Season 4 Bonus Episode:Noni Thomas López, Head of School, The Gordon School This episode is a re-broadcast of an archival episode from our friends at the NAIS Member Voices podcast. The original episode and show notes can be found on the Member Voices Season 5 page. In the second episode of our three-part miniseries on Cultivating Diverse and Inclusive Communities, our guest is Noni Thomas López, head of the Gordon School (RI). She talks about how becoming a more diverse and inclusive school is like peeling an onion, the importance of finding opportunity in discomfort, and why battling misinformation keeps her up at night.Relevant Resources:Independent School magazine: Independent Spirit: Noni Thomas LópezNAIS New View EDU Podcast: Episode 7: Schools for Diversity and Designing Inclusive FuturesNAIS Legal Tip: Consider Anti-Bias Handbook PoliciesVideo: Equity and Inclusion: Bringing About Systemic Change from the Inside OutIndependent Ideas Blog: The Pandemic of MisinformationLearn more about this episode’s sponsor, Carney, Sandoe & Associates, by visiting its website. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Episode 40: Student Voice and Agency in EducationIn four seasons of New View EDU, we’ve talked a lot about what students need to thrive. In this episode, we’re going straight to the source. Host Tim Fish sits down with Ella Cornett and Mackenzie Link, high school students from One Stone School in Boise, Idaho, to get their real world perspectives on everything from classes and schedules to life lessons on failure, accountability, passion, purpose, and more.Guests: Ella Cornett and Mackenzie LinkResources, Transcript, and Expanded Show NotesIn This Episode:“To go back to the question of what should school be, I feel like learners and students should come out of school with that sense of purpose. And that's, that really resonates with me because I feel like that's what I want out of school. I wanna leave school and kind of know what I wanna do and who I wanna be in the world.” (21:39)“I would describe my stress...less so stress. I would call it ambition. Like, I think the weight of ambition sits heavy on my shoulders because I strive for the, like, the next best thing I wanna keep doing. I wanna keep going, I wanna keep pushing. And One Stone really allows me to do that and empowers me to do that.” (26:24)“It's that pushing students, the healthy balance of pushing students. And this is where great coaching comes in. And great mentorship is, you do have to find the thing that students care about and relate it, everything that you're doing, to that. And then we're in the home stretch.” (29:57)“It's easy if you let it be easy, in the sense that if you don't want to grow, if you don't try to grow, you won't. Just like a student in public school that doesn't try, they won't get a good GPA. But that's not the motivation here. The motivation here for us is to grow. So if a student doesn't want to grow, how can they?” (39:44)Related Episodes: 36, 34, 27, 23, 18 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Episode 39: Lessons Learned While Leading NAISAfter a long and distinguished tenure as the President of NAIS, Donna Orem is retiring in the Spring of 2023. Throughout her career, she’s seen the independent school landscape, and education in general, change dramatically. As Donna prepares to depart NAIS, what lessons has she learned? How has her career in education changed her? What wisdom can she pass along to her successor and to everyone working in schools right now?Guest: Donna OremResources, Transcript, and Expanded Show NotesIn This Episode:“I think another thing that I've learned from this is that there is a role that we each have to play in a learning community, and that is assuming good intent. Because it's very easy, particularly when you get into these conversations around highly charged issues, to assume that there are two sides or three sides to the issues. And people get pitted against one another. And I have learned to step back and to say, you know what? Chances are we wanna get to the same place, but we have a different way to get there.” (7:03)“But I remember at some point a family writing a letter to the head of school saying, you know, we've had two children at this school and they have thrived, but we've come to the point where we can no longer afford the tuition…That was the most painful letter. And it was just so symptomatic, I think, of what families were feeling. So I hope we can get beyond that one day so that, you know, when a family has that experience, they are not forced to make that impossibly hard decision.” (19:57)“I think balancing all those relationships has become our biggest challenge as an organization. And, you know, how do you ensure that you see that diversity, you recognize that diversity, and you develop programs and services to meet leaders where they are? Because you know, that one size fits all just does not work anymore. I don't know that it ever did.” (35:53)Related Episodes: 25, 20, 14, 10, 1   Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Episode 38: Strategic Accountability in EducationPlanning for the future of our schools isn’t easy. In recent years, we’ve seen firsthand how even the best-laid plans can go badly awry, and schools have been left grappling with issues that no one could have predicted. So how can we continue to embrace strategy and future thinking in a way that allows us to not only make plans, but execute on them, in the midst of an ever-changing landscape?Guest: Dr. Jim HonanResources, Transcript, and Expanded Show NotesIn This Episode:“As we move forward, it's that sense of connection among team members, among various people in various roles, be it teachers or staff members, et cetera. And then creating that sense of connectivity and belonging to show people there's some common purpose in the work. So sure. Call it what you will, playing well with others or understanding what the people in your organization need