Happy Teacher Appreciation Week! Move into the weekend with an incredible, inspiring, hope-filled conversation about the immense cultural value teachers have as problem solvers and keepers of democratic ideals. Don't wait for acts of Congress, act with your conscience.

Dr. Fred Mednick is a teacher changemaker, global educator, thought leader, and founder of Teachers Without Borders. Awarded the Champion of African Education Award, the Luxembourg Peace Prize, and the Ahmadiyya Muslim Prize for Peace. Professor Emeritus from Johns Hopkins and Vrije Universiteit Brussel. Jake & Nathan have an incredible conversation about the idea of the classroom—your classroom—as a laboratory of democracy. This educator calls Dr. Jane Goodall a close friend and mentor, and his new book In the Small Places: Stories of Teacher Changemakers and the Power of Human Agency describes the stories of local heroes who are working on some of the world's most challenging issues: education in emergencies, peace and human rights education, and the education of girls.

With a title borrowed from the following quote, this book portrays teachers as the human center of social change—"Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home – so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person; the neighbourhood he lives in; the school or college he attends; the factory, farm or office where he works. Such are the places where every man, woman and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerned citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world." - Eleanor Roosevelt

Resources mentioned in the episode:

⁠In the Small Places: Stories of Teacher Changemakers and the Power of Human Agency⁠ Amazon Link⁠

In the Small Places: Stories of Teacher Changemakers and the Power of Human Agency Website

Teachers Without Borders