Hello, and welcome to Episode 110 of the Planning Period Podcast, your #EdBreakroom. I'm your host, Brad Shreffler.
This week on the show I am joined by Joshua Katz. I first heard of Joshua recently when a friend shared his TEDx Talk "Toxic Culture of Education." It was brilliant, and despite having over 1 million views and being over 5 years old, I had never seen it. I quickly found him on Twitter and asked him to come on the show.
Joshua and I talk about what lead him to giving his talk, how the rankings of US Education are not fair against the rest of the world, the problems with testing, how legislative micromanagement blankets authentic student learning, the power of going gradeless in the classroom, why I go back to work with everything I know, how powerful being passionate in the classroom can be, and pay off years later.

I would like to take a second to thank our sponsor for this episode, TardEase. TardEase is a new tardy tracking platform that makes it quick and easy for schools to process consequences when students are late to class. TardEase runs as a Google Sheets Add-On, so anyone can set it up, and works by scanning the ID numbers of late students into a Google Form. Then, each night, TardEase sends a formatted PDF of the consequences, with your school letterhead, to be sent home with students for their parents to sign, or given as a detention notice. TardEase is also significantly cheaper than other options on the market, with no special hardware to buy, and no per-student licensing fee. TardEase costs only $600 a year. You can learn more, and start a 30-day free trial now by visiting TardEase.com.
So, sit back and enjoy Episode 110 of the Planning Period Podcast, my interview with Joshua Katz.
Joshua, thank you so much for joining me on the show and really helping me push the discussion further.
To connect with Josh, find him on Twitter @jakatz87. You also NEED to watch his TEDx Talk, which you can find on YouTube here. Also, checkout his website which you can find at greaterwhenheard.com.
If you have comments or questions about the show, you can always connect with me on twitter, @BradShreffler, and now on Instagram @BradShreffler as well. I love to hear from you there. That's also a great place to connect if you'd like to be a guest on the show. Or, the Feedback Page on my website gives you options for feedback as well, which you can find at BradShreffler.com/Feedback.
Until next week, teach students for their future, not your past.
Music provided by:
Vicious by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/