This is an encore. We interview Lev Moscow who, for the last 14 years, has taught history and economics at The Beacon School in New York City. Lev reflects that advisory, done well, can serve as a venue for students to explore questions of ethics, purpose and happiness. He talks about balancing the history curriculum to include non-European perspectives. Getting students to read more than a few sentences is perhaps today’s teachers’ greatest challenge and Lev explains his approach.
Lev refers to John Dewey, Tony Judt, and these resources:
- Book “Kids These Days: Human Capital and the Making of Millennials” by Malcolm Harris;
- Book “The End of Education: Redefining the Value of School” by Neil Postman.
Lev also hosts a podcast that aims to make economics accessible. It is called A Correction Podcast and you can listen to it on acorrectionpodcast.com.
Overview
00:00-01:38 Intros
01:39-08:05 Advisories
08:06-11:28 Electronic technology in classrooms
11:29-12:41 Relationships in advisories
12:42-18:14 Technology as changing the ecology of a situation; getting students to read deeply in a technological age
18:15-19:56 Students’ experiences in college as compared to high school
19:57-22:12 Homework: overwork, stress and teen suicides; two school systems– high pressure and low pressure
22:13-24:44 Homework and writing projects: historiographies/argumentative essays;
24:45-28:39 Nightly homework and deep questions: SRQ (summarize, respond/reflect; question); differentiating between superficial and quality questions
28:40-36:18 Ethics and morality
36:19-40:55 Decentering Europe in teaching history
40:56 Outro
Transcription of the episode
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