.png)
Edtech Insiders
Edtech Insiders
Why Education Is in an Imagination Crisis and How 4.0 Schools Is Responding with Nicole Jarbo
Nicole Jarbo is the CEO of 4.0 Schools, one of the nation’s leading platforms for early-stage education founders. A former KIPP teacher, Teach For America Corps member, and fintech founder, Nicole brings deep experience across classrooms, startups, philanthropy, and systems-level education change. She is also the host of the award-winning podcast Pitch Playground.
💡 5 Things You’ll Learn in This Episode:
- Why education is facing an “imagination crisis” — and why technology alone won’t solve it
- How 4.0 Schools supports founders beyond pilots to build durable, real-world impact
- What successful education founders have in common across industries
- Why “anti-scale but pro-impact” may be the right mindset for the future of education
- How founders and educators can approach AI with greater intentionality and responsibility
✨ Episode Highlights:
[00:03:15] Nicole Jarbo on defining meaningful innovation as imaginable, viable, and reachable
[00:06:24] Lessons from 15 years of 4.0 Schools on what makes founders succeed
[00:09:57] Why founder ecosystems matter more than one-time programs or pilots
[00:16:10] Education’s identity crisis and the system’s fear of trying something new
[00:26:37] How founders should think about AI, equity, and responsible adoption
[00:30:30] Why imagination—not infrastructure—is the missing piece in education reform
[00:37:15] Nicole on why education is the most important yet slowest-moving institution
😎 Stay updated with Edtech Insiders!
Follow us on our podcast, newsletter & LinkedIn here.
🎉 Presenting Sponsor/s:
Every year, K-12 districts and higher ed institutions spend over half a trillion dollars—but most sales teams miss the signals. Starbridge tracks early signs like board minutes, budget drafts, and strategic plans, then helps you turn them into personalized outreach—fast. Win the deal before it hits the RFP stage. That’s how top edtech teams stay ahead.
Tuck Advisors was founded by entrepreneurs who built and sold their own companies. Frustrated by other M&A firms, they created the one they wished they could have hired, but couldn’t find. One who understands what matters to founders, and whose northstar KPI is % of deals closed. If you’re thinking of selling your EdTech company or buying one, contact Tuck Advisors now!
This season of Edtech Insiders is brought to you by Cooley LLP. Cooley is the go-to law firm for education and edtech innovators, offering industry-informed counsel across the 'pre-K to gray' spectrum. With a multidisciplinary approach and a powerful edtech ecosystem, Cooley helps shape the future of education.
Innovation in preK to gray learning is powered by exceptional people. For over 15 years, EdTech companies of all sizes and stages have trusted HireEducation to find the talent that drives impact. When specific skills and experiences are mission-critical, HireEducation is a partner that delivers. Offering permanent, fractional, and executive recruitment, HireEducation knows the go-to-market talent you need. Learn more at HireEdu.com.
[00:00:00] Nicole Jarbo: We have very different goals in our life, and anybody who's taught knows, if you go to a middle school classroom, a kindergarten classroom, a high school classroom, a college class, every single person student in that room actually has different interests, a different life path, and different outcomes are calibrated the right way will be transformational for them.
Yet our tools are not specific enough. We have AI, we have technology. We have super brilliant people, but our tools are one size fits all.
[00:00:32] Alex Sarlin: Welcome to EdTech Insiders, the top podcast covering the education technology industry from funding rounds to impact to AI developments across early childhood K 12 higher ed and work. You'll find it all here at EdTech Insiders.
[00:00:48] Ben Kornell: Remember to subscribe to the pod, check out our newsletter, and also. Our event calendar and to go deeper, check out EdTech Insiders Plus where you can get premium content access to our WhatsApp channel, early access to events and back channel insights from Alex and Ben.
Hope you enjoyed today's pod.
Hello, EdTech Insider listeners. I am super thrilled to have the one and only Nicole Jarbo here. Nicole and I go way back. We used to work together at Envision Education, and today Nicole is the CEO of 4.0 Schools, where she leads one of the country's most active platforms for early stage education founders, a former Teach for America core member and KIPP teacher.
She's also a FinTech founder who has raised millions in venture capital. Nicole has worked across philanthropy and systems level education change, and is the host of Pitch Playground an award-winning podcast spotlighting the future of education. I will also say Nicole is a great friend, somebody you always wanna go out to dinner with, or if you've got something hard that you're dealing with, she's a great person to talk to.
