About the Podcast
The Whole Child Podcast: Changing the Conversation About Education seeks to inform and engage educators, parents, community members—and you—about what works in today’s schools. Guests include educational leaders, practitioners, policymakers, researchers, and students from around the globe who share their insights about sound education policies and practices that ensure that each student is healthy, safe, engaged, supported, and challenged.
Your host, Molly McCloskey, serves as managing director of ASCD’s Whole Child Initiative, a multiyear, cross-organizational effort to ensure that each child, in each school, in each community is healthy, safe, engaged, supported, and challenged. Her work includes outreach to and engagement of educators, policymakers, and parents; implementation of ASCD’S Healthy School Communities Program; and development of capacity-building resources and services for school and community improvement. She holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the Catholic University of America and a master’s of education degree in school counseling from the University of Maryland and has worked at every level of education from early education through graduate school.
Since joining ASCD, Molly has presented across the United States, Canada, Germany, and South Africa and has written and been interviewed about school reform, whole child education, and First Amendment issues in the Miami Herald, USA Today, Edutopia, and the Chicago Tribune. She coauthored the ASCD Infobrief on The Whole Child: A Framework for Education in the 21st Century in February 2005 and the Fall 2007 update of that issue. Molly serves on the advisory boards for the Campaign for the Civic Mission of Schools, Coalition of Community Schools, and National School Climate Council. She serves on numerous ASCD teams and volunteers for the Prince George’s County Public Schools Comer Steering Committee.
Archives
2012
- May: What Does It Take for Children to Be Mentally Healthy?
- April: Coordinated and Collaborative Responses to Diverse Student Needs
- March: Whole Child Around the World: A Good School Is a Good School
- February: Using Engaging Learning Strategies to Connect School to the Real World
- January: The Future of Assessment
2011
- December: Assessment 101
- November: More Than Just Gym: Integrating Movement Across the School Day
- October: Building a Better School Community: Using PLCs to Support Student Success
- September: Partnerships Between Home and School: The Real Missing Link?
- August: Inclusive Learning: Meeting Each Student’s Special Needs
- June/July: School Environments: Transforming Learning Spaces
- May: Beyond Our Halls and Walls: Getting to Community Engagement
- April: The Middle Grades: Zits, Braces, and Hormones
- Special Edition: Ready and Able: A Q&A with Jay Mathews
- March: Ready and Able: College, Career, and Citizenship in the 21st Century
- February: Teaching in a Digital World: Connecting and Empowering the Whole Child
2010
- December/January: PE, Recess, and Beyond: The Implications of Movement
- November: Applying Developmental Science to Impact Teaching and Learning
- October: The Critical Role of the Arts Throughout a Whole Child Education
- September: A Whole Child Approach to Addressing Bullying
- August: The Whole Child Needs a Whole Teacher
- June/July: Summer Learning and Development
- May: Developing Principals to Lead a Whole Child School
- April: Future Directions: Examining the Blueprint for Reauthorizing ESEA
- March: Putting Vision into Action for the Whole Child
- February: School Climate: Developing the Quality and Character of School Life
- January: Meeting Students Where They Are: Preparing Them for What’s Next
2009
- December: Rural Education: Challenges and Opportunities
- November: Supporting Students to Succeed: Keeping Kids from Checking Out and Dropping Out
- October: Engaging Stakeholders Through Community Conversations
- September: Preparing for H1N1
- August: Partnering to Transform the Conditions of Learning: Families and Educators Together
- July: Data: What We Don’t Know May Hurt Us
- June: Schools + Communities = Success for the Whole Child
- May: Supporting Student Voice for Meaningful Change
- Special Edition: Understanding the Education Stimulus Package
- April: Meeting the Needs of English Language Learners
- March: Closing the Believing, Doing Gap
- February: How Urban Schools Work Beyond the Boundaries of Social and Economic Conditions
- January: Education and the New Administration
