I was recently a guest on the popular education podcast “(Dis)course or Dat Course” alongside S. Smug Snidely, the celebrity dean of the school of education at Paymore U. It was my first time meeting him and the host, prolific ed thinker Ima Fuller-Schlitz, best known for her popular TED Talk “Schools That Love Love and the Students That Love Them.” I found the whole conversation immensely revealing of the state of the nation’s schools of education, and I figured it was worth sharing the transcript.

Ima Fuller-Schlitz: Dr. Snidely, you’re widely recognized as one of the nation’s foremost authorities on education who’s respected by people across the political spectrum, from the New York Times to Mother Jones to NPR to MSNBC. How do you do it?

Dr. Smug Snidely: Well, I just don’t believe there’s any place for politics in education. My saying so has earned me the gravitas that lets me speak out against the terrible, bigoted ideas championed by Republicans and the Trump administration.

Fuller-Schlitz: That’s so true. Elaborate.

Snidely: There’s the xenophobic crackdown on international enrollment. Their hate-filled attack on equity and affirmative action. Their book banning. Their war on education and push to privatize schools. This is, quite simply, a MAGA attack on America.

Fuller-Schlitz: Here I’d like to bring in Rick Hess from a right-wing think tank. Dr. Snidely made a number of telling points, Dr. Hess. Do you have a response?

Dr. Rick Hess: Well, for starters, we need to provide students—. . .

Snidely: You know, I’m just so tired of Dr. Hess and his MAGA brethren making everything political. This should be about the children. There’s no room for his racist, xenophobic, transphobic talking points.

Fuller-Schlitz: So brave. Such moral clarity; our world needs more of that.

Hess: Hold on—. . .

Fuller-Schlitz: That reminds me, Dr. Snidely, you’re out with a new book: Pay, Meme, Cognicize. Can you tell us about it?

Snidely: I’d be delighted. A big challenge on campus today is students’ overwhelming workload. They see syllabi asking them to read as many as 20 or 30 pages each week, and it’s rough on their mental health. I wanted to help students understand that, once they’ve written that tuition check—that’s the “pay”—they can relax and do what they like. That’s the “meme.” And what they’re there to “learn” are the 21st-century skills they’ll need in the Age of AI, which means learning to relate, innovate, commiserate, and empower—that’s the “cognicize.”

Fuller-Schlitz: “Cognicize.” That’s a word you don’t hear much. Explore with us how you’re able to transcend language.

Snidely: The English corpus doesn’t capture the rich praxis of the humanist heuristic I had in mind.

Fuller-Schlitz: Indeed. Digital dictionaries just can’t keep up with how fast we think nowadays.

Snidely: Plus, I wanted a word that starts with “C.”

Fuller-Schlitz: Dr. Hess, I believe you’ve written things, too. Anything listeners might find as timely as Dr. Snidely’s new work?

Hess: Well, I—. . .

Snidely: I should add that Pay, Meme, Cognicize was inspired by our brave, beautiful students. For Gen Alpha, learning is less a matter of physical classrooms and more about metaphysical self-fulfillment. They’re native social media consumers and experts who’ve grown up on personalized, interactive platforms like TikTok and Twitch, where creators are talking with them, not at them. I wanted to help educators lean into that.

Fuller-Schlitz: Even more reason to pick up a copy of your book. Dr. Hess, don’t you concur?

Hess: Well, given a decade-long literacy decline on NAEP, I guess I’m more interested in the science of reading than in social media—. . .

Snidely: I’m sorry, but I can’t just sit still for this MAGA nonsense.

Fuller-Schlitz: Certainly. Please go on, Dr. Snidely.

Snidely: First off, I don’t know what this man is talking about when it comes to NAEP scores. Now, I’ll admit that I don’t pay much attention to such blather, but I know nonsense when I hear it. Sure, test scores dipped during the pandemic, but only because students were busy learning other things—like resilience, the importance of masking, and how to fight systemic racism. But a decade-long decline? Please. Dr. Hess is either manufacturing misinformation or just mindlessly echoing MAGA propaganda.

Hess: Well, if you’ll just look at the NAEP website—. . .

Snidely: This is the kind of garbage that MAGA ideologues like Dr. Hess use to smear our schools and promote their right-wing agendas. As for this so-called “science of reading”? I’ve many prominent scholars of literacy on my faculty, and not one regards this so-called “science” as anything but a right-wing attempt to impose heteronormative notions of patriarchal pedagogical praxis.

Fuller-Schlitz: Intolerable.

Snidely: That’s why our work is so vital. My esteemed colleagues are busy with the real work of deconstructing the Western canon, de-centering written text, and inter-connecting identity-informed meaning making.

Fuller-Schlitz: And despite all that, we’ve seen a wave of unhinged attacks on universities and schools of education from Republicans. How do you convince the public that your work is so valuable?

Snidely: It’s simple. I just quote our mission statement: “We seek a more equitable world through innovative, multidisciplinary knowledge creation that advances a gender-inclusive, anti-racist vision of social, emotional, and cognitive well-being.”

Fuller-Schlitz: As the kids say, “No cap!”

Snidely: And we don’t just say it, we live it. My faculty have won a remarkably diverse and inclusive array of honors and awards. I mean, they’ve been recognized by everyone from AERA to the MLA to Black Lives Matter to PEN America to the ACLU to the NEA to the Democratic Socialists of America.

Fuller-Schlitz: Bona fides.

Snidely: And then we prepare teachers, too. That’s crucial work. As we like to say, and it’s right there on our website, “We prepare social justice–minded widgets for a generic clientele at a high cost.”

Hess: You’re actually bragging—. . .?

Fuller-Schlitz: Inspiring. Do say more, Dr. Snidely.

Snidely: We like to think about preparation in three parts. One, we want to ensure that future teachers think the right thoughts. We cognicize them in SEL, anti-racism, and social justice. Two, our graduates can be plugged into any school, whatever the curricula or pedagogy. And three . . . the elephant in the room is the price tag. But quality isn’t cheap.  And, because equity.

Hess: Wait, what? Because—. . .

Snidely: And social justice.

Fuller-Schlitz: That’s a comprehensive mission statement! Dr. Hess, any thoughts?

Me: Well, I . . . I’m at a loss for words.

Fuller-Schlitz: Finally. It’s the holiday season. Any tips for what to get that special educator on your list?

Snidely: Absolutely. This season’s go-to gift, I think, is the brand-new Handbook of Education Policy Research, 2nd Edition, the thickest such volume ever issued by the American Education Research Association. It’s a practical resource and a rollicking good read, with chapters like “Reimagining International and Comparative Research in Higher Education: An Anticolonial Critical Review” and “Policy Is Curriculum Is Politics: Curriculum Politics and the Rise of Authoritarian Populists in a New Media Ecosystem.” And, as the editors movingly explain, it’s a great way “to honor” those who’ve shaped today’s invaluable education scholarship.

Hess: Well, I would say—. . .

Fuller-Schlitz: And it looks like we’ve reached the end of our time. Thank you to my guests for their riveting dialogue. Until next time, you know me, Ima Fuller-Schlitz, and this is “(Dis)course or Dat Course.”

Frederick Hess is an executive editor of Education Next and the author of the blog “Old School with Rick Hess.”