to do their best work and you being attuned to that. That's a team sport.” (7:27)“I'm not a big fan of chasing bright shiny objects. I think the caveat in the innovation space is we're not, I told my teams this, we're not just gonna do this cuz it looks cool. That, wouldn't it be neat if we did this? It probably would be, and that would be awesome. We haven't done it before. It would be cool and neat, but on the other hand, it's not driven by some educational purpose.” (11:10)“Occasionally someone will say, you know, have you ever seen a mission like this? Isn't this unique? And with deep respect, the answer is, there's like ten other places who say they're doing that. So that can't be the uniqueness. I think there's this added expectation and burden, if you will, in independent schools, on the point you made, to really be crisp and clear about that. This is what's distinctive about us, and this is how we're gonna execute on it. And we have data to show that we execute on that unique, call it what you will, mission or value proposition.” (24:51)Related Episodes: 36, 29, 25, 14, 9 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Episode 37: The Dignity Lens in EducationSchools are first and foremost communities of people. When we plan for the future of those communities, how can we do so in a way that takes into account the dignity of every human being? How does strategy intersect with who we are and who we aspire to be? Dr. Beth-Sarah Wright’s Dignity Lens challenges schools to look at themselves with clear eyes and identify the gap between who we say we are, and who we truly want to become.Guest: Dr. Beth-Sarah WrightResources, Transcript, and Expanded Show NotesIn This Episode:“People make up these communities, people do. And people have emotions. People have these gut feelings, especially around some sort of challenge they might be having as a community. You know, we have these things. That's the explosive part. It's a very sensitive part. So the adaptive challenges are, they reside in that very messy, emotional, that part of us where we are gonna experience some loss.” (6:35)“What is in our founding DNA? Who are we? And that is just information… We can look back on our history and we can surface all sorts of things about who we are, when we were founded, why we were founded, or what we've come to be or all of that. But all of that is important. It's nothing to be, to throw away. It's nothing to discard. It's something. All of it is important and we need to be able to parse through that.” (11:27)“Caught up in all of that is some sort of fear. And really at the root of that is dignity. One might feel, you know, violated. A dignity violation. But hold on. But my voice is not being heard here. Or I, I just don't understand. I don't get it. I, whatever it may be, I don't, you know. I think at the root of that is loss. And we can look at that even at a national scale. We can look at that all over. We can see it in our communities. That's part of progress, making progress.” (19:33)“We have lots of stories that can be told, and that's very important too. We have this level of experiences, people sharing their experiences…and then there is the sort of raw data that we can actually gather from our community. And sometimes just depending on what community we're talking with, some people might be very intimidated by getting data. Data can be overwhelming and, and scary, and sometimes what I try to say to people is, well, you know that stories are the currency for dignity.” (27:36)Related Episodes: 32, 30, 15, 7 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Episode 36: Reinventing Education Beyond 2020No one can deny that the events of 2020 changed education in America, and arguably, worldwide. But three years after COVID closed schools, what is the actual state of our educational system? What lessons did we really learn, and what mistakes have we made? What opportunity lies ahead for transformation? Michael Horn returns to New View EDU to share the findings from his new book about education after the pandemic, From Reopen to Reinvent.Guest: Michael HornResources, Transcript, and Expanded Show NotesIn This Episode:“And I did not want this to be a book that just says, oh yeah, we poorly serve low income kids, but you know Michael's mom in Montgomery County, you're okay, right? I want Michael's mom in Montgomery County to be like, oh. You mean what I thought is rigorous is not in fact rigorous? You mean what I thought is unleashing his potential is actually hurting his sense of growth mindset and not preparing him for the executive function skills that he's gonna need in the world of work, and is just causing him to sit there trying to compete on a very narrow metric of success and not figure out his purpose in life? Oh, I don't want that. And I hope everyone walks away from it and says, Wow. This is not like a ‘some’ problem. This is everyone. We can be doing better.” (14:46)“And then the part that I would require then comes back to where you started, which is to me the habits of success. Curiosity, executive function, agency, growth mindset, grit, perseverance, a sense of self-efficacy and self-esteem. A sense of attachment. Like those things I would say are the baseline. And I wouldn't call them social emotional learning, although that's a common phrase for them…I think some of the fights that we have in communities right now are, they're like, you know, there's truly some like weird stuff being pedaled under each of those monikers, but I don't know any parent that doesn't want their kids to be curious about the world.” (25:09)“We framed schools for kids as this zero sum experience. I win. I get the seat in the precious college, you lose. You don't. Or I, you know, you get the A, I got the C. We're doling out scarcity. And I want us to shift to a positive sum system where the goal is not for you to beat me on some narrow yardstick, but instead for you to be the best version of Tim Fish that there