Episode 81: How AI Changes Everything and Nothing

With Peter Nilsson

Available November 11, 2025

Right now, it may feel as though AI has changed everything about education. It has, says Peter Nilsson – but it has also changed nothing. That’s the paradox at the core of his forthcoming co-authored book, Irreplaceable: How AI Changes Everything and Nothing about Teaching and Learning. He sits down with host Morva McDonald to share what has actually changed, what hasn’t, and how his work using technology to bolster innovation in education has led him to this place.

Guest: Peter Nilsson

Resources, Transcript, and Expanded Show Notes

In This Episode:

• “Unlike medicine and unlike law, education is diverse in the way that it is applied in different classrooms. There isn't only one way to teach the Great Gatsby. There isn't only one way to teach Beloved. In fact, every classroom should be different in the way that it engages it because every classroom has different students. So while knowledge on Wikipedia compiles everybody's contributions to the page on physics compiled to one page, curriculum does the opposite. Curriculum doesn't compile. It disaggregates. It diversifies.” (5:22)
• “It's impossible to expect every teacher, every school, even to be able to develop the wisest, most effective responses to every change. That's just not how innovation happens. What happens is people all across networks figure out small little things. And the more those small little things can share across the network, the more any individual node on the network can have the most comprehensive, high quality, effective response to that thing.” (16:52)
• “Students now can do more, so much more than they ever could do before. Every student having something like this vision of an AI tutor is a game changer for so many reasons. But nonetheless, students will still need time. They will still need help. They will still need practice. They will still struggle to ask the right question. They will still come in confused about something. They will still need teachers to help them build confidence. Everything is changing in terms of how we do this on a human, individual level where we're interacting with a machine that is more and more like a human, but nothing is changing in that the messiness of our own human learning remains.” (22:31)

Related Episodes: 71, 69, 68, 49, 45, 31

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode from NAIS podcast Member Voices, Jackie Wolking speaks with Autumn Adkins Graves, head of St. Anne's-Belfield School (VA). In their conversation, Graves shares the importance of curiosity in the age of artificial intelligence, and how her school created a portrait of a graduate with a futurist lens. She also talks about change management and how we affirm what's working well to move things along and how we have to stop trying to control tech or dismiss it.

New View EDU will return next week with a new episode on How AI Changes Everything and Nothing, with guest Peter Nilsson.

Related Resources:

• Member Voices Podcast
• AI Resources for Schools and Educators
• Recent Episodes of New View EDU

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Episode 80: The Future of Inclusion

With Kenji Yoshino

Available October 28, 2025

In this time of rapidly evolving law and opinion around terms like diversity, equity, and inclusion, what is the work of school leaders who believe in building stronger, more connected, more inclusive communities? Legal scholar and author Kenji Yoshino is the author of a forthcoming book called How Equality Wins: A New Vision for an Inclusive America. He joins host Morva McDonald to talk about the legal precedents of the past, the shifting culture of the present, and the strategies that can secure the future of equitable practice.

Guests: Kenji Yoshino

Resources, Transcript, and Expanded Show Notes

In This Episode:

• “I think lawyers are actually terrible at lots of things, but we're actually rather good at saying, yes, we disagree, but you're not my enemy, right? You're my debate opponent, and you're actually my friend on the other side. And so let's actually behave as if, let's carry ourselves in that way and let the best ideas win.”
• “I think that the younger generation has a greater understanding not of who they are, but, or not just of who they are, but also the skills that are going to be needed for us to survive, much less thrive, in a multicultural society that is much more global, much more diverse. And so the capacity to speak across difference, to work across difference, to bond across difference is going to be a critical skill for us going forward. And that's the set of skills that are embodied within DEI.”
• “So the question I always ask is like, it's really easy to get caught up in the heat of the moment and to get blown back and forth as the pendulum swings back and forth, right? But rather than doing that, like just sit in your values and think five years from now, who will I want to have been in this moment when everyone was telling me like cave or do this or do that? Like what is the kind of values based decision that I can make here that will make me proud of myself five years from now, rather than proud of myself tomorrow or proud of myself next week?”

