Host Jethro Jones talks with Mike Caldwell, founder of LinkedLeaders, about building a platform that connects school leaders with mentors and peers for real-time support. They discuss the challenges of school leadership, the value of personalized coaching, and how technology and community can help educators grow. 

LinkedLeaders: You need support. Get just-in-time mentoring at LinkedLeaders.com

We’re thrilled to be sponsored by IXL. 

IXL’s comprehensive teaching and learning platform for math, language arts, science, and social studies is accelerating achievement in 95 of the top 100 U.S. school districts. Loved by teachers and backed by independent research from Johns Hopkins University, IXL can help you do the following and more:

• Simplify and streamline technology
• Save teachers’ time
• Reliably meet Tier 1 standards
• Improve student performance on state assessments

🚀 Ready to see why leading districts trust IXL for their educational needs? Visit IXL.com/BE today to learn more about how IXL can elevate your school or district.

Welcome to Transformative Principal! In this thought-provoking solo episode, host Jethro Jones explores how artificial intelligence has revealed the weaknesses in our current education system—and why it’s time to refocus on real learning.

Episode Highlights:

• Jethro shares candid reflections from his AI Leader Office Hours, challenging the status quo in education.
• He explains how schools have been designed for adult convenience, making them easy targets for AI automation, and why this approach fails students.
• The episode critiques formulaic assignments, standardized tests, and grading systems that prioritize efficiency over genuine learning.
• Jethro advocates for a shift toward student-centered learning, emphasizing the importance of real audiences, authentic work, and developing “organic skills” like critical thinking, collaboration, and relationship-building.
• He shares personal stories from his teaching career, illustrating the power of giving students agency and meaningful projects.
• The discussion covers the limitations of AI—what it can and can’t do—and why human skills and empathy remain irreplaceable.
• Jethro calls for educators to rethink assignments, assessments, and the very purpose of school, urging a move away from compliance and toward relevance and flourishing for every student.

Key Takeaways:

• Schools must prioritize learning and personal growth over convenience and test scores.
• Assignments should have real audiences and authentic purposes, not just serve as boxes to check.
• AI can handle repetitive, formulaic tasks, but human connection, empathy, and creativity are essential for true education.
• Educators should focus on helping students become flourishing human beings, not just good test-takers.

LinkedLeaders: You need support. Get just-in-time mentoring at LinkedLeaders.com

We’re thrilled to be sponsored by IXL. 

IXL’s comprehensive teaching and learning platform for math, language arts, science, and social studies is accelerating achievement in 95 of the top 100 U.S. school districts. Loved by teachers and backed by independent research from Johns Hopkins University, IXL can help you do the following and more:

• Simplify and streamline technology
• Save teachers’ time
• Reliably meet Tier 1 standards
• Improve student performance on state assessments

🚀 Ready to see why leading districts trust IXL for their educational needs? Visit IXL.com/BE today to learn more about how IXL can elevate your school or district.

The great importance of redesigning Tier 1 instruction that ensures deeper learning for all students. The research shows huge benefits to students and their teachers including higher achievement, closure of gaps among all reporting categories of students, increased attendance, lower misbehavior, and increased teacher satisfaction and retention.

Michael was last on the podcast with me in 2022, talking about student agency.

• Is education about teaching or developing
• Developing humans is much different than teaching students
• Device centric development - similar to addiction
• Epidemic of anxiety because of screen time
• Brain matter loss around the areas of the brain necessary for deep learning and deep reading
• Legacy system (our current system) - Around control
• Something happened at the pandemic
• We put kids on computers constantly
• Maldevelopment in the brain - device parenting
• School’s optional is the other thing we taught with our response to the pandemic
• When you’re on a device, all the human side is not developing. 
• Most connected society ever and the most lonely society ever 
• Teachers have been underinvested in and have a curriculum and type that is difficult to engage kids
• How to develop character, empathy, and relationships among students and their peers. 
• How to do this at scale. 
• You can’t intervene your way to success
• Traditional classrooms remove autonomy
• Unstructured groups creates unstructured learning
• Ability-grouping is the worst
• Discussion protocols, team members, etc. 
• Productive Struggle - is a key element that leads to learning moving forward
• Toolbox of strategies given to students 
• How to get kids unstuck without giving the answer
• Power of shared background knowledge 
• Easy to conflate teaching with learning
• The Baseball Experiment
• Babies build brain cells fast, but they don’t make neural connections
• What gets exercised in a brain gets developed
• One factor and one factor only changes neocortex: wealth of the family. 
• Needs productive struggle to grow
• Rigor walk on Instructional Empowerment
• Just above ability level
• Time is an issue - how do you teach in this way in a slower path
• Kids also test better if they can critically think about the information
• The more you use AI the hippocampus shrinks
• How to be a transformative principal? Look at who’s doing the work: teacher or student?
• Library for deeper learning

