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 episode offers a different invitation.

Instead of attempting a total wellness overhaul, we explore four small anchors that can help educators, students, colleagues, and families start the year feeling a little more grounded: sleep, movement, attention, and connection.

We talk about the habits that quietly shape how we show up—including where our phones sleep, how we build movement into an ordinary day, what helps us recover our attention, and the small acts of connection that make a school community feel human.

Along the way, we share some of the tools we've been trying to support better rest, breathing, mobility, focus, and time together. The goal isn't to add another obligation to your list. It's to notice what genuinely helps—and choose one small place to begin.

In this episode, we explore:

• Why educator wellness shouldn't become another performance metric

• The relationship between our own habits and what we ask of students

• Simple ways to make sleep feel more restorative

• "Movement snacks" that don't require a gym or workout plan

• Screen-free tools for breathing, focus, and nervous-system regulation

• Small, playful ways to strengthen connection with students, colleagues, and family

• A four-week challenge that adds one manageable anchor at a time

You don't need to reinvent your life before school begins. Pick one category, make one small choice on purpose, and start there.

Explore the complete Start the Year Well guide, product recommendations, listener discounts, reflection prompts, and printable four-week tracker: https://www.shiftingschools.com/start-the-year-well

A big thanks to the following brands for offering us a chance to test out their products, and offering listeners a discount:

SLEEP

Loftie Clock — code SHIFTINGSCHOOLS for 20% off https://byloftie.com/discount/SHIFTINGSCHOOLS

Slip Silk Sleep Mask https://slipsilkpillowcase.ca/collections/sleep-masks

TUO Fara Circadian Bulb https://www.thetuolife.com

MOBILITY

Backpod https://buybackpod.com

Naboso — Standing Mat + Neuro Ball — code SCHOOL for 20% off https://www.naboso.com

Gokhale Stretchsit Cushion https://shop.gokhalemethod.com/bbhqox

ATTENTION

Komuso — The Shift — code SCHOOL15 for 15% off https://www.komusodesign.com

Pso-Rite — code SHIFTINGSCHOOLS for 30% off https://pso-rite.com/shiftingschools

Moonbird & Moonbuddy — 20% off applied automatically at checkout (or code SHIFTING10 for 10% off) https://moonbird.life/discount/?ref=wusymhxf&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_source=goaffpro

CONNECTION

Global Grub — code ShiftingSchools for 40% off (first 10 orders, through Sept 7) https://globalgrub.com

eat2explore — code EE10 for 10% off https://eat2explore.com

A note on transparency: Brands featured in this episode provided samples, and some of the links may be affiliate links or include listener discounts. We only share tools we genuinely use and would recommend to a friend.

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 Friedman speaks with Lisa Gardner about the habits, questions, and research behind her novels. Their conversation offers ELA teachers a fresh way to think about character development, suspense, inquiry, and the creative conditions young writers need.

Lisa explains that she does not begin with characters divided neatly into heroes and villains. She gives each person layers, contradictions, motivations, and a moral code. As the story develops, she allows the characters to reveal who they are. That process offers a useful alternative to writing instruction that asks students to plan every part of a story before they have had a chance to discover it.

Lisa also shares how she researches fictional crimes by speaking with police officers, medical examiners, and other specialists. She does not ask only what would happen. She asks what highly capable people would notice, what they would try, and why their best efforts might still fail. For ELA classrooms, her process models research as part of imaginative writing rather than something reserved for essays and reports.

The conversation also considers the role of walking, daydreaming, reading, games, puzzles, and unstructured time in creative thought. Lisa describes writing as an individual craft supported by a community of other writers, researchers, readers, and even her three dogs.

In this episode, ELA teachers will hear ideas for helping students:

• Create characters with competing motives and believable moral codes

• Move beyond simple hero-and-villain categories

• Use research to make fictional worlds more convincing

• Treat unanswered questions as fuel for writing

• Experiment with discovery writing before committing to an outline

• Build suspense by asking why an obvious solution would not work

• Use walking, conversation, and time away from screens to generate ideas

• Give and seek feedback while preserving an individual creative voice

• See reading, games, and puzzles as part of a larger writing practice

Lisa also introduces her latest novel, You'll Be Sorry, a suspense story involving a family that vanished 30 years ago, a small town filled with secrets, a mysterious couple who purchases the abandoned crime scene, and a dog who may know more than anyone else.