Related Episodes: 77; 66; 64; 62; 37; 30; 17; 7

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Episode 79: The Disengaged Teen

With Jenny Anderson and Rebecca Winthrop

Available October 21, 2025

Why do so many students seem to lose their love of learning when they reach adolescence? Is there something about the way we approach school for this age group that leads to greater disengagement and apathy? And how can we change our systems, and the ways we relate to teens both in and out of school, to help support their development and flourishing? Authors Jenny Anderson and Rebecca Winthrop join host Debra Wilson to talk about their book The Disengaged Teen, and what they recommend to parents and educators in the age of rapidly evolving AI.

Guests: Jenny West Anderson and Rebecca Winthrop

Resources, Transcript, and Expanded Show Notes

In This Episode:

• “We also heard a lot that it was, parents often figured out things weren't going well when it really kind of blew up. So engagement is a continuum. And some of the behaviors we see early on that we can kind of shrug our shoulders and say, that's just, you know, teens being teens, right? To sort of bring that negative construct in. And some of it is, for sure. Like I don't want to freak out parents unnecessarily, but sometimes seeing those behaviors continuously and not digging into them then was like, kids get to a point where they're telling themselves, there's no point. I'm not going to try at anything. And it's because they failed a test and didn't want to tell anyone or didn't know how to ask for help.” (15:31)
• “We argue in the book that we need to make a shift from what we call the age of achievement, where through no fault of anybody inside the system, virtually every education system around the world, just how it has been designed from eons ago, is about ranking and sorting. Otherwise, we wouldn't have grades. Do you know what I mean? We wouldn't have that. That is the core. The purpose really was, ages ago, of funneling up into higher ed. How do you select? And so we're saying we are definitely seeing the strains on that design.” (31:24)

Related Episodes:76; 71; 63; 60; 59; 51; 40; 31

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Episode 78: The Power of Transcendent Thinking

With Mary Helen Immordino-Yang

Available October 14, 2025

“What does it mean to be a self-actualizing, fully integrated, socially contextualized human being in this new world order? And how would we design opportunities…to help a young person develop not just what they know now, but to potentiate in ways that change who they could become?”

Neuroscientist Mary Helen Immordino-Yang returns to New View EDU to share the work she and her team at USC CANDLE are doing to answer these, and other, deeply provocative questions about the science of teaching and learning. Her new research hones in on a specific type of cognitive process, which she terms “transcendent thinking.” And as Mary Helen explains during this conversation with Debra Wilson, transcendent thinking may be the key to unlocking long-term developmental outcomes for students.

Guest: Mary Helen Immordino-Yang

Resources, Transcript, and Expanded Show Notes

In This Episode:

• “So what we have here is this incredible suggestion that when kids dispositionally engage with complex, curious, deep thinking about big ideas. Not only are they deeply engaged by that, but they are physically and functionally growing their capacity to think in ways that over time produces a neural substrate that supports wellbeing. So we're actually growing a robust brain that enables us to be well, to manage in relationships, and to feel good in our own skin and to develop identities that transcend that are about big ideas and purpose and values.” (18:21)
• “What we show is that teaching well is not more work, it's different work. It's work in which you really engage with the thought patterns, what it feels like for these students to be thinking. What are their emotions about here? Are they having emotions about, you know, the amazing power of right triangles to help us, you know, sort of understand the geometry of the world and how powerful it feels to really engage in that kind of mathematical thinking? Or are they having emotions about, yay, I did it, I'm done. Or, boo, I didn't, and now I'm freaking out because I'm going to flunk, right? Because when the emotions are mainly about those outcomes, what we're finding is that the school is not promotive of development in the same way. It may be promoting quote unquote learning, maybe, but in the service of what? What are you going to use that learning for?” (33:33)

Related Episodes: 75; 72; 69; 59; 58; 47; 35

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Episode 77: Dignity-Affirming Leadership in Schools

With Jason Craige Harris

Available October 7, 2025

At a time when conflict and polarization feel like an unrelenting fact of life, how can we build stronger, kinder school communities where everyone feels seen, known, and valued? That’s one of the pervasive questions facing school leaders right now, and one that Jason Craige Harris is ready to help us answer. He joins Morva McDonald for a conversation about refocusing our leadership practices to center human dignity, and why he feels that reframe is so vital to our continued wellbeing.

