The History Chicks
Two women (Beckett Graham and Susan Vollenweider) break down the life of a famous woman throughout history in each episode. They do deep research and communicate conversationally about the woman in an engaging and fun way. It’s a snapshot but one that often pushes me to want to learn more about women. At the end of each episode they review the various sources they pulled from including books, movies, tv shows and primary sources when possible. Having only recently discovered them, I’m looking forward to weaving in some of their podcasts into my (Image from thehistorychicks.com) World History Ancient Civilization classroom this coming year. The podcasts on Hatshepsut and Cleopatra would be great additions to my Ancient Egypt unit. Olympias (the mother of Alexander the Great) is an excellent peek at women during that period of history. No matter the subject you teach, I’m sure in their vast catalog of episodes (over 200) there’s a woman who relates.
The most recent episode I listened to was about Maria Montessori. I learned that the founder of the Montessori education system was the first female doctor in Italy! It was fascinating learning about the context she grew up in and what led her to develop her approach to education. It really helped me understand the Montessori system better, that it’s more than kids playing with blocks in preschool.
Here’s a video that touches on Maria Montessori as well as the basics of the education system
One of the sweet ideas mentioned in the podcast is how Maria valued not disrupting a focused child. That idea is something I’d like to try and apply into my classroom more. I think about the ways I constantly interrupt and interact with students while they’re trying to engage in a task I’ve assigned - either with nudges or praise. Students need time to learn and to transfer knowledge. (Committee on the Developments of Science on Learning, 2000) How much have I interfered and stunted that in my interrupting? Now the way my school is set up, I can’t leave students to their own curiosities and projects the way Montessori intended but I can do something. I can give students more time to focus on their learning tasks before intervening. I can think twice before offering unsolicited praise or critique during the making and learning process. In this way I can give students more time to learn and transfer knowledge and to focus on what they’re doing.
All in all, I recommend History Chicks 10/10.
Some of my favorite episodes:
**I do recommend listening to them before playing or recommending them to students. There’s an occasional mature reference in one or two of the podcasts but largely this podcast has younger audiences in mind (middle school/high school age children).
99% Invisible
A lot of design in our world is invisible to us, Roman Mars seeks to reveal it in this podcast featuring design and architecture. I truly have not found a way to explain what this episode is about that doesn’t sell it so short. On the surface, an explanation like that sounds so boring! Which is such a disservice to an incredibly well made podcast that has me rethinking and noticing the world around me.
A recent episode Inheriting Froebel’s Gifts introduced me to both the inventor of (Image from thehistorychicks.com) kindergarten and the ways his ideas for education have shaped modern architecture. He developed a structured way, through a series of various ‘gifts’, to encourage abstract thought in his students through making and creating with their hands. (Mars, 2022) Lately I’ve been thinking and learning about the Maker Movement and it was such a delight to come across some of its historical roots from a podcast I love.
Wanting to integrate key concepts of making, tinkering and engineering into my World History classroom I developed a lesson where students get to navigate some of that. You can read all about that in this blog post. There’s such a value to creating learning environments that are creative and playful, creating more multicontextual understandings. Students have more ownership of things when they make it themselves. (Libbow & Stager, 2013) Being reminded of the Maker Movement in this podcast, I have to reconsider even more ways I can give students space to make and creatively approach ideas and objects in my classroom.
Some of my favorite episodes:
This episode has forever changed my relationship with airplane safety manuals.
Exposes the negative impact of the women have been left out of data and design.
Toronto, recycling bins & raccoons. What a journey and wow are raccoons clever.
Flag Days: Unfolding a Moment (Episode 494) Unpacking the story of Betsy Ross designing the first US flag.
Sources:
Committee on the Developments of Science on Learning. (2000). How people learn: Brain, mind, experience, and school. (J. D. Bransford, M. S. Donovan, & J. W. Pellegrino, Eds.) (Expanded). National Acad. Press.
Libow Martinez, S., & Stager, G. (2013). Invent to learn: Making, tinkering, and engineering in the classroom. Constructing Modern Knowledge Press.
Mars, R. (n.d.). 99 Percent Invisible.
Vollenweider, S., & Graham, B. (n.d.). The History Chicks.
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