This episode invites ELA teachers to consider a different starting point for writing instruction: What might students create if they were not required to know exactly where their stories were going before they began?

Learn more about Lisa https://www.lisagardner.com/

Thank you to our show sponsor: Unfurl

Learn more with Unfurl: https://unfurl.sh/

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One lucky listener can win a pro account, be sure to subscribe to AI Forward to learn more:

https://k12aileadershipbrief.substack.com/

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 to discuss Hello, Baby, her new board book created for children from birth to age three. With bright illustrations, melodic language, playful terms of endearment, and a mirror that places the baby inside the story, the book is designed to support far more than early literacy.

Sandra explains how reading with a baby can build connection, vocabulary, attention, curiosity, and a growing sense of belonging. She also shares practical advice for parents, grandparents, and caregivers who may feel unsure about reading aloud: hold the baby close, play with the words, welcome the giggles, and do not worry about delivering a perfect performance.

The conversation also considers what happens when adults treat books as objects children may freely touch, explore, drop, and even chew. Sandra and Tricia discuss why a home filled with accessible books and a healthy tolerance for "uh-oh" moments can help children associate reading with pleasure, discovery, and agency.

Sandra closes by reflecting on her own growth as an artist. After more than 25 years of creating for children and families, she explains why successful artists still need to experiment, how becoming a grandmother is opening new creative directions, and why our work should be allowed to change as we do.

In this conversation:

• What babies notice in illustrations
• How reading aloud supports bonding and early development
• Simple ways to make board books playful and interactive
• Why babies benefit from seeing themselves in a book
• The connection between reading, safety, and belonging
• Why children should be allowed to handle and explore books
• What mistakes and mess can contribute to creativity
• How Sandra continues to grow after a long creative career

Hello, Baby is written and illustrated by Sandra Magsamen and published by Cartwheel Books, an imprint of Scholastic. It is intended for babies from birth to age three and includes an embedded mirror on its final spread. Learn more from Scholastic.

Thank you to our show sponsor: Unfurl

Learn more with Unfurl: https://unfurl.sh/

Are you subscribed to AI Forward?

One lucky listener can win a pro account, be sure to subscribe to AI Forward to learn more:

https://k12aileadershipbrief.substack.com/

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 systems. But what about the students who are rarely invited to lead?

In this episode, Tricia speaks with educator and author Rachel Thrash about expanding student leadership beyond the familiar few. Her book, Let the Learners Lead: Empowering Student Voice to Co-Create School Culture, presents leadership as something every young person can practice, not a privilege reserved for students who already fit a traditional leadership profile.

Rachel explains how educators can move from simply asking for student input to genuinely co-creating with learners. She discusses why adults need the courage to admit they do not have every answer, what students gain when educators resist solving every problem for them, and how shared responsibility can strengthen student agency, belonging, and school culture.

The conversation also offers practical tools schools can use to make student voice more authentic and inclusive.

In this episode:

• Why traditional student leadership models leave many learners out

• The difference between student voice, student agency, and student leadership

• How co-creation changes the relationship between educators and students

• Why adults should resist rushing in to solve every student problem

• How uncertainty can become part of authentic leadership

• Practical ways to create more inclusive leadership opportunities

• How shared responsibility supports belonging and school culture

• What it means to treat leadership as a practice rather than a title

This conversation is for teachers, school leaders, instructional coaches, and anyone seeking practical ways to increase student voice, agency, belonging, and participation in school decision-making.

Featured guest: Rachel Thrash, educator and author of Let the Learners Lead: Empowering Student Voice to Co-Create School Culture

https://www.routledge.com/Let-the-Learners-Lead-Empowering-Student-Voice-to-Co-Create-School-Culture/Thrash/p/book/9781041155713

Thank you to our show sponsor: Unfurl

Learn more with Unfurl: https://unfurl.sh/

Are you subscribed to AI Forward?

