You know, I'm somebody who works in ed tech circles and journalism, obviously, but I think
we've done sort of a poor job of making the case for students about why what we teach
matters.
And we're starting to see that with, you know, chronic absenteeism and a willingness to
cheat, not just the how, because kids have always cheated, always, maybe some of you
have cheated, but, you know, thinking about disincentivizing that reason for cheating.
And at the same time, this isn't about policing kids or making tricks, you know, tying ourselves
in knots to find these, you know, really strange ways to prevent kids from cheating.
It's like, how can we work together to actually enjoy ourselves and do something meaningful?
Thank you for joining me for another episode of Life Snacks Lesson Plan.
I'm Rachel and I started this podcast during my 29th and last year as a high school teacher.
The goal of my work with Life Snacks Lesson Plan, as well as my live and learn Patreon,
is to create a connection where we are all teachers.
We all have lessons and stories to share that can help others.
I'm so fortunate to be able to extend the four walls of my previous classroom to an
unlimited audience where we can all learn from each other.
And my guests are some of the most inspirational people with the best stories and lessons I
know, which is why I want to share them with you.
Their words are something everyone should hear.
It is my hope that you are able to take away something from each episode to apply to your
own life, whether that be a career search, path to a more fulfilling life, or new ideas
on current topics.
It is my honor today to introduce Michael Hernandez to you.
I was saying to Michael, we've known each other for quite a while, so I had to look
up exactly when we met.
And we met in Ithaca, New York in 2013.
We had both one, with a handful of people, had won a journalistic-related award, and
they flew us out to Ithaca, New York, where I've never experienced before an airport where
they will cook you a breakfast in front of you, like a home-cooked meal.
That was my first experience with that.
But we got to tour Ithaca College and have a nice dinner and meet with other journalism
professionals.
And so that's going back to 2013, which seems like a blur.
And we are taping this now at the end of January 2025.
Michael lives in California, so I wanted him to just talk a little bit, because it's been
in the news before we get into his background, what's been going on with the fires in LA,
because I know that he is near that.
And these are topics that he's talking about in his classroom.
So if you don't mind, feel free to say your bio first, and then we can talk about the
fires or we can talk about the fires first, and then hear your background.
Up to you.
Yeah.
Thanks so much for having me.
And it's great to have that sort of flashback to how I remember years ago, 2013, and I might
do the math right.
But yeah, so I'm a high school teacher in the Los Angeles area.
I've been teaching now, this is my 26th year, and I teach media arts, which includes broadcast
journalism, film production, photography, graphic design, and thinking back, what a
long journey that's been and how technology and the world has changed in that time.
It's a lot of changes that have impacted education.
But yeah, being in Los Angeles, just after the fires have just been sort of contained,
luckily, my house and my school are far from the fires.
So we weren't directly impacted by it.
But we did have bad air quality for a few days, and now we're receiving a lot of students
who have been displaced by the fires.
And so you think over 180,000 people have been displaced, like lost their homes or cannot
return.
And so a lot of students are scattered across the city.
And Los Angeles is a very large city and conglomerate of other associated nearby cities.
And so thinking about how that impacts community, not just like your routine of having a longer
commute, but think about in school, you have your friends, you have your routines, you
have your teachers, it's comfortable.
And suddenly you're jostled when you have to make new friends and new teachers and a
new way of school culture.
And it just kind of throws everything off.
And so it's just sort of fascinating to kind of see how that has impacted culture.
And the other thing too, sort of a learning moment, as teachers like to say, is like this
is just listening to their news this morning.
Global scientists have determined that the fires were caused by climate change.
So there's a number of factors, but the global consensus of experts is that these were caused
by climate change.
And so this idea that you can't escape reality.
There is no bubble.
There's no place that you are safe from climate change.
And I think I made a post about it, you know, when this happened, I had sort of an emotional
sort of reaction all this.
And it's like one of the things is like any of us can be refugees at any moment.
It's just a matter of luck.
And so when we're thinking about the political climate that we're living in the United States
of not wanting to take immigrants from other countries, no matter what the circumstances
is like, well, someday you're going to ask for that.
