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Rebel Teachers Rising
Even before the pandemic lock-downs, American teachers from sea to shining sea reported a critical shortage of teachers within their ranks, and have watched in horror at the crippling levels of greed, arrogance, apathy, and ignorance at every level of K-12 educational governance. While embattled teachers have continued to try in vain to draw attention to the issues, our leaders have failed to acknowledge the problems at all. But since covid, the nation’s teachers have borne witness to a break neck hastening pace of this downward spiral–and a total avoidance of a conversation from our leaders.
This a-political podcast, created and produced exclusively by teachers, gets into the nitty gritty details of why teachers are leaving the profession in droves, and uncovers huge contributing structural problems baked into the teaching profession which are not discussed or understood even within the K-12 educational world, which also explain why so much of what is done in K-12 is ineffective. These desperate, passionate, highly qualified teachers use this podcast series to insert teachers forcefully into the national conversation about the critical issues plaguing K-12 education, because no one else was letting them in–a fact which belies a central thesis about the roots of the problems discussed throughout the episodes. Listeners will be gripped by the reality that without substantial reforms which empower teachers to lead the work, the inevitable result is a collapse of our very ability to effectively self-govern–a process which they argue is already well underway.
Listen as they describe the problems in teacher pay, teacher preparation requirements, special education, climate and culture, reading instruction, the false promise of existing DEI based frameworks in K-12, and the problems inherent in outsourced canned curriculums. Become a part of the solution as they outline a framework to authentically fix these problems, which require all hands on deck from both inside and outside of K-12 education.
Rebel Teachers Rising
1. Introduction to the Messes Inside Of K-12 Education: We Don't Need Another Hero (Part I)
In the first episode of the Rebel Teachers Rising Podcast, hosts Trina English, Jessica Martin, and Amanda Werner introduce their mission to create a teacher-led space to address systemic issues in K-12 education. They emphasize that the podcast is apolitical, welcoming diverse perspectives from public and private K-12 teachers nationwide. The hosts discuss their educational philosophies and the motivations behind starting the podcast while highlighting several critical 'messes' in the education system, such as the teacher shortage crisis, inadequate teacher pay, excessive teacher preparation requirements, the canned curriculum mess fueled by corporate greed, and the broader K-12 governance failures. They assert that these problems are bipartisan and require urgent attention from policymakers by amplifying teachers' voices and expertise. The episode serves as an introduction to their investigative journalistic series aiming for a national professional governing board of teachers to fix these entrenched issues in the education system.
00:00 Introduction: Setting the Stage
00:20 The Real Issues in K-12 Education
01:28 Creating a Teacher-Led Space
02:09 A Bipartisan Approach
02:50 The Fight for Public Education
05:12 Investigative Journalism and Teacher Voices
09:41 Philosophies of Education
19:42 The Journey of Creating the Podcast
28:15 Introduction to the Teacher Shortage Crisis
28:48 The Reading and DEI Mess
29:56 Title IX and Sexual Violence in Schools
30:31 Connecting the Dots: Teacher Shortage and K-12 Governance
31:11 The Petition for Teacher Leadership
32:29 Exploring the Teacher Shortage Mess
38:34 Teacher Pay Mess: Unpacking the Issues
43:26 Teacher Preparation Mess: The Hidden Costs
45:55 Canned Curriculum: A One-Size-Fits-All Problem
51:24 Conclusion and Call to Action
www.rebelteachersrising.com
Petition to Save K-12 Schooling and our Precious Democracy!