One lucky listener can win a pro account, be sure to subscribe to AI Forward to learn more:

https://k12aileadershipbrief.substack.com/

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 and her husband and research partner, Mark Schiponi, about Family of Spies: A World War II Story of Nazi Espionage, Betrayal, and the Secret History Behind Pearl Harbor.

Christine's investigation began with a startling discovery: members of her family had been deeply involved with the Nazi Party, and her grandfather had been convicted for his role connected to the attack on Pearl Harbor. What followed was a 30-year search through family testimony, declassified FBI files, National Archives records, historical accounts, photographs, and long-buried memories.

Christine and Mark describe the emotional strain of researching a painful family history and the many times the project was packed away because the discoveries became too difficult to face. They also explain how they compared official records with family stories, handled contradictions, organized years of handwritten notes, and decided what evidence could be trusted.

The conversation also examines the craft of making history readable. Christine and Mark wanted the book to reach people who might never choose a conventional work of World War II history. They discuss weaving the past together with Christine's present-day investigation, writing nonfiction with the momentum of a novel, and removing compelling material when it no longer served the larger story.

For educators, the episode offers a useful exploration of historical inquiry, source evaluation, inherited narratives, memory, and the role storytelling plays in keeping difficult history visible. It raises questions that belong in history, humanities, media-literacy, and ELA classrooms:

How do we respond when evidence challenges the stories we have inherited?

What responsibilities come with uncovering painful history?

How can writers make complex historical research accessible without weakening its accuracy?

What can students learn by comparing personal testimony, archival documents, photographs, government records, and published histories?

Christine also reflects on secrecy, shame, and the realization that people are not responsible for their ancestors' actions. They can, however, decide how honestly they will confront that history and what choices they will make in their own lives.

In this episode:

• The emotional cost of investigating a family's Nazi past • Using declassified FBI files and National Archives records • Comparing family memories with documentary evidence • Turning 30 years of research into a coherent narrative • Writing history for readers who do not consider themselves historians • Confronting inherited shame and family secrecy • Deciding what to remove when it no longer serves the story • Teaching difficult history through human stories • Responding to historical denial and misinformation

Timestamps:

00:00 The emotional and practical challenges of the research 03:49 Organizing decades of evidence and handwritten notes 07:20 Why confronting painful truths can matter 11:36 Sharing a private family history with the public 15:15 Historical storytelling and what comes next 18:55 Creating the book's past-and-present structure 21:48 Knowing when a powerful passage must be removed

About the book:

Family of Spies by Christine Kuehn combines memoir, archival investigation, World War II history, Nazi espionage, and the secret history surrounding Pearl Harbor. The book follows Christine's effort to understand her family's involvement and the effects that secrecy had on later generations.

Content note: This conversation discusses Nazism, antisemitism, the Holocaust, Pearl Harbor, family trauma, and inherited shame.

Resources mentioned:

Family of Spies by Christine Kuehn Christine Kuehn's Politics and Prose conversation The United States National Archives Declassified FBI records and Freedom of Information Act research

Subscribe to Shifting Schools for conversations about education, historical and media literacy, emerging technology, storytelling, and the questions shaping how young people understand the world.

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

In this episode, Tricia makes the case that cover songs are the perfect entry point into the AI and creativity conversation for educators. You'll trace how Aretha Franklin re-authored Otis Redding's "Respect," why translator Emily Wilson's critique of Nolan's film proves that interpretive choices matter, and how three human skills — reflect, re-envision, rework — map directly onto UNESCO's vision of students as AI co-creators rather than passive users. Tricia also shares a new free resource, "What Exactly Is Human Nature?," an interactive timeline that lets you listen backwards through the many renditions of one iconic song. If you've been looking for an invitational, art-first metaphor to bring colleagues into the AI conversation, this one's for you.