And will people return the favor to you?
And so it really sort of highlights not only the technical things in the classroom about,
you know, science and facts and doing research and how we need to rely on expertise, but
what does it mean to be a good citizen?
What does it mean to be a good neighbor and friend?
And all of these cross-cut and interact with each other.
There's no silos.
Everything is interdisciplinary.
And so I know we're going to talk about this a little later, but that's kind of one of
the reasons I wrote my book and published it this year was, you know, this idea that
we need to make connections that haven't been made yet.
And how can we help the students process these difficult issues?
They're not just, you know, facts on a test.
They're people's lives and emotions and families and their future.
And they want to do something.
They need to do something about it.
And so, you know, this is just another example of why what we teach matters and how we teach
matters because, you know, we don't teach just for the sake of taking tests.
We teach to raise good citizens.
That's the point in school.
And it's just another example of why school matters and why good school matters.
Yeah, really, especially having it be so close to you and then the implication of seeing
people who are directly affected, you know, entering the classrooms, it just really re-emphasizes,
like you said, the importance of looking at the big picture and how one domino affects
the next domino, right?
So yeah, Michael mentioned briefly in his bio that he is an author and he is a speaker
and he has a very long list of accomplishments.
So do you want to talk a little bit about your book?
And I know you're going to teach others how to write a book.
You have a webinar coming up, correct?
Yeah, yeah.
So the book that I published is called Storytelling with Purpose, Digital Projects to Ignite Student
Curiosity, it's published by ISTI, it's dismerged with ASCD.
And it's sort of a labor of love, sort of basically everything that I teach over the
last 25 years sort of culminated into one condensed form.
It's basically a guide and roadmap for educators of every grade level and subject area about
how to use project-based learning to energize their classrooms and solve the challenges
around cheating and low-student engagement and artificial intelligence.
So it's the idea that instead of teaching to a test, you teach to a project and you
have students find something that they're passionate about and how to leverage their
curiosity and their passion and providing a purpose for the assignments to really energize
and help the students make connections between our curriculum and their lives to see why
it matters and why it's so important.
You know, I'm somebody who works in ed tech circles and journalism obviously, but I think
we've done sort of a poor job of making the case for students about why what we teach
matters.
And we're starting to see that with chronic absenteeism and a willingness to cheat, not
just the how, because kids have always cheated, always, maybe some of you have cheated, but
thinking about disincentivizing that reason for cheating.
And at the same time, this isn't about policing kids or making tricks, you know, tying ourselves
in knots to find these, you know, really strange ways to like prevent kids from cheating.
It's like, how can we work together to actually enjoy ourselves and do something meaningful?
And if we're going to ask our kids to stress out and over in their blood, sweat, and tears
into the work of our classrooms, why not put it to good use?
You don't have to wait until you're, you know, got a PhD and in 30 years old or 40 years
old to make a difference in the world, even a kindergartner can make a difference.
And so in a nutshell, that's kind of what the book is about, helping folks find joy and
purpose in learning and do it in a way that is rigorous and hits all the standards and
doesn't like kids get away with it.
And I think, you know, I wrestled with the title quite a bit because people have a preconceived
idea of what the word storytelling means.
But I also use the term multimedia research projects.
And that sounds a lot more academic and serious.
And that's actually what it is.
It's like nonfiction stories.
So things like a podcast or a digital book, which, you know, can curate a bunch of different
sources, infographics to explain your thinking, data visualization, like how do you like on
the book, painting by numbers, data visualization, how do I take data from math or science and
make it understandable to an audience using visuals all the way through, you know, explainer
videos and documentaries.
So it's a whole host of different kinds of ways that we can help kids relate to the content
and also to express themselves.
And if I can just kind of go in for a little bit about the assessment piece is like, you
know, if I think about going back to your own schooling and your own memory of school,
what stood out to you?
What are those moments that really resonate, that stick with you as something that a learning
moment that was enjoyable, or maybe you had success at, or that kind of sparked an idea
or a love for learning?
And it probably wasn't a test.
