New View EDU

Episode 62: Wisdom Road

If you had an RV full of gas and the opportunity to spend months traveling anywhere you wanted to go, what journeys would you take? It sounds like some sort of icebreaker question, but for Grant Lichtman, it was a passion project that became the Wisdom Road. He traveled North America in search of perspectives, traditions, and knowledge our society is in danger of losing, and he’s sharing his experience with New View EDU host Debra Wilson.

Guest: Grant Lichtman

Resources, Transcript, and Expanded Show Notes

In This Episode:

• “There was also something about the idea that we in America must still share some strong and powerful things that we agree on, or we wouldn't probably still be a country that has hung together well. And yet we know we're existing in a time of incredible divisiveness. And could I find the reasons for that by talking with people, not the people we hear from all the time on the evening news or our social influencers or our social media feed, but just regular folks?” (6:08)
• “Let me tell you, it only took a week or two and shedding that responsibility, or shedding that feeling, that I needed to get my point across, that I needed to somehow debate people, was one of the great releases of my entire life…To be in a situation where my only role was to say, no matter what people told me, my only role was to say, thank you so much. And could you tell me more about that? Or can we explore more why you think that?…I was not in a position of having to do what I'd done my whole life, which is defend or argue or debate or any of that stuff.” (18:10)
• “I believe there is nothing more important for educators to focus on than teaching ourselves and our students, not in one class your freshman year in high school, but deeply embedding into our system of education, how to go about having and maintaining civility and civil conversations and civil discourse with the quote unquote ‘other.’” (33:01)
• Related Episodes:  55, 50, 46, 37, 32, 24, 17,15, 9, 4

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Episode 61: Reflecting on 60 Episodes of New View EDU

For the past six seasons, Tim Fish has been the voice of New View EDU. Now that he has departed from his role at NAIS to start his own firm, NAIS President Debra Wilson and Vice President of Leadership and Governance Morva McDonald will be taking the reins. But first, Debra sits down with Tim to reflect on his sixty episodes of the podcast, what he’s learned from his long career working in education, and what he thinks may be next for independent schools.

Guest: Tim Fish

Resources, Transcript, and Expanded Show Notes

In This Episode:

• “When flow is present, when those things are present, when you have agency, when you care, like it's actually really good for self-efficacy and it lowers depression and it gives you more self-worth and it makes you like, so all like those good things we want about wellbeing, they happen when we're in this environment. And so for me, it's this thinking about, as school leaders, how do we design the environment, how do we create the context for these things we want to see with young people to emerge? That's what I'm really interested in.” (7:23)
• “In my head, I almost think about AI as a time machine. And I don't mean something that transports us to the past or the future. I mean something that manufactures time. So we think about it, It's the number one thing. For all my career, 30 plus years, whenever we talk about, wouldn't it be great if we could do this, this, or this? Yeah, but I don't have any time. I have no time. Give me more time and I'll be able to do that. Well, I'm like, AI can actually give us more time.” (21:58)
• “My sense is that parents are often stuck in something I call old excellence…And I think that in the age of AI, in the age of where we are and just everything going on, I don't think old excellence has the relevance it has. But I also find that parents don't imagine or ask for new excellence that's highly engaged, based in wellbeing, high agency, teacher as an architect and designer, more get out of the way... we have to help the parents walk across the bridge from old excellence to new excellence.” (27:55)

Related Episodes: 60, 59, 56, 52, 47, 45, 40, 35, 33, 31, 23, 21

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

Episode 60: Student Voices on Learning Self-Reliance

Most schools envision helping students grow in their agency, independence, and self-reliance. How to do that is a hotly contested topic with no easy answers. But while the majority of students are trying to build those skills within settings that are also grappling with issues like technology use and the difficulties of providing meaningful opportunities outside the classroom, there are some schools where learning self-reliance happens in a wholly different way. Two students from Midland School in California join New View EDU to share their experiences with a no-tech, nature-based campus where growing your own food and heating your own living quarters are just part of a normal school day.

