Shifting Schools: Conversations for K12 Educators

Googly Eyes, Big Feelings, and Asking for Help with Christy Mandin

What can picture books teach us about helping children feel heard—and learning to ask for help ourselves? Author and illustrator Christy Mandin returns to explore Milli

What Horror Teaches Us About Grief and Belonging—with Ryan La Sala

What can a horror novel teach us about friendship—and why might surviving together be its most hopeful message? Author Ryan La Sala joins Tricia Friedman to explore the

Building a Firm Around People Who Need an Advocate

What does it take to build a firm around the needs of people facing some of life's most difficult circumstances? Tricia welcomes the founder of USA4ALL to explore the p

When Should Students Use AI? Let Them Design a Game

What if your next assessment asked students to pitch a board game—and explain when they chose to use AI? In this episode, Tricia Friedman explores how game design can b

From Research to Collective Action: Dr. Camille Busette on Healthcare Advocacy

What happens when the cost of healthcare forces someone to delay a doctor's visit, skip a prescription, or take on debt? Tricia Friedman welcomes Dr. Camille Busette, e

Beyond Screen-Time Bans: Student Safety in the Age of AI

School districts are reaching a turning point in how they manage classroom technology. After years of rapid device adoption and policies that often responded to one ris

Why the World Has Always Been Weird — and Why That Matters

Uncle John's All-Knowing Bathroom Reader, Curiosity, and the Weirdness of Human History Brian Boone joins the show to talk about why the world has always been weird—not j

From Super Bowl Champion to Literacy Champion | Malcolm Mitchell

What if readers and writers received the same attention, celebration, and investment as star athletes? In this episode, Tricia speaks with Super Bowl champion, children

Never Underestimate a Young Reader

What do young people understand that adults mistakenly believe they have hidden from them? Award-winning author Tiffany D. Jackson returns to the podcast to discuss Gho

The Humanoid Robot, the Headlines, and What Really Happened

When Salamanca City Central School District announced plans to bring a humanoid robot into its robotics program, the story quickly became something else entirely: "A scho

Game Design Could Transform Assessment in the AI Era

What if students didn't simply complete an assessment—but designed an experience for someone else? In this episode of Shifting Schools, Tricia Friedman pitches Jeff Ute

What will be your anchor for wellness this school year?

The beginning of a school year often arrives with a familiar message: do more, organize more, and somehow become a brand-new person before the first bell rings. This ep

Lisa Gardner on Creativity and Curiosity

What can ELA teachers learn from a bestselling suspense novelist who begins writing without knowing who the villain is? In this episode of Shifting Schools, Tricia Frie

How to Raise a Reader from Birth with Sandra Magsamen

What can a board book offer a baby who cannot yet speak or even hold it independently? Award-winning author, illustrator, and art therapist Sandra Magsamen joins Tricia

Who Gets to Lead? Expanding Student Voice with Rachel Thrash

When schools picture a student leader, they often imagine the confident speaker, the high achiever, or the student who already understands how to succeed within existing

How do we teach students to sit with evidence longer?

What happens when historical research uncovers a truth you are not sure you want to know? In this episode of Shifting Schools, Tricia speaks with author Christine Kuehn

How Nolan's Odyssey and Cover Songs Help Us Talk About AI

Christopher Nolan's Odyssey just earned nearly $300 million retelling a 3,000-year-old story — so what actually separates imitation from transformative interpretation?

Ted Lasso's Cristo Fernández: Fútbol Is Life, and It's Never Too Late to Dream

You know him as Dani Rojas on Ted Lasso. He's also a professional footballer with El Paso Locomotive FC, a filmmaker, and now the author of a bilingual picture book, Fútb

When Students Go After Real Problems

When Alex Campbell set out to teach sociology through true crime, he wasn't trying to catch a murderer. He was trying to make the stakes real. Nine years later, his high 

Do you want to better understand your team?

Every team has communication habits, but how many of those habits have ever been discussed out loud? In this episode, Tricia introduces The Shared Kitchen, a free refle