Backporch Education Podcast: Recent Episodes
Steve Elliott
Education is not for "professionals only" or all that highly complex. It is not a science, but rather an art. This podcast discusses the joys and difficulties of teaching, education, and schooling well. Appropriate for beginning teachers or seasoned veterans, in traditional private, public, or home schools, the conversation is wide ranging and focused on doing education well rather than just fussing about what is wrong with it. Join us on the back porch for some conversation about education.
Amazing to think about, but Backporch Education Podcast is now beginning its fourth Season! Jason and Steve take a few minutes to lean back and think about where we have been, where we might go from here. Join in the dreaming.
Moving from the image of a car engine spread out on the back lawn to the inner workings of the inquisitive mind, Jason and Steve discuss how analysis and synthesis are both necessary to every lesson. Pulling an idea apart and putting it back together keep learning from its dangerous extremes. Listen as the Backporch breaks it down and puts it all back together again.
When we began a while back to separate our lives into various spheres, especially as we moved education in the schools away from any form of religion, a new set of questions were birthed. What role does the American church play in the education of the modern child? Is it possible to teach children in a manner free of any religious instruction? If it is, is this good? Join in this long and important conversation with us.
Would a teacher’s life be better or worse if Administrators disappeared from the Earth? So begins a lively repartee between Jason and Steve, both of whom currently divide time at their respective schools between teaching and administrative duties. Why do we need such people? How are their duties best attended to? If an administrator holds a faculty meeting in the woods, will teachers still have to come? Join us for these and many more compelling questions.
In this episode, an article sparks a lively discussion between Jason and Steve on what it will take to revive the love of literature in our day. Why do so many people dislike literature today? How can we change this? What kinds of literature are better suited for us to love? This and much more fly around the rocking chairs on the Backporch Education podcast.
Recently an Italian artist sold an “immaterial sculpture” for about $18,000 and the Backporch dudes let the fun begin. Join them in a far-ranging discussion about this moment in art and education history. Did he sell nothing or a “vacuum”? Is this legit? What did the buyer get? The questions just keep coming, and perhaps the beginnings of some answers as well. Pull up a chair and have fun with us.
In agriculture, every farmer knows you need margins: spaces between your fields. The carefully planted crop needs some wildness, some weeds, some room about it to flourish. So goes the classroom as well. In this episode, Jason and Steve walk out into the fields to see what can be learned about the margins of the classroom. Put your boots on and come with us.
Every teacher knows that moment when one or many students demonstrate that the lesson was not learned, or misunderstood, or missed. What do we do when this happens? What are the common causes for such? What are strategies for our teaching that will help us in these murky waters? Jason and Steve discuss such things in this episode.
Home schooling can be daunting to those considering it for their children, but it can also be one of the most rewarding adventures of you and your child’s life. Join Steve as he interviews Lisa Bailey about her own experiences educating her two daughters, and the community that helped host the adventure: Classical Conversations. Enjoy the stories and practical direction with a nice big glass of iced tea!
Appreciation is derived from the concept of giving honor. Jason and Steve take this fact and explore how it can be used to appreciate the life of teaching. Do teachers get paid or receive an honorarium? How does honor affect the way teaching is done? What can be done to honor teachers? We hope you gain more appreciation for teachers through this discussion.
Anxiety can radically change behavior. This is a predominant issue in education today in part due to the over emphasis placed on the standardized test. What should home schooling parents do with this assessment monster? To test or not to test, that is the question raised and discussed by the Backporch crew on this podcast episode. Listen carefully; it will all be on the test.
It is often through analogy and metaphor that we can see relationships between humans most clearly. The relationship between a tutor and his pupil is a hard thing to describe, but a wonderful thing to behold. In Mel Gibson's directorial debut, The Man Without a Face (1993), Jason and Steve find much to discuss about the teacher/student relationship. Watch the movie; join the conversation.
Given the current concerns about what happens when disease or some other factor shuts down education in the land, the Backporch boys go on safari throughout history to look at what happened in past instances of such. How does the purpose of education affect the practice of schooling? What have other groups done during times of pandemic? Join in the education.
Education is now afloat in the digital sea. How have screens improved education and are there things that are better off without the screen involved? Steve and Jason download some thoughts on the new world of the digital classroom. Plug into the conversation.