00:00 – Nolan's Odyssey: 2 a.m. sold-out screenings for a 3,000-year-old story

02:22 – Can a cover ever beat the original? Aretha Franklin re-authors "Respect"

04:23 – Emily Wilson's critique + three skills: reflect, re-envision, rework

06:27 – The skills in practice, and UNESCO's students-as-co-creators framework

08:47 – New resource: "What Exactly Is Human Nature?" interactive timeline

10:43 – Your debate homework, and an invitation to email the show: [email protected]

Check out the resource:

https://triciafriedman.com/what-exactly-is-human-nature/

Learn more about our incredible show producer:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/sagheer-m/

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, Fútbol Is Life! / ¡Fútbol es vida!, illustrated by James Rey Sanchez.

But before all of that? He was a life insurance salesman who sold nothing for a year.

This conversation is about what happens between the dream and the arriving. About injuries that turn out to be redirections. About why "be curious, not judgmental" might be the most useful thing we can teach — and keep learning ourselves.

In this episode:

• (00:01) The gotcha question: is Cristo actually a superhero?
• (01:27) The family example: why "the more you give, the more you receive"
• (03:32) What team sports teach us about not being the star
• (04:19) Injuries, rejection, and becoming a hustler: "I love when someone tells me no"
• (09:22) The market scene: remembering to pause and notice
• (10:31) What Dani Rojas reminds Cristo about joy
• (12:55) Embracing where you come from as a superpower
• (14:09) Collaboration, and never thinking you know everything
• (16:30) Why a children's book is the perfect format for dreaming big

Quotes worth stealing:

"I love when someone tells me no. It might not be no here, but it might be yes somewhere else."

"Aim for the moon. If you don't hit the moon, you hit a star. And if you don't hit a star, you hit some space dust — and that's fine too."

"There's not one single way of being Mexican or being American or being Latino. We all bring something great to the table."

Links:

• The book (Barnes & Noble): https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/futbol-is-life-futbol-es-vida-cristo-fernandez/1148772346
• More episodes: https://pod.shiftingschools.com

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 school students in Appalachia have restored names to victims of the "redheaded murders," helped families, and become the subject of a limited series with a perfect critic score. But as Alex tells it, the thing that mattered most was never on the syllabus: how much his students came to care.

In this conversation, Alex and Tricia dig into what it actually takes to hand young people a real problem — and why that's the whole point.

In this episode:

• Why sociology and murder aren't apples and oranges — and how high stakes bring out the best in students
• The surprise Alex didn't plan for: students connecting with victims who died decades before they were born
• Schools as "the institution best at separating people" — and how project-based learning breaks down the walls
• His three-part test for a real project: passion-driven, community-focused, interdisciplinary
• Practical, permission-giving advice for teachers who find this exciting and scary — start small, start with a partner, use the resources that already exist
• "You don't work for me": how buy-in reframes classroom management and reaches the students who've stopped believing in school's promises
• Civics you can feel — freedom-of-information requests, and why John Benet Ramsey has a thousand websites and Lori Pennell had almost none
• The creative gamble behind the series: victim-forward, not offender-forward, and a true-crime story that doesn't end tied up in a bow
• Portraying Appalachia and teenagers with authenticity instead of stereotype
• Using the series for professional development — what to watch for, and why it might matter more than you'd expect
• Building a house, powerlifting, and teaching yourself: Alex on learning as a lifelong series of real problems to solve

Watch: Murder 101 is streaming now.

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 reflection and facilitation tool designed to help teams understand how each person prefers to communicate, receive feedback, make decisions, ask questions, and work through a project. Using stories about getting fired from a bartending job and accidentally adding unwanted sriracha to breakfast, she shows how easily we can mistake our own habits for shared expectations.

The tool begins with individual reflection before helping a team create its own shared "recipe" for collaboration. Participants consider questions such as how much context they prefer, when they like others to check in, what helps feedback land well, and what makes them feel trusted.

Tricia also shares how she built the interactive page using Claude Code and OpenAI Codex, including an experiment in asking the two coding tools to compete against one another. The result is both a practical resource for teams and a look at how generative coding tools can support educators and leaders who want to turn an idea into something others can use.