Welcome to the podcast, Nicole.
[00:02:04] Nicole Jarbo: Thank you, Ben, and it is true. I love dinner. I love eating dinner with people. I also love eating dinner by myself, but there you go. I'm super excited to be here. I feel like note to self on any bio updates I should add, lovingly failed FinTech founder, but I'm sure we'll probably get to that at some point here.
[00:02:23] Ben Kornell: I mean, if we're not failing, we're not learning. Right? So, and by the way, you going out to dinner, it's a little different. If you could go out to dinner in New Orleans. That's a great place to go out to dinner. Yep,
[00:02:34] Nicole Jarbo: yep. That is very true. I mean, I feel like New Orleans, just to veer off for a little bit, is the only city I've ever been to that actually feels alive, and actually we'll get into this, but 4.0.
I think lots of folks who are familiar with 4.0 know this, but 4.0 actually started in New Orleans. Sort of like peak. Innovation, experimentation, peak fun, community building, design thinking world. And so I feel like I would be remiss if I didn't honor that because it's very much part of the 4.0 story.
4.0 could not have started anywhere except for New Orleans. I think that's true for the people who've experienced our programming in real life and people who've just been to New Orleans and understand education sort of writ large.
[00:03:15] Ben Kornell: Yeah, and I think there's been a lot of ripple effects post-Katrina of what the gravity and the energy post-Katrina of education innovation reform, that has rippled out some positive, some potentially negative.
There's like a lot of ways in which New Orleans became this test bed, this cauldron of all the best thinking around what education should look like. And 4.0 Schools was at the center of that. Just to start off like 4.0 became a launchpad for many education entrepreneurs in that time. But that idea of what innovation even means has evolved.
How do you define meaningful innovation in K 12 today? And how has that definition evolved during your time as CEO?
[00:04:04] Nicole Jarbo: Yeah, so, well, I'll start with like my time as CEO. So full-time in this role. It's been right under 18 months, so still new, I gotta say that. But I also have to say I was a really early alum, so I was around in 20.
When this was just starting, I think in 2010, we were just a piece of paper, to be quite honest. It's just gotten incorporated. So thinking about sort of 15 years in innovation is kind of the lens that I'm coming from, right? And so today, when I think about meaningful innovation, I won't like define the word innovation 'cause I feel I might get slammed for that.
But meaningful is the part that I really think about. And so part of my own perspective here is also 4.0 shared perspective, which is. Our idea is coming from an imagined future, right? And so I think right now we see a ton of ideas that go off to scale or become ventures or like all these like crazy amazing things.
And I think we try to pull it back and just say, is there a future that has transformational outcomes and a transformational experience for the people who actually get to experience that imagine future? And how do we get there? Right. And so when I think about meaningful innovation, it's innovation that one starts from an imagined possibility.
And then I think the second thing with that is, is it something that will actually work? Is this a possibility that's actually viable? I. Right. And then the last thing is, is about reach. Is it actually getting to the right people? And so to say that more simply, it's like meaningful innovation in the space, not just in K 12, but I think anywhere is about being imaginable, viable, and reachable for the people it's actually meant for.
And I think later in the conversation will focus on that meant for piece. I think about like your old days at alt school and like just trying to lead the movement around like personalized. I think that. We are back at this stage. We may not be calling it personalized, but I do think the smartest founders in this space are thinking about who their innovations are actually meant for.
And where you see the deepest impact is people doing really, really cool different stuff that can only be built now, right? And like this time technologically, policy-wise, et cetera. And again, it's viable. It works and it gets to consistently the people it's actually met for.
[00:06:24] Ben Kornell: With that history of innovation, what are the lessons learned from 4.0?
Like which founders or what are the success factors for those founders that have really built something enduring, impactful, and have achieved that meaningful innovation standard?
[00:06:41] Nicole Jarbo: That is a good question, and I think everybody's pretty different. But there's a couple of core things, and I see that the biggest thing that we've always tried to do with our programming is help people actually identify the assets they bring to the space and design something that's unique for them, right?
So your assets can be, you're a great marketer, or you went to the right school, or you have access to financial capital, social capital, or you're really. Great. I don't know, rhymer, you know, or like have a love for hip hop or whatever it could be like. Right? And so you're actually being able to find all of your assets, so a really deep self-awareness of what you have and what you don't have.