Guest: Jason Craige Harris

Resources, Transcript, and Expanded Show Notes

In This Episode:

• “We have to engage in a bit of a listening tour to hear how people are experiencing their cultural reality.  And one of the reasons why is because our brains are storytelling factories. And in the absence of information given to us, whenever we detect gaps, we create, right? We fill it with our own sort of assumptions. And those assumptions, I'm not saying they're automatically wrong, but they're not automatically right most of the time.” (6:58)
• “For a long time in my work, I framed things in terms of what I was against. Like I had a really clear idea of like, I don't want exclusion. I don't want assimilation. I don't want violence. I'm not even sure I really want tolerance. And so my whole imagination was defined by being anti- forces that were debilitating and dehumanizing. And at some point I realized, gosh, like, I'm not sure I've spent much time trying to thickly describe the world that I want, like what I'm fighting for versus what I'm fighting against...Let's just say that if exclusion somehow disappears, if racism disappears, if whatever -ism it is disappears, then will we no longer have purpose?” (19:15)
• “I worry that some of our school communities, because of the desire to avoid controversy and division, and the complexities that come with grappling with challenging human issues, like the desire to avoid crisis, then leads some toward a kind of superficial peace, a sort of superficial consensus.” (25:16)

Related Episodes: 67; 66; 64; 37; 30; 15; 13

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Episode 76: The Promise, Possibility, and Power of Adolescence

With George Abalekpor and Eleanor Daugherty

Available September 30, 2025

As educators, we are always focused on ways to help our students thrive as they move through the K-12 experience and beyond. But often, we inadvertently frame adolescence as a period characterized by problems and challenges, rather than a developmental moment that can be inherently powerful and positive. How do we reframe how we think about adolescence, how we build the student experience for teens, and how we can focus on the work we are doing to ensure that our students transition from our schools to higher education with a full sense of their own agency? George Abalekpor and Eleanor Daugherty of Georgetown University join host Debra Wilson to share their wisdom.

Guests: George Abalekpor and Eleanor Daugherty

Resources, Transcript, and Expanded Show Notes

In This Episode:

• “I will forever remember this student who said, ‘You keep asking me how I am, and then you correct my tone of voice.’ And just this idea of, we need to get over ourselves. If we want to truly and authentically connect and create scholarship and practice that is meaningful for today's adolescent, we need to listen a bit more and abandon a little bit the watch your tone of voice, young lady. Those little corrective behaviors are actually stifling the presence, the authentic presence of adolescents.” (22:05)
• “So youth, I think more than anything, they want to feel as though their schooling matters. They want to feel that they are getting a sense of meaning and purpose in their education. And I think to tie it all together, I think co-creation is an answer to that solution. It's something that I think is tangible, can be honestly pretty easily developed in all educational spaces, and it allows for meaning because when you give youth an opportunity to be active participants in not just affecting policies, but affecting policies that specifically impact them and communities that they're involved in, there's automatically a sense of purpose that is attached to that.” (34:42)

Related Episodes: 75; 70; 67; 60; 59; 51; 40; 22

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Episode 75: The Future of Smart

Available May 13, 2025

Are we, as educators, trying to create the best human versions of AI…or the best humans? That’s a central question Dr. Ulcca Joshi Hansen asks when she thinks about the future of education. Drawing upon her bestselling book, The Future of Smart, she joins host Debra Wilson for a discussion about human-centered liberatory education, what schools need to do differently to set kids up for an ambiguous and uncertain future, and how she views topics like agency, curriculum, and technology in light of human development.

Guest: Ulcca Hansen

Resources, Transcript, and Expanded Show Notes

In This Episode:

• “We've organized kids' time in school and outside of school in ways that don't give them a chance to do what they need to be doing to develop during adolescence in healthy ways. And we see that. Our adolescents aren't doing well, they're anxious, they're depressed, they're turning that into self harm or risky behaviors. And so we add SEL into our schools when actually what we need to do is foundationally change, right, how we allow them to spend their time.” (8:34)
• “What I hear from kids is, oh my God, you keep telling me that I'm supposed to do this like boring stuff that I have no interest in so I can graduate and go to college and then I can live my life. And what they are saying is, I want to live my life now. There are things I care deeply about, some of them existential and some of them not. And that's what I want to sink my teeth into. And in fact, developmentally, that is exactly the moment when they need to be doing it, and not do what we have been doing to them, which has led to this new thing called the quarter life crisis, which is you have 25 year olds saying that they feel purposeless and that they feel unmoored and really kind of unhappy with their lives.” (26:41)
• “In some ways it's about how well does this person know themself, and have they actually done the work to be good enough friends with themselves and their own story and their own journey, that they can hold space for another person to come to them as their self and not immediately go into a tailspin, right? And really that's what this kind of education requires, is that, not that you're a perfect educator or guide, but rather that when you meet somebody who says something to you that might be hurtful or lashes out at you or questions you, that your immediate reaction is not to fight back and close in, but rather to be like, I'm okay. Like, let's go there, right? Because that is the kind of relationship that you're gonna have when you're doing this kind of work.” (34:38)