About Michael Toth: 

Michael D. Toth (LinkedIn, X) is founder and CEO of Instructional Empowerment and leads IE’s Applied Research Center. He is also the author of the multi-award-winning book The Power of Student Teams with David Sousa; author of Who Moved My Standards; and co-author with Robert Marzano of The Essentials of a Standards-Driven Classroom, School Leadership for Results, and Teacher Evaluation that Makes a Difference. 

Michael is a keynote speaker at conferences and coaches and mentors superintendents on creating a bold instructional vision, designing and launching a high-functioning cabinet team, transforming Tier 1 core instruction, and leading systems-based school advancement. 

Throughout Michael’s career, he has been privileged to collaborate with some of the top researchers and thinkers in education. His past key roles include CEO of Learning Sciences International (LSI), President of the National Center for the Profession of Teaching, and University Faculty Grant Director for research and development grants.

LinkedLeaders: You need support. Get just-in-time mentoring at LinkedLeaders.com

We’re thrilled to be sponsored by IXL. 

IXL’s comprehensive teaching and learning platform for math, language arts, science, and social studies is accelerating achievement in 95 of the top 100 U.S. school districts. Loved by teachers and backed by independent research from Johns Hopkins University, IXL can help you do the following and more:

• Simplify and streamline technology
• Save teachers’ time
• Reliably meet Tier 1 standards
• Improve student performance on state assessments

🚀 Ready to see why leading districts trust IXL for their educational needs? Visit IXL.com/BE today to learn more about how IXL can elevate your school or district.

In this episode of Transformative Principal, host Jethro Jones interviews Adrian Ireland, an international educator, systems thinker, and author of "Designing Different." Together, they explore the challenges and opportunities in reimagining the architecture of learning within schools. The conversation delves into why educational reform often fails when it focuses on incremental improvements rather than structural changes, emphasizing the importance of authentic learning experiences, student motivation, and agency.

Adrian shares insights on how small but significant changes—like creating "sandboxes" for experimentation and expanding the audience for student work—can lead to meaningful transformation. The discussion covers the pitfalls of over-relying on extrinsic motivators like grades, the value of interdisciplinary and project-based learning, and the need for flexible systems that nurture both passion and competence in students. Practical examples, such as school newspapers and project weeks, illustrate how schools can foster ownership, engagement, and real-world skills.

• Making little pockets where students can be seen in a different light with different experiences
• How education has an architecture problem, not an effort problem. 
• The flow of the river. 
• Curricularize them!
• Neglect students’ autonomy at our own demise.
• More about motivation. Intrinsic vs. extrinsic motivation.
• False fails - good ideas that are implemented into architecture that rejects them. 
• Design principles - authenticity, flexibility, mutuality (we are connected), and simplexity (designed simple but able to handle a complex reality)
• School Newspaper as an example of mutuality.
• The whole game at a junior level - 
• Good architectures that already exist. 
• Avenues World School
• What comes first, passion or competence? 
• Interdisciplinary teams
• How to be a transformative principal? Make a decision that we are going to have two official expositions of student work. Create a sandbox, a space of possibility. 

About Adrian Ireland

Adrian Ireland is an international educator, systems thinker, and author dedicated to reimagining the architecture of learning. With extensive experience teaching and leading across Asia and Europe, Adrian has spent his career challenging the traditional, standardized models of education by championing learner-centered approaches that value individuality, curiosity, and creativity. His entrepreneurial mindset drives him to experiment with bold ideas, test innovative systems, and design frameworks that empower both students and educators to thrive. 

He wears a mix of hats that have shaped his perspectives on education: Watching the development and natural learning progressions of his two boys as father. Coaching Volleyball at both high and low levels. Teaching in the classroom in both middle and high school. Leading full school change efforts around interdisciplinary learning and  project-based learning. Redesigning time and scheduling to allow space for change and most recently Coordinating the MYP (Middle Years Program).  

Rooted in both practical classroom experience and a deep understanding of educational theory, Adrian believes that the future of learning lies not in small improvements, but in daring to create something fundamentally different. His work blends systems thinking with human-centered design principles, helping schools and organizations shift toward environments that foster authentic engagement and personal growth.