And it probably was not an essay.
And it was definitely not a worksheet.
It was probably a project, you know, or a team project.
We get to collaborate with someone.
And something where you had agency and the teacher trusted you to take it and wrestle
with it on your own and sort of have your own sort of personal stamp on things.
And I think we need to bring that back.
How can we borrow that momentum in our homeless?
And that's going on trying to do with the book and share that widely.
And I actually took one of the chapters is on assessment.
How do we use story projects as a form of assessment?
And I turned that into an online course now so you can kind of go in and self-paced online
course around uncheatable assessments.
So yeah, there's a lot of ways that folks can use it and I'm really excited about it.
So we're coming up on the first anniversary of the book being published next month.
That's so awesome.
Yeah, I definitely have a copy on my shelf.
My prerequisite journalism class is called Nonfiction and Visual Storytelling.
And so when I saw your title, I was like, oh yeah.
And I am like, I know him.
He's going to have good stuff.
So I definitely have used a lot of the projects in my nonfiction journalism class.
So I will put a link to where you can find Michael's book in the show notes and then
any other links related to your course or your author kind of help series that you have
coming up.
I'll put links to where you can find Michael and all of those things in the show notes
for you guys because he just has a wealth of knowledge.
And like I said, this is probably one of the biggest topics now in education.
We just had a conversation about it at lunch today as English teachers.
And it was interesting because the teacher who was speaking at lunch today said, you
know, I had five kids that I needed to speak to.
I basically said, I know what you did.
I can prove what you did.
Here's what you did.
If you don't want this to go any further, we're going to leave it here.
And they were all like, yes, I did it.
I'm sorry.
And that's an AP writing class.
It's hard.
But it's something again that 26, 29 years ago we were not facing.
And so to try to find creative ways to do meaningful work with kids where this doesn't
become a factor is so important.
So I appreciate that work so much.
So getting into kind of what we talk about here at Life's Next Lesson Plan, we talk a
lot about school.
And do you have for us today, I know you have so many amazing experiences as an educator,
but sort of a highlighter story that stands out to you that you can share with us from
your 26 years?
Oh man.
There's like a thousand stories.
I don't know how to narrow it down.
You know, there's so many.
I remember one time, this is a few years ago now, I was at the gym working out and I heard
Ms. Hernandez.
And I'm like, what?
I look around and this guy comes up to me and he's like, hey, it's me, Nick.
And I'm like, you, Nick.
And I remember it.
It took me back to the very first year I was teaching.
And there was this punk kid in my class that was always going to be coming with a scouting
ball on his face.
And he would like, now that the Irmistad had this big media art slap, so there's like
all these spaces kids can get into trouble and if they want to.
And I'm like, this kid that was just, you know, and I was like still getting my bearings
as a teacher, I was struggling to have classroom management and figure out what my curriculum
was and manage all the kids and equipment and stuff.
And here was this kid who would always come in and cause trouble.
And I don't know what ever happened to this kid, but here he is now in the gym.
And he's like the manager of this gym.
And he's like, hey, you know, I guess I was a real jerk, you know, when I was in your
class, I'm really sorry about that, but I really enjoyed your class.
And that was it.
And it was like, wow, was that moment that like, you know, here are these kids that
are hormonal or who knows what's happening in their lives.
And they're, you know, we all react in ways that we don't anticipate or understand because
of what's happening in our lives.
And it was a great reminder that, you know, in the moment, it's not something that's
personal and that the kids will grow and change and evolve.
And we're just one of those steps in their life as they grow and mature and process the
world.
And, you know, that was sort of a funny and sort of poignant moment for me too.
But that's just a little one.
But yeah, I mean, I have so many different moments of, you know, working with kids like
day to day or big projects we did when we traveled abroad to make documentaries in places
like Cuba and Vietnam and stuff that was great.
And maybe one of the most interesting is having my own daughter as my student.
So I don't know if I can, if I can tell you the origin story if you.
Sure.
So I got divorced when my daughter was about to start eighth grade, which of course, if
you're a girl, you probably know this a very difficult time in life.