Guests: Ayanna Hopkins-Zelada and River Peace

Resources, Transcript, and Expanded Show Notes

In This Episode:

• “I think that everyone is taking care of each other and you get to decide what the environment you live in looks like. And you really get to know what a person, who that person truly is when you see how they take care of the people around them. And there's that deeper level of connection…with someone when you see who they truly are when they're taking care of, not only themselves, but the people around them.” (8:41)
• “And my ability to navigate conflict with my peers and also with faculty, or with other peers and faculty in whatever situation, has been really solidified because Midland, from your freshman year, is very intentional about making sure that you develop the skills to maintain relationships with people and how to navigate all aspects of having a relationship with someone or a group of people, and maintaining the responsibilities that you have as an individual in a community. Which also extends to, you know, your ability to know when to ask for help and know when you are overworked or need a minute and to be able to advocate for yourself.” (18:06)
• “Something that I notice the most at Midland is historical passion. Since Midland was founded, everyone that's gone to Midland and worked at Midland has had passion for it and cared about the place that they are stepping foot on. So having that passion from the very first construction of the place, of the school, I think that's key to having somewhere as magical as Midland.” (23:23)
• “I think it's one of the most special things about how students and faculty interact at Midland, is that you have a relationship in and out of the classroom. Our faculty know you very well outside of the classroom, and that translates really well into them becoming a teacher for you academically and not, outside of the classroom. And I think it's an advantage that Midland students have that a lot of other students don't have, where our teachers are able to see us as whole people outside of the classroom rather than just students in a classroom.” (34:58)

Related Episodes: 53, 51, 50, 40,15, 11, 8

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Episode 59: Schools and the Emotional Lives of Teenagers

Now more than ever, schools are focused on supporting student mental health. With rates of anxiety and depression on the rise among teens, we know we need to design environments that help foster adolescent wellbeing. But are wellbeing programs working as intended? What are we getting right – and getting wrong – about the emotional lives of teenagers? Dr. Lisa Damour has the answers.

Guest: Dr. Lisa Damour

Resources, Transcript, and Expanded Show Notes

In This Episode:

• “Schools are working against this broad cultural discourse that holds at the center the idea that discomfort is bad. And so as long as we're not challenging that idea, we're gonna be dealing with a lot of one-on-one conversations trying to convince people that this is really all okay. So I would both have schools get out on their front foot about reframing this appropriately. Mental health is not about feeling good and school is supposed to be stressful, and we are built to help your kid handle that.” (13:39)
• “There are a lot of people who age without actually working themselves through the maturity that is required for a healthy adulthood, right? Who aren't thinking about risk in very smart ways. They're thinking about whether they're going to get caught, not whether they're going to get hurt or hurt somebody else. They are not taking responsibility for their actions. They don't actually have a particularly good work ethic, right? So you can age into adulthood, but not really be as mature as you should be.” (31:09)
• “When I have seen adults really harm their relationship with a kid, and usually this is parent-child, but it can happen in a school, it's when the teenager says, you know what, you assigned this to us last week, or you said you were gonna pick me up and you forgot, and the adult denies or defends, right? When the adult flexes, we have all the authority, we will flex our authority if we want to. If the teenager is right and the adult is wrong and the adult doesn't own it, that relationship has hit a really rough patch.” (37:02)

Related Episodes: 54, 51, 48, 35, 32,15, 8, 3

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Episode 58: Transforming Teaching and Learning

What would it look like if a school went “all in” on training teachers to become experts in the neuroscience behind learning? Saint Andrews Episcopal School did just that, and in the process, created the Center for Transformative Teaching and Learning, dedicated to helping educators everywhere unlock the power of Mind Brain Education.

Guest: Glenn Whitman

Resources, Transcript, and Expanded Show Notes

In This Episode:

• “Look, we have vocabulary quizzes for kids in every discipline. Why can't we sort of have that for the adult learners in our school? And the fact is, we went after this research around collective teacher efficacy. The idea is that if we have some common language, common frameworks, common North stars, or mountaintops, or drivers that we're all moving towards, then that might make us collectively more effective for all our student population.” (16:45)
• “I'll get on my horse for one second about homework. You know, we have our kids, we are privileged to have our kids for eight or more hours a day in all our schools, especially when they get to high school, right? I once had an AP history student ask if we were violating child labor laws because then they still had to go home and do two more hours of homework. I thought that was interesting.” (26:43)
• “I can ask the AI for an early draft. I can edit it around. And look, every kid can get immediate feedback too, using these tools, right? Now, you're right though. Learning happens when you think hard. And generationally, I think our kids don't want to think as hard as we, maybe we were willing, and maybe we were foolish, but we know learning doesn't stick unless you think hard about things you're either intaking or doing or building or pondering. And again, I think that's going to be a little, a healthy tension point to figure out.” (34:21)
• “The teacher of the future has to do a better job working the room and working among the students. I still see too many times, when I'm in schools, students working independently, and teachers retreating to their laptop and missing– This is the best time to ask deeper questions, to see what kid, is it sticking or working. So I think more and more, you know, working the room and moving amongst kids, as opposed to being in the front of the room. So I think teachers, I'm just going to say heads of school, a new line item budget should be better shoes for teachers.” (39:01)