Related Episodes: 74, 72, 60, 58, 53, 51, 40, 35, 32, 29

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Episode 74: Improving Access Through Innovation

Available May 6, 2025

How do we measure learning? It’s a question that plagues educators, as a rapidly changing landscape keeps us scrambling to catch up with evolving technologies, ever-expanding content, and the need to blend real-world experiences with tried and true curriculum. For over 100 years, part of our answer to the problem of measurement has been the Carnegie unit. And now, the Vice President for Educational Transformation at the Carnegie Foundation says that answer needs to change.

Guest: Diego Arambula

Resources, Transcript, and Expanded Show Notes

In This Episode:

• “So we believe that to make this move towards this new architecture, there's going to need to be a set of scalable tools to support this work. And often, there's a way for an independent school to solve a problem that directly meets the needs of their students today, but is not replicable unless you have student to teacher ratios of one to 10, or unless you've got this kind of funding or unless, or unless, or unless. And what might it look like to not live in a world of scarcity, but rather to live into this world of abundance, but to think about it through a lens of, huh, and what would it look like to share this?” (18:05)
• “Counselors are pushing that because they see what universities are asking for. And universities, in an ever-growing effort to get students who are truly prepared, ask for more. And right now, the only way to ask for more is to ask for more time. Because the Carnegie unit has conflated time and learning, the only way for a student to be more prepared for college is to spend more time earning more credits. And if we can't unlock those two, we're going to continue to put more pressure on young people.” (27:55)
• “It's an invitation to say, we'd love to partner with independent systems who are moving really fast towards some of these to say, can we be learning in these places about efforts to do this kind of work? And if any of that learning can then roll up so that the shared learning Carnegie is bringing is from public systems, from independent systems, in red states and blue states, in big cities and in rural areas, we just think that will continue to let us speak into what at the end of the day is a somewhat silent American consensus that we want the same thing for our kids, and that right now we're not getting it, and that it's possible.” (32:07)

Related Episodes:  69, 65, 56, 53, 51, 46, 43, 36,29

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Episode 73: Empowering Variable Learners

Available April 29, 2025

Educators understand that not all learners need the same things to thrive. But it’s not always easy to discover what each student truly needs to help them learn and grow to their greatest potential. That’s why Nancy Weinstein created Mindprint Learning, a company devoted to zeroing in on each student’s specific learning needs, so parents and educators can help empower kids to take charge of their educational journey. Nancy sits down with Debra Wilson, along with Sumner McCallie of the McCallie School in Tennessee, to share how Mindprint works with schools.

Guests: Nancy Weinstein and Sumner McCallie

Resources, Transcript, and Expanded Show Notes

In This Episode:

• “We all know when students aren't learning, they can't articulate why they're not learning. They behave in a certain way. Some of them pull back, some of them are disruptive, some of them sort of, you know, kind of shelter in place, if you will, and hide their emotions. And as parents and teachers, we can't always figure out what that is. But if we can know this is a kid who's struggling to focus, or struggling to remember what they learned, or struggling to learn in some contexts but not others, well then we know exactly what to do. We have great teachers, but if they're playing a guessing game for all the kids, it's just impossible to do. But with the data, it is so eminently possible and makes such a difference in so many kids' lives.” (6:47)
• “In fact, great teaching involves recognizing we have a lot of different type of learners in our class, right? I mean, that's how that works. But for a student himself or herself, themselves, to say I have agency here. I actually have an ability to take what's being given to me, in whatever format is being given to me, and begin to maneuver myself and maneuver the content into a way that I can best absorb it, or into a way I can best remember it and process it. That's pretty powerful.” (20:33)

Related Episodes: 69, 63, 60, 58, 57, 52, 40, 23

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Episode 72: Thriving Through Happiness

Available April 22, 2025

What does happiness have to do with achieving excellence and success? Do happy students learn more deeply and go on to more fulfilling careers and lives? Most educators understand the intrinsic connection between emotional well-being and deep learning, but “happiness” doesn’t tend to show up on our classroom rubrics. Dan Lerner, author, performance coach, and professor of the famous NYU class “The Science of Happiness” sits down with host Morva McDonald to share why we might want to rethink the value of positivity.