is, to be the most unique version of you that has a place to contribute in the world.” (39:58)Related Episodes: 29, 27, 14, 10, 8, 1 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Episode 35: The Relationship Between Emotions and LearningSocial-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-YangResources, Transcript, and Expanded Show NotesIn 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 34: Supercharging Project-Based Learning DesignWhat if offering to work on a few projects with a homeschooled student sparked the idea to partner with a school? And what if then, groups of students started asking to make that project-based learning model their entire high school experience? That’s what happened when Saeed Arida, a PhD student in the Architecture department at MIT, tried running a design studio with a handful of kids. The result was NuVu, a unique studio education model that’s catching on worldwide.Guest: Saeed AridaResources, Transcript, and Expanded Show NotesIn This Episode:“I have not figured out exactly why this happens, but their expectation is that when they are working on this idea, is that you give them only the technical feedback. They don't want you to talk about the conceptual framing of the idea. My explanation for this is that, you know, in our kind of traditional schooling system, the only thing that we give the students is content. We never really talk about ideas and their ideas, and it feels very personal and vulnerable.” (8:47)“To assume that they're gonna, like, you know, by the end of the four years that they're gonna learn everything that is, that's being kind of taught in these textbooks, it's not gonna happen..there are a lot of studies about these subjects and like after six months, basically a lot of the kids fail on them anyway. A lot of that info is not sticking anyway. You know, so it's like, why are we committing to this idea that we need to learn all of that stuff in four years? If at the end of the day none of the, like, not, or a big part of it is not sticking.” (31:27)“For me, it still does not really address the central question whether this tool is ultimately helping the students or not, which is for me why we are doing-- like there, there is no reason to do any tracking or an assessment unless it becomes a really empowering tool that would help the students kind of grow.” (41:28)Related Episodes: 31, 29, 27, 26, 21, 6 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Episode 33: Innovating for the Youngest LearnersOrly Friedman was in the fifth grade when she read the book that changed her life. The story, about a child who floundered in traditional school environments but thrived in an unconventional setting, inspired Orly to dream of opening her own non-traditional school one day. In this episode, she shares her successful journey as the founder of Red Bridge School, an innovative educational setting for young learners that centers around student agency and autonomy.Guest: Orly FriedmanResources, Transcript, and Expanded Show NotesIn This Episode:“If you think about traditional grade levels, they are very passive for the student. So you sit in a seat for 180 days and you move on to the next grade level when you show up in September and there's basically nothing you have to do to make that happen. … And so if you want to flip that and turn it into a system that supports agency, then you need to put the promotion process in the hands of the students.” (11:49)“We are really teaching students how to know themselves well enough and develop the habits of self-advocacy to be successful in any environment. … And so I don't worry who their teacher will be in the future or what happens if they go to another school, because they know themselves well enough and they have enough experience going through that learning cycle and setting goals for themselves and making a plan and working through it that they're gonna be successful anywhere. And really I think that is the result of what we're doing, that we're creating more flexible learners.” (28:28)“I think the thing that is a bit scary also about this kind of a model is, if you are going to give students agency over their success and ownership over their success, you also have to be willing to do that for their failures. And so sometimes you have to give students enough space for them not to be successful.” (36:24)Related Episodes: 23, 21,15,13, 3 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Episode 32: Restoring Humanity in EducationTrust Kids. That’s the takeaway from public school educator-turned nonprofit founder Chris McNutt, whose work at the Human Restoration Project aims to revolutionize teacher and student wellbeing. What would schools look like if we designed an educational system around trust? How could student agency and teacher creativity become pillars of a progressive, future-focused education? And how do we get there?Guest: Chris McNuttResources, Transcript, and Expanded Show NotesIn This Episode:“So much of teaching the teacher has become seeing teachers as technicians, right. It's become, how can I tell teachers exactly what to do and keep firm control over the sequential pace of the curriculum? And as a result, that's how many teachers see their own classrooms…many teachers and teaching curriculums look at cognitive science and they go, oh, well it says right here that if you give kids X number of questions and talk to them for X amount of time, that is like, the perfect amount of time to talk to them about this concept. Therefore, let's do that over and over again until they improve their test scores.” (14:23)“No one's coming to save us. That top down reforms from government organizations or from districts rarely lead to any type of solution. In fact, they often lead to more problems than they attempt to solve. For example, someone might come in and offer a new set of standards for us to look at and analyze and incorporate into our classrooms, which has happened, I felt like