In case you didn’t know, our podcast Teachers’ Lounge is also on the radio! We’ve got all the interviews with Illinois teachers and education stories you love -- along with exclusive segments -- in a monthly, hour-long show on WNIJ.
On this episode, Teresa Kruger! She’s a social studies teacher at Belvidere North High School.
We talked about what the purpose of social studies actually is. Is it history class with a different name? Or is it a way to teach you how to be an informed and active member of your community? Teresa would argue it’s the latter.
In her classroom, it looks like a Student Voice club where they engage local candidates and elected officials. She also has a new Global Scholars course where students have to create positive change in their community or, in some cases, around the world.
We talk about Teresa’s dissertation work around “discussing controversial topics in social studies” -- and how she shows her students how to wade into those conversations.
Also, Jacob Hardesty! He’s an assistant professor of education at Rockford University. He’s also the author of The Jazz Problem: education and the battle for morality in the Jazz Age.
In the book, Jacob argues that Jazz was the first American culture war of the 20th Century, and one of the primary battlefields of that war were schools.
Students wanted to dance the Charleston, and their parents and teachers were terrified it would lead them down a path of moral, even spiritual degradation. It’s all happening at a time when schools are becoming a bigger and more important part of American life than they ever had been.
We’re diving into the Jazz Problem, how parents and teachers teamed up to try to solve it, the history of moral panics, and how history may not repeat itself, but it tends to rhyme.
We also catch up with our classroom correspondent: Dominique Yackley! She’s a 5th-grade teacher at Founders Elementary School in DeKalb. As our correspondent, we interview her every single month to follow a school year in a teacher’s life.
On top of all that, we see what’s going on with our student correspondents! They’re students we’ll talk with on every episode of Teachers’ Lounge. This spring, we’re following a group of students in Somonauk High School’s FFA program! AND we’ve got a group of 8-year-old students from Spectrum Progressive School in Rockford to keep us in the loop with everything going on for them in elementary school.
If you’ve never listened before, our show is based on an idea -- we’ve all had teachers in our lives who shaped who we are. And we want to hear about the teachers who inspired you. Every educator we have on Teachers’ Lounge, whether teacher, coach, counselor, or professor, is nominated by our listeners.
So, tell us about the person who comes to your mind. Shoot us an email and nominate an educator at teacherslounge@niu.edu and they could be on the show!
Don’t worry – the podcast hasn’t gone anywhere. You can still catch episodes every other Friday on WNIJ.org or wherever you get podcasts.
