What if learning isn't just happening between our ears?

For generations, we've designed classrooms around a familiar formula: sit still, face forward, and let your mind do the heavy lifting. It's a model that treats students almost like computers, passively processing information—or as Susan Hrach puts it, "brains on sticks."

But learning is far more dynamic, shaped not just by what happens in our heads, but by our bodies, emotions, and the environments around us.

In this episode of Higher Learnings, educator and author Susan Hrach draws on her book Minding Bodies to explore how physical space, sensation, and movement influence the way students think and learn.

Along the way, she challenges us to reconsider whether traditional classrooms might actually be working against learning, and shares practical ways to engage students' minds and bodies, even if it means getting a little uncomfortable ourselves.

Guest Bio

Susan Hrach is an educator, author, and faculty development expert with more than 25 years of experience in higher education. She is the author of Minding Bodies: How Physical Space, Sensation, and Movement Affect Learning and now works as an independent speaker, workshop facilitator, and coach.

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What separates a classroom where students are genuinely invested from one where they’re simply going through the motions?

Harvard professor Jal Mehta has spent years studying what deeper learning looks like, and found answers in some decidedly unexpected places. In this episode, we explore what sports teams and theater productions can teach us about student engagement, why the “tyranny of content” may be working against meaningful learning, and what changes when students get to actually do the work of a discipline rather than simply learn about it.

From rethinking the role of the professor to making small changes in your next class, this conversation offers a compelling case for learning that students don’t just complete, but carry with them.

Guest Bio

Jal Mehta is a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education whose work explores deeper learning, school improvement, and educational innovation. He is the co-author, with Sarah Fine, of In Search of Deeper Learning: The Quest to Remake the American High School.

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What if some of the things that make higher education feel most like school are actually getting in the way of learning? In Schoolishness, Dr. Susan Blum argues that familiar practices—from lectures and grades to rigid schedules and requirements—can leave students going through the motions rather than genuinely invested in what they’re learning.

Blum challenges us to look beyond student disengagement to the deeper problem of alienation, and to rethink what actually motivates students to care, take risks, and persist through difficult work. Along the way, she explores grading and fear as motivators, why students sometimes resist greater freedom and agency, and how faculty can create more authentic and meaningful experiences even within traditional academic structures.

For educators wondering how to move beyond “doing school,” this conversation offers a provocative—and practical—vision for making learning a little less schoolish.

Guest Bio

Dr. Susan Blum is a professor of anthropology at the University of Notre Dame whose work explores education, learning, and the culture of schooling. She is the author of Schoolishness and I Love Learning; I Hate School, and editor of Ungrading: Why Rating Students Undermines Learning.

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