when I was teaching, every two years, there was some kind of new initiative to push for. And ultimately nothing changed, and it burnt a lot of people out.” (24:49)“If I walk into the room and think that kids are gonna try to get away with something, I'm gonna start pushing toward more carceral practices. I'm gonna ban things. I'm gonna tell kids what they can and can't do. And that's what leads us to schools where kids aren't allowed to talk in the hallway, or they're not allowed to have water bottles in classrooms, and these ridiculous things that I would never wanna subject another person to at all.” (45:08)Related Episodes: 27, 23, 19, 11, 2022 Bonus Episode, 7 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Episode 31: AI and the Future of EducationThe hottest conversation in education right now revolves around ChatGPT. What is it, how is it being used, and what does it mean for our traditional systems of teaching and learning? Season Four of New View EDU begins with a discussion about the rapid evolution of Artificial Intelligence and the impact ChatGPT and other AI innovations will have on the future of schools.Guests: Christina Lewellen and Paul TurnbullResources, Transcript, and Expanded Show NotesIn This Episode:“Where does ChatGPT show up in this conversation? Where do I show up in the conversation and what's my voice? Because schools should be about voice, right? Especially student voice. So that's the thing I like the most, we're, we're sort of keeping that North star in place, you know, what's best for students and how do we help the helpers.” (18:23)“I understand that a lot of schools, as they're dealing with ChatGPT, are making sure that teachers are kind of coming at it and saying, this is a tool. I am not forcing you to use it. I'm not advocating that you use it, but if you do use it, you need to understand the implications of using it. Because at the end of the day, while that account can be deleted, sort of like we all had to teach our students about social media, you know, you can delete your account, but that doesn't mean the content that you put there is gone.” (23:47)“This is a big change agent in our schools. it is time to take a brief moment to reflect on what that means, because rather than being afraid of what it means, I think looking at the opportunities that it brings to really weave technology into how we accomplish our missions, there's some cool opportunity, especially for the schools that have been a little hesitant to, to, you know, bring that into their world. It's time. There's not, there's no ostrich situation, head in the sand situation that's gonna let us get out of this. We, we're gonna have to think about it and be proactive.” (41:42)Related Episodes: #28, #26, #21, #12, #7 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Episode 30: How Equity and Wellbeing Work Together in Our SchoolsSchools exist to help prepare students for the future. But in a society that prides itself on equality, how can we create equitable schools that prepare students to enter a world where inclusion is crucial? And how does focusing on the wellbeing of our school communities go hand-in-hand with building inclusive environments? In this episode of New View EDU, two school heads with deep expertise in DEI work join host Tim Fish and special co-host Caroline Blackwell for a conversation about equity, wellbeing, and the future of inclusion efforts in independent schools.Guests: Kalyan Balaven and Dr. Jessie BarrieResources, Transcript, and Expanded Show NotesIn This Episode:“We compete in speech and debate, we compete in sports. We can compete in all these different ways, but we can't compete in inclusion cuz when we compete in inclusion, that's exclusion by nature.” (6:29)“I think the nature of this work is so foundational to everything we're trying to accomplish, whether it's, you know, student academic outcomes, whether it's, you know, student social-emotional health and wellness throughout the day. That the only way to really effectively do equity work is to ensure that it's embedded in the foundational documents, philosophies, values of your school, and in every element of how you lens everything, from assessment to book selections, to hiring practices, to evaluation practices.” (8:41)“Oftentimes you'll find students at schools. You actually find them on the brochure. You'll find 'em on the website, because they represent some sort of visible diversity. And if you really interview some students…who are visual representations of difference at a school and say, Did you take full advantage of it? Did you, did you participate in that outdoor ed program? Did you go on that international trip? Did you go on the college visits and the college tours? And the answers that we get back are not the answers we wanna see. That's not inclusion. Inclusion is all those students thriving and finding a way for themselves, to see themselves in the mission of the school as achieving those things that are the promise of the school in relationship to the world they're entering.” (16:15)“The first definition of discriminate is to differentiate, to distinguish, to discern, to see difference between each other. Seeing difference is not a bad thing, inherently. The bad thing is when a school, and I imagine, imagine the school has a view of all the students, and in the view shared of all the students, certain students are getting lost.” (22:16)“We can only learn by opening our hearts and opening our ears to the experience of others and to the realization that we never will truly be able to understand the experience of others. All we can do is have the gift of someone's trust to share with us their experience, and to be able to try and listen really intently to that experience and look for the opportunities within our own biases, within our own defensive reactions for growth.” (39:53) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Episode 29: The Future of Higher EdMuch of the work of K-12 schools