And you know, if you've been divorced, you know all of the issues around kids and what
they think of you and all of these emotions.
And, you know, it's a really difficult time.
And so I was invited to speak at the Journalism Education Association Conference in Seattle.
And it was the spring conference.
It was the beginning of our spring break.
And I'm like, Maya, why don't you come with me?
We'll go together.
Father, daughter, we'll come to the conference.
You can go to some of the sessions and then we'll have, you know, a long vacation in Seattle
and enjoy that.
So she came with me to the JEA conference where I've spoken before.
And she sat through a couple of my sessions and the room was packed.
Kids were leaning in about what I had to say.
I don't even remember what I was talking about.
I'm related to video journalism or something like that.
And, you know, if the kids come up and say stuff and they leave the room, clears out.
Maya comes up to me and she says, dad, that was really good.
You're a really good speaker.
She's like, I think I want to take your journals and class next year.
And it was just my heart just swelled.
You know, it was one of those moments.
Not only that, she was into what I was into subject-wise, but that she finally as a child
understood what her dad was doing.
You know, when he traveled to go speak or when I came home with these issues that I
was wrestling with at school.
And so that was a really great bond to have with my daughter and have that connection.
And for the next four years, she was in my journalism class and sort of found her passion
of, and this is somebody who's not good at school.
Like Maya Stroudelblad was school.
Turns out later, we found out she has ADHD.
We didn't know it.
And so she had trouble, you know, focusing and studying and all of these things.
But this was something that she could be good at.
She could express herself with.
And she found success where she couldn't find it in traditional ways of doing that.
And I feel like that was an aha moment for me, even though I'd been teaching for like
15, 20 years at that point.
But, you know, everybody comes in with their thing.
What they're good at, what they struggle with.
And school does a really good job at saying you're good or you're not good or you're
smarter or not smart and dividing people instead of helping them find their strengths and leverage
their strengths to express themselves.
And it was also great for me as an educator too, because I could see the other side of
things when I was giving assignments and deadlines.
What that looked like from the student perspective, because I would see her at our house at a
kitchen table doing her homework and like, oh, you're struggling with that?
I guess I wasn't clear on that.
Or maybe I should think about my deadlines a little bit differently or something like
that.
That was a really great series of moments, I guess, in my education career.
Yeah, I can 100% relate.
I have a daughter who's a senior right now.
And all the years going through, you know, the college prep experience and everything
and you're like, wow, this is different when I see it at home in my own house.
I see this happening.
But your point about your daughter and just what we've been talking about with your book
is like, not everybody is good at taking a test or writing an essay or taking notes.
And that's what's so awesome about what we do because I think any kid, again, if you
give them agency and choice, they can find something that they're passionate about.
And that just makes a huge difference for motivating them.
And it's a different way of learning.
So it's so great though.
I know I definitely, as my daughter went through each grade of high school, I was like, okay,
so maybe that wasn't as important as I thought it was, you know, watching some of the things
at home.
So, and I also got divorced when she was going into eighth grade, so I can during a pandemic
so that I can totally relate to that as well.
So you mentioned, and I'm so glad you did because I wanted you to talk just a little
bit about the traveling that you do with students making documentaries.
That is so amazing.
Yeah, you know, I teach at a school that is a pretty privileged neighborhood.
It's a suburb of Los Angeles.
It's not a unified and so it's mostly white, pretty wealthy, and people tend to stay in
the bubble, both creatively and intellectually.
And when people travel, they go to resorts, walled off and gated and you might as well
be in the United States, right?
And you know, I was noticing with my students an inability to empathize or see other perspectives.
And so I tried to figure out like, how can I do this?
Like we teach journalism, but still you're kind of limited with like your neighborhood
and how far the kids can go.
And so a friend was doing these kinds of projects at another school and I connected with the
travel agent who organized these trips and I just decided, you know what, this is a great
opportunity to get kids literally out of their bubble and to help them see and witness and
experience and smell and taste another culture, how other people live in different parts of
the world.
And it particularly chose an agency that traveled to areas of the world where the US has troubled
history of foreign policy.
