What Can We Learn about Education? Lessons from Over a Decade of Video Interviews with Education Thought Leaders

If you want to know what some of the best education thinkers think about the state of education, educational changes, effective teaching and learning, equity and excellence, new technologies etc., one of the places is The Brainwaves Video Anthology on YouTube created by Bob Greenberg. Over the past 10 years, Bob has conducted more than 2,500 video interviews with some of the leading thinkers such as Sir Ken Robinson, Noam Chomsky, Dr. Anthony Fauci, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, Herb Kohl, Jonathan Kozol, Linda Darling Hammond, Ken Burns, Henry Louis Gates Jr., Diane Ravitch, and Jerome Bruner. The anthology has more than 50,000 subscribers and has been viewed more than 8 million times.

In this episode, we plan to have a discussion with Bob Greenberg to learn what he has learned from these interviews and what motivated him to carry on a project for so long.

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Bob Greenberg has spent 30 years as a public school teacher, 15 years in Stamford, CT and 15 years in Bridgeport, CT. In between he spent 15 years as a full time professional magician working trade shows and hospitality events for corporate clients including IBM, 3M and CIGNA.

The Bridgeport Public Education Fund recognized him as an Outstanding Teacher in 2007. The Connecticut Association of School Librarians honored him with the 2012 Pellerin Classroom Teacher Award, for “collaborating to advance student learning”. His project “Bringing Books to Life” used stop-motion animation and green screen video. He has presented this project at ISTE Philadelphia and CECA Hartford, Tech Forum New York and BLC Boston. He was twice invited to bring his students to Tech Expo in Hartford where they shared their work with the State Legislature and met with the Governor. He also wrote the technology presentation that helped his school become a Lone Pine Award winner.

Bob’s classroom had no walls, his students, known as “The Brainwaves”, had their own class blog where they shared their work and communicated with classes around the world. To prepare his students for the future, where they will live in a global economy, his class participated in global project based learning. Bob’s second and third graders Skyped with students in: Argentina, Canada, Guatemala, New Zealand, Indonesia, Bulgaria, Russia as well as the USA. He helped organize a Global Newspaper with contributions from children from seven countries. He also helped organize a global video project for the International Day of Peace. Drawing on his contacts, he enlisted 26 classes from 18 countries from every continent except Antarctica.

While teaching he posted over 150 student videos SchoolTube. Since retiring in June 2013 he has traveled the country filming the thinkers and doers in Education; including Sir Ken Robinson, Noam Chomsky, Dr. Anthony Fauci, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Bryer, Herb Kohl, Jonathan Kozol, Linda Darling Hammond, Ken Burns, Henry Louis Gates Jr., Diane Ravitch, Yong Zhao and Jerome Bruner. His YouTube Channel, The Brainwaves Video Anthology, is a growing collection of more than 2,500 five-minute bite sized video lectures from thought leaders at Harvard, Yale, Princeton, UCLA, MIT, Stanford and more. It has more than 6 million views in 195 countries.

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