is focused on getting students to the “next step,” which, for many of them, is college readiness. But increasingly, it feels like we’re not working on college readiness so much as we’re working on college admissions. Preparing kids to successfully apply to college, in the hyper-competitive admissions landscape, is almost a full-time job of its own. What should schools be doing to help students with college (and college application) readiness? When we focus on gaining admission to selective schools, what are we missing in the K-12 experience? And what do colleges actually want K-12 educators to know?Guests: Jeff Selingo and Dr. Adam WeinbergResources, Transcript, and Expanded Show NotesIn This Episode:“More selective institutions like Denison and others that are really trying to decide between applicants. They're looking for that difference. They're, they cherish what is rare. And increasingly, to be honest with you, what is rare are those students who are not over-curated, over-programmed. I feel like, especially because of social media now, we have to curate our lives to be perfect. And we see this manifest itself in applications.” (11:41)“I think there's so much about the college application process that... forces is too strong a word. That shapes the high school experience of too many students, where they're not able to do either one of those, right? They're not able to ask who they want to be because they're too busy asking, What do I need to be to get into the college of my choice? And the second is, we're so worried that if they experience any bit of failure, they won't get into good college, that we're not giving them the space to learn that actually failure's the only way to develop the kind of resiliency you're gonna need to be successful in life.” (17:41)“ I think this is where advising comes in and helping students understand-- and maybe this is where there's a role for K through 12, because I think every student should graduate from high school understanding what kind of learner they are. So that when they do go to college, they're making those better choices. You know, am I a better visual learner? You know, how do I read, you know, should I do online? Should I do hybrid, whatever it might be, so that when they get to college, they're making those choices in a better way.” (33:00)“I think one thing that we could be and should be doing with students during their junior, senior years, at least level setting expectations so they don't arrive at college assuming that everything's gonna be perfect and they're gonna be happy all the time…And don't make the mistake when you're, have that moment of unhappiness, that moment of not sure you can make it, of looking around and assuming that everybody else is doing great and you're not.” (35:28) “This may be our last chance, or one of our last chances, where we have a community of people, similar in age, together in one place. And we should be preparing them, K through 12 and higher ed, for that moment afterwards, where they are going to be in communities, at school board meetings, in in, in community associations, and volunteer organizations. And they're going to have to have these very tough debates and they're gonna have to do it in person using those facts.” (43:35) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Episode 28: Supporting Healthy Habits for Students in a Digital WorldTechnology has certainly changed the face of education in recent years. In some ways, it’s even become vital to the way we “do school” – especially in times when virtual classrooms have been the only way for students and teachers to stay connected. But tech also comes with significant downsides. Digital distractions, socializing on screens,  and the sneaky costs of 24/7 connectivity are changing our brains. As educators and parents struggle to find the balance between the benefits of technology and the dark side of devices, what does the research show?Guest: Dr. Shimi KangResources, Transcript, and Expanded Show NotesIn This Episode:“The problem though, with the phones and tech, other than other addictions, is this whole idea of abstinence, being away from it is impossible, because tech is embedded. It's like air. We cannot live without it. It's, and in fact, if we teach children that it's a bad thing, I feel they'll be significantly disadvantaged…I say, we are dealing with the fire of our time. There was a moment when our ancestors learned to harness the power of fire. Those who did it well went further and farther than ever before. Those who didn't got burnt and burnt down the village. And that's exactly where we are with tech.” (11:26)“I don't know any 12 year old, Tim, or any 14 year old, that can check Snapchat or Instagram in the hallway and then walk into a math or chemistry class and focus. There's just no way that the brain can switch like that. So all these amazing teachers and this great curriculum is gonna be delivered to distracted kids if we don't get the phones out of the hallways, outta the lunch rooms.” (18:10)“Sitting is the new smoking. Kids are sitting a really long time. Even this crouched posture that we see all over our schools over a laptop or phone, that's a very stressful posture. That flexion of the spine. Our nervous system is like, why are you crouching in a cave? Is there a hurricane? Is there a predator? And it'll fire cortisol, the stress hormone, just based on that crouched posture that we're seeing everywhere.” (27:06)“When you see the idea of scrolling, the attention span is changing in less than a second, right? And the max we're kind of seeing attention being held is like three seconds. So that in itself, our brain is having to reprocess that…Even the YouTube video, if you're watching the same video, it's extremely fast paced. You know, these tubers are talking fast. They have imaging coming in, there's popups happening. So the distraction. And that's where we're seeing poor difficulty with focus, with concentration. Kids can't