In "Designing Different", Adrian shares the lessons, insights, and strategies gathered from years of navigating the complexity of educational reform, inspiring others to move beyond "better" and design the future of learning. (Link to Book Website)

LinkedLeaders: You need support. Get just-in-time mentoring at LinkedLeaders.com

We’re thrilled to be sponsored by IXL. 

IXL’s comprehensive teaching and learning platform for math, language arts, science, and social studies is accelerating achievement in 95 of the top 100 U.S. school districts. Loved by teachers and backed by independent research from Johns Hopkins University, IXL can help you do the following and more:

• Simplify and streamline technology
• Save teachers’ time
• Reliably meet Tier 1 standards
• Improve student performance on state assessments

🚀 Ready to see why leading districts trust IXL for their educational needs? Visit IXL.com/BE today to learn more about how IXL can elevate your school or district.

In this episode of Transformative Principal, host Jethro Jones interviews Joel Lavin, an equity and inclusion administrator in Eugene, Oregon, with 25 years of experience in public education. Joel shares insights into his work supporting high school students with disabilities, focusing on transition services that help students move from school to adulthood. The conversation covers the importance of inclusive practices, unifying specialized programs, and providing real-life experiences through initiatives like CTE (Career Technical Education) and the Future Build program. Joel and Jethro discuss the challenges and successes of integrating students with disabilities into broader educational and extracurricular opportunities, including unified sports and robotics. The episode features personal stories that highlight the impact of these programs on student confidence, independence, and community involvement, emphasizing the value of collaboration among educators to create inclusive environments.

LinkedLeaders: You need support. Get just-in-time mentoring at LinkedLeaders.com

We’re thrilled to be sponsored by IXL. 

IXL’s comprehensive teaching and learning platform for math, language arts, science, and social studies is accelerating achievement in 95 of the top 100 U.S. school districts. Loved by teachers and backed by independent research from Johns Hopkins University, IXL can help you do the following and more:

• Simplify and streamline technology
• Save teachers’ time
• Reliably meet Tier 1 standards
• Improve student performance on state assessments

🚀 Ready to see why leading districts trust IXL for their educational needs? Visit IXL.com/BE today to learn more about how IXL can elevate your school or district.

In this episode of Transformative Principal, host Jethro Jones interviews Tyler Lafferty, executive director and founder of Slingshot. Tyler shares his mission to help young people discover purposeful career paths by aligning their unique skills and personalities with fulfilling jobs. The conversation explores the IDEAS framework—Introspection, Design, Exploration, Adaptability, and Service—and offers practical advice for educators and students to dream big, build social capital, and find meaning in both work and community service.

• Purposeful direction
• Dream big about their future
• Show kids how to connect the dots 
• Multi-faceted human being – many different paths that you could find fulfillment in.
• Be open to the winding path.
• No losing just learning
• Tyler’s book, “Be More Like You”
• The path of least resistance.
• IDEAS Framework
• Introspection, Design, Exploration, Adaptability, Service
• Dreaming too small.
• Meaningful conversation about the work.
• Encouraging teachers to get out and find someone to speak in their classroom. 
• Building a pipeline. 
• That’s not for me, and that’s ok. 
• How do you give back, and what does that look like? How can you plan for that for your whole life?
• How to get access: Taking over advisory, curriculum, group coaching for individuals, the academy, online course. 

About Tyler:

The Executive Director and Founder of Slingshot, Tyler Lafferty, a longtime entrepreneur, has built five successful companies in digital marketing, advertising media, and health and fitness. This investment over 20 years, has produced services purchased by multi-billion dollar companies and clients across the nation including AT&T, Amazon, Nike, Nintendo, MTV, Tiktok, Disney and many others.

At Slingshot, we exist to inspire and coach young people with purposeful direction for work and life. Our coaching framework helps them uncover the industries and job types they're passionate about, provides pathways to making meaningful industry connections and builds a resiliency mindset for being their own guide.

LinkedLeaders: You need support. Get just-in-time mentoring at LinkedLeaders.com

We’re thrilled to be sponsored by IXL. 

IXL’s comprehensive teaching and learning platform for math, language arts, science, and social studies is accelerating achievement in 95 of the top 100 U.S. school districts. Loved by teachers and backed by independent research from Johns Hopkins University, IXL can help you do the following and more:

• Simplify and streamline technology
• Save teachers’ time
• Reliably meet Tier 1 standards
• Improve student performance on state assessments

🚀 Ready to see why leading districts trust IXL for their educational needs? Visit IXL.com/BE today to learn more about how IXL can elevate your school or district.

