Penny Rabiger takes over our ‘blogs of the week’ slot once every half-term to point to the best of the education podcasts
Trauma, Resonance, Resilience podcast
Lisa Cherry’s podcast series is a multi-agency, interdisciplinary resource for those who work in education, social care, criminal justice or health and who want to listen to conversations that make a difference. In this podcast series, Lisa and her guests explore better ways of working together, sharing emerging research that informs practice while deep diving into empathy, connection and vulnerability. The episode which caught my eye was the most recent one with Dr Muna Abdi on narratives, anti-racism and education. Muna draws on her personal, professional and academic research experiences to explore the parts that trauma, resonance and resilience play in the lives of students and adults of colour in our education system.
The Emotional Curriculum podcast
Dr Sarah Taylor-Whiteway talks to academics about their research and how it can be used and applied in schools. School exclusions rose by 40 per cent between 2013 and 2019. In response, an investigation was opened by the education select committee, which led to the Timpson Review and recommendations. Schools are naturally concerned about behaviour management and exclusions, but this rarely focuses beyond the impact on the school. In episode 6 of the series, educational psychologist Carina Embeita is invited to share her research, which explored parental views following the exclusion and reintegration of their child. Dr Taylor-Whiteway discusses with her how exclusion and reintegration are inseparable experiences for parents and what this suggests in terms of the support that reintegrating schools can offer.
Oxfordshire Teacher Training podcast
This is a podcast intended for those working in initial teacher training but each episode does provide some good insights for all areas of the sector. Although there is only a handful of episodes and the sound quality is not great, it does give an interesting window on to the sorts of things that trainee teachers are being guided towards in their training. I have chosen episode 4, which is on resilience from the perspective of the teacher. Here, host Matthew Coatsworth talks with David Gumbrell, author of Lift!, about resilience and explores some practical advice for teachers, whether they are at the start of their career or have many years’ experience.
The Nourished Collective podcast
This podcast dives into a broad range of topics around ethical leadership in education. Host Angie Browne takes her own experiences as an education leader as a starter for ten and invites discussion, conversation and debate with educators to really dig in. Keeping on this week’s Penny’s Podcasts review theme of emotional responses to our education system, I chose episode 4, entitled “The Disingenuous System”. Here, Browne asks: “Why does the education system insist on telling us that we should be able to cope?” The episode is about the importance of acknowledging the truth of the situation we are in, in order to undergo transformation and move forward. While, on the one hand, resilience is key to being a teacher in any context, on the other, are we being pushed to accept conditions or circumstances that are unacceptable?
Manoj Krishna trained as a doctor in India before coming to the UK to pursue a career as a spinal surgeon, and later to write a book and to launch the Human Enquiry Project. The episode I have chosen from the podcast series is a talk given by Krishna in 2018 at the North East Teachers’ Conference, organised by Total Teaching. Krishna spoke about the aspirations of children to be happy, healthy, successful and to live with a sense of peace, and how education was only helping them get a good job. He explores how an understanding of ourselves and how our minds work may help meet the other needs children have. He explores the key principles of the enquiry and ends with two examples – exploring our conditioning; and asking “What is happiness?”
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