Dr. Chris Osmond

Office address
426 C
College of Education Building

Biography

Dr. Osmond administers Teaching to Thrive, a teacher burnout prevention and sustainable practice program to increase persistence of RCOE students toward their degrees in education and licensure and decrease attrition in the first three years of practice. Before coming to Appalachian in 2010, he served on the faculty of the UNC School of Medicine, where he learned how other caring professions address questions of sustainable practice through use of literature and the arts. He brings these insights to teacher education and educational leadership through his teaching and scholarship.

Dr. Osmond teaches and advises in foundations of education, curriculum theory, arts and education, and sustainable practice at the undergraduate and doctoral levels. He holds a Ph.D. in Culture, Curriculum, and Change from the School of Education of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an M.A. in Curriculum Studies and Teacher Education from the Stanford Graduate School of Education. He began his career as a middle and high school English, Spanish, music and drama teacher in Washington DC. 

He is also a drummer, a runner, and a manual typewriter enthusiast; his book Human Teaching: How Recentering What’s Real Sustains Your Practice explores typewriter practice as both tool and metaphor for thriving caring work. He blogs at humanwordsproject.com.

Selected Publications

• Osmond, C. (2026). Human Teaching: How Recentering What’s Real Sustains Your Practice. Cincinnati: Loose Dog Press.
• Helfenbein, R., Taylor, H. (eds.) (2025). Afterword. Critical Geographies in/of Education Revisiting Discursive and Spatial Reckonings. Routledge.
• Osmond, C. (2022). Shift Freedom. In Polt, R., Durbin F.S., and McFeaters A.V. (eds.), Margin Releases: Typewritten Tales of Transgression. Cincinnati: Loose Dog Press.
• McNulty M., Osmond C. (eds). (2019). “Theme Issue: Curriculum of the Monstrous.” Journal of Curriculum Theorizing, Vol. 34, No 5. Foundation for Curriculum Theory.
• Osmond, C. (2019). Time to Die: Zombie as Educational Evolution in “The Girl with All the Gifts.” Journal of Curriculum Theorizing, Vol. 34, No 5. Foundation for Curriculum Theory.
• Osmond C. (2019). Sit and Listen: Walter Gershon’s “Sound and Curriculum.” Journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Curriculum Studies, Vol 13, No 9. Vancouver: University of British Columbia.
• Osmond C. (2019). Robert L. Hampel’s “Fast and Curious: A History of Shortcuts in American Education.” Teachers College Record. New York: Teachers College, Columbia University.
• Osmond C. (2017). Scheherazade and the Axe: Narrative Medicine, the Apocalypse, and the Way Through. In V. Miller (ed.), Educational Leadership on the Brink: Reclaiming Social Justice and Sustainability in an Apocalyptic Moment of Hope. Charlotte: Information Age Publishing.
• Osmond C. (2015). The Thousand Natural Shocks. In Wood E. (ed.), Scars. Little Rock: Et Alia Press. (winner of Et Alia Press national essay contest)
• Osmond C. (2015). Pedagogical Reading: The Aesthetics of Attending in Reading Student Work. Journal of Thought: a Journal of Critical Reflection on Educational Issues. Volume 49, Nos. 3 & 4 (Fall-Winter 2015). Society of Philosophy and History of Education. San Francisco: Caddo Gap Press.
• Osmond C. (2013). Dithering. Intima: A Journal of Narrative Medicine: Spring 2013. New York: Columbia University.