Related Episodes: 53, 49, 47, 45, 35, 31, 18

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Episode 57: Jobs to Be Done in Schools

What’s the difference between the job to be done by a Milky Way bar, and the job to be done by a Snickers bar? And what does that have to do with schools? As it turns out, a lot, according to Bob Moesta. The author, professor, innovator, and founder of the Re-Wired Group comes to New View EDU to outline how reframing our thinking about the jobs to be done by our schools can transform everything about the way we approach hiring, retention, admissions, and student engagement.

Guest: Bob Moesta

Resources, Transcript, and Expanded Show Notes

In This Episode:

• “What we don't realize is people have natural abilities that they're really, really good at, and they actually have things they suck at. And nine times out of 10, they tell people, oh, you got to get better at this thing because you suck at it. But when you make somebody better at creativity, you actually ruin them for the structure, which they're really good at. They're actually interdependent.” (8:21)
• “Nobody randomly shows up at a school and says, oh yeah, I want to join. I want to be part of your school. There's a set of causes behind it. But what happens is we ask them at a very pablum level, a very, oh, it's because of the facilities you have, your facilities are great. Or Oh my gosh, the teachers are so pedigree. It's like, but that's not why they're doing it. They're doing it because their child is falling behind. They're doing it because their child is literally not ready for the next level. They're doing it because they want their kids to have broader experiences. And so you start to realize, it's about their child and their relationship with their child that they're actually buying your school for.” (13:55)
• “The thing is, we can't predict the future without actually understanding the past. And so what happens is, we're literally asking them questions like, so what would you like in a new school? And it's like, they're just making it up. They don't know. And so part of this is why we talk, we start by talking to parents who already came, because they had to have the push, they had to have the pull, they had the anxieties, they made the trade-offs. Now I have a frame to understand, because for every one parent who made it, there's 10, 100, 1000 behind them who want to make it, but haven't figured it out.” (34:33)

Related Episodes: 36, 25, 24, 20, 18, 5, 1

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Episode 56: Helping Students Shape Dynamic Futures

How many of us have taken a history class? What about a class on the future? Or a class on how to navigate ambiguity? These are the kinds of educational experiences Lisa Kay Solomon urges us to design for our students, as we prepare them for an increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous world. 

Guest: Lisa Kay Solomon

Resources, Transcript, and Expanded Show Notes

In This Episode:

• “I'll start off and talk about futures thinking and I'll say, so how many people here have taken a class in history? And everybody raises their hand. There's probably some historians, probably teachers of history. Everyone's like, yes, of course I did. And then I'll say, well, how many people here have taken a class in futures? Zero, zero hands, zero. And maybe one person that took like a workshop or something. And then I say, well, which one of those can you influence? And it's like, oh, mic drop.” (8:54)
• “You gotta practice the stuff that you're gonna need in life. And unfortunately, so much of our K-12 system is based on rewarding things that are knowable, that are performable, that are easily measurable. You know, show me the scale on ambiguity. Show me the person that's like, oh, you got an A in ambiguity, crushed it. We don't have a great vocabulary for it. We don't have a great practice ground for it. So I think about this a lot, because you don't want the first time someone comes head to head with a high stakes, high uncertainty, highly ambiguous situation to be when it matters most. You want them to have done the practice steps along the way, the scaffolding in the safe environment.” (14:11)
• “You have a really important meeting and you've cleared it on everyone's schedule. People have flown in. They know it's important. And so because it's an important meeting, you go to the important board room that has the big oak table and the leather chairs and no windows and you got the PowerPoint set up. And yes, it's structured, but we have to remember there are human beings walking into that room, and our brains take a look at those signals: big oak table, leather chairs, no windows. And they think status, power, be right, be smart. They're not thinking, be open, be imaginative, be generative, right?” (29:15)
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Related Episodes: 47, 38, 31, 26, 17, 12, 9, 7, 4

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Episode 55: Creating Bravely

Create Bravely. That’s the mantra of dynamic twin brothers Peter and Paul Reynolds. Together, they have built a life of service to others through creativity, as authors, illustrators, designers, educators, bookstore owners, and digital media executives. They share their passion for inspiring others and helping people of all ages find their path in life through creativity, kindness, and what they call “hard fun.”

