Human Restoration Project

A conversation around student loan debt has been happening at the margins of American political life for nearly a generation. By 2012, total student loan debt in the United States surpassed one trillion dollars, with the only relief coming from a pause on interest and federal debt collection that began with the pandemic in March 2020. Today, a majority of Americans, nearly 60% of polled voters, support some kind of forgiveness on the nation’s now 1.7 trillion dollar student loan debt, and borrowers have benefited from the pause on payments, recently extended to May 2022. That’s over two years without a single required payment…and seemingly without a single negative economic consequence. A recent study from the Student Debt Crisis Center also found that nearly 90% of borrowers are not financially secure enough to resume payments.Is it time to pause these payments indefinitely? Is it past time for mass student loan debt forgiveness? While most of the conversations we have at HRP happen at the intersection of the theory and classroom practice of education, today I am joined by Thomas Gokey, Eleni Shirmer, and Jason Wozniak, as they talk to us about their organization, Debt Collective, make the moral, economic, and pedagogical case for debt cancellation, and let listeners know how to join their grassroots movement. GUESTSThomas Gokey, organizer and co-founder of Debt Collective, visual artist, adjunct professor at Syracuse University, and activistEleni Shirmer, researcher at the Future of Finance Initiative at UCLA's Luskin Institute on Inequality and Democracy, and organizer with Debt CollectiveJason Wozniak, assistant professor at Teacher's College, Columbia University, and author of the upcoming book, The Mis-Education of the Indebted StudentRESOURCES@StrikeDebt (Twitter)Debtcollective.org

Today we are joined by Dr. Nick Stock. Dr. Stock, a former English teacher, now serves as a researcher for the University of Birmingham. He has published various essays which focus on critiquing education by using philosophy typically seen outside of traditional pedagogy, such as Evangelion, Schools and Futures; Education after the end of the world. How can education be considered a hyperobject?; and Paradise Shall Remain Lost. Readdressing Deschooling through a Miltonian Lens.Specifically, we invited Dr. Stock on to talk about his recently published work, The Weird, Eerie, Exit Pedagogy of Mark Fisher, which dives into the work of Fisher, who wrote Capitalist Realism, and connects it to pedagogy, something that it isn’t typically associated with.This podcast covers:"Exit Pedagogy", connecting Mark Fisher's capitalist theories (and to an extent, Baudrillard's theories) to education"Hauntology" and reimagining a world without capitalismCritiques of liberatory and critical pedagogy and their connection to capitalismWhat it means to apply exit pedagogy to the classroomGUESTSDr. Nick Stock, former English teacher and current researcher at the University of Birmingham, who focuses on an ironist perspective to education through postmodern, poststructural ideas.RESOURCESThe weird, eerie, exit pedagogy of Mark Fisher by Dr. Nick StockCapitalist Realism by Mark FisherUnpacking "Neoliberal" Schooling, Part 3: Progressive Education: Enter the Matrix by Chris McNutt

Long time listeners may recognize the title to this podcast: Re:Teaching. Last year, Nick released a series of short podcasts on a separate channel, focused on current events and short-form highlights of writing. We soon realized that by splitting our podcast into two segments, most folks didn't hear any of this series! Enjoy, and there will be even more new Re:Teaching episodes on the way.This episode is a feature read of Why What Works Won't Work and Why What Works May Hurt by Nick Covington, published in March 2020. Learn more about Human Restoration Project and find a wealth of free resources to create human-centered classrooms at humanrestorationproject.org, and follow us on social media, @HumResPro.