Third Rail Classroom

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PEN America has documented nearly 23,000 book bans in public schools nationwide since 2021 with nearly 7,000 taking place in the 2024-25 school year. Coinciding with Banned Books Week, Santha and John discuss their own personal experiences with censorship in the classroom, which pale in comparison …

Santha and John are back for a new season to discuss the latest developments in education and their impacts on the classroom; this time with 25% more profanity! This season they will focus on book bans, artificial intelligence, policies affecting trans students and those who are undocumented, as we…

In this final episode of the second season, Santha and John reflect on the topics they discussed during this season about improving teaching quality, including building level-PD, incorporating student feedback, and the teacher evaluation process. They also reflect on the teacher strike they went th…

Recorded live at the College Board’s annual Advanced Placement conference in Las Vegas, John and Santha host an engaging roundtable of teachers from around the country who represent multiple disciplines and grade-levels about they continue to improve as professionals. The guests are Kate Cordes, an…

Throughout this season, Santha and John have been  talking about how to get better at their jobs as teachers, but have missed an invaluable resource for teacher improvement that is right in front of them…literally right in front of them: their students. In the first part of the episode, Santha coac…

Nationally, an estimated 26 percent of public school students were considered chronically absent last school year, up from 15 percent before the pandemic. While we know that this severely impacts students’ learning, what exactly is the role of the classroom teacher in addressing this issue? John an…

Throughout this season, Santha and John have been looking at the different tools available to help teachers to get better at their jobs, one of which is the evaluation process that most teachers are required to go through every year. Do they actually help teachers or are they just another hoop for …

An expectation for most teachers at the beginning of each school year is to write goals for their students’ learning. Too often the goal-setting process is tedious and inauthentic for many teachers. In this episode. Santha helps John to develop a meaningful professional goal for the year by asking …

In this bonus episode, recorded over the summer, John describes his history with and feelings about the teacher evaluation process and interviews one of his building administrators, Sean Murray.   Please consider supporting our show using this link (buymeacoffee.com/thirdrailclassroom) and be sure …