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Conference to Restore Humanity! 2025: Quest for Connection
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Thomas is a former high school English teacher, writer, and amateur gardener. He lives with his wife, his son, and two Australian Shepherd dogs. He writes about culture, policy, and school.
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Reimagining public middle schools in Western Michigan.
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Listening and learning from 400+ young people & educators.

Nick Covington

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Nick taught social studies for 10 years in Iowa and has worked as a labor organizer. He is currently the Creative Director at the Human Restoration Project.

We Are Worldbuilders

January 23, 2026

Progressive education is a world-building project rooted in the radical hope that schools can become something fit for human beings.

HRP Wrapped 2025

December 17, 2025

A look back at our most popular articles, podcasts, videos, and resources from 2025 and a look ahead at what's to come in 2026!

Change the Data, Change the System with Polaris Education

October 16, 2025

We are excited to share a new service from Human Restoration Project that allows us to listen and learn from young people in ways not possible before.

Reflections on Teach Truth Day of Action 2025

June 18, 2025

How can John Dewey’s ideal of a thriving democratic education revitalize an American commitment to freedom and democracy?

Student Voice Reimagines Professional Development

August 6, 2024

We're reimagining what's possible using student voice in our professional development.

Conference to Restore Humanity 2024: Vision Into Reality

April 1, 2024

“There comes a point when some of the field’s most basic models of learning no longer serve society well; we have reached that point.”

Building Bridges: HRP & The Kosciuszko Foundation's Invitation to TEIP 2024

January 30, 2024

Human Restoration Project is looking for teachers interested in traveling, teaching, and learning in Poland this Summer!

Human Restoration Project Awarded Education Innovation and Research Grant to Reimagine Education

December 7, 2023

Human Restoration Project announces Education and Innovation Research grant from US Dept of Education

Beyond Pavlov's Perfect Student

December 6, 2023

The varied and dynamic nature of learning environments necessitates a more flexible and holistic approach. 

Unsettling The Science of Reading: Who is Being Sold A Story?

November 30, 2023

Literacy doesn’t come in a box, we’ll never find our kids at the bottom of a curriculum package, and there can be no broad support for systemic change that excludes input from and support for teachers implementing these programs in classrooms with students. 

There is No Such Thing As “The Science of Learning”

November 7, 2023

Nick Covington & Michael Weingarth call for a moratorium on using "The Science of Learning" to describe one aspect of how the brain works in relation to the multiple goals of school.

Human Restoration Project Acquires Floop Edu

October 10, 2023

A partnership on feedback-driven learning.

Heaven, Hell, or Houston ISD

September 19, 2023

The takeover of Houston ISD sits at the intersection of so many issues impacting American education today: democratic backsliding and the rise of authoritarianism; the so-called “parents’ rights movement”; testing and accountability measures; poverty, racism, and charter schools. We would be wise to understand what’s happening in Houston as a canary in the coal mine.

Teach Truth Day of Action 2023

June 12, 2023

We must stand with each other and with young people if we are to sustain the intergenerational project of America; if we are to keep the lights on, and the sea at bay. 

March 2023 Newsletter

March 1, 2023

The latest from Human Restoration Project! Let's restore humanity, together. An overview of our upcoming conferences, recently released videos, and summary of content releases.

Fighting Back Against the Future

December 1, 2022

The simple act of having hope for a better future breaks the doom-loop and builds a platform for action.

MINDFOOD I: Top 10 Books Every Progressive Educator Should Read

September 24, 2022

We break down our favorite books on progressive education.

Bonus: Elevating the Conversation on NAEP Scores w/ John Warner

September 3, 2022

Deconstructing what test scores actually mean.

Lessons Preview: Human-Centered Interdisciplinary Subject

June 29, 2022

This update showcases our progress on our Human-Centered Interdisciplinary Subject, a project in creating an actionable cross-disciplinary, holistic course.

What Does it Mean to Lead a Liberatory, Feedback-Driven Classroom?

June 14, 2022

Conference to Restore Humanity: The Need

May 21, 2022

It's past time to demand a conference model that is accessible, sustainable, and representative of the communities we serve.

What we're working on: Human-Centered Interdisciplinary Subject

May 18, 2022

Our goal is to answer the question: how can we prepare learners for a world that needs them to enact change?

"Current Events Do Not Belong in History Class"

May 15, 2022

As laws targeting so-called “divisive topics” intimidate and threaten teachers for having formal conversations and curriculum on these topics, we have to ask ourselves, if we aren’t talking to kids about the impact of these deadly ideas, who is?

102: Fight Back Against Debt w/ Debt Collective

February 26, 2022

Engaging in a collective movement toward debt cancellation.