Guests: Paul and Peter Reynolds

Resources, Transcript, and Expanded Show Notes

In This Episode:

• “We're big believers that yes, school, learning does happen in school a lot of times, and sometimes it doesn't. And sometimes things happen in schools that are sort of counter to the mission. You may have the most important question in your mind, but I think that number one on the list is a really powerful question. It's only three words. Who are you?” (7:04)
• “We've seen, sadly, tragic results where kids just think, I don't measure up. I don't even measure up to my own version of who I think I'm supposed to be. So actually, you're not supposed to be anything other than who you're meant to be. And our job is to make sure that you get there no matter what...I think that learning is self-design. We're creating ourselves every single day.” (18:47)
• “You know, kind kids are our kind of kids. And kind adults are our kind of adults. And, you know, sadly, that's something that, that fabric, that civic fabric has been fraying, you know, in the last, you know, almost decade. And we have to, that's one of the things we have to all work on collectively. If we can do that with our kids in schools and our colleagues, then, you know, that will move the world to a better place, for sure.” (28:29)
• “So, you know, our first answer may be right. Yes, the sky can be blue. But your second answer is going to be more interesting. Your third, your fourth, your fifth. And you can even have, you know, wrong answers. And we, of course, we always say wrong-ish, because it always leads to finding a new discovery…When we do that deep dive, the answers get more and more interesting. And so that is with life. You know, if you only give something just a cursory think, you may even get sort of a correct answer, but if you really do that deep dive, it's going to get really, really interesting.” (38:12)

Related Episodes: 51, 50, 44, 42,17,11, 6, 4

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Episode 54: Creating Climates of Care

Wellbeing. Engagement. Belonging. These three values are the “trifecta” of attributes for healthy and productive learning, according to Denise Pope. But how do we design learning environments that put the focus on that trifecta, without diminishing the educational achievement, challenge, and rigor we believe our students deserve? Denise, the co-founder of Challenge Success, returns to New View EDU to help host Tim Fish unravel the tricky issues around creating climates of care in our classrooms while also upholding academic standards.

Guest: Dr. Denise Pope

Resources, Transcript, and Expanded Show Notes

In This Episode:

• “When you throw kids into groups for group learning, I think there's an assumption that they know how to do that well, and they don't. And, you know, even my kids will say, Oh my gosh, don't tell people to do more group work! I get stuck with the slackers, or I hate that because, you know, this person's not pulling their weight and I have to do all the work, or whatever. Right. We have to actively teach how to work in community.” (8:54)
• “And here's the thing, we undervalue students, we underestimate students, and we infantilize them. And then we're surprised when they get out that they can't do things, right? That's on us. That is on us.” (21:14)
• “Grades are heavily related to cheating, right? You don't cheat when you're doing a project that you're really excited about. When you're putting on a play, when you're putting out a yearbook edition, when you are studying a new move in a dance class or on a football team, you're not thinking about a grade. That’s not why people do things.” (24:57)

Related Episodes: 52, 48, 43, 40, 35, 31, 19, 16, 8

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

Episode 53: Transforming the Future of School

“Knowing what we now know, we can no longer do what we now do. To do so is educational malpractice.” That provocative statement is one of the principles that guides Sam Chaltain through his work redesigning education for the modern era. In this episode of New View EDU, Sam asks listeners to consider how the world has changed since our school system was designed, and what educational “sacred cows” we need to dispense with to help school keep pace with the rapid evolution of society.

Guest: Sam Chaltain

Resources, Transcript, and Expanded Show Notes

In This Episode:

• “The focus needs to be rendered down to the essence of who. Who is this unique individual? What are their unique interests, passions, and potential contributions to the world and to the people they come in contact with? And how can we set conditions that help that person answer the only question that matters, right? Which is: Of all the things I can do with my one precious life, what must I do?” (10:27)
• “The goal and the primary measure of health of a living system is disequilibrium, not equilibrium, right? The moment a pond establishes equilibrium, it gets covered in kind of green mushy muck. It's that constant delicate balance, the dance of all of these different, you know, contributing factors that allows for its ultimate and optimal health. And so too is it with us. Therefore, we have a different way and a different frame for how we can think about this thing that for the last 100 years we've called school.” (18:06)
• “All of our design work is in service of the answers to those questions. How do we, how do we unleash even more powerfully the things that are already powerful here? And how do we make possible the things that are not yet possible? And usually what that leads to is a space that is, that is flexible, that is adaptable, that is permeable, that has the ability…that doesn't look like the way that schools have looked.” (34:36)

Related Episodes: 47, 45, 44, 32, 21, 15, 2

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