Talk to almost anyone in education and probably sooner than later, the discussion will turn to the hardest aspect of education: assessment. How do we know if we have taught a good lesson? How do we know if the student has caught our great lesson? Why are many forms of testing fraught with the language of suffering, hardship, and even death? The Backporch dives into this deep pool and swims about with broad strokes. Come on in, the water is warm!
Many today believe that success in education is determined by the budget given to it. The home schooling movement is pushing back on that adage. Jason and Steve conduct a thought experiment using the notion that a great year of home schooling can be done on a budget of just $100. Listen in as they describe ideas that may humor you, may shock you, but hopefully will convince you that education does not have to be an expensive endeavor.
How does what you read affect how you write? Is it good or bad writing to see something of other writers show up in your writing? How does this question affect the teaching of the writing art? The Backporch boys take on a listener’s question and wind up meandering all through a number of sub-questions regarding the reading life, the writing life, and how the two are intertwined. Learn, laugh, and listen in as they consider this question.
How do you find the right environment that promotes good learning? Is there just one type of such place? Does the place learning occurs matter any more or less than what is learned? The Backporch boys pursue these questions and others in an extended meditation on the poem they begin the episode with. As Berry put it, “Accept what comes from silence. Make the best you can of it. Of the little words that come out of the silence, like prayers prayed back to the one who prays, make a poem that does not disturb the silence from which it came.”
What does singing Christmas songs have to do with education? A lot and very little. Jason and Steve think it has more to do with good learning than the opposite. They hum their way through various favorites from the Yuletide season and discuss their own views on how the Incarnation, and singing about such, is an important aspect of meditating on education. At the end you will wish to bring them some figgy pudding.
What does a reader do with a difficult text? Steve and Jason take on the humorous and bizarre text of Walker Percy’s Love in the Ruins by discussing both the text and strategies for working with a text designed to put you off kilter. “I believe in God and the whole business but I love women best, music and science next, whiskey next, God fourth, and my fellowman hardly at all.” Join in the conversation.
Where is the line between scaffolding and handholding? Educators build steps of mastery into their curricula, but doing so well (like our awesome guest, Tim Kemper!) requires being able to perceive students' abilities. Too much scaffolding can turn into handholding, which also has its place. In this episode, Tim and Jason converse about when each tactic ought to be employed as we aid our students in their growth.
A listener poses the challenge and Jason and Steve almost refuse to respond. But a lot of fun ensues when they try to figure out how to get around the challenge. What books are indispensable to a sane life? Really, just ten, is that all? Or what ten would you pack for the proverbial desert island? Join in this fun adventure by listing your top ten in the comments.
This question, from a listener, has elements of several issues in it. What do we do when we have multiple students learning in a given classroom with differing levels of performance and ability? And what do we do, especially in home education, when we have differing ages and levels of maturity in the same context? Jason and Steve consider all this and more on this episode from the Backporch.
Expectations come from our estimate of what a student should be able to do. How do we avoid either over or under estimating our students? Jason and Steve respond to this question from a listener. Join in the discussion of how low or high the bar should be set.
Some folk copy the state school curriculum and just teach at home. Some call almost any activity a part of the curriculum. One of the great joys of home educating is the freedom to choose what is right for your child. Jason and Steve tease out the happy medium in home education between a draconian curriculum and none at all. Can curriculum come out and play?
What role should a clock play in the life of a home school? Jason and Steve admonish those who are teaching in the home to use scheduling only so much as it helps accomplish your goals, but enjoy the flexibility built into this choice of education. The best moments in education are those timeless ones when the clock is forgotten and the counting of time is forgotten. Join them in their quest for education outside the ringing of bells.
When a parent decides to teach their own child in the place of a school, or to home educate, how does this affect their role as parent? Can home education enhance parenting, or burden it, or is it neutral? Jason and Steve take this question on and consider the dangers and benefits of this choice, focusing on the ends possible when a parent is also the main educator.
Do you remember when Toto pulled back the curtain on the Wizard of Oz? This episode resembles that scene in some regards. The cast of The Backporch Education podcast have some things to reveal, some things to remember, and general mayhem to produce. Listen at your own risk.
What is the modern college experience? Are all colleges and universities working off the same basic plan? Why do colleges in Europe seem so different? In this episode, Steve interviews Josey Parker, who is a graduate of England’s Cambridge University and now pursuing her Masters there. They discuss how the U.S. and Europe forms of higher education are alike and are different. And in doing so, shed some light on the higher purposes of attending college in the first place.