Review: Flow - The Psychology of Optimal Experience

March 31, 2021

Csikszentmihalyi’s blind spot is a critical one: that poverty is a cause of inattention and a lack of cognitive resources, not an effect.

Review: A Wolf At the Schoolhouse Door & the Unmaking of Public Education

December 4, 2020

What are the tenets guiding the unmaking of public education, what are the aims of the unmakers, and what is there for the rest of us to be worried about?

One Teacher Can't Save the World

October 28, 2020

What is it about the world that is worth preparing students for, and are we dedicated to the work of building that better world alongside them?

A Teacher's Case for Critical Race Theory

October 14, 2020

What is this “toxic propaganda” the White House and Senate are taking action over, and what are the consequences of having CRT banned from our schools and public institutions?

Liberatory Learning: Dismantling the Hidden Curriculum

August 11, 2020

This is a recap of our asynchronous professional development session, where we worked as a cohort to develop actions and solutions for equitable practices in our classrooms.

Endorsing Student Voice Through Virtual/Hybrid Activism

August 1, 2020

This is an overview of our August 1st Summit with Inspire Citizens (Donna Guerin, Steve Sostak, Kavita Tanna), Out of the Blocks (Aaron Henkin, Wendel Patrick), and Evan Whitehead!

Creating a Virtual, Liberatory Feedback-Driven Classroom

July 31, 2020

This past week, Human Restoration Project has had the honor of presenting this workshop on ungrading and liberatory pedagogy at Digital Pedagogy Lab 2020. Here's an overview of the activities we covered, what we learned, and resources to share!

Universal Design for Fishing

June 15, 2020

No analogy is perfect, but I think we can use fishing as an example of an experience where the philosophy of universal design, combined with the support of experienced and conscientious adults, can help us develop a classroom learning experience that achieves the goal of UDL.

Review: Radical Hope

June 8, 2020

What we absolutely can and should do, however, is define our work as educators biased toward life-affirming, student-centered, inclusive praxis and create a space where we can do the work of reversing the decomposition... a Radical Hope.

On Range & the wicked world

March 31, 2020

Do specialists actually get better with experience or not, and is narrow, deliberate practice the only way to achieve greatness in a given field?

What’s in a grade? GRExit, GPA, College Admissions, and the Mastery Transcript (oh my!)

March 4, 2020

In this article I’ll look at the movement of undergrad and graduate programs away from standardized assessments, unpack new research into our assumptions about standardized test scores as predictors of college completion, and challenge listeners to re-rethink “What’s in a grade?”

Why “What Works” Won’t Work and Why “What Works” May Hurt

March 2, 2020

In this article I’ll unpack the criticisms and limits of “what works” in what we call evidence-based educational research and practice.

A Progressive Response to “Ed. Reform’s Lost Decade”

January 30, 2020

For those who believe the measure of a quality education can be distilled into an assessment score, the last 20 years of data must be intensely disappointing.

Review: The Case for Constructivist Classrooms

January 27, 2020

...constructivism has been a consistent but controversial and often caricatured counterweight to the recurring top-down reform movements — rooted in accountability and standardized test scores — that have defined the last 30 years of the educational debate.

Review: The Schools Our Children Deserve

September 26, 2019

In contrast with the methods books I had read for coursework and professional development, Kohn’s voice spoke to me with an urgency, a moral weight and clarity which framed dry topics.

Review: White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide

July 25, 2019

...white rage through the most explosive periods in America’s racial history, which the reader comes to understand through the brutal clarity and consistent facts of the historical narrative.

Put Your Best Foot Forward

May 31, 2019

This year I challenged my sophomore AP Euro students as we headed into the final weeks of class: Put your best foot forward.

Taking the Plunge

December 14, 2018

This is the kind of learning that is possible if we unencumber our classrooms from complicated instructional strategies...

“In your opinion, what matters?”

December 5, 2018

We were trapped in the circular logic and language of letter grades and points: I got an A so I must have learned it, and I know I learned it because I got an A.

Cutting Content to Make Room for Learning

November 21, 2018

But writing “My Pragmatic Journey…” wasn’t just an exercise, it served as a clarification of my values and my role as a teacher.

My Pragmatic Journey to Voice & Choice in the Classroom

August 16, 2018

Yet my journey to student voice and choice in the classroom was born out of an intense frustration that what I and my co-teacher were spending hours planning, and daily troubleshooting, just wasn’t having the impact we were intending.

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It's about mattering, feeling like you matter and also that what you're doing matters. I think it's important for me that I feel like I can bring my full self to something, heart and head, and that all of the various parts of me are alive and challenged and supported and so all of that kind of comes back to love, feeling loved, loving seems at the center of a good life to me.

Derek

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