The Cult of Pedagogy Podcast

When our students face challenges in the classroom, some teachers double down on control and rigor: tighter rules, firmer consequences, higher demands. Others lean toward grace and flexibility: easing up, giving extensions, and softening expectations because they know our students are carrying a lot. But what if the answer isn't either/or? Warm Demander pedagogy is an approach that pairs genuine care and deep relationship-building with unwavering high expectations. It's the belief that students need to feel seen, respected, and valued — and that we honor them most by refusing to lower the bar. In today's episode, I'm joined by educators Marcee Harris and Dr. Wendy Amato. They explain what Warm Demander pedagogy looks like in action, how it supports student agency and productive struggle, and why it's especially relevant for teachers right now.
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Thanks to Renaissance and SchoolAI for sponsoring the episode. To read Amato and Harris' article about Warm Demander pedagogy, visit cultofpedagogy.com/warm-demanders.
To learn more about The Teacher's Guide to Tech, visit teachersguidetotech.com.

Teaching students to write well has always been challenging, and newer developments have made it even more difficult: The internet offers unlimited text to plagiarize, standardized testing has pushed us to teach more formulaic writing, and AI constantly offers to do our writing for us. Frustrated with her students' lack of confidence and the robotic style of their writing, language arts teacher Nashwa Elkoshairi tried adding freewriting before and after her inquiry-based units. The results, she says, were dramatic: Students became more confident as writers and their writing developed far more depth and complexity than she'd ever seen before. In this episode, she joins me to talk about how she weaves freewriting into her classroom practice.
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Thanks to Renaissance and SchoolAI for sponsoring the episode. To read Dr. Elkoshairi's article about how she uses inquiry-based freewriting, visit cultofpedagogy.com/inquiry-based-freewriting.
To learn more about Grammar Gap Fillers, visit cultofpedagogy.com/grammar.

We're kicking off the year like we always do, with a round-up of six educational tech tools we think are worth a look. On the list this year: a site that offers fantastic STEM interactives, an AI-powered collaborative writing platform, a free, web-based sound editor, a tool that can turn any text into an infographic, a library of beautifully produced documentaries on current events, and an incredible project that connects makers with people who need assistive devices. My lead technology specialist, Marnie Diem, joins me to talk about them. 
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Thanks to foundry10 and SchoolAI for sponsoring the episode. For links to all six tools and videos showing each one in action, visit cultofpedagogy.com/6-ed-tech-tools-2026.
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To learn more about The Teacher's Guide to Tech, visit teachersguidetotech.com.

We're living in a time when having a difference of opinion is a potential minefield of hurt feelings, emotional outbursts, and severed relationships. If this has caused you to avoid certain topics in your classroom, the growth discourse framework used by the School of Ethics and Global Leadership (SEGL) may offer a way to re-engage in these conversations. In this episode, I talk with SEGL founder Noah Bopp about how the growth discourse model works and how teachers can get started using it.
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Thanks to foundry10 and SchoolAI for sponsoring the episode. To read a full transcript of this conversation and find links to the growth discourse guidelines and the sample lesson plan we talked about in the episode, visit cultofpedagogy.com/growth-discourse.
To learn more about Grammar Gap Fillers, visit cultofpedagogy.com/grammar.

Neurodivergent educators, like those with ADHD, autism, dyslexia, and other forms of cognitive diversity, are essential voices in our schools. They bring innovation, empathy, and authenticity. Yet they often work within systems that weren't built with them in mind, and this can make the job of teaching especially challenging. In this episode, we'll learn about the strengths neurodivergent teachers bring to the classroom and strategies that help them thrive from Emily Kircher-Morris, who is a mental health professional, neurodiversity advocate, and host of The Neurodiversity Podcast. 
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Thanks to foundry10 and SchoolAI for sponsoring the episode. To read Kircher-Morris's article and a full transcript of our conversation, visit cultofpedagogy.com/neurodivergent-teachers.
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To learn more about The Teacher's Guide to Tech, visit teachersguidetotech.com.