Human Restoration Project

Our first gathering is Tuesday, October 13, 5:00–6:00 PM ET, online. Come share what you’re working on and what you’ve been learning! Learn more & RSVP: www.humanrestorationproject.org/gatherings

Our first gathering is Tuesday, October 13, 5:00–6:00 PM ET, online. Come share what you’re working on and what you’ve been learning! Learn more & RSVP: www.humanrestorationproject.org/gatherings

We want to make our upcoming 200th episode a highlight reel of listener favorites over the years. Check out the archives, and let us know YOUR favorite episode with a brief description why. @covingtonedu.bsky.social will clip highlights and read your statement in the 200th episode! 👇

You can search & subscribe to 'Human Restoration Project' on any podcast app, YouTube, or listen on our website. Building the Appalachia of the Future w/ the Appalachian Futurism Project: www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkYl...

Our newest episode features the Appalachian Futurism Project out of Elizabethton High School. AFP’s mission is to leverage educational, cultural, & economic resources to develop an ecosystem across the region where young people are part of imagining & codesigning the Appalachia of the future.

I wrote in continuation to this piece. www.linkedin.com/pulse/sunflo... Thx, @covingtonedu.bsky.social for the inspiration! 🌻

One of last year's projects for Michigan middle schoolers in our Third Coast Learning Collaborative connected them with students in Ukraine impacted by war. For most Ukrainian students it was their first time speaking with native English speakers! That project just made Ukrainian broadcast news:

But seriously, what's our response? "As climate emergencies increasingly disrupt schooling, we can be responsive to the changing climate, responsive to student learning — or both — but we can’t do neither and expect the outcome to lead to better learning or a more livable planet."

"Like the turf grass lawn, the values and practices of GERM-era schooling have proven to be maladaptive if our shared goal is sustainable and thriving global society in an age of pandemics and fossil-fuel driven climate disruption."

New from @covingtonedu.bsky.social — Every Dandelion is a Triumph: Thinking ecologically about classrooms and schools can help us evaluate and intentionally cultivate biodiversity in the learning environments we create for young people. 🏵️

New from @covingtonedu.bsky.social — Every Dandelion is a Triumph: Thinking ecologically about classrooms and schools can help us evaluate and intentionally cultivate biodiversity in the learning environments we create for young people. 🏵️

This past spring, I had the privilege of attending a workshop led by Dr. Erika Patall on Student Motivation and Engagement in Culturally Diverse Classrooms, and I immediately knew we would need to bring a slice of that conversation to listeners!

If you’re in the 90% of US schools who go back to school before Labor Day, welcome back! And if you took the summer to unplug, we’ve put HRP’s summer highlights here in one spot for you to catch up on and come back to. Check out HRP Summer Rewind:

Schools too often tackle student motivation with the same old carrots and sticks. In this Back to School special, Dr. Erika Patall explains what autonomy, competence, & relatedness actually require & why they're good for students AND teachers: www.youtube.com/watch?v=tt9E...

Schools too often tackle student motivation with the same old carrots and sticks. In this Back to School special, Dr. Erika Patall explains what autonomy, competence, & relatedness actually require & why they're good for students AND teachers: www.youtube.com/watch?v=tt9E...

It’s never been enough to 'prepare every learner for a lifetime of personal success', but a pedagogy of normalcy seems particularly maladaptive for the challenges our students will face. So what does a human-centered education look like 100 (or 85) seconds from midnight?

Since making this video for @rethinkingjames.bsky.social Rethinking Education conference in 2022, we're now 85 seconds to midnight according to the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pf3-...

Years ago I tried to bring together Gert Biesta & Yong Zhao's ideas about 'why what works won't work' and 'why what works may hurt', seems worth sharing now especially: www.humanrestorationproject.org/writing/why-...

Boston College Prison Education Program student, Gregory Coito, on How Recreation Helps People Survive Prison: "If the goal of prison is punishment alone then empty suffering may seem enough. But if the goal includes rehabilitation, order, and public safety, recreation is essential."

