How do we help students arrive at their own meaning?

This moment education is rife with conversations around learning science, and within these conversations the vision of the classroom often consists of students who are mostly-passive recipients of the learning—told what they need to know and then asked to regurgitate it.

Christian Moore-Anderson, author of the new book Teaching Meaning: What Works When Telling Isn’t Enough, argues in this conversation that there is a better way of moving forward. A biology teacher with nearly two decades of classroom experience, he offers not just a vision but also a path towards a classroom in which students have agency in participating in the meaning-making.

In other words, the type of classroom all of us should want for all students, right?

To explore more of Christian Moore-Anderson’s work, everything can be found at his website: https://christianmooreanderson.com/

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

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

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

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