Access the page here: https://triciafriedman.com/the-shared-kitchen/

Award-winning author Christina Diaz Gonzalez joins Tricia to discuss Offside, her new bilingual middle-grade graphic novel about soccer, friendship, ambition, identity, and finding the courage to use your voice.

Although soccer brings the characters together, Offside is also a story about young people learning to form their own opinions rather than simply inheriting the assumptions of the adults around them. Christina explains why she wanted her characters to have real agency, including the ability to challenge gender stereotypes, rethink competition, navigate conflict, and sometimes help their parents see the world differently.

The conversation also examines how much may be happening beneath a young person's behaviour. A student who appears selfish, overly ambitious, withdrawn, or uncertain may be responding to pressures at home, shifting friendships, injury, loneliness, or the fear of no longer knowing who they are.

Christina shares the thinking behind writing a graphic novel in which English and Spanish appear together as part of the characters' lives rather than as separate translations. She also discusses Palmer, a young athlete who must reconsider his identity after an injury keeps him from playing. Through writing and journalism, he discovers another way to participate in the game and another way to create change.

Tricia and Christina also talk about the literary complexity of graphic novels, Christina's highly improvisational writing process, her earlier career in law, and the habit that continues to fuel her creativity: asking "What if?" about the people, stories, and possibilities she encounters.

In this episode:

• Why young people should be trusted to navigate conflict and form their own views • How Offside challenges gender stereotypes and inherited assumptions • The complexity behind students' choices and behaviour • Why bilingual graphic novels can support belonging and language learning • What happens when an athlete can no longer define himself through sport • Writing and journalism as tools for participation and change • Why graphic novels deserve recognition as complex literary works • Christina's "pantser" approach to writing without a traditional outline • How curiosity and "what if" questions generate new stories

This conversation will interest educators, librarians, families, coaches, and anyone looking for books that help young people think about identity, friendship, fairness, and the many different ways they can contribute.

Tricia Friedman shares a real-life story about a flooded basement, an insurance claim, and what it revealed about AI literacy.

After a major storm in Ottawa caused basement flooding, Tricia found herself facing the kind of problem many people recognize: too many damaged items, too many documents, too many decisions, and a process that can quickly become overwhelming. But this time, compared with a similar flood two years earlier, the experience felt different.

Using AI tools, Tricia organized photos of damaged belongings, created an insurance-ready inventory, reviewed policy details, searched for replacement costs, identified relevant local supports, and built a project plan for the weeks ahead. She also used AI to think through communication with the insurance company, plan around disruption at home, and even create a small family recipe resource in the middle of the chaos.

The point is not that AI made the flood easy. It did not. The point is that AI changed Tricia's capacity to respond.

For educators, that distinction matters.

Too often, school conversations about AI focus on shortcuts, cheating, prompt-writing, or which tool to use. This episode asks us to widen the frame. AI literacy is also about helping students become stronger problem solvers. That means knowing how to break down a complex situation, gather evidence, ask better questions, compare options, verify claims, communicate clearly, and decide what to do next.

This kind of AI literacy belongs across the curriculum. A flood insurance claim can become a math problem, a media literacy problem, a civics problem, a consumer rights problem, a writing problem, a design problem, and a wellbeing problem. That is the real invitation here: bring AI bigger problems, not just cleaner prompts.

In this episode:

Tricia explains how AI helped her organize a flood-related insurance claim.

She reflects on the difference between using AI for a task and using AI to manage a complex problem.

The episode explores why AI literacy should include verification, judgment, documentation, and communication.

Tricia makes the case that schools need to help students practice using AI in realistic, interdisciplinary situations.

She also raises an equity question: if AI can help people navigate systems like insurance, consumer rights, city services, and legal language, then every student deserves to understand how to use it responsibly.

For educators, this episode asks:

What kinds of real problems are we inviting students to bring to AI?

Are students learning how to check AI outputs against evidence, policy, data, and lived context?

How might AI help students see connections across math, language, civics, research, and design?

What does it mean to teach AI literacy as a form of agency, not just technical skill?

Big idea:

AI literacy is not mainly about knowing how to use a chatbot. It is about knowing how to think with a tool when the problem is complicated, consequential, and real.