Chris Zorn is an artist, musician and educator, mentored in the practices and mindsets of contemplative and deep ecological education. For the past three decades, he has applied the principles and practices of ecosocial literacy to deepen the learning experience for students of all ages from kindergarteners to seniors. In response to the multiple growing crises of planetary and human health and well-being, he developed a year-long transdisciplinary leadership course, Transforming Ecosocial Leadership, which offers older students (grades 10 and up) the opportunity to immerse themselves in the mindsets and daily practices of ecosocial literacy. He applies the same underlying principles and practices in his work with younger students. He holds a Masters Degree in Ethnomusicology from the University of Colorado at Boulder and has taught at CU Boulder, Naropa University, a number of community colleges, private and public schools, the Honolulu Museum of Art School and many other locations. For the past 20 years he has taught music, art, social and emotional learning, and leadership at the University Laboratory School to students of every grade level.
Life will be a scramble, but we will not scramble alone. Together, we will fight for this world, to keep it.
"
Kelly Hayes and Mariame Kaba,
Let This Radicalize You
2025 was certainly one of the years of all time. The community and connection cultivated in our schools and classrooms has never been more important, as we’ve seen first-hand the incredibly positive impact conscientious teachers have, with the support of courageous school leaders, on students, families, and communities. As a send-off, we thought we’d curate our most popular articles, podcasts, videos, and resources of the past year alongside other education-related recommendations, as well as a preview of HRP content in 2026. One of our central goals is to uplift educators doing the work of creating human-centered learning spaces for all students, and we hope you find in this a curation of inspiring and useful ideas, resources, and conversations headed into the new year.
Joy and Justice,
Cassie, Chris, & Nick
Top Articles
Believe it or not, with nearly 250 published pieces to date, our Writing page gets over 21,000 views each month! Here are the newest from this year that people are reading and sharing:
"This journey was overflowing with growth for students and me. Relinquishing so much control and trust to my students allowed me to see them as the wonderful humans they are. They encouraged me to become not only a better teacher, but a better person."
"Let me tell you how public education changed my life as the child of an immigrant family. In telling it I hope you can feel the hope I have in making change and join in the movement of making it real."
Editor's Note: This piece was submitted by a current ELA/Social Studies teacher who wishes to remain anonymous. Understanding the real possibility of reprisal at this moment, we honor the author's story as we honor their request for anonymity.
Sofia is an 8th grade student in Theresa Walter's English Class on Long Island, NY. Sofia is in her second year of an ungrading experience in the English Language Arts in her school. Theresa is a teacher, and also the Department Chair who has supported her teachers' shift to a feedback-centered growth practice. The two sit down to reflect on the practice and its implications in their lives.
Discover a transformative collection of resources, videos, and learning tracks curated from Conference to Restore Humanity! held each year.All resources are available for free under a Creative Commons attribution, non-commercial, share-alike international license unless otherwise noted. Due to our wonderful supporters and sponsors, CTRH! is one of the only conferences that freely shares nearly all of its resources. Support us to keep this work free!
Our goal is to provide a list of ways to get started using AI in the classroom while not losing our humanity in the process. AI is not meant to replace people, but – like Desmos or Wikipedia – is a tool that expands our capabilities. If our students are to understand a future with AI, we need to see through the exaggerated hype and look past the doom-and-gloom to see these tools for what they are. We must be proactive in teaching students how and when to use AI while taking a critical lens to how it works and its potential pitfalls.
‣ Scholarch: A game-based reflection toolkit for educators
Scholarch is a solo journaling RPG about constructing a school in a fantasy world. Using a grid-based building system, you’ll take on the role of a school architect creating a learning community. Over time, you’ll experience how attendees engage in your space and respond accordingly.
At the end of this game, you will have assembled a journal of experiences in this fantasy land with notes, stories, and reflections on your journey. You’ll sketch a full school community full of surprises. This game-based reflection prompt is prepared for Conference to Restore Humanity! 2025: Quest for Connection and connects to built-in activities each day. That said, feel free to use Scholarch in any way you see fit: over many days, all at once, within a professional development community or by yourself.
Scholarch is designed to be a simple, creative exercise in imagining schooling in new and fascinating ways.