Guest: Dan Lerner

Resources, Transcript, and Expanded Show Notes

In This Episode:

• “So there is certainly an element, genetic element, component, of happiness, right? For folks listening out there, try to think of someone who you always think of as, that person's always a little gloomier than other folks, right? And that is the way that some people are sort of set. Think about it like a thermostat, right? They are set to a certain number…But a considerable amount of how we experience positive emotion is through rightly directed effort.” (9:23)
• “Positive emotions come in lots of different shapes and colors. When we look at the research on positive emotions, we research different positive emotions separately. Hope is researched differently than joy. It's researched differently than pride. It's researched differently than love. It's researched differently than calm or tranquility or peace. So being able to go in and allowing someone to express what they're excited about, what they're looking forward to, and then getting into, all right, so what are the challenges? Means we have potentially primed our colleagues or our direct reports or whoever we're meeting with to be operating in a different way.” (14:17)
• “Let's say your coach is standing next to you as you drag that bag of boulders or your teacher is standing next to you as you're taking the really hard math test. Are they saying you suck, you suck, you're never gonna do it? Or are they saying, you know, you are doing great. I believe in you. I know we can get this done. When you're done with that workout session, do you go home and stare at the ceiling? Is that effective? Or do you go talk to another teammate and you're like, man, that was tough, you know, it's worth it. And I'm so glad you're here to have the conversation with.” (26:13)

Related Episodes: 66, 60, 59, 51, 42, 40, 35, 22

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Episode 71: Exploring Generative AI in K-12 Schools

Available April 15, 2025

AI continues to be one of the hottest topics in education right now. Should we be using it? Should we allow students to use it? When, where, and how does it fit into our schools and our vision for the future of education? Yet despite all the chatter, the fact remains that AI is so new and so fast-moving that we don’t have a lot of evidence or research upon which to base our decisions. That’s a problem Chris Agnew and the Generative AI Hub at Stanford’s SCALE Initiative are trying to address.

Guest: Chris Agnew

Resources, Transcript, and Expanded Show Notes

In This Episode:

• “I would say AI in schools is a week by week, month by month, as far as how fast the technology is changing, how fast take up is changing. And so it is something that school leaders need to keep front of mind and be actively talking about, even though they can't be expected to know the answers. Because here's the great secret. Right now, nobody knows the answers. Even the heads of the largest LLMs are building tools that they don't know where that will lead. And we need to face it head on.” (12:21)
• “I hope we all know that technology is not a thing in its own right. Technology we should be adopting as a tool to do X or to do Y, but we're not just adopting technology for technology's sake. AI is the same. And so determining, okay, AI is this tool. What are we thinking about what we want to apply this to?” (15:23)
• “I feel like we're at the precipice of the opportunity to make this choice or go down a more, say, dystopian or technology for technology's sake path. Right now we have this technology, when you apply it to education in schools and specifically you take AI with this very new powerful technology. You can use it to optimize a currently flawed system, or use it to completely reimagine what's possible.” (27:22)

Related Episodes: 68; 49; 45; 32; 31; 28

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Episode 70: The Role of Schools in Building Healthy Relationships

Available April 8, 2025

Educators are well aware that relationships are central to the work we do in schools. We know that how connected we are to our students, and how connected they feel to their communities, makes a big difference in how well they’re able to learn and develop. We also know that as they leave our schools and go out into the world, their ability to relate to others, understand social nuances, and navigate everything from collegial relationships to friendships to dating will have an impact on their success and their well-being. But what is our role in helping them develop those interpersonal skills? How deeply involved should schools be in educating students around different types of relationships, and how should we be thinking about the messages students may be absorbing from the school environment? Health educator Shafia Zaloom sits down with Debra Wilson to untangle the tricky dynamics.

