Announcing The Eduleadership Show

[00:01] Announcer:

Welcome to Principal Center Radio, helping you build capacity for instructional leadership. Here's your host, Director of the Principal Center, Dr. Justin Bader. Welcome everyone to Principal Center Radio.

[00:13] SPEAKER_00:

I'm your host, Justin Bader. And in this episode, I wanted to make a special announcement about a new show that we are launching called the Edu Leadership Show. And you can find that at eduleadership.org. Now this is going to be something of a variety show. I want to share with you news.

[00:32]

I want to share with you research, best practice, strategies that you can use as an educator, as a classroom teacher, as an educational leader. And I also wanted to share some commentary and some thoughts that don't exactly fit in other formats that we offer here at the Principal Center. So for example, Principal Center Radio is a very guest focused and very book focused podcast. We take time on this podcast to go in-depth with the author on the ideas in a particular book in every episode. And I really enjoy this format. We're going to continue this format with only occasional exceptions like the one you're listening to right now.

[01:09]

So Principal Center Radio is absolutely going to continue as it has been for more than 400 episodes. We're going to continue bringing you in-depth interviews with authors about their books. But on the Edge of Leadership show, I wanted to have a chance to comment on some of the topics that come up on social media, some of the things that I'm seeing. I'll also share funny things that I come across. If you have a favorite content creator who's funny, any memes or anything you want me to know about to consider including in the show, go ahead and send them my way. So we'll try to mix it up.

[01:39]

We'll try to keep it light and interesting. But I also wanted to have a chance to talk about some serious things, to go in depth on policy and practice and give you a little bit of my perspective as an education philosopher and as a commentator so that we can all enjoy and benefit from thinking about this line of work that we have chosen. I also wanted to address some of the problems with social media, both for me as a consumer of social media and as someone who tries to turn what I see on social media into something valuable to you and for you as well. And one of those problems is simply the algorithm, right? Every social media platform has some sort of algorithm that is optimized for profit. It is not optimized to give us things that are useful and uplifting and beneficial.

[02:27]

it is optimized to get us engaged. And often that means getting us upset and worked up about things that have nothing to do with education. So I'm perfectly happy if you come across the content that I produce as a result of those algorithms, but I know that you're going to come across other stuff because it happens to me too. I come across things on social media that have nothing to do with anything. and I find myself getting worked up about them for no reason. And I very much want to avoid that.

[02:54]

I want my social media time to be productive. And sometimes the best way to be productive with social media is to not use it at all. So if you want to subscribe to the Eduleadership show and not follow me on social media and not follow anyone on social media, I wanted to give you that option. I think that can be a great way to get exposed to new ideas new research new news new insights it's something that i benefit from personally as a reader of the marshall memo you might know that we purchased the marshall memo for all of our members in the instructional leadership association and i read that every week i post it for our members and i think it's a very valuable way to get a curated take on what the most important research and news and articles from the week are and And in our format here, I'll sometimes share things from the Marshall Memo as well as other sources. I have certain people that I read and follow, and you're certainly welcome to send me anything that you think is worth sharing, and I will consider it for inclusion in an upcoming episode of the Edu Leadership Show.

[03:51]

But I think we need to not, as professionals, rely on algorithms that are designed for, frankly, So that's one of my goals here is to get myself out of that algorithmic trap and to get you out of it as well and help you connect with content that you will enjoy and benefit from. Another social media issue that I wanted to address and kind of work around is the problem of audience capture. If you've not heard of the concept of audience capture, the idea here is that sometimes algorithmic rewards for creators come not from just the algorithm itself, but from the audience, and then the audience in an unhealthy way shapes what the content creator talks about.

[04:43]

And you can see this in all kinds of content. People do silly stuff on social media because it gets views, and then people make money from that silly stuff, and then people do more and more extreme silly stuff, and sometimes it gets, frankly, unhealthy. And I also think that happens with ideas. I've seen this happen with a number of experts and authors who had very respectable ideas, but then fell into the trap of audience capture. They got lots of attention, lots of reinforcement, lots of financial reward from simply telling people what they wanted to hear. And I think that would be a betrayal of my responsibility as a researcher, as a philosopher, as an author, if I simply told everybody what they wanted to hear just to get views, just to get impressions.

