About the Getting Smart Podcast

The Getting Smart Podcast covers trends, innovations and insights in K-12, higher ed, lifelong learning, leadership, investing and more. You can listen and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher or wherever you get your podcasts. Every other Friday we publish an episode called “Catching Up” where Nate McClennen and Mason Pashia try to make sense of what’s going on in education, learning and human flourishing. Check it out. 

If you’re on Spotify, we have built some great playlists to help you jump into some conversations we’ve been having over the last few years. You can go long on the following topics: 

Interested in placing an advertisement in the podcast or sponsoring a series of conversations? Check out our sponsored content page to learn more. 

Know of someone who would make a great guest on the podcast? Email Mason to pitch your suggestion or learn more about being on the podcast.

Subscribe to Our Podcast

This podcast highlights developing trends in K-12 education, postsecondary and lifelong learning. Each week, Getting Smart team members interview students, leading authors, experts and practitioners in research, tech, entrepreneurship and leadership to bring listeners innovative and actionable strategies in education leadership.

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Future of Learning

Are We Designing Schools for Systems or for People? | Jane Shore

Guest Author

What if the most powerful learning technology we have is other people? Dr. Jane Shore, founder of School of Thought PHL and author of People-Based Learning, joined Rebecca Midles on the Getting Smart Podcast to make the case that human connection is not a soft skill but a cognitive engine. Jane shares her connect, reflect, and affect framework alongside practical moves any leader can try tomorrow, from rethinking how staff introductions work to mapping the ripples of impact a single student conversation can create. This one is for every educator working inside an inherited system who wonders where to begin.
Equity & Access

A Grammy Nominee Says AI Just Made the Case for Music Class | Tony Mazzocchi

Guest Author

In our latest podcast episode, Getting Smart host Mason Pashia sits down with Grammy-nominated music educator Tony Mazzocchi, President and CEO of New York City's Kaufman Music Center, to make the case that arts education is not a nice-to-have but the most human-skills-rich environment a school can offer. Tony challenges the myth that talent is rare, argues that the real scarcity is sustained access, and shows how one K-12 public school is outperforming the city in ELA and math precisely because music is embedded into every school day. For education leaders navigating budget pressures and the rise of AI, this conversation reframes the question: not 'can we afford the arts,' but 'can we afford to keep treating them as optional.'
Future of Learning

Catching Up: Job Cliff, Enrollment Drop, and the Hidden Crisis No One Is Talking About?

Guest Author

In this episode of Catching Up, Nate McClennen and Mason Pashia wrestle with three of the most urgent tensions in education today: what a landmark study reveals about how AI-generated lesson materials are quietly eroding student motivation, why chronic absenteeism strategies keep ignoring the one lever that actually works, and how a looming job cliff is colliding with AI displacement in ways most school advisors are not yet discussing. This is the kind of layered, honest conversation that helps education leaders cut through the noise and design schools students genuinely want to attend.