As soon as summer starts, the clock starts clicking loudly. What do good teachers do with their summers? How do you start a new school year off better than ever before? Jason and Steve dig into what makes the first month of school so special and important on this “Back to School Special” episode of the Backporch Education podcast.
Steve and Jason look at the last 250 years of education in America in a brief survey format. Gleaning a few lessons only whets the appetite to dig in deeper. Join them for this quick flight through the fancies of American education and where all the past might be taking us in the future.
Research this! The dust clouds billow up and the sneezing begins. Most students unfortunately have been taught to despise the task of research. Jason and Steve beg to differ, viewing it as inquiry into the unknown, the natural result of wonder and questing for truth. Join them for some thoughts on how to turn this task into a life-long pursuit. No Googling going on here!
There are moments in Jason and Steve’s lives when something is said and they think, “that has to go on the podcast.” This is one of those moments taking form. Craig Conticchio shows up to tell a story about his studies in math during college and then discusses some of the ideas coming from the story with Steve. In the end, it all adds up.
Good reading is a good work. It is not simple. Many have experienced the sinking feeling of reading something, and shortly thereafter not remembering what they read.
Talking. Conversation. Dialectic. Can words that pass between us really change the world? In this podcast, Steve brings in a guest, John Donohue, to chat about the use of Seminar in education. What are the benefits and possible pitfalls of just having a conversation be the central method of a classroom? Join in the conversation.
This is our second annual National Teacher Appreciation Day Show. To celebrate, Jason and Steve have fun discussing what “down time” looks like for a teacher. What does one who loves to teach all day do to take it easy? Because they both find cooking relaxing, that is what is in the pot for this episode. Try some of their relaxation stew.
Is all truth relative, or are there some things that all men can agree upon? The implications of this issue on education cannot be overstated. If all truth is relative to the individual, or to culture, or anything, then education cannot cultivate wisdom and virtue, because it cannot assert any one thing as wise or virtuous. With adept skill, C.S. Lewis brought this to bear in his small work, The Abolition of Man. Jason and Steve talk their way through his insights in this podcast review of Lewis’ work.
Many times, it is the unexpected appearance of a moment of truth that makes everything change in the classroom. We had it planned to go this way, and then up pops the head of truth and now we are going in another direction. The boys of Backporch Ed discuss ways to deal with this mystery, and basically bask in the glory of the unknown. Will you join them?
Any art can be taught, but it is not taught in the same way that information is imparted. Jason and Steve share various experiences and teaching ideas about the mystical art of teaching writing. Join in the conversation and red-line their ideas.
Our world is in a state of quarantine with the Coronavirus, and the boys on the podcast want to share a few ideas for those having to figure out educational questions during this unique time. Join Jason and Steve as they discuss sane advice for this unusual time in our history. Take a deep breath, and jump in.
One of the more important aspects of a great education is forming a mind that can handle language, and that can interact with the primary sources of our educational heritage. In this interview, Steve talks with Latin teacher Buck Holler about his journey into teaching the Latin language, why it is important, and encouragement for others wanting to get into it. Beatus marialis.
Even as internet technologies provide more and more “educational” opportunities, schools are seeking to remain relevant to the educational process. Are there things only a brick and mortar school can do? Why have all the trouble and expense of schools if we can simply Google our way to an education? Join in the conversation with Jason and Steve.
Fun is a fun word to define. It is even funner to try and inculcate into today’s educational world. Jason and Steve play around with the word for a while in this episode on how enjoyable learning can be and what the expectations for today’s classroom imply about good learning and teaching. Come join in the fun; you may be surprised by the experience.
Every classroom has its own unique temperature or climate. What determines how that classroom feels? Given that each student is unique, is it even possible to form a specific climate in the room, or will everyone perceive it differently? What kinds of things go into classroom climate formation? Jason and Steve discuss their own classrooms and their assessment of these and many other questions. This discussion should apply to any classroom (home or school) at any age level.
Comparison is a valuable and powerful form of education. In this episode Jason and Steve take on a common student comparison: school is too much like a prison. Is this true? To what extent? Should we do anything to change the comparison? Why are questions a bad thing to ask in prison? Join them in the exercise yard to a lap or two around this topic.
