What if education wasn't about delivering content, but about preparing young people for human flourishing in the age of AI?

In this episode of Education Futures, Svenia Busson sits down with one of the earliest visionaries on AI in K-12: Babak Mostaghimi. Back in 2019, long before ChatGPT, he convinced one of the largest school districts in the US that AI would be a Netflix-style disruption for education. The result: an AI Readiness Framework rolled out across 142 schools and 180,000 students.

Today, he's pushing the boundaries even further, working to re-architect the entire American public education system around human development.

In this conversation, we explore:

• How a McKinsey Global Institute report sparked an early AI bet inside the 11th-largest US school district
• The "Swim, Snorkel, Scuba Dive" metaphor for AI literacy across K-12
• Why human and durable skills (not prompt engineering) should be the foundation
• Why we should flip the script: "soft knowledge, hard skills"
• His top 5 skills for the age of AI: discernment, compassion, interest, relational intelligence, and creativity
• The "blockbuster vs. Netflix" moment facing public education today
• How to design assessment in the background of meaningful work, not as stop-and-test exams
• Why de-skilling is real, and why the answer is redesigning learning and not banning AI

A hopeful, deeply systemic conversation about the architecture we'll need to build the future of learning we actually want.

Links & references mentioned in this episode:

• Learner Studio (where Babak now works alongside CEO Kim Smith): https://learnerstudio.org
• Gwinnett County Public Schools (where the AI Readiness Framework was developed): https://www.gcpsk12.org
• The Forest School (Atlanta) & Institute for Self-Directed Learning, founded by Tyler Thigpen: https://www.theforest.school. Their last report can be found here: https://www.selfdirect.school/futureeducator
• Teach for all: https://teachforall.org/ & Teach For America: https://www.teachforamerica.org
• McKinsey Global Institute report on automation & jobs (referenced from 2017): https://www.mckinsey.com/mgi/our-research/jobs-lost-jobs-gained-what-the-future-of-work-will-mean-for-jobs-skills-and-wages
• Isabel Hau (Stanford) on relational intelligence (cited as inspiration for one of his top 5 skills): https://isabellehau.com