benefit from thinking about teaching as a sort of pilgrimage–walking on the way and seeking to faithfully follow Jesus. We hope you’ll be blessed and encouraged on your journey by listening in!

• If you are interested in learning more about traveling the Camino themselves, our friends recommend checking out Encounter: Travel for Transformation. You can find more information here: https://encounter-tft.com/

View Details

This week’s episode is a special first part of a two-part episode. We have a couple of friends joining us today, Dr. Rikki Brons and Dr. Gayle Doornbos. Abby, Rikki, and Gayle adventured together this summer, going on a pilgrimage on the Camino de Santiago in Spain. The Camino is an ancient pilgrimage route traveled by Christians for centuries, and this was no vacation: this was a spiritual and educational journey! In this episode, we hear a bit about what prompted this pilgrimage for them, how it worked, and what they learned. We hope you’ll enjoy hearing about their adventures…and come back for part II in a couple weeks to find out more about the significance and influences they have found not only for their faith lives, but for their teaching as well.

View Details

So…we were a little punchy recording this episode, because it was Friday afternoon and it had been a long week. We hope you enjoy a little extra silliness and bantering back and forth! This episode is in response to a question from a listener; Mike asked us to share some of the podcasts we love (besides this one) and were happy to share. There are a wide range of different ideas here, but we think you’ll find something to add to your list for listening–things that we think will bring you opportunities for learning, or laughter, or both. You can find any of the podcasts we mention in your favorite podcast platform, so feel free to go searching! Here is the list of podcasts we named in this episode:

• Revisionist History
• Stuff You Should Know
• The Ten Minute Bible Hour
• The Anthropocene Reviewed
• Everything Happens
• Freakonomics
• The Last Archive
• Up First
• In All Things
• Pantsuit Politics
• What Should I Read Next
• 99 Percent Invisible
• 32 Thoughts
• No Laying Up

In this episode, Dave’s bi-weekly newsletter also came up as a topic of discussion. It is entitled “Positivity. Passion. Purpose.” and it’s meant to encourage and support educators who need a boost of positivity, a jolt of passion, or a reminder of their purpose. He would love it if you would check it out, and you can subscribe for free: https://drdave.substack.com

View Details

Welcome to Season 7! It’s been awhile since we’ve been able to get together around the microphones, but we are excited to dive into more conversations with you. Matt kicks off the new season by sharing a recent podcast episode that got him thinking deeply about the importance of reflection, and the surprising power of reflection for solidifying our understanding and learning. This prompted us to do a little shared reflection on the things we experienced and learned this summer, and we even get a little personal with the new things we are finding in this season of newness. These personal reflections further prompted us to reflect together about our development as teachers over the years and how seasons of newness often are opportunities for growth. We hope that listening in might prompt some reflection of your own, and some collegial conversations you might have about your personal and professional development.

• The podcast Matt referenced in this episode is called The Learner Lab, and the specific episode that got him thinking about the importance of reflection was this one, entitled “The Surprising Power of Reflection.” You can listen to it here: https://thelearnerlab.com/the-surprising-power-of-reflection-giada-di-stefano/

View Details

Greetings, loyal listeners! We are still in full summer mode, but don't worry--more new episodes coming your way soon. This week is a replay of a popular episode from about one year into this podcasting adventure; hopefully, you'll enjoy re-listening (or perhaps listening for the first time!) 

And so, for today, one from the archives. Our main topic in this episode was sparked by a question from a listener; Loretta asks, “In the past few years, our school has embraced Project Based Learning as a preferred teaching method. What are your thoughts on PBL? And what do you think are some of the best things about PBL and maybe what are some of the downfalls of teaching in a PBL style?” This was a timely question, as Matt and Abby had visited a PBL school just the week before we recorded this episode! We think together about the similarities and differences between having students “do projects” and implementing “project-based learning.” We further explore some of the habits of mind that seem to be important for implementing PBL at a classroom level and at a school level. Expanding audiences, exhibitions of student work, student empowerment–we talk about it all!

View Details

This is a new episode, but perhaps a little different than most! We have had a terrible time getting the three of us to be in the same place at the same time with the mindset and wherewithal to record new episodes. (Never fear–new episodes are coming soon! Once we’re all back from our summer travels, we’ll get back into our normal routine.) :-) In the meantime, this one is made up of two elements: both a snippet from an earlier conversation that Dave had cut out during the editing process, as well as a solo recording Dave made of a piece that came from his old blog. We hope that both of these will offer encouragement for novice teachers…and their more experienced colleagues as well.

• If you’re interested in reading the original piece from Dave’s blog, you can find it here: https://iteach-and-ilearn.blogspot.com/2014/01/a-good-teacheror-great-teacher.html

View Details

Greetings, loyal listeners! We are into full summer mode now, but don't worry--more new episodes coming your way soon. This week is a replay of a popular episode from about one year into this podcasting adventure; hopefully, you'll enjoy re-listening (or perhaps listening for the first time!) 

And so, for today, one from the archives. In this episode, we begin by reflecting on our first year of podcasting. Listeners, we are SO grateful for you! And we want this show to be the sort of thing that encourages, challenges, and blesses you, so we would love to hear your feedback, questions, comments, and wonderings. You can always contact us at hallwayconvospod@gmail.com.

After that opening reflection, Matt brings us a quote from Parker Palmer’s book, The Courage to Teach, and shares a story of a recent interaction with a fellow educator who is grappling with the idea of the standardization of education–and wondering whether “teaching” is just being reduced to “technique.” We think through some of the challenges of developing as educators, and the difference between thinking of teaching as a science, as an art. After some disagreement about this, we settle on the idea that teaching is both an art and a science, and think through some of the ramifications for how that impacts our work as educators.

View Details

This episode was prompted by an email we had from Emma, a recent college graduate with a bunch of great questions, seeking our advice for how to navigate the beginnings of entering this profession. She had some great questions–thanks for asking them, Emma! We offer our on-the-spot advice to a variety of questions, from how to get to know the culture of the building, to getting how to build relationships with students, to what to do if you disagree with a seasoned colleague’s approach. We hope that if you are new to the profession, or joining a new school, or if you have a new colleague coming aboard in your teaching team you’ll find some encouragement in this episode.

View Details

Greetings, loyal listeners! We are into full summer mode now, but don't worry--more new episodes coming your way soon. We plan to work around our travel schedules and different pace of the summer months, and we will still have an episode for your listening pleasure every other week as has become our pattern. But we probably be alternating new episodes and replays throughout the summer--hopefully, you'll enjoy re-listening (or perhaps listening for the first time!) to some of our earlier episodes.

And so, for today, one from the archives. In this episode, Dave kicks things off by sharing a story about how he has changed his mind about some things in education. We then have a robust conversation about the ways teachers probably should change their minds over time, which is a hallmark of learning, after all. We hope you'll enjoy and be blessed by this summer replay.

Original episode including show notes here:  https://hallwayconvos.podbean.com/e/episode-024-changing-our-minds/ 

View Details

After our last episode where we interviewed two of our graduates who are right at the beginning of their careers, we thought it could be interesting to hear from some folks who are wrapping up long careers as professional educators. So we were delighted that our good friends, Kim and Ed Starkenburg, were willing to join us for this episode! Kim and Ed recently retired from teaching after 40+ years teaching. They have such great stories to share–from how they came into the profession, to how they have seen things change over their long careers, some of the joys and challenges they experienced, and the things they miss (and don’t miss!) now that they have retired. There is a lot of collective wisdom here that they shared, and whether you are new to the profession, are an experienced educator, or just think back fondly on some of your own teachers, we know you’ll be blessed by listening in. Blessings to you, dear listeners, as you wrap up this school year and transition into summer mode.

View Details

In this episode, we were blessed to be joined by two of our now-graduated students, Shanoah De Waard and Josh Schouten. These are two amazing people who are right at the beginning of their careers as professional educators. We were so delighted to have had the opportunity to teach these two, and even more delighted to have them join us on the show! It was wonderful for the three of us to get to visit with them, and hear their stories about their experiences in their teacher preparation program and student teaching, as well as what they are headed into as they begin their work as professional teachers. Whether you are relatively new to the profession, or an experienced veteran educator, hearing from Shanoah and Josh will inspire you and give you some ideas about how you can encourage and mentor colleagues who are just joining us in this vocation. We hope that as you listen in, you’ll reflect on your own induction into teaching, and how you’ve grown in your understanding of the important work you do, serving kids through education.

View Details

This week, we are joined by our friend and colleague, Ross Douma, who serves as Director of Athletics at Dordt University. Ross is a longtime educator and coach in both faith-based and public schools, and has a wealth of insight and experience to share. We asked Ross to share some of his vision for a distinctively Christian approach to athletics, and he has plenty of wisdom to share. If you are a coach, parent of athletes, teacher of athletes, or an athlete yourself, we are sure there will be things in this episode to both encourage and challenge your thinking! From the way the emphasis on athletics has shifted over time, to the need for redemption of athletics in contemporary culture, to advice for parents for how to encourage kids, to reframing “extra-curricular” activities to “co-curricular,” we talk about it all! 

• In the episode, Ross references the Defender Way, which is a coaching philosophy that guides the athletics department at Dordt University. You should definitely read up on it here: https://www.dordt.edu/athletics
• We also talk about Coaching for Transformation, and if you serve at a faith-based school, we highly recommend you look into this framework as a way of reimagining what athletics might look like in your school: https://www.coachingfortransformation.org/

View Details

Our discussion this week was sparked by a hallway conversation about all the grading we are doing these days. Abby shared a couple of resources (posted below) that she has shared with the future teachers we serve–some really good prompts! As we looked at these pieces, we saw many ways we are already implementing some of these strategies, and some strategies we might like to try in the future as well. We hope there are some great nudges here for you in ways to be more effective and efficient in getting feedback to your students, no matter the grade level or content area you teach.