In this episode of Transformative Principal, Brandon Cardet-Hernandez shares his journey from being a principal to advising the NYC Mayor, and now serving as President of Mrs. Wordsmith, a company dedicated to improving children's literacy through innovative tools like books and video games. Brandon dives into the urgent need for solutions in education, particularly addressing the missed "dosage" in phonemic awareness, phonics, and vocabulary instruction that many students experience. He explores the role of video games in education, emphasizing that while games can't replace teachers, they can enhance the learning process through engaging, spaced-repetition techniques, like the popular game Word Tag.

Brandon discusses how joy and mastery of language can transform a student's understanding and emotional connection to words. He also highlights the challenges many students face in developing strong reading skills, especially in middle and high school, and how increasing practice time is essential.

• Leaving the principalship to do advising to NYC Mayor. 
• Solutions that I was hungry for. 
• President of Mrs. Wordsmith
• Efficacy of video games
• Sub-literate
• Games don’t replace teachers and instruction
• Missed dosage that kids need: phonemic awareness and phonics & vocabulary
• How much time they get practicing. 
• How do we give teachers the right data?
• Word tag - spaced repetition.
• Joy of words, master of phrasing. 
• How many kids don’t have the command of the language?
• Happiness makes more sense when you have word associations with it. 
• Increase dosage of reading skills. 
• How challenging it is to learn reading in middle and high school.
• How to be a transformative principal? Be ok that their experience looks different than ours: take a beat, pause, and play a video game.

About Brandon Cardet-Hernandez

Brandon Cardet-Hernandez is the President of Mrs Wordsmith, an innovative children's education media company that creates award-winning books, card games, and video games to help radically improve literacy outcomes for kids. A recognized leader and changemaker, Brandon has spent his career working to reimagine the systems, structures, and tools that accelerate opportunity and close achievement gaps. Brandon previously served as the Senior Education Advisor to former New York City Mayor Bill DeBlasio and as the Director of Strategic Initiatives for the NYC Department of Education. A former special education teacher, Brandon has sat at the helm of two high schools, leading both institutions through transformational change. Brandon was appointed to the Boston School Board in 2022 by Mayor Michelle Wu and the Massachusetts Council for Latino Empowerment in 2023 by Governor Maura Healy. He serves on the board of EdVestors. His work has garnered national recognition, featured in publications like The Atlantic, People en Espanol, Essence Magazine, EdWeek, Commonwealth Magazine, and the Netflix documentary, “Teach Us All.”

LinkedLeaders: You need support. Get just-in-time mentoring at LinkedLeaders.com

We’re thrilled to be sponsored by IXL. 

IXL’s comprehensive teaching and learning platform for math, language arts, science, and social studies is accelerating achievement in 95 of the top 100 U.S. school districts. Loved by teachers and backed by independent research from Johns Hopkins University, IXL can help you do the following and more:

• Simplify and streamline technology
• Save teachers’ time
• Reliably meet Tier 1 standards
• Improve student performance on state assessments

🚀 Ready to see why leading districts trust IXL for their educational needs? Visit IXL.com/BE today to learn more about how IXL can elevate your school or district.

Host Jethro D. Jones talks with teacher Hilda Guerrero about her "Peacefully Productive Kids" program, which helps students develop emotional regulation, empathy, and conflict resolution skills. Hilda shares practical strategies and resources she created after working with a challenging student, and discusses her mission to make social-emotional learning easy and accessible for teachers everywhere.

• Peacefully Productive Kids - SEL and personal development for kids. 
• Started 3 years ago when she had a highly challenging student, elopement, emotional outbursts. 
• Started to read books and did action research with that particular student. 
• Creating and collecting resources. 
• Videos and resources already available and creating as she went along. 
• Stephen Guise Elastic Habits
• Created a chart and tracked behavior. 
• Ridiculously simple goals. 
• The more he succeeded the better he got at succeeding. 
• What causes the elopement?
• Let him know he’s safe, consistent soft, gentle messages
• When a child is in distress, they need to learn how to release the emotions in a different way.
• If they have the language skills to express how they feel they will do better. 
• Addressing 3 tiers with students - 1:1, friendship class, and whole group
• 3 main components: mind, heart, body. 
• Preparation for the lesson - needs to be teacher friendly. Within 5 clicks have what they need. 
• Videos, journals, lesson plans, role plays, poetry, music, dance, etc. 
• State an issue, and find resources to support kids. 
• Language as the pathway to social and emotional well being
• “My son used to be feisty and snappy, and he even talks differently.” 
• Words of empathy - friendship class - kids all complaining about what is going wrong. 
• I can give you the words to de-escalate the fight! 
• Friendship helpers. 
• 6 steps on how to be an active listener. 
• This project is bigger than me! 
• Teachers are undertrained and outnumbered. 
• Want to help out? Reach out at PeacefullyProductiveKids.com
  
  

About Hilda Guerrero

Hilda Guerrero is a dedicated educator with 28 years of experience teaching elementary-aged students. Throughout her career, she has specialized in bilingual education, equipping students with the linguistic skills necessary to thrive in diverse learning environments. She holds a Master’s Degree in Teaching English as a Second Language, which has deepened her understanding of language acquisition and cross-cultural communication.