[05:28]

That is not my goal. It is not my goal to tell people what they want to hear. It is my goal to provide useful information and commentary. It is my goal to help you think more deeply about what you come across. And it's my goal to help us avoid some of the mistakes of the past in terms of fads and pendulum swings and wrongheaded policies. And we're not going to get there simply through algorithmic rewards.

[05:52]

If I simply do what is most profitable on TikTok, I could make the silliest, dumbest videos in the world and they could get lots and lots of views if I was good at being silly and dumb and engaging in that way. So I really want to be intentional about sharing with you ideas that are worth having, that are worth thinking about, that are worth talking about, and I expect you to hold me accountable for doing that and avoiding that trap of audience capture. So we're going to keep it professional, we're going to keep it above board, and we're going to be serious in terms of the discussions that we have here on the EduLeadership show. At the same time, we are going to have some fun. We are going to infuse some variety. I love the old Tonight Show format with some different kinds of acts.

[06:36]

And obviously we're on the internet here. We've got some different things going on. But one of the things I thought we could do is we could share good, funny content from the different creators that you follow and that you find funny. So if you have something funny, send it my way. And I bet you also have some interesting and funny stories to share. And one particular format that I want to ask for your help with right away is animals on campus.

[07:01]

This will be a recurring segment where I'm going to share stories and hopefully photos and videos as well of animals that find their way onto campus when they are not supposed to be there. So not the class pet, not the hamster that's supposed to be there and is minding its own business. but animals that really do not belong on campus but have made themselves a part of your day one way or another and i've got some personal stories i'll tell you one now and i'll probably share this on the show as well i ended up with a bearded dragon which is a large lizard you know it fits in an aquarium but just barely and it lived in our bathtub for many years we had a bearded dragon that was just given to me when i was a science teacher And I didn't want it, and the student who gave it to me gave it to me without permission. And here's what happened. He came in one day and said, hey, Mr. Bader, can I bring in my bearded dragon?

[07:49]

And I thought he meant, like, for show and tell. So I said, sure, just, you know, let me know when you're going to bring it in, and we'll make time for you to show it to the class, and that'll be fun. And I didn't think anything more of it. Well, a couple of weeks went by and I had a sub. I was out for a workshop or something, or maybe I was out sick. And when I came back, I read the sub notes and the sub had written me a nice note about what had happened that day.

[08:09]

And he said, and the lizard is fine at the bottom of his note. I said, well, the lizard is fine. What is that about? I don't have a lizard in my classroom. And I looked over on the countertop by the window and I found that I, in fact, did have a classroom lizard. Now I had a bearded dragon and I had already had an aquarium.

[08:26]

Someone else had given me a large aquarium and that aquarium now had, you know, almost two foot long bearded dragon in it. So I went to the student, I said, James, what happened here? And he said, well, Mr. Bader, you said I could bring in the bearded dragon. And I said, well, I didn't know you meant for me to keep. And he said, well, my mom said I can't keep it anymore.

[08:43]

So can you just take it? And I said, I guess so. But that is not what I thought was happening here. So that's how I ended up with a bearded dragon and had it for many years and ultimately found it a good home before we moved across the country. But that was my story of having an unexpected animal on campus. And I've got more, and I'm sure you've got more.

[09:02]

And if you have a good story, and especially photos and video, send it my way, and we'll feature it on an upcoming episode of the EduLeadership show. So that is one type of segment that we will be featuring. We will share research and news. and anything else that you want to hear, I would love to hear from you. Let me know what you would like on this show. We're going to keep it short and sweet.

[09:21]

It is going to be primarily a video format, so think about things that would work in a visual format. We will, again, keep Principal Center Radio as it is. We will continue having audio-only interviews with authors about their books right here on Principal Center Radio. But the Eduleadership show is going to be primarily a video based show. You can watch the full video on YouTube as well as on our sub stack at eduleadership.org.

[09:44]

That's eduleadership.org. And you can leave a comment there and let me know what you would like to see. So thank you so much for listening into this special episode with my special announcement about the Edu Leadership Show. You can email me anytime, justinatprincipalcenter.com to send me your recommendations or ideas.

[10:05]

That's it for this episode of Principal Center Radio. We'll be back next week with another exciting guest, and I can't wait to share that interview with you. Take care.

[10:14] Announcer:

Thanks for listening to Principal Center Radio. For more great episodes, subscribe on our website at principalcenter.com slash radio.