• Check out this infographic full of ideas for efficient grading from Todd Finley: https://twitter.com/finleyt/status/1597809178827190274?s=20
• This post from Jennifer Gonzalez at Cult of Pedagogy also has great ideas that might be an inspiration for you: https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/cut-grading-time-in-half/
• And, while we’re on Cult of Pedagogy, here’s an approach for writing better rubrics: https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/single-point-rubric/

View Details

This week, we are joined with our good friend and colleague, Dr. Val Zonnefeld, who teaches in the Dordt University Department of Mathematics. Her expertise is in math education, and she teaches multiple courses for the future teachers in our program–both math content, and math methods. We start this episode by sharing our own “math stories”: the good, the bad, and the ugly. Val has extensive knowledge from the research in math education as well as a ton of practical experience from her years teaching math in middle school, high school, and college classrooms. Throughout our conversation, Val shares lots of wisdom and ideas for teachers and parents alike in helping the kids in their lives wherever they are with mathematics–whether they feel the math anxiety (which is very real!) or if they are high-achieving “mathletes.” We hope this episode is an encouragement for you!

• In the episode, Val mentions the book Building Thinking Classrooms in Mathematics, by Peter Liljedahl and recommends this one for teachers. You can find it on Amazon here: https://www.amazon.com/Building-Thinking-Classrooms-Mathematics-Grades/dp/1544374836
• Dave also brings up a fascinating tool called WolframAlpha, which is an A.I. computational knowledge engine. It is worth checking this one out, and you can access it for free here: https://www.wolframalpha.com/

View Details

Abby kicks things off for this week’s conversation as it’s “hiring season,” and she is serving on a hiring committee for teachers at her own kids’ school. We also see our students, future teachers that they are, heading into interviews, and know that they are highly sought after! (You might not have heard, but there is a bit of a teacher shortage going on!) All joking aside, in this episode we discuss the challenges of the teaching profession today. In particular, we wonder how schools can acknowledge the hard work teachers do, facilitate ways to make that work more doable, and also attract new teachers to the teaching profession? We have lots of questions, and a few ideas for ways to schools to address the ongoing challenges of hiring and retaining great teachers. We would, as always, love to hear your feedback in response. You can always drop us a line at hallwayconvospod@gmail.com.

View Details

This week we are so grateful to have our friend and colleague from the Dordt University Social Work department, Dr. Tara Boer, in on our conversation about students’ mental health. This is a passion area for Tara, and she has expertise from her background and experience as a therapist. She has lots of helpful advice and encouragement about how parents and teachers can help kids with their mental health concerns. In this episode we talk about the impacts of social media, different ways that anxiety manifests in students, trauma responses in kids, and kids’ self perceptions. Tara shares a variety of strategies for parents and teachers who are looking for ways to help and support kids’ mental health. From questions to ask kids, to strategies for journaling with kids, to partnerships with professionals…Dr. Boer has a wealth of wisdom to share! We hope this longer-than-normal episode will be a blessing for you and the kids in your life.

• You can get more information about Tara and more resources at her website: https://drtaraboer.com. We urge you to connect with her, and have her speak at your event. She is an incredible speaker and will bless and equip your school, church, or community group with her wisdom.
• In the episode, Dr. Boer recommended the book The Whole Brain Child by Daniel Siegel and Tara Payne Bryson. You can order a copy here: https://www.amazon.com/Whole-Brain-Child-Revolutionary-Strategies-Developing/dp/0553386697

View Details

“For the shortest month…February is the LONGEST MONTH.” In this light, Dave brings the question for  this episode: “How can we beat the February doldrums?” We think out loud together, as usual, and share some of our strategies. Some are small things, like just noticing how the days are getting longer. Others are bigger strategies, like dress-up days, or including intriguing projects, or saving a high-interest mini-unit that brings you delight to break up this stretch. We also think about how we sometimes need “permission to play”--and encourage ourselves (and our students) to be a little silly, playful, and whimsical. (Like leaving signs around your classroom that say, “It’s been 1000 days since the last bear attack on our campus.) We hope that this episode will get your creative juices flowing for how to spark a little joy and delight–for both you and your students alike.

View Details

Today’s conversation was sparked by an assignment Abby gives in one of her courses–she has her students write a “reading biography” to reflect on their process of becoming a reader, how they feel about reading, and how their stories impact their reading habits even today. This has us thinking about our own reading biographies, and we shared some of our own stories, including Matt’s love of hockey cards, Abby’s secret hiding places (stay out of the dryer, kids!), and the time Dave got mugged on his way home from the public library. (So many reading adventures!) Along the way, we find some nuggets of wisdom for helping nudge students towards becoming more joyful readers. We hope this conversation might prompt some reflection for you about your own reading biography!

View Details

Welcome to Season 6! We are excited to dive into more conversations with you. We begin this episode with a little reflecting on the journey that has brought us to this point; we’re so grateful to you, dear listener, for joining us on the journey.

This episode is inspired by the fact that Dave has been working on writing a book(!!!) and we spend a little time celebrating that he has completed the manuscript, and is piloting it in his Introduction to Education class this spring. The title is Always Becoming, Never Arriving: Developing an Imagination for Teaching Christianly, and we use this as a springboard to start thinking about how a “teacher imagination” develops, and how it’s a process of continuing to “become” a teacher. Also, Abby brings up the escaped hippos of notorious drug-lord, Pablo Escobar, and how they are causing all kinds of problems in Colombia. (Of course Abby would bring this up!) We hope this episode is delightful, encouraging, and thought-provoking for you in developing your own teacher imagination.

• If you’re interested in Dave’s book (thanks for that!) you’ll have to wait for now–Dave is hoping to get it published, and we’ll keep you posted about when and where you can get a copy.

View Details

It's a shorty solo episode from Dave this week, as the three of us haven’t been able to get together long enough in the same room to record an episode in the past two weeks! In this episode, Dave shares an old post from his now-defunct blog about the importance of taking breaks. We hope it’s an encouragement to you to embrace the change of pace that comes with Christmas break. We’ll be back with new episodes in January!

• If you’re interested in reading Dave’s original post, you can find it here: https://iteach-and-ilearn.blogspot.com/2012/12/on-importance-of-taking-breaks.html

View Details

Matt and Dave had a great time away in British Columbia recording our last episode with our friend Darren Spyksma, but it sure is good to be back with our normal trio–we definitely missed having Abby with us!

After a little good-natured joking around, we turn much more serious, thinking about the Advent season we are now in. All three of us love Advent! Matt brought along an Advent prayer that we used to open our conversation today. Dave recently shared an Advent story in his email newsletter, which became a big part of our conversation today. Dave shares some of that story here, and if you’re interested in reading more, you can read the full post–it is linked below. We hope this episode is a blessing for you, and encouragement to slow down as you move towards the manger this year.

• Dave’s newsletter post, which is entitled “Advent is the Antidote” can be read in full here: https://drdave.substack.com/p/advent-is-the-antidote
• If you’re interested in subscribing to Dave’s newsletter, you can do that here: https://drdave.substack.com/ It is all about encouraging teachers to embrace positivity, rekindle their passion, and strive towards living out their purpose. It also includes a healthy dose of Dave’s playful approach towards his teaching practice. He would love it if you’d follow along.

View Details

Matt and Dave recently had the opportunity to travel to British Columbia for the InspirED Christian Educators’ Conference, and while we definitely missed Abby, we loved having the opportunity to record a live episode while we were there. Regular listeners will notice a dip in audio quality–hazards of recording a live episode in a large room! (Thanks for listening anyway; we think there will be a good bit of wondering and curiosity for anyone who listens in.)

Because we’re used to being a trio now, we asked our good friend, Darren Spyksma to join in the fun. Darren serves at the Society of Christian Schools British Columbia. Darren has a wonderful rhythm of tweeting out an “Ed-thought of the day”: something that will challenge and/or encourage reflection on the part of Christian educators. We tackled a couple of his prompts live to try our normal thinking-out-loud of our hallway conversations. We also took questions from the audience as prompts for our conversation. In this episode our conversation ranges from the difference between compliance and learning, the beauty of a well-placed semicolon, the faith-formation aspects embedded in the curriculum, how to manage the burden of the ALWAYS MORE nature of teaching, and what to do with “Indiana Jones” teachers. Something here for everyone! We hope you’ll enjoy this longer-than-normal episode with all the silliness and joy.

• You can follow our friend Darren Spyksma on Twitter: @dspyksma
• In this episode, Darren mentions the book The Sabbath by Abraham Heschel as a motivator for his own Sabbath practices, and he recommended this one to us. You can learn more about it here: https://www.amazon.com/Sabbath-Classics-Abraham-Joshua-Heschel/dp/0374529752

View Details

Matt kicks off our conversation this week by sharing about a book he is currently reading entitled Why Kids Love (and Hate) School. Reading this has prompted him to wonder about whether more kids love school or hate school–and it got us thinking about our own experiences as students and how that has shaped the way we all feel about school, even as teachers. We share our own stories from school, and think about what it is that we liked (and disliked) about school, and think through ideas of what schools can do to make them perhaps more hospitable spaces for all of our students. We would love to hear from you, dear listeners, about what kinds of things you are doing at your schools that are making a practical difference in helping kids to love school.

• The book Matt mentioned, Why Kids Love (and Hate) School: Reflections on Practice is available here: https://www.amazon.com/Kids-School-Academy-Educational-Studies/dp/1975500997

View Details

This week: a short bonus episode with more wisdom about teaching the Bible from our friend and colleague, Dr. Gayle Doornbos. After we “finished” recording our last episode, Dave left the mics on and kept recording. Gayle had more wise things to share about faith formation as part of a Bible class. We hope you’ll be encouraged, challenged, and blessed by what she has to say here!

• A peek behind the scenes: this is almost always how we end our recording sessions--with Dave just leaving the mics on. Once in a while, we have a great moment that gets edited into the episode…but most of the time it’s ridiculous drivel. Maybe sometime we’ll have a whole bonus episode of our hijinks? (Probably not!)