Guest: Shafia Zaloom

Resources, Transcript, and Expanded Show Notes

In This Episode:

• “We all need spaces free of judgment, ultimatums, and assumptions to share with open honesty, right? Like think that's really important and shame in particular, which is what a lot of judgment leads to. And so as adults, taking care of, with our own peers, what we need to work through so that we can be present in a nonjudgmental way. And to get really curious and ask strategic questions of kids that let them be the experts of their own experience.” (21:40)
• “This stuff was coming up outside of the classroom, and we know this, right? It's happening everywhere, typically during transition. So like the in-betweens, it's happening when your kids are walking in a line and waiting outside the gym to go to P.E. It's happening when they're waiting in line to wash their hands before they go to the lunchroom. It's happening during recess when there's, you know, a random game of tag going on and it's girls up against boys…It's happening in the in-betweens, and it's people who aren't trained to teach this in a classroom necessarily. It's not the school counselors who are in their office doing one-to-one support.” (36:05)

Related Episodes: 63, 59, 51, 35, 32, 28

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Episode 69: Building Collaborative Learning Cultures

Available April 1, 2025

Professional development is an important part of educational leadership, but not all professional development opportunities are equally effective. When we’re seeking to improve teaching and learning outcomes in our schools, are we developing classrooms or cultures? Siloes or collaborative communities? Guests Elham Kazemi and Jessica Calabrese, co-authors of Learning Together: Organizing Schools for Teacher and Student Learning, join host Morva McDonald to share how they worked together on a novel practice that built community, improved student outcomes, and changed how both teachers and learners thought about their work.

Guests: Jessica Calabrese and Elham Kazemi

Resources, Transcript, and Expanded Show Notes

In This Episode:

• “We think about what it is that we want to try with students, but then all of us go into the classroom together. Instead of going separately into our own individual spaces, we collaboratively go into one space where we know the kids, where we're invested in their learning, and try to learn with them. So we'll pose the tasks. We'll think with the kids. We'll tell the kids that we're there to try something out and learn from the children themselves. And we pause when we need to make sense of what to do next or something that we see that we didn't anticipate, that now we can take advantage of because our real children are there with us.” (7:52)
• “We have to redefine our identity as teachers, that my job isn't to get kids to do things. I can get you to do things, but you are not left with something new in your understanding when I walk away. So if I'm truly teaching you to be a learner, like we talk a lot about teach the reader, not the book. Teach the mathematician, not the math. And it takes a lot of reassurance from leaders for teachers to believe it's okay to do that, that I am not being judged by what I can get kids to do, things in a moment or on a day of a test. And I find myself saying that a lot of like, we're growing children, not test scores.” (37:51)

Related Episodes: 67, 58, 49, 45, 32,19

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Episode 68: Technology Innovation in Independent Schools

Available March 25, 2025

AI and other technological advances are moving at an almost incomprehensible speed right now, and schools have to adjust. Some are leaning out, with phone bans and efforts to make the school day as low-tech as possible. Others are cautiously leaning in, adopting new technologies, and trying to strike a comfortable balance. And then there are the school leaders who are leaping ahead, with a vision to embrace technological innovation as a vibrant cornerstone of their plans for the future. Jalaj Desai is one of those visionary heads of school, and he’s joining NAIS President Debra Wilson to share how he’s using AI to transform Saddle River Day School.

Guest: Jalaj Desai

Resources, Transcript, and Expanded Show Notes

In This Episode:

• “And that's the beauty of our school. We don't really worry about what did not work. We try different things. And if it doesn't work, it's OK and move on. We teach our kids the same exact thing. Don't get stuck up with what didn't work. We kind of evaluate the situation, see why it didn't work, and then simply move on.” (6:49)
• “We are still a typical independent school. Our teachers are still human beings and they love what they do. They love to teach. So when there is a doubt, it's because they want to make sure that what we're doing is right by the kids and by them, right?...But we are determined to, as a school, to do this, right? AI is here to stay. So sooner we get on board, as a whole community, as a whole faculty, it's much better for all our kids.” (18:59)
• “Some dreams you let go, right? In terms of because it doesn't work out, there are clear signals to do that. Some dreams you keep going because it's going to take time. It's going to, you gotta be patient. You need to go through a lot of stuff, especially when a school  is going through so many different cool things and changes. You just have to make sure your resources are divided correctly.” (26:04)

Related Episodes: 49, 46, 45, 31, 26, 19

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Episode 67: Leadership Through Listening

Available November 12, 2024

We most often focus on how we are educating our students. But how are we also educating our leaders, across every level of our schools? Debra Wilson sits down with three educational leadership experts from top programs at Columbia, UPenn, and Vanderbilt to talk about the importance of listening in developing the leaders of the future, and how we can help them grow the skills and capacities to meet the evolving challenges of our times.