It seems we live in a utilitarian or practical time when education wants to cut straight to the “facts.” So why spend so much time in school learning about things that are just made up? Jason and Steve defend the use of fiction in the classroom as one of the great moral tools in the cultivation of wisdom and virtue.
From the transformation of the Grinch who stole Christmas, to the moral found at Charlie Brown’s Christmas Dinner, to the rescue of George Bailey by a timid angel, Christmas stories love to tell about changed hearts. In this special Christmas episode of the podcast, Jason and Steve reflect on the education of Ebenezer Scrooge from Charles Dicken’s classic, A Christmas Carol. May these thoughts bring your own heart closer to a truly merry Christmas. God bless us; every one!
Steve invites a guest onto the podcast to talk about various podcasts on education. David Kern oversees several podcasts for the Circe Institute and is an avid listener to others as well. He and Steve discuss what is out there, what he is doing, and how podcasting is growing and changing. And Jason was so proud of David for bringing a poem with him!
Poetry has become the turf of the professional poet in our day. Jason and Steve challenge teachers to bring poetry back into the front of every classroom, not just the English class. Only by wrapping Truth in goodness and beauty will it find root in the souls of our students. Just the right words will nourish the soul that is hungry for reality.
We just let a nice long poem speak for itself. Jason and Steve split duties reading this Robert Frost poem without a whole lot else to say. It has nothing and everything to do with education. Enjoy the good time, and build soil!
There can be no doubt that modern education deals in the currency of grades. But how far down that road does the homeschool teacher need to go? Steve and Jason have some fun discussing this issue, suggesting that while the homeschool affords you a great deal of freedom from such things, you need to keep the big picture in view and “play the game.”
Metaphor can help understanding. In this episode, Jason and Steve extend out the metaphor of a game show as it applies to the classroom and learning. In particular, they take on the currency of grades and the prize behind the curtain, a sure fire big paycheck through a college degree. Surprises with every spin of the game wheel, to be sure.
Metaphor can help understanding. In this episode, Jason and Steve extend out the metaphor of a game show as it applies to the classroom and learning. In particular, they take on the currency of grades and the prize behind the curtain, a sure-fire big paycheck through a college degree. Surprises with every spin of the game wheel, to be sure.
The common notion is that a democracy demands a well educated populace, thus all American kids must go to school. Given that they won’t show up on their own, we have made it compulsory so as to ensure a good voting citizenry. Has that logic held? Is compulsory education even possible? Jason and Steve run down the many issues of this challenging question of compulsion in education.
A whole year of Backporch Episodes has passed! As they end their first season of education podcasting, Steve and Jason look back so they can look forward toward what the future holds. Highlights from the first season with a view to what is coming in the next year make this a great way to finish their first year.
In educational world that seems so complex, is there a way to boil it all down to a bare minimum? Steve and Jason discuss the basics of education, noting the difference between an Art and a Skill, and how almost all of education can be summarized as reading, speaking, listening, and writing; or in short: thinking. Listen in as these guys make it simpler than it may seem.
In a world swimming with books and information, Jason and Steve take an episode from time to time to highlight a great reading on education. Join them in a discussion of Josef Pieper’s classic, Leisure: the Basis of Culture, and how cultivating a classroom of leisure and contemplation is the best way to ensure students receive a human education.
Jason and Steve whip up some thoughts on how to start a new school year off right in the traditional or homeschool classroom. The beginning of anything is a key moment. What can be done to ensure a great start? Jump into the new year with this podcast.
In this episode we look at a film that reflects on teaching. Is there redemptive value in the teacher/student relationship? Can education bring together people who have almost nothing in common? What is the role of cross generational relationships in education? Steve and Jason talk about a film that takes on these questions and a whole lot more.
Well, we have been working up to it for the last couple of episodes, and here it finally is: one of the most famous analogies of all time. Plato presents to us a detailed picture of a cave and how it relates to truth, life, education, and really almost everything. Jason and Steve have fun in the dark, and then the blinding light. Come spelunking with us!
Plato believed in real truth, truth more real than the physical world. If truth supersedes the senses, how can we pursue it, find it, and obtain it? Steve and Jason spend time with the first two analogies Plato gives us to understand truth through, the pictures of the Sun and the Divided Line. We hope we are not the only ones staring at the Sun...
