Practical perspective for reflective educators.
Anchored in Education is a thoughtful education interview show led by practical questions and reflective takeaways. Episodes move from global school leadership and learning conditions to selective eating disorder, student storytelling, inclusion, resilience, and lessons drawn from unexpected places.
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Anchored in Education is an interview-driven education show that treats teaching, leadership, and student support as connected work. The show often begins with a personal story, then widens into a professional question educators are likely to recognize. Its range is broad. Brantley Turner’s episode looks at global school leadership, international campuses, the international baccalaureate curriculum, and what it means to work across cultures and policy systems. Philip Jett’s conversation uses Stranded in the Sky and the Pan Am airliners trapped in 1941 to think about readiness, responsibility, and leadership when no one expects to be in charge. Deborah Crouch’s episode stays closer to instruction, examining immersion, demonstration, engagement, reflection, application, evaluation, and the conditions that shape real learning. Linda B. Davis’s conversation is especially student-centered, moving from selective eating disorder and avoidant restrictive food intake disorder to food shaming, anxiety, and the patience adults need when children approach food on their own terms. The show also makes room for books written for young readers. Mark Goldblatt’s episode treats middle school problems, friendship, romance, and family challenges as material adults should take seriously. John Azoni’s episode brings school communication into view through video storytelling, vulnerability, consistency, and student talent. Inclusion and early childhood education appear through a discussion prompted by pre-K, IEPs, and state expectations. The tone is earnest and practical. It is not flashy. It works best when the guest’s expertise is translated back into a decision an educator might make tomorrow. The host favors reflection over confrontation. Even when a topic comes from aviation history, food, fiction, or marketing, the conversation returns to schools. That makes the show useful for educators who want perspective without leaving the profession behind.
Made for: Anchored in Education is for teachers, school leaders, support staff, and education-minded readers who want thoughtful professional conversations with classroom relevance. It also suits listeners interested in how books, history, storytelling, food, inclusion, and global schooling inform educational practice.
What sets it apart: The show stands apart by drawing leadership and teaching lessons from unusually varied sources, including international schools, aviation history, middle grade fiction, selective eating, and video storytelling. Its episodes consistently translate those outside lenses back into student support and school practice.
There are over 3 million full-time teachers in the United States. Add in part-time teachers, support staff, administrators, and board members, and you have a lot of people who have dedicated their lives to educate the lives of others. We believe in providing a platform where educators can gather to share, learn, and encourage others. Because at the end of the day, we are all Anchored in Education.
The word 'picky' and a stranded Pan Am crew both have something to teach you.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A grounded look at how school leadership shifts when education crosses cultures and borders.
Global education feels specific through Brantley Turner's work with Dwight Schools, from her East Asia Education Director role to her move into leading the opening of Dwight School in Hanoi.
A historical investigation becomes a grounded reflection on leadership when ordinary people are suddenly asked to step up.
Stranded in the Sky with Philip Jett turns a story of Pan Am luxury airliners caught on the day of infamy into a measured conversation about leadership that often forms outside formal training.
A focused conversation about engagement, literacy, and the conditions that give teaching decisions a sturdier foundation.
Teaching decisions are treated here as something rooted in the conditions that make learning possible. Deborah Crouch, co-author of Made for Learning, joins E.
A grounded reframing of picky eating as something that can carry real stress and anxiety.
Anchored in Education takes E. Scott England's everyday frustration with picky eating and slows it down enough to question what that label can hide.
A fiction-centered education conversation about seeing young people's crises at their true scale.
Mark Goldblatt's Might As Well Be Dead gives Anchored in Education a grounded way into middle school pressures that adults can underestimate. E.
Thoughtful teaching talk with classroom roots.
Careful conversations for better teaching.
Creative ELA ideas with classroom roots.
Classroom creativity, treated as real work.
Brantley Turner says global education is about "global confidence" and "global competence," not just travel or passports.
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Anchored in Education episode 117 features E.
Linda B.
Mark Goldblatt's Might As Well Be Dead follows 13-year-old David, whose mother's sudden departure, school conflicts, new romance, and hallucinations of a middle-aged Englishman shape the story.
David Mura's book The Stories Whiteness Tells Itself links his Japanese American family's wartime incarceration to the racial narratives he says persist in the United States.
On Anchored in Education, E.
John Azzoni says a story worth telling must first be an actual story, not "I like my professors and the small class sizes."
Charley Cass, author of "Leaving Poverty: On Purpose and For Good," describes his "rags to middle class" path from a grandmother-raised childhood on "Reagan cheese" and Medicaid glasses to Illinois Principal of the Year.
Kristie Farr, a New York theater teacher with 25 years in the classroom, describes realizing she was burned out after a hybrid pandemic year, when she sat in her car for 15 minutes and left for camp without saying goodbye to colleagues.
This episode discusses teacher resilience and strategies to manage negativity and anxiety, featuring a returning guest expert.
A former teacher turned principal recounts his first month as an elementary principal, discovering a pre-K program and facing a state mandate to fix special education identification numbers.
The host discusses his love-hate relationship with TikTok and highlights how the platform provides teaching strategies and connects educators worldwide.
The host discusses how the Savannah Bananas baseball team's innovative approach can inspire similar disruption in education.