Why do we learn to write, paint, play music, code? Why do we bother trying to understand difficult ideas and turn that understanding into new work? Our culture of virality and fame suggests that we make work to make it big. We're told by educational institutions that they're developing cultures of "excellence," and that idea of excellence is represented to us as landing big jobs (at google or amazon) or finding a massive audience. But most of us will never do any of this; and even if w...

All of us in education, whether teachers or students, navigate a paradox. To build deep knowledge of any particular kind, we have to drill into the limited areas of study we call disciplines. But our experience of the world isn't disciplinary: We're confronted with experiences and challenges of so many different types, all the time. And that tension between specificity and generality is only growing more fraught in a time where our problems seem so huge and so transdisciplinary. I...

Anytime we try to learn to learn something--whether in a classroom or out in the world--we have to decide whether we trust whoever is teaching us. Trust is, however, hard to find here in 2024, a mere two weeks before an election that pits two seemingly contradictory visions of reality in competition with one another. In this episode, we speak with the philosopher Jennifer Nagel about knowledge itself: What counts as knowledge? Who has it? What makes it possible for us to share it? And how ca...

Where does school begin? In this episode, we hear about the first instances of formal schooling in recorded human history. Sumerologists Jana Matuszak, of the University of Chicago, and Sophus Helle, at Freie Universität Berlin, take us into a world of clay--clay tablets, clay schoolhouses, and clay snacks. (Well, sort of.) With a reading of the ancient text known as "School Days," by Loujaina Abdelwahed, and episode art by Zora Nicholls.

Season 1 of Seed Catalog: A Podcast about Teaching, Learning, and Hope, will launch this Fall. Listen for an introduction the amazing ideas and stories we'll hear this season, from the earliest schools in recorded history to the red hot clown education scenes in New York and LA. Whether you're a teacher looking for inspiration or a lifelong student who loves learning, come back each week for new seeds of knowledge, with all kinds of experts and everyday teachers and students sharing their st...