Very excited to share this conversation with @cmooreanderson.eurosky.social on his fantastic book "Teaching Meaning" and the importance of complicating the ways cognitive science is framed in education spaces online. trevoraleo.substack.com/p/christian-... #edusky #literacies #academicsky

Gregory was a student in @jenniferberkshire.bsky.social's journalism class as part of Boston College Prison Education Program. @covingtonedu.bsky.social spoke with Jennifer about BCPEP for our podcast and visited her class at MCI-Shirley earlier this year:

Boston College Prison Education Program student, Gregory Coito, on How Recreation Helps People Survive Prison: "If the goal of prison is punishment alone then empty suffering may seem enough. But if the goal includes rehabilitation, order, and public safety, recreation is essential."

In 2025, 88% of our budget went to program services. We spend more than we take in, & reserves (from our own pockets) cover the difference. In 2025, donations came to $6,953 across the whole year — for every dollar a person gave us, we spent $17.64. Donations needed. stimpunks.org/impact/

What was it like using Polaris Education at your school? Hear from students about what it was like to be asked real questions and to see things change using our new listening/learning tool: youtu.be/JYPB7aHktRw

Our latest episode tackles the power of critical play w/ artist, author, and game designer, @maryflanagan.bsky.social. What we can learn at the intersection of play and critical pedagogy? www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSNY...

I'm recording a @humanrestorationproject.org podcast w/ Dr. Erika Patall about The Myth of the Unmotivated Student based in her decades of research into self-determination theory and agentic motivation at school and at home:

Our latest episode tackles the power of critical play w/ artist, author, and game designer, @maryflanagan.bsky.social. What we can learn at the intersection of play and critical pedagogy? www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSNY...

"Inclusion" has become a word everyone nods along to but almost no one defines the same way. What does genuine inclusion require of us and of schools, and what would it mean to restore the humanity of a special education system that was built to put kids into buckets?

Last month we shared the opening essay, today we're stoked to share the @cnastase.bsky.social original cover for our upcoming primer, We Are Worldbuilders: A New Vision for Progressive Education! 🚀🍄

In Spring 2022, I recorded a podcast episode with @covingtonedu.bsky.social of @humanrestorationproject.org about my dissertation research and how making and constructionism can inform music education www.burtonhable.com/blog/hrp-pod...

Major update: We gave Human Restoration Project a whole new look. We updated the logo, refreshed the entire brand, and rebuilt humanrestorationproject.org from scratch. The new design leans into a solarpunk feeling: warm, hopeful, a little green around the edges.

"The thing that made the fight for Dyett [High School] to me, a model for all other communities to follow is it was a plan crafted out of love and community wisdom in partnership with academic expertise rooted in love." - Jitu Brown on Chicago's Sustainable Community Schools

New podcast! The Future of Public Education is a Community School feat. Kelly McMahon, Jitu Brown, Angelia Ebner, and Dave Greenberg How can the expansion of community schools save public education from privatization? www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvjN...

"The thing that made the fight for Dyett [High School] to me, a model for all other communities to follow is it was a plan crafted out of love and community wisdom in partnership with academic expertise rooted in love." - Jitu Brown on Chicago's Sustainable Community Schools

Really excited to be talking with Kelly McMahon (teacher & ISEA VP), Jitu Brown (organizer & Chicago Public Schools Board Member), & 2 experts from @neatoday.bsky.social for an upcoming @humanrestorationproject.org podcast exploring the promise of community schools: www.youtube.com/watch?v=iC33...

"How are we supposed to rebuild education from the ground up if we're too exhausted, drained, overworked and run down to fully function? The revolution cannot be led by an army of zombies. We owe the future our self-preservation." - Ginie Servant-Miklos, Pedagogies of Collapse

Announcing our 2026 Summer Book Club! We'll read and meet to discuss the ideas and implications of Pedagogies of Collapse and be joined by the author, Ginie Servant-Miklos, for a Q&A on July 31. Learn more and register @ www.humanrestorationproject.org/book-club #edchat