I mean, it's pretty much every country, right?
They clearly throw a rock and you did 17 of them.
So Latin America, you know, where we meddled in, supported coups in Latin America, went
to Guatemala.
We went to Cambodia.
That was our first trip and that was actually the first trip I ever left the country for.
I had never had a passport before I took 16 kids to Cambodia by myself.
I met the chaperones in country.
We traveled to Cuba, which is incredible and Vietnam and yeah, I mean, it's just sort
of, you know, everybody convincing the parents to let the kids go.
Like everybody was worried about safety and this is a safe place and I'm like, dude, it's
Vietnam.
It's a communist country.
It's safer than like if we're dying all the time in the United States from gun deaths.
Like, really, are we on the same, you know, we were paying attention here, what's going
on?
And it turns out like we've all these preconceived ideas of what safety is, you know?
And, you know, not to fault the parents.
I mean, I would be concerned too going to another country.
It's further than the other set of towns and a sleepover.
But you know, I think that was also part of the education is like extending out to the
families that this is possible.
And yeah, so what we would do is we would take the kids and we would study about the
country, learn about the history, which they aren't taught in social studies, by the way,
because, you know, they start teaching history at the beginning of time, which for us is
in middle ages, Europe, right?
And then you run out of time before you even get to the Vietnam War.
So I had kids that took to Vietnam.
There were juniors in high school, which is American history, and they hadn't learned
about the Vietnam War because they ran outside.
Like, are you kidding me?
Right?
So I think I put in the book that we teach history backwards.
We should be starting with current events.
And then like, what's happening right now?
What am I witnessing, experiencing, thinking about?
What are people talking about?
And then do a deep dive.
How do we get here?
And then that's the reason for going back and exploring and making the connection of
why we should pay attention to the past because it affects us now.
So anyway, we did these amazing trips.
The kids would shoot footage, interview people.
We had a translator who could speak the language.
And it was just incredible.
And I feel like anybody who's done a field trip knows that experiential learning is really
the only way to teach.
I mean, you don't really understand something until you've experienced it.
And it's talking to people, sharing a meal with them, the smell, the sound, the taste
of a place.
You know, you've got to walk into space.
You know, Asia is very different than Europe.
And that was huge.
Going to Cuba was huge, you know.
And it was just transformative.
And honestly, some of the best projects ever to come out of my class came from those trips.
Yeah.
I can imagine.
Yeah, I can imagine.
Are those viewable?
Is there a link that if I put that, people can see some of the work that your students
did?
Yeah, absolutely.
Okay.
We'll share that as well.
Yeah, that.
I mean, again, these are all ideal experiences, right?
That you can create smaller versions of if, you know, not everybody can take students
to these places.
That's what your book kind of does too, is show how you can infuse aspects of what you
did there.
That's so amazing.
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Coach Megan is a busy mom like me who works full time, so I appreciate her practicality
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Obviously in the last few years especially, but I mean if I just think about even since
I've met you, the things that you have been doing seems like like what goals are left,
I'm sure knowing you, you have other things that you aspire to be doing or maybe just
fine tuning things that you have done in the past.
So what kinds of things are on the Michael Hernandez goal list?
Oh my God, you challenged me with a really hard question.
You know, it's funny, like I've done a lot of things.
I've been very fortunate to have met some really great people and have gone, you know,
and joining some organizations that inspired my practice.
I met some of my best friends through these work organizations.
I feel like I kind of maybe suggest my personality, but I feel like I wander through life.
I don't like set up a plan and go like in five years I'm going to do this and in 10
years I'm going to do that because you know the world changes so rapidly and I don't know.
I'm still actually trying to figure out what I want to do when I grow up, honestly.
And maybe it's, I don't know if that's good or bad, but I kind of operate a lot on intuition.
And you know, I know that, you know, I got started teaching because I enjoyed it and
it's kind of in my blood because my family, all of my family are educators, both my parents,
two aunts and an uncle or teachers, but I really enjoy it.
