FreshEd

Today we look at educational privatization in Japan. My guest is the renowned Marxist scholar Makoto Itoh. In our two-part conversation, Professor Itoh argues that both the capitalist market and Soviet system have not produced democratic equality. In both systems, schools have been used to sort people by class. Makoto Itoh teaches at Kokugakuin University and is professor emeritus of the University of Tokyo. His newest book, written in Japanese, is A guide to Capitalist Economy, which was published in February.

Tunisia is known for sparking what many in the West call the Arab Spring, the revolutionary protests that swept across North Africa and the Middle East starting in 2010. My guest today is Tavis Jules. Together with Teresa Barton, he co-authored a new book entitled Educational Transitions in post-revolutionary spaces: Islam, security, and social movements in Tunisia. He argues that the Tunisian revolution had everything to do with education. In our conversation, we discuss the history leading up to the 2010 protests that would peacefully toppled the president as well as the fallout 7 years later. Tavis Jules is an Associate Professor of Cultural and Educational Policy Studies at Loyola University Chicago.

My guest today is Gina Athena Ulysse, a professor of Anthropology at Wesleyan University in Connecticut. She has a new book entitled Because when God is too busy: Haiti, me & THE WOLRD. Gina’s is a feminist artist-anthropologist-activist and self-described Post-Zora Interventionist. Her creative projects lie within the intersections of geopolitics, historical representations, and the dailiness of Black diasporic conditions. Her latest work, "Remixed Ode to Rebel's Spirit," involves conversations with ghosts roving the British Museum. www.freshedpodcast.com/ulysse

How do teachers learn to teach? My guests today, Maria Teresa Tatto and Ian Menter, discuss the many paths to become a teacher in England and the USA and the policy environment that is shaping current practice. Learning to be a teacher, they argue, requires much more than simply having a lot of content knowledge. Just because you may know math really well does not mean that you would be a good math teach. Teaching is a skill that must be systematically learned and practiced. Together with Katharine Burn, Trevor Mutton, and Ian Thompson, Teresa and Ian have a new co-written book entitled Learning to Teach in England and the United States: The Evolution of Policy and Practice, which was published by Routledge earlier this year. Maria Teresa Tatto is Professor in the Division of Educational Leadership and Innovation at Arizona State University, and the Southwest Borderlands Professor of Comparative Education at the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College. Ian Menter is Emeritus Professor of Teacher Education at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences. www.freshedpodcast.com/tatto-menter

Ted Dintersmith is not your normal Silicon Valley venture capitalist trying to save the world through technology. He’s much more complex. After producing the film Most Likely to Succeed, which premiered at Sundance in 2015, Ted embarked on a trip across America. For nine months he visited school after school, meeting teachers in ordinary settings doing extraordinary things. Today Ted joins FreshEd to talk about his new book What School Could Be: Insights and inspiration from teachers across America. Ted is currently a Partner Emeritus with Charles River Ventures. He was ranked by Business 2.0 as the top-performing venture capitalist in the U.S. for the years 1995-1999. In 2012, he was appointed by President Obama to represent the U.S. at the United Nations General Assembly, where he focused on education. www.freshedpodcast.com/dintersmith

Today, we explore the university strikes in the United Kingdom. My guests are Ioannis Costas Batlle and Aurelien Mondon, lecturers at the University of Bath and participants in the Bath Teach Outs. Based on their experiences in the current labor movement sweeping the UK, they find an alternative to the neoliberal university. Their new co-written blog post entitled "University Strikes: Reclaiming a space for emancipatory education" was published by Discover Society. Learn more about the strikes here: https://www.facebook.com/StrikeOnTeachOut/ www.freshedpodcast.com/batlle-mondon

Today we dive into the nightmare that is the growing tide of fascism worldwide and the prospects and perils this nightmare holds for public education. My guest today is the renowned scholar, Henry Giroux. He has a new book entitled American Nightmare: Facing the challenge of Fascism, which will be published in May. Henry Giroux is the McMaster University Professor for Scholarship in the Public Interest and the Paulo Freire Distinguished Scholar in Critical Pedagogy. He has written over 60 books and is considered one of the top educational thinkers today. www.FreshEdPodcast.com/giroux

Today we take a broad definition of education and explore the process of released prisoners re-integrating into American society. My guest is CalvinJohn Smiley, an assistant professor at Hunter College, City University of New York. Calvin is currently co-editing a book with Keesha Middlemass entitled Prisoner Reentry in the 21st Century: Critical Perspectives of Returning Home, which will be published by Routledge. In our conversation, Calvin puts prisoner reentry in a historical context and argues that the American prison system should not simply be reformed but must be abolished altogether.

Are we heading towards another economic crisis? The stock market plunged last week; private debt is at an all-time high; speculative markets are on the rise; wealth remains concentrated at the top; and workers are stuck in precarious low-wage jobs. My guest today, William I. Robinson, says that the Transnational Capitalist Class is facing a crisis of over-accumulation. But what is to be done? Professor Robinson details the social movements that will be necessary to escape the rise of a global fascism. He sees the role of intellectuals as an important part of these broad social movements. William I. Robinson is a professor of sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He has written extensively on globalization, capitalism, and the transnational capitalist class. His latest opinion piece is entitled "The Next Economic Crisis? Digital Capitalism and Global Police State," which was published on teleSUR, an alternative representation for world news. www.freshedpodcast.com

To kick off the new year, we have a special show for you. Today, Linda Darling-Hammond joins me to talk about her new co-authored book Empowered Educators: How high-performing systems shape teaching quality around the world. The book explores how several countries and jurisdictions have developed comprehensive teaching and learning systems that produce a range of positive outcomes, from student achievement to equity and from a professionalized teaching workforce to the integration of research and practice. Linda Darling-Hammond is the president of the Learning Policy Institute and a Professor of Education Emeritus at Stanford University.