Top Podcasts
We switched podcast hosting platforms halfway through the year, which allowed us to cross-post episodes to YouTube and YouTubeMusic. Since then, we've had nearly 13,000 downloads from listeners from 50 countries across 6 continents! With bi-weekly releases, we're set to easily surpass 200 episodes in 2026.
Speaking to anxieties over AI and returning to the core of community- and purpose-driven education, this conversation with Chanea Bond was our most-listened to podcast episode of 2025 by a long shot! Why did one Texas educator ban students from using AI in her classroom, and how did students respond?
If solarpunk is the future with humanity put back in, achieving it means taking control of that future from economic, social, & political forces that seem to be on autopilot to self-destruction, utterly divorced from human desires & human intervention. One path we've imagined already, and its grimy survivalist individualism was the defining feature of Reagan-era science fiction classics. However, in its radical reimagination of economic & social structures, solarpunk resists the nihilism & doomerism of the grim dehumanized technological dystopias that dominate the worlds of Blade Runner, Robocop, & William Gibson's Neuromancer.
Do we have the willingness to challenge the predominant social, economic, & political structures & systems that need to be challenged? To change the very nature of humanity's relationship to the planet? What role does education play in all of this?
Henry Giroux's 2022 conference keynote, Critical Pedagogy in a Time of Fascist Tyranny, remains as important today as when it was published. Henry Giroux is a renowned scholar who has authored or co-authored over 70 books, including directly working with Paulo Freire on education and cultural studies, he’s written hundreds of articles, and delivered more than 250 lectures. He is a founding theorist of critical pedagogy, being foundational to the study as he literally coined the term.
Dr. Carla Shalaby is dedicated to education as a practice of freedom, focusing on critical pedagogy and literacy, democratic classroom management, and the role of teaching in social justice. She has held significant educational roles, including director positions at Brown University and Wellesley College, and began her career teaching in New Jersey. Shalaby holds advanced degrees in education and is the author of Troublemakers: Lessons in Freedom from Young Children at School.
Top Non-HRP Recommendations
While the books and other media that enriched our year could be a page to itself, our shared interest in tabletop gaming was also a source of camaraderie and creative thinking in an otherwise difficult year. We were able to connect across the table in physical and digital space and bring ludic connections back to our work in the classroom. So are personal shortlists of recommendations based on what we read, listened to, and played in 2025:
Chris:
A Post-Modern Perspective on Curriculum by William E. Doll: “Rediscovering the impact of Doll on understanding a modern progressive education through interpretation of modernist positivism with behaviorism and Taylorism. I'd put this book in my top 3 overall.”
“I have cut my podcast consumption down about 80% this year, but I still regularly listen to Jennifer Berkshire and Jack Schneider’s Have You Heard? podcast. Jennifer and Jack are such a great pair and each episode is so thoughtfully crafted.”
Tabletop Game Recommendation - Earthborne Rangers: Connect with a lovingly crafted campaign with all the tools in your Ranger’s toolkit, no combat required!
Tabletop Game Recommendation - Dice Throne: Master your heroes strengths and weaknesses to outplay your opponents.
What’s Coming Up in 2026?
Podcasts
We've got an incredible line-up of podcast guests over the next couple of months, some of our most high-profile conversations to date, with several more to be announced! You can find the Human Restoration Project podcast on any podcast app or listen directly on our website.
Updated Progressive Education Primer
We've grown so much since the release of our original Progressive Education Primer in 2022! The new edition will double the size of the original to reflect the growth of our thinking and be fully illustrated by our staff artist, Farimah Khavari.
Expanding School-Based Student Voice Projects
Last year, nearly 700 educators participated in HRP-led professional development and over 1,000 students were involved in focus group conversations toward humanized school-based change. Interest in our student voice work has grown to the point where we even had to develop our own platform! You can follow these links to learn more about Polaris as a platform for elevating student voice as well as our professional development process for implementing change in schools.
Thank you
Of course, none of this would be possible today without our partners and supporters. We especially want to thank our friends, colleagues, and supporters who have contributed and believed in this mission, and believed in us, from the very beginning.
If you'd like to support our work, one of the best things you can do is share our Start Page with teachers and school leaders in your community. You can also make tax-deductible donations to support and sustain our mission to restore humanity to education in 2026 and beyond!
