Well-Being in Schools Podcast

The Well-Being in Schools Podcast is a series of six episodes on the idea of making school education primarily about student well-being and the questions that such an undertaking raises.

Series Pro­duc­er: Sarah Schur

Graph­ics by: Kyungdeok Park

Theme Music cre­at­ed and per­formed by: John Himes

Episode 6: A Framework for Well-Being in Schools

The pre­ced­ing five episodes focused on dif­fer­ent issues, ques­tions, and ideas that arise from the notion that school edu­ca­tion is to be pri­mar­i­ly about stu­dent well-being. In this final episode, the host of the series, Thomas Falken­berg, draws togeth­er these ideas and the respons­es to these issues and ques­tions from the invit­ed guests of the pre­ced­ing episodes to pro­vide a broad under­stand­ing of what it might, could, and maybe should mean for school edu­ca­tion to be pri­mar­i­ly about stu­dent well-being.

Episode 5: Curriculum, Pedagogy, and Student Well-Being

In this fifth episode, the guests explore ques­tions of cur­ricu­lum and ped­a­gogy that arise from the idea of mak­ing school edu­ca­tion pri­mar­i­ly about stu­dent well-being. They engage with the ques­tion about the rela­tion­ship between the teach­ing of tra­di­tion­al core school sub­jects and the idea that school edu­ca­tion is pri­mar­i­ly about stu­dent well-being, and with ques­tions about cur­ric­u­lar and ped­a­gog­i­cal impli­ca­tions for the teach­ing of school sub­jects if school edu­ca­tion is to be pri­mar­i­ly about stu­dent well-being.

Episode 4: Well-Being of Professionals Working in Schools

This fourth episode focus­es on the well-being of pro­fes­sion­als who work in schools and school divi­sions, par­tic­u­lar­ly on the well-being of school admin­is­tra­tors and school psy­chol­o­gists. The guests in this episode engage with ques­tions like ​What does well-being for these groups of pro­fes­sion­als mean?”, ​What does cur­rent research say about the chal­lenges that these pro­fes­sion­als face in terms of their well-being?” ​How might those chal­lenges be addressed?” and ​How is the well-being of these pro­fes­sion­als linked to stu­dent well-being?”

Episode 3: Community, School Organization, and Well-Being in Schools

In this third episode, the guests explore the role of com­mu­ni­ty in which a school is locat­ed and the under­stand­ing of schools as orga­ni­za­tions when pur­su­ing the idea of mak­ing school edu­ca­tion pri­mar­i­ly about stu­dent well-being. This episode engages with ques­tions like ​What impli­ca­tions does com­mu­ni­ty-focused school edu­ca­tion have on how we might under­stand well-being in schools?” ​What work do schools face when stu­dent well-being is made a cen­tral con­cern for school edu­ca­tion?” and ​What needs to change at the com­mu­nal and social lev­el in order to sup­port this need­ed work?”

Episode 2: Foundational Questions on Well-Being in Schools

In this third episode, the guests explore the role of com­mu­ni­ty in which a school is locat­ed and the under­stand­ing of schools as orga­ni­za­tions when pur­su­ing the idea of mak­ing school edu­ca­tion pri­mar­i­ly about stu­dent well-being. This episode engages with ques­tions like ​What impli­ca­tions does com­mu­ni­ty-focused school edu­ca­tion have on how we might under­stand well-being in schools?” ​What work do schools face when stu­dent well-being is made a cen­tral con­cern for school edu­ca­tion?” and ​What needs to change at the com­mu­nal and social lev­el in order to sup­port this need­ed work?”

Episode 1: Introduction to the Series

In this first episode, the host of the series, Thomas Falken­berg, intro­duces the pod­cast series Well-Being in Schools to lis­ten­ers by shar­ing some impor­tant bea­cons in the land­scape that this pod­cast series explores and that rep­re­sent the loca­tion from which sub­se­quent pod­cast episodes take their departure.