sustain it.” (32:12)“Conspiracy theories and extreme views are actually flight behaviors, right? I'm gonna think about how the world is flat, not what's happening in my household or, or how I'm gonna deal with this stress. So when we're stressed, when our children are sleep deprived because they're in too many activities, or it's, you know, they have to write their SATs or whatever it is, you know, we're stressing them out in whatever way, or they're on their devices too much, they're just cycling through anxiety, irritability, and distraction. And so many kids are cycling through that constantly.” (41:11) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Episode 27: Developing Mastery in Approaches to EducationAs the world continues to rapidly evolve, so do the skills students need to be successful in the future. Educational models that revolve around seat time, content memorization, and age-based pacing are starting to fade into the past. But what should replace them? One idea that’s gaining traction is the concept of mastery. On this episode of New View EDU, Julia Griffin joins host Tim Fish to share how she and a team of innovative educators have launched the Mastery School at Hawken – an alternative learning experience within a well-established independent high school.Guest: Julia GriffinResources, Transcript, and Expanded Show NotesIn This Episode:“A system organizes itself around the highest goal. And that highest goal, in what I'll call traditional school, is really that everybody learns the same things at about the same time. And as a Mastery learning School, what we've taken as our goal, our highest goal is maximizing the individual growth of every student. And when you take that as your goal, then the systems that you end up building look really different.” (2:48)“What we find is that students, and anyone who's worked with high school students knows this to be true, students know when something is real and when something has been invented by the teacher. They can, like, smell the difference from a mile away.” (8:19)“I'm someone who's been in schools for my whole career, for people who come through schools in their whole career, there really is this phenomenon of the traditional school muscle memory that you have to fight against. Because the rhythms of teaching, if you've been teaching for a while, there are things that you mostly subconsciously have very likely learned how to do, that are kind of wrapped around the traditional paradigm that we were talking about before. And so it really does require kind of radical humility and openness and interest in learning how to do something different.” (15:47)“Because we weren't just, you know, expanding and adding a campus, but we were really trying to build a new model of school and wanted to say that, part of what's really challenging there is, if you're building a new model, by implication, whether you say it or not, you think that there's something that could be improved about the old model. And that's actually kind of a little bit of a daring thing to say.” (33:49)“I think that young people are capable of so much more than school tends to give them credit for. They're ready. You know, high school students are ready to, they're ready to be working on things that are real. They're ready to do things and see them actually get implemented and make an impact. And man, designing a school and figuring out how to build a school that can center that is really hard. And there's a lot that we haven't figured out yet. But that to me is like, the school that young people deserve.” (43:47) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Episode 26: Bringing Virtual Reality into K-12 EducationAfter COVID forced schools all over the world to dive headlong into experiments with online learning, most educators are delighted to have the chance to return to in-person classrooms. But what if the answer to a number of challenges in education – equity, access, student agency, efficiency – actually lies in going more deeply into the virtual realm? The founder of the world’s first Virtual Reality Charter School believes that may be the way forward for schools.Guest: Adam ManganaResources, Transcript, and Expanded Show NotesIn This Episode:“I really wanna make ambulatory learning great again…Here's my crazy idea. I think two of the greatest teachers that have ever lived on earth, Socrates and Jesus, they neither read nor wrote, right? They didn't know how to read. They didn't know how to write, but yet they are revered as two of our greatest teachers.” (6:40)“Alexander would not have been great if it weren't for Aristotle walking alongside him.” (11:34)“You can literally enter the avatar of somebody that has a completely different skin complexion, different life story, and be perceived in that simulation as that person. So you're walking a mile in someone else's avatar and you're able to perceive the world from their perspective.” (16:56)“The negative externality is, as people are winning in this new web three space, if we don't provide access, you're gonna see, I think, rises in fundamentalism. And you see this in every industrial Revolution. Right? If you look at, we're in a fourth industrial revolution, if you track every industrial revolution, you have people who respond-- for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction-- you have people who respond in the opposite direction. So it's critical to me, as we're thinking about how this is evolving, that access is at the front of our minds.” (21:37)“There's gonna be a tri-brid deal where you're gonna start to see schools partnering together and capturing families that are moving around the world and having a world class education. And I think part of that bridge between the physical geography will be this virtual, immersive virtual campus that they can touch while they're in that space.” (30:32)“We lost a generation of children. Some, we don't even know where they are. Others, we've seen rises in