Guests: Nicole Furlonge, Carrie Grimes, and Steve Piltch

Resources, Transcript, and Expanded Show Notes

In This Episode:

• “So for me, listening, building people's capacity and understanding around listening as

a giving audience, as something that you do not because you agree with someone, but because you are giving them the dignity of space to articulate what is on their mind and heart. For me, that is both urgent work, it is important work, but it's also quite joyful work.” (10:51)

• “Since the pandemic, we've seen every year that there's one quote, ‘crisis’ after another. You know, you can talk about Gaza, you can talk about the potential of issues with the election, you can talk about almost everything. It used to be that those things were the exception rather than the rule. And I, for one…don't believe that's ever going to happen again. I mean, we're going to find different ways to deal with the issues, but I don't believe you're going to go through a year without something happening outside the realm of your school that's going to have direct impact in one way or another. That even if you're able to take what I'm going to call an unbiased perspective on what happens, you're going to have to deal with the wellbeing of your community around the given issues.” (17:16)
• “The research behind this is really powerful, that leaders who carve out intentional time– as little as five minutes a day– will experience more integration and balance in their leadership, better self-regulation in terms of their responsiveness, enhanced self-awareness, improved relationships at work, inner calm and peace. And so I think it's the idea here of just start small. And setting aside a small amount of time every day for mindfulness can have, in the aggregate, a significant impact not only on your own well-being, whether you're leading in a classroom full of first graders that are bouncing off the walls, or you're in the head's office.” (35:50)

Related Episodes: 65, 62, 50, 42, 25, 20, 15, 5, 3

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Episode 66: School in a Time of Hope and Cynicism

Available November 5, 2024

How good are people? How much can you trust your neighbors? How much do you agree with others on fundamental values and ideals that are important to you? Sometimes it can feel like the answers to these questions skew towards the negative. But author and researcher Jamil Zaki says we’d be surprised by the reality. He sits down with Morva McDonald to talk about his book, Hope for Cynics: The Surprising Science of Human Goodness, and what his findings mean for everyone, especially school leaders, right now.

Guest: Jamil Zaki

Resources, Transcript, and Expanded Show Notes

In This Episode:

• “One, during the hardest time in many people's lives, during one of the greatest disasters of the century, people didn't respond to this adversity by falling apart and focusing on themselves. They came together and found ways to help one another, which is so remarkably beautiful. But then second, most people ignored this global avalanche of human kindness, which is the sadder surprise, that our minds are tuned away from goodness even when it's all around us.” (3:17)
• “Having an assumption about people, even if it's a gloomy assumption, is very comfortable. You get to maybe not have faith in people, but have faith in your assumptions. Letting go of that faith and saying, I don't know what the world is like necessarily. I don't know what the future holds. I don't know what this person is like, is uncomfortable. But it's that courage to be humble about what we know and what we don't know that is the beginning of learning.” (13:54)
• “One, we as a country are far less divided than we think we are. I am in no way here minimizing real extremism, real political violence and real risk to human rights in this country. I think we're in a very scary time. But if you look at what people actually want, even their views on different issues, we're much closer together than I think the media and even politicians want us to realize that we are. We are being told the story of extreme division when reality is that we are divided, but not that much, and that there are many things that we have in common in terms of our values and what we want.” (31:19)

Related Episodes: 64, 62, 54, 44, 37, 32, 17, 15

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Episode 35: The Relationship Between Emotions and Learning

Social-emotional learning and student wellbeing are increasingly showing up as priorities for schools. But what if research could prove that looking out for the emotional components of teaching and learning aren’t just important for mental health, but actually essential for academic growth? That’s the central premise of Dr. Mary Helen Immordino-Yang’s research, and she’s ready to make the case that emotions are vitally linked to our ability to learn.