View Details

This week, Abby was not able to join us for recording, and while we definitely missed her, we were grateful to have a good friend from the Theology Department join us, Dr. Gayle Doornbos, Associate Professor of Theology at Dordt University. Gayle teaches a course entitled “Teaching the Bible,” and knowing this, we invited her to join us for a conversation about teaching the Bible as an academic subject. As Matt and Dave both have had their own (mis)adventures in teaching Bible classes, we thought Gayle’s insight and experience would be worth sharing with our listeners, as we have learned a lot from her! Our conversation today covers a lot of ground–we discuss many parts of the joys and challenges of teaching Bible, from helping students develop a theological imagination, to the understanding the difference between knowing the facts of Bible stories with knowing the Big Story of Scripture, to the question of what should be included in the curriculum of biblical studies, to moralism in teaching the Bible, to whether “anyone can teach Bible” vs. whether we should have specially-trained Bible teachers in Christian schools. Gayle encourages us to think about studying the Bible as not just an academic exercise, but also as a formative experience for shaping students’ faith life–even though that is challenge! We hope that Gayle’s wise words will be an encouragement to anyone called to teach Bible in a Christian school setting.

View Details

Our question today came from our friend and colleague down the hall, Sheila. She shared with us that she had been listening to another podcast and it prompted a wondering from her: “The parents on the podcast said that it [the parent-teacher conference] was very academic and reporting of scores but they just wanted to know who their child was at school beyond the surface level–they talked about wanting to know the stories behind thee growth or the stories of growth in friendship or other skills. What’s the deep hope for parent-teacher conferences?” This prompted a lot of reflection for us on our experiences both as parents and as teachers about the role of parent-teacher conferences–the good, the bad, and the ugly. We hope this episode is an encouragement for parents and teachers alike!

View Details

Thank you, loyal listeners, for joining us each week! You may have noticed that there was no episode in the queue last week. Never fear; we have no intention of giving up on the podcast! But with some changes to responsibilities for two of us this year, we are having a harder and harder time getting all three of us into the studio together to record a weekly episode. So we are planning to shift to an every-other-week schedule for the foreseeable future. We hope you’ll continue to join us for each new episode when they drop. We love recording and sharing our conversations with you all, and if our schedules ever line up better again, perhaps we’ll go back to every week–who knows? :-)

This week’s episode came from a swirl of several convergent streams–a quote from a book about assessment that Abby read, a question from a listener (thanks, Jess!) about assessment practices prompted by something she read on the CACE blog, and challenges we have faced in our own practices regarding assessment. With this kind of confluence, we felt a tug to think together around the topic of assessment, and share some of our experiences and adventures in reimagining what assessment is, and what it is for, and how we try to assess our students’ learning. It’s a ranging, rambling conversation, but we hope you’ll be encouraged and inspired to think through your own assessment practices by listening in.

• Here is the article from the CACE blog mentioned by our listener, Jess. We highly recommend you read it! Its title raises the key question it seeks to answer: “What If Assessment Was a Gift?” You can read it here: https://cace.org/what-if-assessment-was-a-gift/
• In this episode, we also discuss an article by Elaine Brouwer entitled “Assessment For Learning: A Blessing for Our Students,” which is available in this issue of Christian Educators Journal: https://www.cejonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/47-2.pdf
• In the episode, Abby mentions an idea for engaging students in reflection even right before taking a test as a way of building community and reducing anxiety. The idea was in a video by math educator Howie Hua. You can view that video on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/howie_hua/status/1570194591227473921

View Details

This week’s episode is inspired by a tweet from our friend, Darren Spyksma that has us thinking about things that are “uncomfortable truths” about education today…and things that we think really need to change about the way we do school. Through the conversation, we come to the idea that teachers and school leaders need to develop an imagination for what could be rather than just focusing on what is.

• If you are on Twitter, you should really follow Darren Spyksma! You will find him inspiring and encouraging…and challenging for developing your teacher imagination. You can find him at @DSpyksma.
• In this episode we referenced Kelly Kapic’s excellent book, You're Only Human: How Your Limits Reflect God's Design and Why That's Good News. You can order a copy from Amazon here: https://www.amazon.com/Youre-Only-Human-Limits-Reflect/dp/1587435101/

View Details

This week, a continuation of our conversation with Dr. Justin Bailey about his new book, Interpreting Your World: Five Lenses for Engaging Theology and Culture. If you haven’t listened to our last episode yet, we would recommend starting there, because we’re going to be jumping into the middle of a conversation here.

While this isn’t a “teaching” book…it has plenty of wisdom for Christian educators, and lots of encouraging ideas for how to help children and young people make sense of the complex cultural setting we find ourselves living in. We hope you’ll find Justin’s wisdom on discerning issues of faith and culture both challenging and encouraging.

Interpreting Your World will be available soon, and we highly recommend it to you! You can order a copy here: https://www.amazon.com/Interpreting-Your-World-Engaging-Theology/dp/1540965066/

View Details

It’s the beginning of the new academic year across North America, and we know that many of you listeners have already launched in, and some are very soon going to. We started classes this week too—lots of newness around! And…we are hoping to try a few new things this semester on the podcast as well. One new thing: we are hoping to regularly start sprinkling in interviews with people we would love for you to get to know. This episode is our first “interview” show. We started with our good friend and colleague, Dr. Justin Bailey.

Justin teaches in the Theology department at Dordt University, and he is one of the most popular professors on this campus—students love him! He recently wrote a new book entitled Interpreting Your World: Five Lenses for Engaging Theology and Culture. While it isn’t a “teaching” book…it has plenty of wisdom for Christian educators, and lots of encouraging ideas for thinking about how to help children and young people make sense of the complexity of the culture we find ourselves living in.

We enjoyed visiting with Justin so much, it was a long conversation! So we decided to split it into two episodes. The first half of the conversation is here for you, and we’ll have the second half coming out next week. We hope you’ll find Justin’s wisdom on discerning issues of faith and culture both challenging and encouraging.

Interpreting Your World will be available soon, and we highly recommend it to you! You can order a copy here: https://www.amazon.com/Interpreting-Your-World-Engaging-Theology/dp/1540965066/

View Details

It’s the beginning of the new academic year, and we are excited to begin again! In today’s wide-ranging conversation, we talk about the joys and stresses of first days, and we share some of the things we do at the beginning of the new academic year to foster a hospitable space and begin building community. We aren’t prescriptive here, but descriptive of some of the practices we have found to be successful and beneficial–both for us as teachers, as well as for our students. Here’s to new beginnings! (And our apologies for the creaky table noises throughout this episode–we’ll talk to Matt about not leaning so hard on the table next time.) :-)

View Details

BONUS EPISODE: Schooled!

In this episode we connect with some of our favorite Christian school podcast friends and have some fun drafting our ideal schools using peculiar pools to choose from. In round 1 we draft our school's name and motto using 80’s bands and their songs. In round 2 we draft our school's sports teams, colors and mascot using a current pro sports team. In round 3 we draft our school’s framework using some of the options from the Christian Deeper Learning network. In round 4 we draft our school's building type. In round 5 we draft our school’s mode of transportation. In round 6 we draft our school's principal using characters from the Bible. In round 7 we draft our school's lead teacher using characters from a TV show.   This is a weird, weird, weird episode...but we hope you enjoy it! We'll be back soon with new (normal?) episodes.

View Details

Greetings, loyal listeners! We have had a terrible time finding shared times for recording lately, but don't worry--more new episodes coming your way soon. For today, one from the archives. In this episode, Matt asks the question, “What’s up with all this talk of failure and what do we mean when we talk about ‘failure?’ Is failure truly essential to learning? And how do we reconcile failure when we live in a culture that can hyper-promote excellence and success?” We try to define what we actually mean by “failure,” and we discuss why some schools seem to hold up failure as a key component to learning. We grapple with some students’ tendency towards perfectionism, and explore the grace that might be present in embracing risk-taking and missteps--and the importance of feedback--as part of the learning process. (One other fun fact...this is the first episode where Abby joined us as a full-time part of the team, and completely elevated everything about a show that was previously two middle-aged dudes blathering into a microphone.) :-)

View Details

Greetings, loyal listeners! We have had a terrible time finding shared times for recording lately, but don't worry--more new episodes coming your way soon. For today, one from the archives. In this episode, Dave is wondering about positivity, which is typically one of his strengths, but questions whether positivity can sometimes become toxic. We begin by talking about potentially-problematic positivity in our personal lives before turning our attention to our work as educators. We talk about how teachers can model for students and demonstrate appropriate ways to communicate emotions. We briefly touch on what to do with negativity in the staff room, and spend a little time thinking through how educators might be able to embrace healthy positivity even when things are hard. 

View Details

Today’s episode was inspired by Dave’s recent re-reading of David Smith’s book, On Christian Teaching. Dave is wondering about the work of imagination and how it connects to teaching “Christianly.” Smith encourages teachers to “see anew”--to reflect on our practices, and perhaps develop more of an imagination for the work of teaching, and the possibilities and potential of how we can help students to “see anew” through our pedagogy. We talk through different ideas for how this might play out for teachers in their work, and share some examples from our own teaching as well.

We’d always love to hear from you–whether with a question of your own, or feedback on this episode or any other episode. You can always reach out at hallwayconvospod@gmail.com. And if you’d be willing to rate this show, or write a review, we would deeply appreciate it!

• David Smith’s On Christian Teaching is available here: https://www.amazon.com/Christian-Teaching-Practicing-Faith-Classroom/dp/080287360X/
• Along the way in the conversation today, Abby mentioned Wiggins & McTighe’s classic book, Understanding by Design, which is available here: https://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Design-Grant-Wiggins/dp/1416600353/

View Details

Today’s topic is substitute teachers–people we all celebrate! In our conversation we share about some of our happy memories of working with substitute teachers from our K-12 experiences, and some of the joyful experiences we have had serving as substitute teachers. We also have a few ideas about how to equip substitute teachers, so if you know someone who think could be an awesome “teacher on call,” share this episode with them! We love substitute teachers, and hope this conversation helps you celebrate the subs you’ve worked with as well.

We’d always love to hear from you–whether with a question of your own, or feedback on this episode or any other episode. You can always reach out at hallwayconvospod@gmail.com. And if you’d be willing to rate this show, or write a review, we would deeply appreciate it!