And then I started doing this and then I was curious about something so I traded and I
did that and then I'm like, oh, these people are doing this.
I'm going to go talk to them.
So like I go work, J-E-A, I went to my very first J-E-A conference and I met a conference
buddy at the Newbies meeting and she was an Apple, the Singlish Educator and taught me
about that.
And so then I joined A-D-E and became, met all these folks that work at Apple and it
just led from one thing to the next.
And I feel like maybe it's good to have some set of goals as far as maybe what kind of
life you want to live, what kind of relationships you want to have.
For me at work, I don't know.
I just feel like I'm just curious about a lot of different things.
And so I let that curiosity carry me into places that I might not have expected or known exist.
And the same thing with skills.
Like I do things that seem random, like hiking and backpacking or running or taking poetry
workshops.
I'm not a good poet, but the skills that I learned helped me be a better writer in my
other work.
And so I feel like there's always something that you can explore and embrace that's enjoyable,
fun and not directly related to work, but does help you become who you are.
I don't know.
I'm not trying to avoid your question.
No, I like that.
That is such for a type A person like me who is like, I need to know what I'm going to
be doing 10 years from now and here's my plan to get there.
It's such a good reminder that like you said, it could all change tomorrow.
And so what good is that plan anyway?
Now if you know, like here are some of the experiences I would like to have or like you
said, you meet someone unexpectedly, you couldn't have planned for that to happen anyway.
So it's so good for someone like me who likes to think 10 years ahead and have a plan to
hear that that some of the best things happen that they're not even planned, right?
Mm-hmm, right.
Yeah, so no, that's actually perfect.
Yeah, and you know, like the pandemic happened and that's where everybody off for a few
years, nobody planned that.
But if you have, you know, a resilient, flexible mindset, then you're able to handle those
kinds of things.
And I feel like that's the skill in the mindset that the only skill in mindset that I need
to teach my students.
Yeah.
It's really flexible.
It's such a good point.
Look at what has changed in our world since the pandemic that we couldn't have predicted.
Artificial intelligence, who knew like two years ago, this would be a thing, you know,
and here we are.
I mean, somebody probably did because they need to be a patron of those things.
But I think being flexible, but as far as what's next for me, I don't know, I'm doing
some consulting work, working with schools to help them, you know, think about authentic
learning and uncheatable assessments, helping them integrate technology to use it in ways
that are productive and make sense for their students and make teaching and learning enjoyable
and meaningful and efficient.
Is there another book on the horizon?
I don't know.
I have an idea for a non-education related idea.
Maybe that's an essay or something else.
I don't know.
But yeah, and just helping folks like you mentioned at the top of the story, like, I'm
going to have a workshop on how to become an author.
So a lot of people are asking me, how did you write your book and what was that like?
And so I'm going to do some workshops around that.
And again, this is something like, because I had the experience writing the book, now
I feel I have something I can contribute to the conversation around the topic and just
going to let me go that direction.
So I guess I'm still connected to education because I love learning and I'm curious about
the world.
And I feel like it should be fun and enjoyable and maybe I can contribute and help people
out in some way.
Yeah.
No, that's perfect message that I needed to hear today.
So thank you for that.
Okay.
So I know you have so many things to teach, but we have to boil it down to one lesson.
So I'm so excited for what you have brought for the listeners today.
So let's just jump right in to what you're going to teach us in your lesson today.
Sure.
So today is a lesson that comes from my book that I use myself all the time.
In fact, I was just using it today with my photography students introducing the photojournalism
unit.
And this project is called the empathy interview.
And an empathy interview is used by scientists, social scientists, marketing experts, business
people, as well as journalists and everything.
And basically it's using the inquiry mindset to do qualitative research.
So this idea of you don't know what you don't know.
And when we ask students or if you're a scientist doing research or you're starting up a business
and you're trying to find market or how to like market your products to the people, you
need to find out how they feel about it and what's on their mind.
What are they worried about?
What are they thinking about?
What are their hopes, dreams, goals, fears?
And that helps guide your research as you go forward doing more primary source research.
And it helps you make a better end product.
