The Reinvention Lab Audio Experience: Recent Episodes
Reinvention Lab
This podcast is the official podcast of the Reinvention Lab powered by Teach for America. Here, we celebrate innovation, challenge the status quo, and transform ourselves in order to reinvent learning.
In the midst of back-to-school season, we want to lovingly nudge our listeners towards pockets of rest. We know this looks different for everyone, but we believe it's a practice that's integral to liberatory work. Last year, the Reinvention Lab tested a two-week period of collective rest. In this episode, you'll hear Elisabeth and Mike reflect on that period of rest, and then Elisabeth will read you "Rest as a Liberatory Practice," the article the Lab wrote after our period of rest to capture some of the things we were starting to learn.
Join us in conversation with Katie Tennessen Hooten, founder of Teach For America's Ignite Fellowship. If you know a college undergraduate who sounds like a good fit for this fellowship, you can find application information here!
Subscribe to catch every episode this season as we get close to folks whose work is serving as a bright spot in the current learning landscape.
This week we are in conversation with Malliron Hodge and Cheyenne Crane-Smith, two incredible women working across generational lines towards a more equitable future of learning. Check out the Reinventors' youth/adult co-creation framework here.
Subscribe to catch every episode this season as we get close to folks whose work is serving as a bright spot in the current learning landscape.
Join us for a conversation with Vriti Saraf, the founder of k20 educators. k20 was created to connect educators from around the world in order to realize their collective brilliance, and they aim to be the largest networking, learning, and career hub for educators, with the most comprehensive directory of professional learning. (this language comes directly from their vision, learn more at k20educators.com/about.) You can sign up for their newsletter here, join their Ed3 DAO here, and join their eduverse here once it launches!
Subscribe to catch every episode this season as we get close to folks whose work is serving as a bright spot in the current learning landscape.
What is the future of learning to HomeWorks Trenton? What if we told you to look at a sneaker to find out. In partnership with Harlem brand NinetyNine Products and the Reinvention Lab, Homeworks designed the winning sneaker for the #FutureofLearningChallenge. Listen to her in conversation with Mike Yates about the work that HomeWorks is doing.
They told a story about the future of learning and how inclusive it needs to be with a SNEAKER as their canvas. Learn more at sneakers.reinventionlab.org
You want a pair? Tell us your vision for the future of learning using the #FutureofLearningChallenge hashtag, tag the @ReinventionLab and @99Products and you’ll be entered to win a pair!
Today we're in conversation with Dr. Cory Steiner, Superintendent of Northern Cass School District in Hunter, North Dakota. Join us as we talk about doing away with A-F grading, being brave enough to take on systemic challenges, and the importance of innovating as a collective.
Learn more about standards-based grading here (using a cupcake as an analogy... what more could we ask for?). Read about Dr. Steiner's work in North Dakota here.
Subscribe to catch every episode this season as we get close to folks whose work is serving as a bright spot in the current learning landscape.
Join us for a conversation with the founder of Detroit Heals Detroit, Dr. Sirrita Darby. We talk about the healing work she co-leads with young people in her hometown of Detroit.
Learn more about DHD here, see Sirrita's feature in Forbes 30 under 30 here, and be sure to follow DHD's work @detroithealsdet on Twitter and @detroithealsdetroit on Instagram.
Subscribe to catch every episode this season as we get close to folks whose work is serving as a bright spot in the current learning landscape.
Reinvention Lab Audio Experience: Season 2 (a tiny season!)
In Season 1 of the Audio Experience, we shared a lot of activity - who we are, who we rock with, what all of us are doing on our own and in partnership.
This December, we rest.
And as we shift our focus, we will share our learnings with you here. First, learnings from a September experiment on rest. We hope that you find some time to rest as the year comes to a close.
About This Poem from the author (Colleen Keating-Crawford on the Reinvention Lab team)
How we are is so deeply intertwined with where we are. During the Reinvention Lab’s Weeks of Rest test, I created spaciousness to physically and metaphysically return back to my origin places - the where of my younger, freer self. When I did this, my proverbial muscle memory of how to be that freer self came more organically. Ways of being - like playing, building, dreaming, and being productively unproductive - poured forth a new layer of compounding gifts such as refreshed creativity, connections, ideation, and insights. These built upon each other to take me to an entirely transcendent plane from where I was before the Weeks of Rest. Returning to the long grass to reconnect to my play is primal to my personhood. If I cannot regularly return, I cannot continue to be.
Yesterday I Sped Past the Long Grass
by Colleen Keating-Crawford
Yesterday, I sped past the long grass
Next to the tall oak trees
that reached so high
branches touching the clouds
the ones we used to climb
where we sat and talked
without time but not lost
found
in the company
of what matters
in the long grass
where we were once free
The long grass
next to the rocky ravine
where we used to play
where we built forts
and made believe
quarreled and disagreed
into the late eve
and never once worried
about what could or couldn’t be
found in the long grass
where we were once free
The long grass next to the open meadow
where we ran
with outstretched arms and open hands
where the long grass brushed our palms
as the breeze tickled
through the tree leaves
and the sun warmed our backs
found in the long grass
where we were once free
Yesterday, I sped past the long grass
on my way to a place
I want to be
but I am not truly me
and I am not fully free
A place where I sometimes
enable crowding
and noise of all sorts
a place where expectation
anxiety
performance
and fear
control me
they hold me
they whisper I am dear
if I do what they say
if I obey
if I play it their way
Play
Play
I forgot how I play
how I do it my way
I allowed them to
toss out my play
left in the long grass
to be lost
in the long grass
alone
and away
So I ran back to its place
past the tall oak trees
up the hill from the rocky ravine
through the meadow
There it was
My past
my freedom
my future
my play
I retrieved it
brought it back to me
Found in the long grass
where I can, at once, be free
Jeff Imrich is Co-founder of Rock by Rock. After 20 years in education, he and his business partner Sung-Ae Yang launched Rock by Rock as an education design and consulting company.
With a background in Education and English, Natalie started HomeWorks with the idea of replicating the boarding school experience (without the bureaucracy, high fixed costs and scalability issues of a school) for girls in marginalized communities around the world
In this episode of the Reinvention Lab Audio Experience, we chat with Rajan Patel, Co-Founder and CEO of Dent Education. More importantly, Rajan brought two Denters, Shay and Zhadyn, with him! Hearing from these young people was amazing. Check out all the cool things they're up to at Dent.
Episode 3 of this season is a Reinvention Read called The Future of Democracy led by Gen Z. It was written and read by L'Oreal Thompson Payton.
Reinvention Reads are read versions of written material from the Reinvention Lab. You can read the original piece here.
Mike Yates runs the Network at the Reinvention Lab. He shared his experience with k-12 schooling with the Reinvention Lab Audio Experience. This is his story.