View Details

We haven’t done book talks for a while, and since we have more time to read in the summer…it’s time to share a bit about the things we’ve been reading! We each brought in one book that we have read recently, and share a bit about our take-aways from the book. At the end of our recording session, we realized that though we didn’t discuss our choices ahead of time, they all seemed to “touch” and flow from one to the next. We hope that listening in on our conversation of some of the things we’re thinking about related to reading, and faith, and community will encourage you to think deeply about what you’re reading.

We’d always love to hear from you–whether with a question of your own, or feedback on this episode or any other episode. You can always reach out at hallwayconvospod@gmail.com. And if you’d be willing to rate this show, or write a review, we would deeply appreciate it!

Here are the books we discussed in today’s episode:

• Disrupting Thinking: Why How We Read Matters by Kylene Beers & Robert E. Probst. Available here: https://www.amazon.com/Disrupting-Thinking-Why-Read-Matters/dp/1338132903/

• When Everything's On Fire: Faith Forged from the Ashes by Brian Zahnd. Available here: https://www.amazon.com/When-Everythings-Fire-Faith-Forged/dp/1514003333/

• The Life We’re Looking For: Reclaiming Relationship in a Technological World by Andy Crouch. Available here: https://www.amazon.com/When-Everythings-Fire-Faith-Forged/dp/1514003333/ https://www.amazon.com/Life-Were-Looking-Relationship-Technological/dp/059323734X/

View Details

Welcome to “Season 5” of Hallway Conversations! We hope you’ll notice a couple of changes; most notably, we have new microphones, so we hope you’ll find the audio quality a better listening experience. But the basic idea of this show is the same: we hope these are meaningful conversations for you to listen in on that will encourage, challenge, and inspire you.

Today we have a question from a listener! Brenda asks us about what we might be able to “take off of teachers’ plates.” This is an idea we hear talked about quite a bit–and one we’ve even brought up on the show in the past–so we were excited to think this one through. We have a few ideas of the kinds of things school leaders might be able to do to address teachers’ workload. We hope this might spark some creative and courageous conversations at your own schools.

We’d love to hear from you–whether with a question of your own, or feedback on this episode or any other episode. You can always reach out at hallwayconvospod@gmail.com. And if you’d be willing to rate this show, or write a review, we would deeply appreciate it!

View Details

Due to some unforeseen circumstances related to our summer travel schedules and other responsibilities, we were not able to get into the studio to record a new episode this week. (Sorry, loyal listeners!) But we have one from the archive: a question from some of our students prompted this discussion about the challenges of teaching today, and how to cope when it all seems like too much. We hope this is a word of encouragement to all educators who have completed a very trying, taxing year. Grace and peace to you all, and we hope to be back with a new episode very soon.

View Details

In this episode, Matt kicks things off by sharing a quote from Brené Brown’s excellent book, Dare to Lead. The key question we consider is, “How do we open our hearts to be receptive to feedback…and also still protect ourselves from criticism that we ought to dismiss?” Educators by the public nature of their work are often targets of critique, whether fairly or unfairly, and we think together about the ways we personally take feedback, and how we deal with criticism. We hope that you’ll be encouraged in this episode to be resilient in the face of critique, and continue to discern what feedback you should listen to…and what feedback you can disregard.

• Brené Brown’s book Dare to Lead is available here: Amazon link

View Details

In today’s episode, Abby mentions a tweet that she read recently that prompted wondering about what free reading could (should?) look like in middle school and high school classrooms. We jumped into talking through the joys and challenges of creating a culture of reading–and how it might be more of an expectation at the elementary grades, but could have huge benefits for older students as well. We question the role of accountability programs like Accelerated Reader, and discuss the ways AR actually doesn’t promote a healthy, positive culture of reading within a school. Abby shares from her expertise as a literacy instructor about ways to scaffold reading instruction as part of fostering choice-based reading. Lots of dreaming in this episode, but we hope you’ll be encouraged to think about the culture of reading in your school, and possibly imagine ways to strengthen that culture.

View Details

Dave’s Facebook memories recently reminded him of his former role as a Technology Director in K-12, when part of his job involved printing report cards, which got him thinking about the purpose of report cards, and whether they do what we think they do. Dave shares his frustration about the reductionism in trying to compress a whole term’s learning into just one symbol–a letter grade. We candidly share our own school experiences with getting grades and how they were reported on report cards. We wonder together about alternative ways we could think about communicating learning in ways that would be helpful for students, families, and teachers. Grades, comments, narratives, gradeless reports, standards-based approaches…we talk a little about it all! We’d love to hear your thoughts and ideas in response; please drop us a line at hallwayconvospod@gmail.com.

View Details

Consider this a peek behind the scenes...we really are friends, and we really do just hang out together and talk about things. When we get set to record, we usually start with a sound check, and then jump in. But sometimes we go off on a tangent right from the get-go...and that's what happened here. K-pop, fiction we're reading right now, Dave's recent vacation...it all shows up in a 10-minute window. We hope you enjoy this bonus episode!

View Details

Our check-in today is about the different rhythms of summer; Matt starts us off with the myth of “summers off” for teachers, but we recognize that we do have different opportunities with the coming of the summer months. Late bedtimes, smoothies for lunch, and changing exercise routines–we have lots to enjoy with the coming of summer!

Our main topic of discussion today comes from Matt’s recent re-reading of Parker J. Palmer’s impactful book, The Courage to Teach. (Which is one of Dave’s very favorite books ever.) A central concept in the book is one we’ve mentioned on the show before: “teaching who you are.” Matt shares a passage from the book that introduces Palmer’s idea of teacher identity, and we take a little time to think out loud together about what this means for us, and how it shows up in our own practices. We hope you’ll be encouraged and inspired by listening–and that it might spark a hallway conversation for you with a colleague about your own teacher identity.

• Parker Palmer’s book, The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of the Teacher’s Life is one every educator should read. You can order a copy here: Amazon link

View Details

Many thanks to you, our dedicated listeners! We are in that hectic season of wrapping up our semester with all of the final grading and reporting and final details, so we did not have margin to get into the studio (a.k.a., Dave's office with a cheap microphone) to record a new episode. But you are in luck! We are pulling a classic episode out of the archive. In this episode, we discuss the problems and potential of the staff room. What happens in the staff room? What should happen in the staff room? We hope you'll be challenged and encouraged by listening, and we'll be back with new episodes soon!

View Details

We educators are such busy people, aren’t we? In today’s episode, we consider a selection from Jenny Odell’s book, How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy. Maybe this sounds like we are encouraging slothfulness? Not that, exactly…but we discuss the idea of being intentional in planning ways to be fully present in Creation, with family and friends, and perhaps choosing to do different things. We consider the magnetic pull of social media, and the way it pushes us to feel FOMO (fear of missing out.) Odell suggests that we instead embrace NOMO (the necessity of missing out), and we discuss this idea, and what it might look like to live this way. We hope that this episode is a word of encouragement for educators as we wrap up our teaching for this academic year and set some different rhythms for rest and play–and maybe put our phones down?

• The book that prompted our discussion for today is available via Amazon
• Here is a review of How to Do Nothing that Dave contributed to: The Art of Distancing: A Review of How to Do Nothing

View Details

Oh boy, friends…are you ready to talk about dangerous ideas?? In this episode we discuss an essay from the New York Times by Matt Gross entitled “Your Kids Can Handle Dangerous Ideas.” (With thanks to our former professor, Jim Schaap, for recommending it to us!) The key quote from the article: “Parents–or at least the parents who seem to win media attention–are freaking out over everything their kids see, read, and do.” We think through some of the reasons why parents and teachers might be so worried about the kids, and consider some of the cultural forces that seem to be in effect. We also wonder about why (many) Christian schools seem to be afraid to approach potentially “dangerous” ideas–despite perhaps being the ideal place for having faith-informed, honest discussions about potentially-controversial topics. We welcome you to listen in, and as always, your feedback is most welcome!

• You can read the piece from the NYT here: Your Kids Can Handle Dangerous Ideas

View Details

For today’s check-in question, Matt asks us what random things we have on our desks or shelves that tell something about us. You might be surprised by what we share…or maybe not! As we are looking towards the end of another academic year, the main topic today is around summative assessment. Dave recently shared a professional development workshop for a local school about the topic, and we spend some time thinking about the purposes and practices of summative assessment. Dave shares his definition for summative assessment, and then we argue a bit about the different ways summative assessment is used (and abused) in schools today…and how our thinking about summative assessment has shifted over time. The difference between “assessment” and “judgment,” just how high-stakes assessment should be, and ideas for alternatives to traditional cumulative exams…lots of ideas we bat around in this conversation!

View Details

Are you flourishing? Are your students? Your school community? What do we mean by “flourishing” anyway? This week we wrap up our five-week series discussing Lynn Swaner and Andy Wolfe’s new book Flourishing Together: A Christian Vision for Students, Educators, and Schools. The book is divided into five sections, and in this episode, we discuss part five of the book, which is all about “well-being.” As we begin, we talk about work-life rhythm, and why it’s often so difficult for teachers to find this rhythm. We discuss the challenges of resting well, and other facets of well-being for teachers, administrators, and schools. As we conclude this series, we are grateful for the work Lynn and Andy put into this book, and if you have been listening along and haven’t yet read the book yourself, please take this encouragement to find a colleague or two, read the book, and discuss it together this summer. We hope our conversations spark some discourse of your own!

• We would love to hear your reactions to this book as well! Please feel free to share your thoughts, questions, comments, and wonderings with us at hallwayconvospod@gmail.com.
• If you’d like to pick up a copy of the book for yourself (which we definitely recommend!) you can purchase it here: Amazon link
• In today’s episode, Matt references the book The Rest of God: Restoring Your Soul by Restoring Sabbath by Mark Buchanan. If you’re interested, you can find out more here: Amazon link

View Details

Are you flourishing? Are your students? Your school community? What do we mean by “flourishing” anyway? This is week 4 of our five-week series in which we are reading and discussing Lynn Swaner and Andy Wolfe’s new book Flourishing Together: A Christian Vision for Students, Educators, and Schools. The book is divided into five sections, and in this episode, we discuss part four of the book, which is all about “resources.” We begin by thinking about teacher resources we remember from our own school experience–and how technologies and tools have shifted over time. Matt shares a quote about scarcity and abundance from Walter Bruggeman, which led us to think about why so many schools think about what they don’t have rather than what they do have. We grapple with the question, “How much is ‘enough?’” and think through how we student our human resources as well as material resources really well. Lots in this section to unpack and consider!