Now, she is channeling her expertise into developing a digital product (Peacefully Productive Kids) designed to help teachers cultivate Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) and personal development skills in their students. Drawing on the four modes of language learning, listening, speaking, reading, and writing, she is developing specialized language practices that foster children's social, emotional, and mental growth. Her passion for teaching language has expanded to include the vital language of emotions and self-awareness, empowering young learners to understand themselves and others with empathy and confidence.

She believes in the transformative power of language and SEL to nurture holistic development, shaping not only students’ academic skills but also their emotional resilience and interpersonal growth.

When she’s not teaching or creating, she enjoys spending time with her family, hiking, swimming, and taking long nature walks with friends, always inspired by the belief that education is the foundation for growth, in language, character, and life.

LinkedLeaders: You need support. Get just-in-time mentoring at LinkedLeaders.com

We’re thrilled to be sponsored by IXL. 

IXL’s comprehensive teaching and learning platform for math, language arts, science, and social studies is accelerating achievement in 95 of the top 100 U.S. school districts. Loved by teachers and backed by independent research from Johns Hopkins University, IXL can help you do the following and more:

• Simplify and streamline technology
• Save teachers’ time
• Reliably meet Tier 1 standards
• Improve student performance on state assessments

🚀 Ready to see why leading districts trust IXL for their educational needs? Visit IXL.com/BE today to learn more about how IXL can elevate your school or district.

Nearly a year ago, Dr. Kelly Hastings interviewed Jethro on this show to talk about Saboteurs. It’s high time we get her on the show to talk about her work. 

• SCALE Framework:
• Set the vision and team with clarity and purpose
• Create the script that drives aligned, actionable change
• Act and communicate effectively with your entire community
• Learn, listen, and linger to build momentum and avoid burnout
• Empower and elevate your team so the work lasts beyond one leader or school year
• You can’t always make a vision happen in a single year. 
• Principals must set the vision, but they can’t do it alone. 
• Smallest possible action, aligned with what we are already doing
• Communicate with everyone about how they can support the initiative. 
• The power of “Shadow a Student”
• Teaching teachers how to be leaders - so powerful. 
• Power of Permission - 
• How to change mindsets - Vertical Development
• How to be a transformative principal? Listen to what your good teachers are saying. 

Dr. Kelly Hastings brings over 28 years of dedicated service to public education, most recently as a middle school principal. Since retiring from her role in public schools, she has continued to impact the field by coaching and supporting school leaders in implementation and leadership development. Dr. Hastings is married and the proud mother of four children and grandmother to four grandchildren, ranging in age from 8 to 16. Living nearby, she delights in cheering them on in their many activities—from baseball and dance to taekwondo and more. Join her facebook group. 

Get her book: Leading Change that Lasts

LinkedLeaders: You need support. Get just-in-time mentoring at LinkedLeaders.com

We’re thrilled to be sponsored by IXL. 

IXL’s comprehensive teaching and learning platform for math, language arts, science, and social studies is accelerating achievement in 95 of the top 100 U.S. school districts. Loved by teachers and backed by independent research from Johns Hopkins University, IXL can help you do the following and more:

• Simplify and streamline technology
• Save teachers’ time
• Reliably meet Tier 1 standards
• Improve student performance on state assessments

🚀 Ready to see why leading districts trust IXL for their educational needs? Visit IXL.com/BE today to learn more about how IXL can elevate your school or district.

Naphtali Hoff is an executive coach, organizational consultant, trainer, writer & speaker.

• How to come back from making a mistake.
• Think big picture.
• If you don’t create the right foundation, then you will spend far less time helping kids than
• When elephants fight, it’s the grass that gets trampled. - Rick Lavoie
• Where you can support the vision
• Everything flows from the foundation.
• We make decisions based on the emotional connection.
• Trust shields you from other problems.
• How to be a transformative principal? Continue to invest in yourself. You can’t give what you don’t have.