5 Podcasts Rethinking Education This Summer☀️👩‍🏫

What if schools didn't have grades? Here are some podcast recommendations rethinking education for teachers and students alike🍎

Curator:

👉🏽 Betsy Burris of Teaching Through Emotions

Why this theme?

👉🏽 Education is at a crossroads — from equity struggles to teacher burnout to outdated systems that hold students back. The stories in this list of podcast recommendations reveal what real change looks like when we listen, challenge old assumptions, and center human connection in schools. It’s time to rethink what teaching and learning can be.

Podcast Picks

Leading Equity podcast cover art

Leading Equity

What happens when school leaders cling to tradition while claiming to champion equity? This episode of Leading Equity answers this question.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins gets real about what it takes to lead with courage and why performative diversity efforts just don’t cut it.

Sold a Story podcast cover art

Sold a Story

What if everything you thought you knew about how kids learn to read was wrong? In Sold a Story, journalist Emily Hanford unravels the infuriating tale of how a disproven method became the foundation of reading instruction across the country.

Millions of dollars have been made while millions of kids struggle to read, and no one seems to have been held accountable.

Those Who Can't Teach Anymore podcast cover art

Those Who Can't Teach Anymore

Teachers are leaving and the system is breaking, but not everyone is ignoring the alarm. This award-winning series listens to the people at the center of the crisis and highlights the rare programs actually keeping educators in the classroom.

In this episode, Charles Fournier asks the hard question: who’s really responsible for making sure teachers stay?

The Better Leaders Better Schools Podcast with Daniel Bauer podcast cover art

The Better Leaders Better Schools Podcast with Daniel Bauer

What if the key to transforming schools isn’t tighter control, but deeper connection? On this podcast for school leaders, Daniel Bauer talks with Dr. Derek Mitchell about how real change starts with listening and leading through relationships.

Teaching Through Emotions podcast cover art

Teaching Through Emotions

What happens when a teacher decides to ditch grades altogether? In this episode, Arthur Chiaravalli shares what it really means to grow beyond grades: from confronting student passivity to reimagining assessment as a shared, human story.

It’s a conversation about freedom, process, and what classrooms could feel like if we actually trusted students to learn.

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Community

🌎In Broad Abroad, join Katie as she spills all the tea about her globe-trotting adventures: volcano hikes, local bites, and bathroom blights.

🎙️The National Gallery launched a podcast called Stories in Colour. In the podcast, host Beks Leary dives into the hidden histories of colour with experts from a huge variety of fields, including scientists, historians, curators, artists, novelists and more.

💃 Echoes of Coventry spotlights the grit, glamour, and legacy of New York's rock scene in the ‘70s, spearheaded by the family who founded Coventry, the legendary nightclub in Queens that catapulted the careers of KISS, The Ramones, New York Dolls, and more.

💖In Podcast The Newsletter, Lauren Passell recommends Ten Thousand Things with Shin Yu Pai. She writes: “If you have not listened to Ten Thousand Things, a show that chronicles Asian American life via modern-day artifacts, you’re in a for a treat because a treasure trove of gorgeous trinkets awaits you.”

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Podcast news from Podnews

  • It’s three years since the Dobbs decision that ended the constitutional right to abortion in the U.S. Within the Embedded feed, The Network, a new limited series from NPR and Futuro Media, looks at how women self-manage abortions in countries with legal restrictions, from the U.S. to Brazil; while on Wondery+, Liberty Lost examines evangelical maternity homes and their rise in America post-Roe as a key tactic for the pro-life movement.

  • Apple Podcasts will add a new “enhance dialogue” feature in playback, just like independent apps like Overcast and Pocket Casts have had for some time.

  • No, YouTube isn’t dominating podcasting, says Paul Riismandel from research company Signal Hill Insights, showing plenty of evidence that the majority of podcast consumers are still using an audio-first platform most often; and that “it’s time to tone down the discourse.”

Spotlight

I Feel That Way Too podcast cover art

I Feel That Way Too is a narrative podcast that explores life’s challenging questions so together, we can feel less alone in our struggles and find the courage to take values-aligned actions. Through candid storytelling and insightful conversations with experts and everyday people, each episode unpacks the doubts, fears, and quiet longings that shape our lives.

Whether it’s questioning monogamy, navigating political divides, or redefining who we are beyond our jobs, host Michelle MiJung Kim invites you to feel seen, understood, and a little less alone. If you’ve ever thought, “Does anyone else feel this way?” — this is the place for you.