• We would love to hear your reactions to this book as well! Please feel free to share your thoughts, questions, comments, and wonderings with us at hallwayconvospod@gmail.com.
• If you’d like to pick up a copy of the book for yourself (which we definitely recommend!) you can purchase it here: Amazon link

View Details

Are you flourishing? Are your students? Your school community? What do we mean by “flourishing” anyway? This is week 3 of 4our five-week series in which we are reading and discussing Lynn Swaner and Andy Wolfe’s new book Flourishing Together: A Christian Vision for Students, Educators, and Schools. The book is divided into five sections, and in this episode, we discuss part three of the book, which is all about learning. We obviously talk about student learning–which is the real focus of schooling!--but we also spend quite a bit of time thinking about professional learning for educators, which is also essential for flourishing schools, students, and teachers. Further, we think about ways we can be surprised and delighted by students and their creativity and learning.

• We would love to hear your reactions to this book as well! Please feel free to share your thoughts, questions, comments, and wonderings with us at hallwayconvospod@gmail.com.
• If you’d like to pick up a copy of the book for yourself (which we definitely recommend!) you can purchase it here: Amazon link

View Details

Are you flourishing? Are your students? Your school community? What do we mean by “flourishing” anyway? This week we continue our five-week series in which we are reading and discussing Lynn Swaner and Andy Wolfe’s new book Flourishing Together: A Christian Vision for Students, Educators, and Schools. The book is divided into five sections, and In this episode, we discuss part two of the book, which is all about “relationships.” We use the Triple A protocol (What do you AGREE with? What do you ARGUE with? What do you ASPIRE to?) to guide our conversation around this section of the book, and make connections to our own practices.

• We would love to hear your reactions to this book as well! Please feel free to share your thoughts, questions, comments, and wonderings with us at hallwayconvospod@gmail.com.
• If you’d like to pick up a copy of the book for yourself (which we definitely recommend!) you can purchase it here: Amazon link

View Details

Are you flourishing? Are your students? What do we mean by “flourishing” anyway? This week we begin a five-week series in which we are reading and discussing Lynn Swaner and Andy Wolfe’s new book Flourishing Together: A Christian Vision for Students, Educators, and Schools. The book is divided into five sections, and In this episode, we discuss part one of the book, which is all about “purpose.” We share some of our noticings and wonderings from our reading, and make connections to our own practices.

• We would love to hear your reactions to this book as well! Please feel free to share your thoughts, questions, comments, and wonderings with us at hallwayconvospod@gmail.com.
• If you’d like to pick up a copy of the book for yourself (which we definitely recommend!) you can purchase it here: Amazon link

View Details

We start off today’s show with a check-in question, wondering about who we would like to interview if we each had our own talk show. Our responses probably say quite a bit about each of our own unique personalities! Our main topic today is a question from a listener; Loretta asks, “In the past few years, our school has embraced Project Based Learning as a preferred teaching method. What are your thoughts on PBL? And what do you think are some of the best things about PBL and maybe what are some of the downfalls of teaching in a PBL style?” This was a timely question, as Matt and Abby had visited a PBL school just the week before we recorded this episode! We think together about the similarities and differences between having students “do projects” and implementing “project-based learning.” We further explore some of the habits of mind that seem to be important for implementing PBL at a classroom level and at a school level. Expanding audiences, exhibitions of student work, student empowerment–we talk about it all!

• Friends, we are preparing for our first book discussion! We are going to be reading and discussing Flourishing Together: A Christian Vision for Students, Educators, and Schools by Lynn Swaner and Andy Wolfe. We would love it if you would read along, and even submit questions you might have! The book has five sections, and we will be discussing one section each week beginning with next week’s episode, dropping on March 30, 2022. We would love it if you would read along with us, and even submit your questions, comments, wonderings. Drop us a note at hallwayconvospod@gmail.com You can order your copy of the book here: Amazon link

View Details

Many thanks to you, our dedicated listeners! We are on Spring Break this week, and so we are pulling one of Dave's favorite episodes out of the archive. In this episode, we discuss a question from a listener about end-of-the-year awards ceremonies--maybe this will be good food for thought for you at this point in the spring as you might be thinking ahead to the end of this school year? We hope you'll be challenged and encouraged by listening.

• Friends, we are preparing for our first book discussion! We are going to be reading and discussing Flourishing Together: A Christian Vision for Students, Educators, and Schools by Lynn Swaner and Andy Wolfe. We would love it if you would read along, and even submit questions you might have! The book has five sections, and we will be discussing one section each week beginning on March 30, 2022. We would love it if you would read along with us, and even submit your questions, comments, wonderings. Drop us a note at hallwayconvospod@gmail.com You can order your copy of the book here: Amazon link

View Details

We jump in with a check-in question this week, things we are currently learning. A diverse set of answers to this question among the three of us: a new computer programming language, running a caulk gun, and getting out of our comfort zones to meet new people. (Care to guess who said which one of these?)

In this episode, we have a question from a listener! Susan asks, “Many teachers struggle with integrating faith and learning well–doing it more than a devotional activity or an add-on to a lesson. How can we do this in a God-honoring and natural way?” In response, Matt shares a bit from an article by one of our colleagues, Dr. Leah Zuidema, entitled “Integral, Not Integrated” and we think through some different ideas of what faith-informed teaching might look like in practice. In particular, we discuss ways of moving beyond “sprinkling on a little Jesus,” to teaching in a way that makes faith more than just icing on the cake.

• Friends, we are preparing for our first book discussion! We are going to be reading and discussing Flourishing Together: A Christian Vision for Students, Educators, and Schools by Lynn Swaner and Andy Wolfe. We would love it if you would read along, and even submit questions you might have! The book has five sections, and we will be discussing one section each week beginning on March 30, 2022. We would love it if you would read along with us, and even submit your questions, comments, wonderings. Drop us a note at hallwayconvospod@gmail.com You can order your copy of the book here: Amazon link

View Details

Today we started with a check-in about our favorite books or series that we would love to go back and read again for the first time. One of us said The Chronicles of Narnia, one said Henry Huggins, and one said The Hunger Games. Care to guess who claimed each one? We’d love to hear about your favorite books as well; you can share yours with us at hallwayconvospod@gmail.com.

The question we tackle for our discussion today came from our dear friend and colleague, Ed, who asked us to think through this question: “While compliance is not the goal of schooling, what do we and our students miss if we don’t ever emphasize compliance? Should we prepare students for aspects of life that expect our compliance whether or not we agree?” Together, we think through the nature of why we have expectations for students’ behavior, and when they definitely should comply…and when a healthy (or even a righteous) non-compliance is a good thing? We’ll be very curious to hear what you think!

• We are going to start a short series in a few weeks in which we will be reading and discussing the new book, Flourishing Together: A Christian Vision for Students, Educators, and Schools by Lynn Swaner and Andy Wolfe. We would love it if you would read along, and even submit questions you might have! More information about this coming next week, but if you are interested, you can order your copy of the book now. - Amazon link

View Details

Today’s check-in question caused us to reminisce about our favorite road trips, and you definitely don’t want to miss Matt’s story about a mysterious stranger who just might have been an angel in disguise. After this, Dave raises a question inspired by another podcast he was listening to recently: thinking about education today, what is something we should preserve, something we should prune, and something we should pioneer? As we share our ideas, we grapple with the role of librarians, whether we should chuck standardized tests or not, the value of Accelerated Reader, the challenge of managing the work teachers are expected to do outside of school hours, and more. As always, we would love to hear your feedback; email us at hallwayconvospod@gmail.com.

• The podcast Dave mentioned that inspired today’s conversation was Episode 496 of the Holy Post podcast, which you can access here: https://www.holypost.com/holy-post-podcast/episode/2b3b958e/episode-496-the-embrace-of-tyrants-and-the-despair-of-pastors

View Details

This bonus episode is made up of a couple of leftovers that didn’t make the cut from our last episode about teaching and technique, but we thought you might still find this part of the conversation interesting, and maybe even helpful. We hope that this is a word of encouragement for any educators out there who might feel like they are losing their fire in the face of all the challenges of teaching today. May God bless you and give you what you stand in need of to serve well!

View Details

As we check in at the beginning of this episode, we reflect on our first year in this podcasting adventure. Listeners, we are SO grateful for you! And we want this show to be the sort of thing that encourages, challenges, and blesses you, so we would love to hear your feedback, questions, comments, and wonderings. You can always contact us at hallwayconvospod@gmail.com.

In this episode, Matt brings us a quote from Parker Palmer’s book, The Courage to Teach, and shares a story of a recent interaction with a fellow educator who is grappling with the idea of the standardization of education–and wondering whether “teaching” is just being reduced to “technique.” We think through some of the challenges of developing as educators, and the difference between thinking of teaching as a science, as an art. After some disagreement about this, we settle on the idea that teaching is both an art and a science, and think through some of the ramifications for how that impacts our work as educators.

View Details

In this episode, Dave kicked things off with a weird check-in question about fantasy beasts and riding into battle. (We’ll see if we let him ask the check-in question in the future…this got a little strange!) Today we have a question from a listener! Joseph asked us a question about what to do when school leaders begin to realize that students are misusing school-issued devices. Drawing on our various experiences in school leadership, teaching, and educational technology, we think through some different ways schools and parents can partner together to help students learn about the ways digital devices are shaping their behavior for good or ill.