So this is especially useful if we're doing authentic projects, whether that's a podcast
like this one.
We definitely talked before this conversation happened.
So that's an empathy interview.
Scientists need to know what aspect of a topic they're going to like spend their energy
on researching and so forth.
And so the empathy interview is an easy way that any grade level, any subject area can
do this.
The empathy interview is finding a stakeholder, somebody who has something to do with this
topic or has been affected by this topic or is responsible for this topic.
And you talked about it.
And so you would first of all do a little bit of background research.
Who is this person?
How do I know this person is a stakeholder and in what way?
And then you go to them and you have sort of a semi-structured conversation asking them
about the relation to this topic.
Tell me stories about this.
Tell me what you're thinking.
Tell me why you made these decisions.
What are you wondering about?
Things like that.
In the book we talk about how to write good questions.
As a journalist in the U.S. you know he's been a lot of time.
How do we craft good questions?
And that can make all the difference when you're doing polls.
People are asking you what you want to buy.
Your doctor is asking you.
They're going to ask the right questions to get the data out of you.
And so once the kids have these conversations, which is the whole lesson in itself.
How do I talk to humans that's not texting on a screen?
This is unusual for kids.
How do I compose an email?
This is the first time students have ever been asked to write an email outside of the
school district if it's an expert.
You know, sports, an athlete or somebody who's on the city council in your town.
An author of a book.
An artist.
Anybody like that.
And so that's all these skills that are going around this.
They have that interview whether that's on Zoom or whether that's in person.
It's important to do that.
Not just to texting or email exchange.
And then they get all these responses back and maybe they've recorded it.
And we ask them to sift through all of these responses and call out things that surprise
them or that they didn't know about before.
Or what are they wondering about now?
Do you have other questions for this person?
Follow-up questions that you might want to ask them again.
And then how that can help guide their research for the rest of the story and rest of the project.
This is a really great project.
And that's it, right?
So it's basically how do I know where to send my research and what I should focus on.
And it does several things.
It helps kids get out of their head and that we need to talk to other people because they
have valuable perspectives.
It builds interpersonal skills, scheduling and technical skills.
It just helps them have empathy for other people and ideas and help guide their research.
And because I think so much in school is about you as a lone, isolated person having to
come up with the right answer.
Like that.
Like instantly.
And if you don't, you're not intelligent.
But that's not how the world works.
And so we really want to really facilitate these primary source research skills.
That's what this is, primary source research.
And that's the foundation for bigger projects.
So you know, as a journalism teacher, that's the starting point.
Like, do we even have a story?
Or which direction should we take the story?
We can, you know, story the fires, for example, in Los Angeles.
We could have a million different stories about climate change or all the chemicals that
were in houses that burned up.
And is there a toxic issue here?
What about the housing problem?
Because now 200,000 people need housing.
We already had a housing crisis.
You know, so it can go in a bunch of different directions, but the kids don't know because
they don't have that experience.
And so talking to people unlocks those possibilities.
So it's really great.
And so even like kindergartners can ask questions, they're the most curious at all, right?
They haven't been taught that they shouldn't ask questions.
And so, you know, again, it helps facilitate and encourage this idea of inquiry is important
and the foundation of how we make a decision in our lives.
So anyway, that's my project.
That's my assignment.
Yeah, I love that.
Just what you were saying about this law, well, first of all, them emailing a professional
is such an important life skill.
And to capitalize letters when you're emailing someone, it's not a text, right?
And the idea of this, you know, someone that they don't know and so how you conduct yourself
and again, not just hiding behind a screen and learning about someone's story and bringing
that to life.
Yeah, that's so awesome.
Have you, when you were speaking, it reminded me of one of my favorite books, Have You Read
the Book, A Curious Mind?
It's actually co-written by Brian Grazer, who's a film producer and a journalist, I
think wrote it for him, Charles Fishman.
But it's this idea of Brian Grazer as a film producer.
He had a list of names of people that he wanted to have what he calls a curiosity conversation
with.
And he would either call them into his office in California or he would, you know, do a
Zoom or a phone call.