mental health issues…I mentioned Aristotle and Alexander the Great. The relationship is at the center. And if we can create that relationship and that sense of connection and accountability with our students and with our teacher, I think that will allow for teachers to be valued again in our society.” (41:43) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Episode 25: Developing Independent School Leaders for the FutureAs our schools and communities have undergone swift and often unpredictable transformations in recent years, leadership has also changed. What worked before may not be what schools need now. Our ideas about the characteristics of leadership, who owns the title of “leader,” and how leadership gets distributed are evolving rapidly to keep up with a culture of constant change. What does it mean to be the kind of leader who can adapt and build strong schools now and into the future?Guests: Nicole Furlonge and Donna OremResources, Transcript, and Expanded Show NotesIn This Episode:“Leadership is not necessarily a specific role. It's not specifically a way of being, it's really being authentic about what your purpose is, having a vision that takes you there, and really bringing other people along with you. And I don't think that leadership is positional in the way that historically we've seen it, because in any type of organization or even any kind of community, different people can be leaders at different times, and we need different people to be leaders at different times.” (6:00)“I think parents, in engaging in education, are trying to find this polarity between protecting their children and preparing their children. And I think it is creating some difficulties today, because obviously as parents, we wanna protect our children, but we also have to prepare them for a world that is much different than when we were children. Understanding that polarity is not a choice. It's a both and. We have to both protect children, and we have to prepare them at the same time.” (14:29)“What I saw COVID do and what I saw COVID call on leaders to do, is to really think about how is that community bigger than the people that walk through your doors every day? How is it bigger, even, than the alumni who still call you their Alma mater, your, their home, their learning, their learning home?” (20:24)“I do think that there was a need…for leaders to think about how they could find in their school communities, those spaces that they could rely on, that they could trust to sort of engage in that deep leadership that we were just talking about earlier. That you didn't have to be a solo leader and that other people could lead. So whether it was, you know, the teacher that was getting on zoom and being the face of the school in our students' homes or, you know, when we come back to schools, the ways in which we recognize that everyone at every level of the school is, is a leader and touches the lives of students as they learn.” (27:16)“But if they can also then demonstrate and model what it looks like to lead through listening, then that becomes something that the whole community understands they have permission to do. To tune in, to pay attention, to be present, so that we understand both what our strengths are, and I think this is even more important, that we understand where our growth edges are. Cause I do think the propensity is to highlight what our strengths are at the expense of being able to grow in different ways.” (33:03) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Episode 24: International Perspectives on the Independent School LandscapeIn an increasingly connected world, what can school leaders learn from their counterparts across the globe? The events of the past few years have affected schools in every country, not just the U.S., and highlighted the fact that when it comes to our hopes, dreams, and challenges in education, we’re probably more alike than we are different from one another. On this episode of New View EDU, two dynamic leaders from the international independent school community share their perspectives on the past, present, and future of our schools.Guests: Kelly Borg and Maddy HewittResources and Expanded Show NotesFull TranscriptIn This Episode:“We've learned that we can work at pace, and that perfect is the enemy of good. Is that the saying? You know, where, where we go okay, well, it's not quite right, but we've gotta do it by tomorrow. So we're gonna do it like this. And so having the confidence to say, you know what, it's not laminated, it's not framed with a purple border. It's not, it's not beautiful. In fact, it's not even close to pretty, but we are gonna do it. And it will work.” (17:54)“You know, repurposing education at this time, ensuring the education is fit for purpose, which is always to ensure human flourishing and human development. It's, that's been forever, but we're no longer living in the industrial age. We're living in the post industrial age where we're no longer building a society for consuming things. We're building a society for preserving and sustaining and regenerating things.” (22:11)“We've had such massive interruption to our ways of life and the opportunity to reflect on that move from education as serving a really pragmatic, even economic purpose, to being fundamentally intrinsic, you know, being about human fulfillment. We've only gotta look around the world to see that so many of the issues we're facing right now in this moment, they require international cooperation.” (25:25)“We need to weave into a modern learning design, to modern curriculums, we need to weave in those other pieces that are going to allow students to flourish. And that includes social emotional awareness. And that includes inclusion and understanding intercultural realities and working for a culture where there is belonging for all on the planet, because we are interconnected and we all need to flourish in order for the planet to flourish and for, you know, humans to develop