• In this episode, Dave recommends the book Digital Life Together: The Challenge of Technology for Christian Schools by David Smith, Kara Sevensma, Marjorie Terpstra, and Steven McMullen. It is not prescriptive, but raises helpful questions that Christian educators can and should grapple with related to technology. - Amazon link

View Details

Our check-in question today brought us back to our high school experiences, and we wind up talking about cruising the loop, mullets, and how we know every single word of some songs. (And, of course, we would LOVE to hear your stories related to this check-in question; please drop us a line at hallwayonvospod@gmail.com.) We then turn to more substantial topics of discussion, prompted by a quote Abby brings us from Dan Pink’s book A Whole New Mind related to the design of toilet brushes (of all things!) and how this illustrates the importance of good design. This has us thinking about the role of design in education, and the role of beauty in teaching, and how we can foster creativity in design in our work as educators.

• A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers will Rule the Future by Daniel Pink - Amazon link
• In this episode, we reference a previous episode about protocols. We recommend that you revisit this one! Episode 033: Protocols

View Details

This week we start off by discussing who left that nasty dish in the fridge over Christmas break (we’ll let you figure out who…) From there, we find our way into talking about what teachers need to flourish in their work–and it’s a bit of a convoluted road! Matt shares some questions he used to help his students articulate what they need to flourish, and then we start thinking about what we ourselves need to flourish. We hope you’ll be encouraged by listening…and we’d love to hear from our listeners what they find helps them flourish in their work. Drop us a line at hallwayconvospod@gmail.com!

View Details

In this week’s conversation, we focus in on the idea of habits, and how small changes to our habits can have big impact overall in our work as educators. Matt brings in a quote from James Clear’s book Atomic Habits to kick off the conversation. We share a variety of micro-habits we use in our own teaching practices that we have found make a big difference for supporting students’ learning. We’d love to hear your ideas as well! Please feel free to share your ideas at hallwayconvospod@gmail.com. We’d love to hear your stories and questions too!

• Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear - Amazon link

View Details

This week’s conversation starts with Matt’s check-in question of, “What brought you joy this week?” (Are you using check-in questions with your students? We’d love to hear from you about this. You can always contact us at hallwayconvospod@gmail.com) The main discussion this week stems from a quote Dave brought from the book Orbiting the Giant Hairball by Gordon MacKenzie: “Orville Wright did not have a pilot’s license.” We think through the conditions teachers need to feel empowered to take risks, and how collaboration is a key aspect of thriving together–not getting tangled up in the “giant hairball” of an organization, while also not flying off on our own, but rather finding a way to settle into an orbit of innovation and creativity.

• Orbiting the Giant Hairball: A Corporate Fool's Guide to Surviving with Grace, by Gordon Mackenzie - Amazon link

View Details

Happy New Year! The Hallway Conversations crew is excited to be back with you for a new season and more conversations about teaching and our ongoing learning. After some silliness and laughter checking in with our New Year’s resolutions, we get down to the question of the week. Dave raises the question, “How do we cope with new things?” This is the time of the year where educators are in the thick of things, and yet we often have the opportunity to engage with new things as well as we turn the calendar over. We talk through some new courses we will be teaching, new students we’ll be meeting, and new roles we are stepping into. But we also share strategies we use to manage the changes that are sure to come with new things. We hope, as always, that you’ll enjoy the discussion.

• Dave’s guacamole recipe:
  • 2 large avocados
  • 2 Tbsp. lime juice
  • 1 Tbsp. cumin
  • 1 Tbsp. onion flakes
  • 1 tsp. Kosher salt
  • 1 tsp. minced garlic
  • ½ tsp. black pepper
  • Cayenne pepper to taste (if you like)
  • Mash avocados with a fork, add the lime juice and combine completely. Stir in all the spices to mix well. Cover, and leave it in the refrigerator for an hour for the flavors to come together.

View Details

Welcome to the final week of 2021! This week, Matt brings us a quote from Steven Garber’s excellent book, Visions of Vocation, which is a thoughtful exploration of what “vocation” is about in light of a biblical worldview. After sharing a quote that draws on imagery from Jeremiah 29 (“seeking the prosperity of the city” where God has placed us) Matt raises the question, “Do schools have a responsibility to help students seek the well-being of the ‘city’ they are part of?” We discuss ideas around teaching students about service, and giving students the opportunity to bring their learning outside the walls of the school, and the overlapping spheres of families, churches, and schools when it comes to forming students. As we discuss these topics, we realize that we don’t all see these things the same way, but have a lively and enriching conversation–we hope you’ll enjoy the discourse and find it helpful food for thought.

• Visions of Vocation: Common Grace for the Common Good, by Steven Garber - Amazon link

View Details

Like last week...we are taking a short break from recording new content in light of the busyness of the end of our semester. This week's bonus episode: the first episode where Matt and Dave invited Abby to join us in front of the microphone. Obviously, the quality of the discourse improved as soon as Abby was here, so we quickly encouraged her to join the team--and the podcast is better because she did! This episode includes some storytelling around the lessons we all learned from a year of emergency remote teaching due to COVID-19.  We hope you'll enjoy this one again, and look forward to new episodes coming your way again soon.

View Details

Many thanks to our dedicated listeners! You encourage us so much. We are at that crazy-busy time at the end of the semester, and we haven't had the time to get together to record new content. So this week...a little Hallway Conversations history: the first ever episode of the podcast re-released for your listening pleasure. (Or, you know...to see how far we've come.) This episode was all about goals, and maybe this is an appropriate time to start thinking again about the goals you are setting for your students in their learning? We hope you'll enjoy this one again, and look forward to new episodes coming your way again soon.

View Details

We have a lot of silliness in the intro to this episode, with Dave complaining about having a cold, an argument about whether real or fake Christmas trees are superior, and a surprise visit from our good friend and colleague, Ed. When we finally pull things together, Abby brings us a quote from a TED Talk by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie entitled “The Danger of a Single Story,” and prompts us to continue the discussion from our last episode about stories and the role of storytelling in both our pedagogy and curricula. Through the ensuing discussion, we think through what voices teachers elevate (or silence) through the stories we bring into our classrooms, and the messages we might inadvertently be conveying or reinforcing to our students. No easy answers here for us, but we have lots of questions, as usual.

• Here is the TED Talk by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie that Abby references in this episode: https://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_ngozi_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story

View Details

This week, Dave brought a passage from Kieran Egan’s book, Teaching as Storytelling and raised the question, “How do we invite students to see their learning as part of a storyline?” We talk about the way stories can grab not just students’ minds (intellect) but their hearts (emotions) as well. Matt brings up the idea of human beings as “story-formed people” and we discuss the way that stories can draw students into deeper learning. We also talk about helping our students find themselves inside the stories of the curriculum...and how the Big Story of Scripture (Creation, Fall, Redemption, and Restoration) can be used to frame the curriculum for our students.

• Teaching as Storytelling: An Alternative Approach to Teaching and Curriculum in the Elementary School, by Kieran Egan - Amazon link

View Details

This week, Abby raises the question, “What are you thankful for?” (She jokes that it’s the cliche question...but it is Thanksgiving week in the U.S., and we do have plenty to be thankful for.) The three of us share things about our work that bring us joyful gratitude in spite of the challenges that come with the work of teaching. Our deep hope for this episode is that it might give you some encouragement, and maybe a few laughs, and perhaps it will spark you to think about the things related to your work that give you a feeling of joyful gratitude.

View Details

This week, Dave brought a quote from David Smith’s book, On Christian Teaching and closed with the question, “What really matters when we are teaching?” We spend some time thinking through the wide range of things that happen simultaneously when we are teaching, and how we can focus on the things that really matter amidst all of the complexity in what happens in the classroom. As Matt says it, “How can we make sure that we are actually on about the things we say we are on about?”

We highly recommend you read David I. Smith's book On Christian Teaching: Practicing Faith in the Classroom - Amazon link

View Details

This week, Abby—fresh off of parent-teacher conferences for her own kids—prompted us to think about the question, “What are some ways that we, as schools and teachers, can partner well with parents in the education of their kids?” We think both broadly about what “partnership” means, and more specifically about some particular things educators can do to build bridges between home and school, including “good calls home,” three-way conferences between teachers, parents, and students, and school-wide celebrations of learning. Whether you are a parent, a teacher, or a school leader, we hope this episode is an encouragement to you in fostering partnerships!

View Details

This week we have a question from a listener! Alex asked the question, “In the pandemic we suddenly saw schools scrambling to operate online. Many schools were not truly ready for this. When you look at the role of online in the realm of education, what do you see as its place in the fabric of what schools do?” We think through the things schools and teachers experienced in the early days of the pandemic with the scramble to teach online, and the difference between online learning that was designed for online and what Dave calls “emergency remote teaching.” We think through some of the challenges and benefits of online learning at different grade levels, and the potential of online learning as part of the future of education.

View Details

This week, we have a question from a listener! An anonymous listener asked the question, “If you could share one thing with a middle school student who is having a rough week…what would you tell them?” We think through ways to help encourage and support students, and we consider the importance of responding with empathy. Along the way we consider taking our students’ world seriously...and we learn that Abby is secretly a fan of Taylor Swift.

• We do recommend that you listen to Taylor Swift’s song, “Fifteen,” which you can find here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJqNJMyUGdU

View Details

This week, we have a question from a listener! One of our students, Lindsey, asked the question, “What are your favorite questions to ask or tools you use to get to know students?” We discuss the importance of building positive relationships, and why we believe that time taken for relationship building is never “wasted.” We then share some ideas for strategies we have found useful for connecting with students, getting to know them as individuals, and sharing things about ourselves in appropriate ways.

View Details

We recently had the opportunity to record an episode in front of a live audience! We were at the Heartland Christian Educators Convention held on the campus of Dordt University in early October. We started by sharing some stories in response to Matt’s question, “Why did you become an educator...and what keeps you in education?” After this, we tackled a variety of questions submitted from our audience. We answered questions about risk-taking in the classroom, how often schools should review their curriculum, how to make school coffee more palatable, the mixed value of final exams, and Dave’s (questionable) fashion choices. We hope you’ll both enjoy and be encouraged by this longer-than-normal episode!