Out of the darkness and shadows of the past, a clear voice can still be heard speaking about education. That voice is Socrates, through the dialogues of Plato. In this three part series, Steve and Jason play with shadow puppets, stare into the Sun, and generally mess around in the beautiful analogies Plato has given us concerning Truth in his Republic. This first part simply introduces the fun.
With our society rejoicing in that which is extraordinary, we offer numerous suggestions to the classroom teacher on how to "be the worst teacher ever." Only by faithfully pursuing these characteristics will a teacher someday here those wonderful words, "You were the worst teacher I ever had."
How does a teacher balance careful planning with wise use of the rabbit trail? If you over plan you stand to be very frustrated, but the same can be said for under-planning. What is the balance? Jason and Steve run with a quote from Jack London down the path of Goldilocks to find the size of planning that fits the classroom just right.
Jerome Bruner said, "Any subject can be taught effectively in some intellectually honest form to any child at any stage of development.” Is this true? If it is, how does this work? Anything or just some things? Steve and Jason have fun discussing this statement for half an hour.
Many discussions and arguments about education seem to come from a place of fear. Nowhere is this more obvious than with parents. In this episode, Jason and Steve consider when fear is good, when it is bad, what can be done about it, and how to rise above fear to a place of peace and rest in the classroom.
Can learning ever be boring? Is it the thing being learned, or the learner, that is bored? How does a state of boredom occur and how does it affect the learning process? Jason bores Steve to tears talking about all these questions. If you can stay awake, you might enjoy the episode.
When is it appropriate to tell a student they have not done well? Are negative comments ever appropriate? What should a student make of long flowing red rivers of ink on their papers? Jason and Steve consider how to guide students to better work without their having to put up with being berated.
If conversation can save at least the classroom, if not the world, then how practically is it to be done? Is there a form that can used to guide students and keep them on track? Steve and Jason get practical in this episode showing how easy it can be to conduct mind blowing seminars in the average classroom.
How much of the classroom experience should be humane conversation? Is conversation or dialogue a better way to teach than lecture? Can conversation alone move the world toward the Good? Jason and Steve assert in this podcast that conversation is the basis of much of what is truly education.
Classically, teachers were called magistri from the Latin magis “greater.” Yet, often we feel (especially in the Christian community) an impulse to be ministers (ministri) to our students. Are we to be lower, lesser, higher, or greater? Luther, in describing Christians, gives us the wonderful phrase simul iustus et peccator (simultaneously justified and a sinner). Today, I submit to you that we as teachers are simul magister et minister. In this episode, Jason and Steve promote the hierarchy necessary to great education.
What is a question? Is a question worth asking in class? Is there any truth? What makes a question great? This episode is in question format. Answers are in the back.
What does it mean for the educational enterprise that God became a man? This is way too deep a question for one short podcast, but Steve and Jason spend half an hour talking about it anyway. It all speaks to our desire for Christ to be at the center of everything, including our classroom. This is the first of a two part episode...go right on to Part B.
Long ago, the Greeks began a discussion of how the One and the Many work together and fight each other in human relations. Education, by working within community, enters this discussion. In this episode we define the issue and apply it to the classroom endeavor.
What are some basic foundational principles to constantly contemplate when trying to provide a student with a great education? With all the specialization and misdirection in education, what are some guiding benchmarks?
Once we know what virtue is, it still a lot of hard work to flesh it out in the classroom. In a world where virtue and vice are personal opinion, how does a teacher seek to lift up the virtues in wisdom? Jason and Steve have some fun with this serious consideration.
Educators talk often about education as the cultivation of Wisdom and Virtue. Cultivating something, such as Virtue, requires that we both understand it and how to cultivate it. In this episode, we uncover Virtue and discuss how we encourage our students to adopt it.
Comparison is a powerful way to define. In this episode we compare farming with teaching, drawing out many ways that the two are similar.
If we are going to have much of a conversation about education (and we intend to have a really long one) then we need to define the idea of an education first. In this episode we consider several possible ways to approach the defining of education before settling on our own definition.
Some in education believe the old folks should get out of the way of the new wave in education. Others believe that innovation and "the new" are what is damaging education. How do the various generations participate in education without killing each other?
There is a lot of fear out there about innovation increasingly forcing humanity to be less human. There are always unforeseen consequences, but real education is built on hope, faith, and love, and therefore there is much to look forward to with excitement. This episode focuses on the new technology at play in education. Is the classroom a place for a robot?