When generative AI hit schools, most reached for policies. Choate Rosemary Hall tried that too, and it wasn't working. Ellen Devine, Director of Studies and Chair of Choate's AI Steering Committee, describes the moment a single piece of advice changed everything: stop writing rules, write a stance.

That stance, endorsing the discerning, informed, and ethical use of AI, became the foundation for one of the more thoughtful school-wide AI approaches in independent education. In this episode, Ellen traces how her background in rhetoric and composition, her years leading curriculum change in the English department, and her work on equity and inclusion all shaped how she thinks about leading through uncertainty.

She also gets candid about the habits that can derail even well-intentioned change leaders, including the belief that force of will plus enough evidence always wins. It doesn't. But listening, she says, usually does.