View Details

This week, we have a question from some listeners--students of ours, who listen to the show!--who are wondering about what to do if they realize the negative environment of the school they are serving is affecting their mental and emotional well-being. We recognize that this actually describes what many educators are currently experiencing in their work today! We think out loud together about ways to approach this challenging situation, and think about what self care looks like for contemporary educators. As part of our conversation, Abby shared a piece by Jennifer Gonzalez, which you can read in its entirety here: https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/marigolds/

View Details

This week, we discuss the idea of classroom protocols, which are ways of structuring learning activities to elevate reflection and get more students sharing their ideas as part of the learning process. We think through how we have encountered protocols for the first time, how we came to value them for getting students engaged and invested in the classroom, and the benefits we have seen from using them in our own teaching. Through the course of the episode, we share about a dozen ideas for various types of protocols that we have found to be successful in getting students actively engaged in learning through the way we structure learning activities using protocols.

View Details

This week we conclude our mini-series in which we reflect upon and share about our areas of expertise. This week, we ask Matt to share about one of his areas of expertise and passion: school leadership. Matt shares his story of how he became a school leader, and some of the key lessons he learned along the way. Abby shares that her kids’ school is currently looking for a school leader, and asks Matt for advice on what they might look for in an effective school leader. As always, lots of laughter, as we try to take our work very seriously even when we don’t take ourselves too seriously.

View Details

This week we continue our mini-series in which we reflect upon and share about our areas of expertise. This week, Abby shares from her well of wisdom about one of her several areas of expertise: Literacy. We focus especially on content-area literacy, and Abby helps us expand our understanding of what literacy looks like in content areas beyond language arts courses--and how it actually shows up in every discipline in some ways. She also shares some stories and tips for helping students effectively communicate their ideas, and encounter the ideas of others--the real key for literacy instruction!

• In this episode, Abby shared the book This Is Disciplinary Literacy: Reading, Writing, Thinking, and Doing...Content Area by Content Area. More information about the book here: https://www.amazon.com/This-Disciplinary-Literacy-Reading-Thinking/dp/1506306691

View Details

This week we are beginning a mini-series in which we reflect on and share about our areas of expertise. This week, Dave shares his thoughts about his area of expertise: Educational Technology. We talk about how technology is changing the teaching and learning environment. Dave tells his story of how he got started in Educational Technology, the things he’s learned along the way, and some tips for educators on how to keep learning about new technologies.

View Details

Welcome to Season 3 of Hallway Conversations! We are excited to keep playing with ideas with you all, and we look forward to continuing to grapple with what teaching Christianly looks like as we begin this new academic year and new season of topics and questions. As we record this episode, we are at the end of our first week of the new academic year. To kick off this season, Dave asks the question, “What have you learned or remembered about teaching after week one?” We play around with some of the things we have remembered about how to teach. We hope you’re encouraged by listening in on our stories and wonderings about the joys and challenges of teaching!

View Details

It's a busy time of preparation for the new academic year for all of us who serve in education, and because of this, we are taking a week off from recording a regular episode. But...we wanted to leave you, our dear listeners, with this word of encouragement and blessing as you begin again. This poetic prayer comes from Ted Loder's book, Guerrillas of Grace.

Grace and peace to you all, friends.

View Details

This week, Matt asks the question, “How do we go about setting good rhythms for the first day of school?” We think through some of our favorite activities for the first day--ways to get students actively involved, setting the culture of the classroom, and engaging in real learning from day 1. Along the way, we discover that Abby loves scavenger hunts, that Matt has passion for knowing kids by name as a key part of building relationships, and that Dave knows all the countries of the world. (It’s a weird, free-flowing conversation, friends!) We hope that you’ll be encouraged and maybe even get a few ideas for how you’ll approach your first day of the new school year.

View Details

In today’s episode, we have a question from a listener! Nate is wondering about how schools emphasize “service” and how we expect students to develop the skills and attitudes to engage in acts of service. Specifically, he asks, “How can schools cultivate a heart of service in students?” We share some of our own experiences as students being expected and required to participate in service projects. We think through the challenges of creating a culture where service is the norm, but we also share some ideas for ways to make service become more a way of life for students--a shift from “have to” towards “get to.”

View Details

Our second “book talks” episode! Perhaps you’ll still have time to pick up a read for this summer? We each brought two books to recommend, and we are trying to refine our sharing protocol that we call “2 by 2 by 2”: 2 books, 2 things about each book, and 2 minutes to talk about the book. (We again totally failed at sticking to this protocol, so we will certainly need to keep refining it…) But where things get interesting is that though we brought diverse reads, we found connections between the books in what we think are interesting and meaningful ways. We hope you might find some valuable reading suggestions here! The books that we discussed are these:

• Dare to Lead by Brené Brown https://www.amazon.com/Dare-to-Lead-Brene-Brown-audiobook/dp/B07DJYFLX8/
• The Prodigal God by Timothy Keller https://www.amazon.com/Prodigal-God-Recovering-Heart-Christian/dp/0525950796/
• The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry by John Mark Comer https://www.amazon.com/Ruthless-Elimination-Hurry-Emotionally-Spiritually/dp/0525653090/
• The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk https://www.amazon.com/Body-Keeps-Score-Healing-Trauma/dp/0143127748/
• Technopoly: The Surrender of Technology to Culture by Neil Postman https://www.amazon.com/Technopoly-Surrender-Technology-Neil-Postman/dp/0679745408/

View Details

This week, Dave asks the question, “What happens in the staff room? What should happen in the staff room?” We discuss some of the positive and negative aspects of what can happen in the staff room. We share stories from our own experiences for good or ill that happened in the teachers’ lounges or faculty workrooms we’ve been part of. We also wonder about the benefits of explicitly deciding on norms for what staff members should be able to expect for what happens in the staff room--including perhaps napping?

View Details

This week, Dave asks the question, “What is something you’ve changed your mind about?” We share a variety of stories from our own teaching practices, including the idea of learning styles, the importance of bringing in diverse perspectives, and even the way we think about what “rigor” means in education. We talk through reasons why we should change our minds about things, and whether there are things we should not change our minds about.

We mentioned a few resources in this episode that we wanted to include here in the show notes:

• The report on the myth of learning styles Dave mentioned: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1539-6053.2009.01038.x
• The video on the myth of learning styles Dave mentioned: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhgwIhB58PA
• The TED Talk on the Danger of a Single Story that Abby mentioned: https://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_ngozi_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story?language=en

View Details

In today’s episode, we have a question from a listener! Hayley is wondering about the way some students need more time and checking in from the teacher than others, and she asks, “Is it equitable or fair to spend more time with some students than others?” We think through the differences between equality and fairness, and how “fairness” might be more in line with all of our students’ flourishing. We get specific about the importance of soliciting feedback from our students about how our teaching is going, and think through the role of differentiated instruction and universal design for learning as ways of making classrooms more equitable for students.

View Details

Today’s episode is a bit of a departure from our norm, but it stemmed from one of our actual hallway conversations in which one of us started talking about a book we were reading. Pretty soon, another person said, “We should have an episode where we just share some of our favorite books!” And so, here it is, dear listeners: we each brought two books to recommend, and we invented a protocol for sharing that we call “2 by 2 by 2”: 2 books, 2 things about each book, and 2 minutes to talk about each book. (We absolutely failed at sticking to this protocol, so we need to refine it a bit.) We hope you might find some summer reading suggestions here! The books that we discussed are these:

• Small Teaching: Everyday Lessons from the Science of Learning by James Lang https://www.amazon.com/Small-Teaching-Everyday-Lessons-Learning/dp/1118944496/
• An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith by Barbara Brown Taylor https://www.amazon.com/Altar-World-Geography-Faith/dp/0061370479/
• On Christian Teaching: Practicing Faith in the Classroom by David Smith https://www.amazon.com/Christian-Teaching-Practicing-Faith-Classroom/dp/080287360X/
• Write Beside Them: Risk, Voice, and Clarity in High School Writing by Penny Kittle https://www.amazon.com/Write-Beside-Them-Clarity-Writing/dp/0325078173/
• Leading with a Limp: Take Full Advantage of Your Most Powerful Weakness by Dan Allender https://www.amazon.com/Leading-Limp-Advantage-Powerful-Weakness/dp/1578569524
• It’s Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens by danah boyd https://www.amazon.com/Its-Complicated-Social-Lives-Networked/dp/0300199007/

View Details

This bonus episode is made up of a couple of leftovers that didn’t make the cut from our last episode about redos, but we thought you might still find this part of the conversation interesting, and maybe even helpful.

Dave asks the question, “How do you describe what you are doing when you respond to student work? Grading? Correcting? Marking?” We think through what feedback means, and how we provide students with the information they need to confirm and deepen their learning. We hope you enjoy this bonus conversation!

View Details

In today’s episode, we have a question from a listener! Anna asks about the challenges that come from giving students “redos” on their work. Specifically, she asks about the balance of some students needing multiple opportunities to succeed, while others take advantage of being able to do low-quality work on the first attempt, knowing they will have the opportunity to “fix it” later. We discuss the habits of mind needed to make redos work well, what it means to be people of both grace and truth, and our own experiences with making some learning activities lower stakes for our students by offering multiple attempts in learning. Along the way, Dave mentions and article by Rick Wormeli entitled “Redos and Retakes Done Right,” which you can access here:

• https://www.newenglandssc.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Redos-and-Retakes-Done-Right-Rick-Wormeli-1.pdf

View Details

In today’s episode, we have a question from a listener! Tom asks, “What do teachers need from administrators? What do administrators need from teachers?” We speak into this question from our previous positions in K-12 education, reflecting on the different roles administrators and teachers play. In the conversation, we focus on the idea that teachers and administrators are all on the same team, but have different roles to play. Some good laughs, as usual, but hopefully also some good food for thought for teachers and admins alike as we think through the ways our roles in schools complement each other!

View Details

In today’s episode, we have a question from a listener! John asks, “How much should teachers worry about our reputations? Should we lean into a good reputation and take more risks? If we have a bad reputation, how should we go about correcting this?” In the conversation, we talk about some of the problems of how parents and students--and teachers--talk about reputations of teachers, and how they are sometimes unfairly arrived at. We discuss the role of risk-taking based on reputation, and committing to “daring acts of pedagogy.” We also consider the difference between reputation and legacy, and how teachers and school leaders can aim more for “legacy” than “reputation” in their schools.