And I mean, we're talking about Michael Jackson, Steve Jobs, Oprah.
But a lot of his movies, like A Beautiful Mind and Apollo 13, came from ideas that were
filtered through these curiosity conversations.
Have you heard of that book?
Yeah, I have.
I've read it, but I know.
Okay.
I actually did my last solo episode on it.
And the episode was about inquiry and some training that I had had as a teacher through
the college board on inquiry-based learning.
So I'm going to send you a copy of that book as a thank you for being on here today because
it would be great for students too, just to talk about like what you were even saying
before, look what came out of this conversation that I could have never predicted because
I hadn't had the conversation and I hadn't heard this person's story.
And as a result, I just got an idea for a movie, right?
Right.
So cool.
So before we let you leave today, do you have any kind of action steps that the listeners
could take if they want to maybe dabble more in authentic assessment or, you know, not
demonizing AI or phones because I know you're really good at making optimistic statements
about that.
Yeah.
I mean, that's a whole other set of series of podcasts episodes.
But yeah, I mean, I feel like, you know, there's some research that keeps coming out
around the, you know, the moral panic around cell phones and social media and it's baseless.
The research is really flimsy and there's no support for that.
But I'm thinking about the world around us and instead of looking for easy answers to
solve our issues where we don't have to put any work or effort into it or any investment
of time and money, it's easy for us to want to like just find scapegoats.
That's been historically, you know, in education and outside of education the case because people
are just overwhelmed, you know, we have a lot on our plates and it's hard to have to
do ask difficult questions and put in the effort to do it right.
And so, you know, we've had this conversation on edtech since Google came out and kids could
Google and find answers on the internet, you know, and it's nothing new.
Calculators came out and math teachers were freaking out that kids would not learn math
because there was a calculator.
Well, no, you can calculate our formulas or built into the textbook and you can use it
when you take the SAT.
What happened turns out that we learned how to use the tool productively to accelerate
the learning process and not, you know, just demonize it, you know.
And I think the mindset behind all of this in the book too is like this sort of myth
that we have around education that learning has to be painful and unenjoyable.
And I think that's wrong, you know, just because something is joyful and has purpose
doesn't mean it lacks academic rigor.
And you and I know as journalism teachers, the hardest class you could take is journalism,
not physics and not AP chemistry.
Journalism is the hardest.
And but it's also the most rewarding and joyful because there's a point to it and you can
help other people.
And so I think all of us need to kind of move past this mindset.
And I had it too when I started for the first several years as a teacher that in order to
be serious as an educator or as a student, you have to look like grit, you've got to
grind, you've got to like do something that's painful just because and and I'm not saying
by any means that we should make excuses for kids.
And I think we have another conversation around on that.
We don't want to make things easy.
But think about when you play a sport in a high level or learn to play an instrument,
for example, it takes a lot of work, a lot of practice, literal blood, sweat and tears,
right?
You've got analysis on your fingers from the fretboard and you're like sitting at that
keyboard or that place for a long time, you're in the gym lifting weights and doing conditioning.
Why?
Because you love it.
It brings you joy and satisfaction.
And that's what the book is about.
And that's how we can solve the challenge of low student engagement and chronic absenteeism
is can we, yes, still expect kids to have rigorous experiences and hold them accountable.
But at the same time create experiences that are joyful and have purpose.
The answer is yes.
But we just got to figure out how to do that.
And that's the multiple because how?
Yeah, that's so awesome.
Well, I mean, like you said, we could have 18 different conversations stemming from some
of the topics that you mentioned today.
And I just so appreciate your time.
I know how busy you are.
And I just know that this message, all the messages that you shared today are so important
to educators and just to society in general.
So I want to thank you again for taking the time to join us today.
Wow, thank you, I really appreciate it.
It was fun.
I'm so glad I could introduce you to Michael today and his innovative and open-minded perspectives.
He definitely stays on the cutting edge in education and I admire his ability to tap
into authentic and meaningful experiences for students.
I just don't know when he sleeps.
Please check out all his amazing work and opportunities for your own learning in the
show notes.
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