Guest: Dr. Mary Helen Immordino-Yang

Resources, Transcript, and Expanded Show Notes

In This Episode:

• “The whole rest of the brain, the deeper thinking, the emotion regulation, the engaging with other people, the social meaning making, the sense of self. All of these kinds of very basic systems that are fundamental to being a good human are not predicted by, or even associated with, IQ. They are predicted by this, this what we're calling transcendent thinking… So how do we get kids to think that way?” (9:50)
• “It's literally neurobiologically impossible to think deeply about information for which you have no emotional reason or context to engage.” (12:09)
• “We're not installing information into a person like a squirrel, like, stashing away its nuts, right? What we're doing is inviting a person to engage actively with an orchestrated set of materials and content in a way that will help facilitate them naturally coming to realize what matters there, and the power of those tools for understanding something important about ideas and the world.”  (21:12)

Related Episodes: 32, 18, 16, 5, 3

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Episode 65: Leadership and Design for the Future of Schools

Available October 22, 2024

Being a school leader is a complex job, and it has only grown in its scope and challenges in recent years. How can we develop our capacities as reflective changemakers, dynamic leaders, and future-focused thinkers in a culture that often demands we be reactive rather than proactive? Carla Silver, Executive Director of Leadership + Design, has been partnering with schools for over 15 years to help create cultures of learning and foster human-centered design thinking. She sits down with host Morva McDonald to discuss her views on leadership and where schools are headed.

Guest: Carla Silver

Resources, Transcript, and Expanded Show Notes

In This Episode:

• “Really since the internet, things are changing so rapidly. And teaching and learning is having to change to keep up with those technological changes. So change is just rapid. And so that means that school leaders have to be way more flexible. They have to be way more comfortable with ambiguity and uncertainty. You throw in things like a global pandemic, and the second thing I think that's happening is that heads of schools, and school leaders in general, are being asked to respond to so many external events in ways that they hadn't in the past.” (9:21)
• “We don't necessarily define ‘leader’ as someone who necessarily has positional authority. I mean, obviously that's the most common definition. You think about someone who has a position or a title, but some of the most effective leaders that we work with… they're actually classroom teachers and they don't necessarily want to leave the classroom. They actually want to influence change from that position. And so I think it's really important to think about the fact that when we talk about leaders, we think about anyone who's really trying to mobilize other people to make change, to manage adaptive work, adaptive challenges.” (15:22)
• “One of the things we really try to help leaders of all different backgrounds and genders and race and ethnicities think about is, how do they lead with their own signature presence? Which is, what are the things that they, where they naturally feel really gifted and in the flow and how do they amplify those qualities and be attentive to them instead of trying to necessarily come from a deficit model of leadership, where I'm not good at this or I'm not good at that, but rather where are you naturally really gifted as a leader, and how do you build more of that in your life?” (22:25)

Related Episodes:  64, 56, 42, 38, 25, 20, 9, 5

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Episode 64: Pluralism in Education

Available October 15, 2024

Navigating polarities and fostering respectful dialogue are responsibilities that weigh heavy on many school leaders right now. How, in the current social and political climate, can we build bridges of cooperation rather than creating further barriers that divide us? How can we create space for people to voice ideas and opinions while balancing our very real obligations to nurture student safety and wellbeing? Eboo Patel, author and Director of Interfaith America, sits down with NAIS President Debra Wilson to talk about his work on the role of pluralism in schools.

Guest: Eboo Patel

Resources, Transcript, and Expanded Show Notes

In This Episode:

• “Diversity is a treasure. Identity is a source of pride, not a status of victimization. Cooperation is better than division. Faith is a bridge. Everybody's a contributor.” (4:49)
• “It is an exercise of citizenship in a diverse democracy to come to know something about your fellow citizens who are from different identities, including different political parties, including different regions of the world, and from different intellectual frameworks and maybe of different values. I mean, you know, did I think diversity was just the differences I liked?” (16:00)
• “If there's anything that a school should be, it should be a place that is immune to the kind of ideologies that shut down the conversation. I want to quote John Courtney Murray again. I think it's so powerful. He says, civilization is living and talking together. That is the definition of civilization. And the definition of the barbarian is the person who shuts down the conversation. And the introduction of ideologies that shut down conversations about, for example, how people from different identities should relate to one another.” (21:41)
• “If you're United Airlines, and you're hiring a graduate from Embry Riddle aeronautical university, you are pretty sure that person can fly a plane. If I hire a graduate from The Lab School or Latin School or Parker, these are elite independent schools in my city of Chicago, what should I be confident that graduate can do? And I think a head of school should say, my graduate can navigate pluralism.” (25:12)

Related Episodes: 37, 30, 29, 22, 17, 7, 4

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.