well and also to have economies that flourish, and there need to be new regenerative economies.” (32:30)“I really hope that education continues to traverse down this path of getting back to its intrinsic purpose around human fulfillment, around wellbeing, and that we continue to move away from this focus on how good is this student, to how is this student good?” (46:14) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Episode 23: Designing Schools for Self-Directed LearningWhat would school look like if we designed education based on the belief that every child is a genius who can change the world? What if we put learning into the hands of the student instead of the teacher? What if our instructional models included less “instruction” and more time guiding kids to finding their own answers and inspirations? These are just some of the starting points for today’s discussion, and for the work that Tyler Thigpen does on a daily basis.Guest: Tyler ThigpenResources and Expanded Show NotesFull TranscriptIn This Episode:“We believe that there's a connection between developing strong character and, you know, being able to shoulder the responsibility for your own learning. And so, you know, there, the learners are given opportunities to make rules and to learn how to follow those and to hold one another accountable and responsible for those rules and in doing so, you know, practice good, strong character.” (8:25)“You know, wherever there's something that teachers or adults have typically done in a school setting that we think learners can do, you know, we'll step back and we'll let them do it. And it will take a while and it will be messy, but it's, you know, what neuroscientists call productive struggle. That's really missing from a lot of teacher-led classrooms in our country today.” (12:16)“And of course they have so much choice and they have to experience the natural consequences of those choices. And that's very powerful. I mean, them experiencing the natural consequences, positive or negative, of their choices is maybe the most powerful instructor, you know, in the building. It, you know, the more so than what any caring adult, you know, provides for them.” (15:19)“We are sort of agnostic to how fast or slow they're going. That's one of the beautiful things about a self-paced environment. You can go as fast or slow as you want. We typically find learners go faster on average, and most of our learners do, you know, are above grade level, you know, as evidenced by norm referenced tests nationally, but we're okay with 'em going slow too. Cause sometimes that's okay. And, hopefully, that kind of environment that embraces that being behind, being on track, being ahead, whatever, you know, helps them flourish a little bit more. And appreciates the unique differences of every young person.” (20:13)“I think a real great critique of self-directed learning, if you don't know anything about it, you just hear the idea. It's like, oh, that's, that's pretty self-centered for kids. It's like, oh, just let them do whatever they want to do…And so we included a definition of self-directed learning that has young people on the hook for the other. For helping others, for finding a calling, you know that will in fact change their communities and change the world.” (37:58) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Episode 22: The Purpose and Nature of Higher Education Since the beginning of the New View EDU podcast, we’ve been asking guests to help us answer the question: “What is the purpose of education?” Now we’re expanding our search for answers into the realm of higher education. What’s the purpose of college? Is it just to get a foot in the door of a competitive job market, or is there something greater to be gained from higher ed? Guest: Wendy FischmanResources and Expanded Show NotesFull TranscriptIn This Episode:“We devised a concept, a new concept, called higher education capital. And as you said, this is what we believe should be the goal of college for students, is to build and amplify higher education capital. Briefly, higher education capital is the ability to attend, analyze, reflect, connect, and communicate on important issues. So it's what you used in planning for and facilitating this podcast. It's what I used in preparing for the questions that I thought you were going to ask me…that’s what we call higher education capital.” (6:47)“We hope and expect that students who go to college will have the opportunity to develop and increase their own HED cap. And actually, students and parents should demand it. That's what they should be choosing colleges on. That's what they should be asking about. Rather than tout dining halls and schools' private islands, we wish that schools would promote their ability to increase HED cap.” (10:17)“Just a word about mental health on the college campus. While some students did talk about severe issues, including bipolar disorder or suicide or major depression, the majority of students talked about mental health issues as they relate to performing well, doing well, getting A's, and the anxiety about not performing and compiling the best possible profile when they graduate in order to get the job.” (24:26)“Today high school has become more of an exercise about preparing students to get into college, rather than preparing them for the college experience…We need to find ways in the high school experience and even maybe earlier, to incorporate these kinds of essential questions in our conversations with students, and also in our college counseling, so that they don't just form this very transactional view about college.” (31:13)“I think at early stages, we should be helping students to understand that their goal is not about getting into the most selective college, because sometimes it may not make a difference. It's about finding the college that speaks to the student's goals, what they wanna get out of it.” (34:26) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.