View Details

In today’s episode, we have a question from a listener! Loretta asks, “How can teachers support social and emotional development in the classroom?” We discuss what it means that students are whole persons who are developing simultaneously in many different ways--physically, cognitively, socially, emotionally, spiritually, etc.--and the importance of teachers recognizing how these different developmental domains impact each other. We share some examples from our own parenting and teaching experiences as well. Abby shared some resources for further learning, which we recommend to you:

• If you appreciated this episode, you really should listen to this podcast as well: https://anchor.fm/donald84/episodes/Breath-of-Fresh-Air-ft--Nicole-Batiste-e11f44s
• A collection of resources for educators interested in fostering social and emotional learning: https://www.hubforhelpers.com/
• A Facebook group for educators interested in fostering social and emotional learning: https://www.facebook.com/hubforhelpers

View Details

In today’s episode, we have a question from a listener! Kevin asks, “What role do end-of-the-year awards ceremonies play in schools, and what role should they play?” Abby and Matt share their (very different!) experiences with high school awards ceremonies, and we think about what kinds of messages are conveyed through the particular gifts and talents we might award (or not.) Dave shares about an approach a school he used to teach at used for celebrating gifts of all of the students. We talk through various aspects of recognition, and the importance of “seeing” our students and “naming” their strengths as part of their formal education. We have lots of wondering, and perhaps you’ll even find a few new ideas about the role that awards can play in a healthy school community.

View Details

In today’s episode, Abby asks the question, “What does intentional professional growth look like for practicing teachers?” We wonder together about the pace of change, and whether some teachers get cynical about the constant flow of new ideas coming at them through professional development sessions with a sort of “this too shall pass” attitude. Matt gives insights on the importance of intentionality in professional development as a former school administrator, and  Dave shares his heuristic of “rest, reading, and reflection” as a means of structuring summer professional growth. We wonder quite a bit about the way schools can leverage the expertise of people in their own buildings as part of creating a culture of continuous professional learning, and wrap up with a few ideas about strategies for Christian educators to continue their personal, ongoing professional learning.

View Details

In today’s episode, Dave asks the question, “Is there ever a point when positivity becomes toxic, or even just problematic?” We begin by talking about potentially-problematic positivity in our personal lives before turning our attention to our work as educators. We talk about how teachers can model for students and demonstrate appropriate ways to communicate emotions. We briefly touch on what to do with negativity in the staff room, and spend a little time thinking through how educators might be able to embrace healthy positivity even when things are hard. 

View Details

In today’s episode, Matt asks the question, “What’s up with all this talk of failure and what do we mean when we talk about ‘failure?’ Is failure actually essential to learning? And how do we reconcile failure when we live in a culture that can hyper-promote excellence and success?” We try to define what we actually mean by “failure,” and we discuss why some schools seem to hold up failure as a key component to learning. We grapple with some students’ tendency towards perfectionism, and explore the grace that might be present in embracing risk-taking and missteps--and the importance of feedback--as part of the learning process. 

View Details

Just a mini-episode this week to update you all on some things that are happening behind the scenes at Hallway Conversations. Consider the episodes we've released so far as "season 1" of this podcast, and as we are looking ahead to starting "season 2," there are a few changes ahead!

We're so grateful that you take the time to listen in, and we hope you'll be blessed by these conversations. We're always interested in hearing from our listeners--you can always reach out with your questions, comments, and feedback at hallwayconvospod@gmail.com. We hope that these conversations will spark hallway conversations of your own!

View Details

In this episode we are happy to again have our friend and colleague, Abby De Groot, joining in today’s conversation! Today, Matt raises the question, “With the end of the school year in sight, what might it mean to ‘end well?’” The three of us share some of the things we grapple with at the end of the academic year, and all of the feelings that come with it--joy, grieving, relief, and all the rest. We wonder about ways to mark endings well, no matter the grade level of our students. We also discuss the rhythm of the school year, and what it looks like to learn and work in community, with perhaps different expectations among faculty and students as we work towards wrapping up. We wrap up this episode by sharing some of the strategies we use to bless our students as they are concluding their work for a term.

In this episode, Abby mentions the TQE Method. More information about this approach for deepening class discussions can be found here: https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/tqe-method/

View Details

In this episode, Matt asks the question, “Are we in danger of, or have we made excellence an idol in Christian education?” We we discuss how school mission statements are structured—and how often excellence is named as part of the mission. We think through the meaning of rigor in academics, and the purpose of school as an institution. We wonder about excellence as a learning target for Christian schools; is this what we are aiming for? We get specific about things like assignments, feedback to students, and the way we use grades as a way of trying to measure excellence. As usual, we have lots of questions, and perhaps fewer answers, but through the conversation we clarify our own thinking about the role of excellence in Christian education. 

View Details

In this episode, Matt asks the question, “When we talk about the emotional labor of teaching, what do we mean, and what does it look like?” Dave explains his understanding of this term: the way we manage our own emotional state to help bring about a particular emotional state in others--which is something educators must do often. We grapple with the implications of this for educators: do we have to deny some aspect of our whole selves to do the work we are called to do? We discuss how our teaching identities play out as we do the emotional labor of teaching, and the dual nature of burden and privilege we have in doing this work.

View Details

In this episode, Matt asks the question, “How do we teach for ‘delight?’” We talk about this in the context of both delighting in our students as well as teaching them to delight in their learning. We discuss what planning looks like in teaching for delight, and the tension of balancing structure and serendipity. As we think through developing learning spaces that are safe for students even when they can be uncomfortable, we think through David Smith’s conception of “gardens of delight”--and how we can invite students into these kinds of learning opportunities to take joy in their learning, and show them that we delight in them.

View Details

In this episode, Matt asks the question, “When we talk about classroom management, who or what are we actually managing?” We discuss how our thinking about management has evolved throughout our careers, including Matt’s disastrous first day of teaching Kindergarten PE. Dave shares his conception of “office consciousness” as part of creating a space where learning happens. Along the way we also discuss norms for behavior, the importance of practicing procedures, the connection between discipline and discipleship, and ideas we’ve gleaned that can help shape the classroom environment in such a way that we might not have to “manage” our students.

View Details

In this episode, we welcome our first guest to the podcast, our good friend and colleague, Abby De Groot. To kick off the conversation, Matt raises a two-fold question: “What are your initial reflections as we look back at this past year? And, what shouldn’t (or should) return to ‘normal’ as we move forward?” The three of us reflect together on things that we experienced over the past 12 months, and how it has shaped our work as educators. We share ideas we’ve noticed about how the challenges of teaching in a COVID world have pushed teachers, students, and whole schools to innovate, and we wonder about which of these changes could stick for the future, and which ones we should definitely leave behind as things get back to “normal.” Challenging as this past year has been for us--and so many other educators--we still are able to name things that we are continuing to learn, and find plenty of things to laugh about.

View Details

In this episode, Dave asks the question, “How do we foster an environment where learning can flourish?” Matt shares how James Smith’s book Desiring the Kingdom was formative for him in thinking about what flourishing means, and how it got him considering some of the practices that Christian educators can (and perhaps should) be incorporating to bring about flourishing. We describe some of the formative practices we use to help foster a culture of learning in our classrooms, and the places that we are still growing in our teaching practices.

View Details

In this episode, Matt asks the question, “What is the best (or worst) advice you ever received as a teacher?” Dave shares a story of some unfortunate advice he received as a novice teacher that colored the beginning of his teaching practice. We talk about classroom management, wanting our students to like us, having high expectations, and how we have grown as teachers. We also explore the relationship between accountability and joy in both the classroom and in our faith lives. We also wind up talking about teachers we had who formed us as teachers—how the conversations unfold!

View Details

In this episode, Matt brings up one of Dave’s most-read blog posts, which is entitled “No More Crappy Homework,” and raises the question, “How do we avoid giving ‘crappy homework?’” Dave shares from some of the research he has done about what makes for effective homework. Matt and Dave reflect together on some of the less-than-optimal assignments they gave to students early in their careers, and talk about equitable homework, grading homework, and various perspectives parents have on the value of homework. Matt asks about strategies for making more effective homework, and Dave shares some research-based suggestions.

You can read Dave’s original blog post here: https://iteach-and-ilearn.blogspot.com/2015/12/no-more-crappy-homework.html 

View Details

In this episode, Matt kicks things off by asking, “How can we do ‘self-care’ well as educators?” We discuss the pros and cons of the idea of work-life balance, our identities as educators, the importance of supporting each other as colleagues, and caring for ourselves well so we can serve others well. We get a little vulnerable about our own struggles with this, and share some of the strategies we use to strive to keep our lives in rhythm.

View Details

In this episode, Matt raises the question, “What motivates you?” We talk about different aspects of motivation, including Dan Pink’s work around autonomy, mastery, and purpose, the challenge of our Enneagram number (we are both type 3), and learning to be our authentic selves. Dave shares his 10-minute rule for getting started on hard things, and Matt shares his conception of vision-driven decision-making, which he finds very motivating.

View Details

In this episode, Matt asks the question, “What would be your metaphor for describing yourself as a teacher?” As we discuss this question, we share our own metaphors for our teaching. We also discuss how Dave talks with his whole body, the role of playfulness and imagination in our teaching practices, and how we exhibit care and concern for our students.

View Details

In this episode, Dave asks the question, “How much should we focus on goals in education?” As we discuss this question we talk about the role of learning targets, hospitality in the classroom, and teaching responsively. Matt and Dave both share some stories from their own practice and the way we’ve grown in understanding what students need and how clarity on goals can actually encourage learning.

View Details

Coming soon: a new podcast series from a couple of guys who have been teaching for a while, but still have lots of questions about education. We welcome you to listen in on our "hallway conversations" about topics and issues that we think are important for Christian educators to consider, no matter where you teach, what subject you teach, or what grade levels you teach.

We invite you into conversation, and we hope these might spark some hallway conversations of your own!