Right. Couple that with, again, this sort of imagination part, like are you imagining something that is not here? And are you willing to do the work to build towards possibilities for that imagined future? And I think the distinct thing I would say around our most successful founders. And at this point, you know, 4.0 has been around for 15 years.
We've made varying investments from 500 bucks to a hundred K into people in over 2000 people. And so, wow. Yeah, and I That's awesome. I mean, here's the thing that I'm not sure like funders will like this, but I will just say this very clearly because of how we approach this work, which is like imagine test and make sure it's distributed and reaches the right people and makes real impact, right?
We have people who start this and they're like, yeah, this isn't for me. I actually shouldn't be a founder in this space. I actually paid teaching. I actually, you know, whatever. We actually create a platform where that's actually okay. So if you look across our alumni, you will see them running charter school networks.
You will see them starting private equity firms. You will see them building nine figure revenue. A year like beauty brand companies, like that's just like a small snapshot of 4.0. And so when I think about what makes founders successful, I actually look across success industry wise. Not just our industry, right, but like multi-industry.
And so again, I think it's that self-awareness, knowing what your assets are, identifying for yourself a future worth building towards that is motivating for you. We call this like what is your sort of motivating question, right? What will keep you in this when you've gotta fire your whole staff or you've gotta like dip into your savings or you have to make a move that you don't feel like is in alignment, like what will keep you in the work?
And it's actually that motivation towards building towards this imagined future, right? So it's the people who know that know that future that they're building towards and then they're willing to create a plan. And move towards it. So that's what we try to do in our programming. Do you know who you are?
Can you imagine a world worth living in and building towards? And can you actually put together a practical plan to get there?
[00:09:27] Ben Kornell: Yeah. It's so interesting because you also have this community of founders when things get hard, they've got all these other people around them with these same elements of seeing a future that may not today exist.
And the ability to understand their assets. So you've got both the individual assets of the founder, but the assets of the community. Can you talk a little bit about how 4.0 functions almost as like an ecosystem or an or a network?
[00:09:57] Nicole Jarbo: Not as well as we could. So that's something that I've been thinking about and working on, especially as an alumni.
Right? And so when I look across the space, I feel a lot of folks are bringing people into the space or trying to, so they're bringing people into the space. They're like, you have an idea, let's run. And then they leave right at the moment of like this sort of hero's journey movement. Like they kind of drop out.
And I think it's a test that we actually don't need to put founders through. And when I look at other industries, they actually don't really, right? Like if. Someone identifies someone who has the talent they are holding on much, much longer. They're doing follow on funding, right? And like the VC space or doing bridge capital, folks have identified people and they do put real backing into them.
That extends much farther than I think we allow in the ED space. And I think the question is, is that a good thing or a bad thing? Right. Should have, yeah. Why do you
[00:10:54] Ben Kornell: think that is? Is it because of lack of funding? Writ large. Is it a sense of like, we have to follow these rules and follow people up to a certain point?
Because I agree with you. There are times where you meet people who've been on a founder's journey for 10 years and you're like, how did you keep getting funding? But their backers really believe in that vision. And often they understand that timing is everything. And like there's certain factors that the founder controls and there's others they don't.
But that's one thing I've noticed. Outside of education, what do you think is the cause of that?
[00:11:28] Nicole Jarbo: Oh man. Anything that's like about funding, my general answer is like, I don't know. But what I've seen right is, you know, and I'm just gonna be blunt about this, people wanna back winners. And so then the question is like, what does that actually mean?
And I don't think that there is. A standard answer. And I actually think that's the hard part, especially when bringing new people and new ideas into the space, right? Everyone's trying to copy the peer who kind of is doing a similar idea and they got funding from X, Y, Z, big organization. And so now their business models look the same, and now their like product looks the same except that one's pink and this one's blue and it's a little.
Bit this sort of self-fulfilling prophecy where like people are copying the leaders and the leaders aren't even sure that they're the leaders. I think, again, they just do the things that I talked about. They're good at identifying who they are, what they bring, and in turn, if you do that, you're also implicitly deciding like what you need and they're really good at asking, thinking ahead, et cetera.
So when I think it comes to funding, I think there's like. Couple things, right? Folks wanna back people that they believe can do something with their capital. And capital is not just finances, right? It is your time, it's your connections, it's financial capital. It can be all kinds of things here, right? And generally tell founders when they're pitching, think about what you would actually fund, and that fundamentally changes their pitch, right?
'cause they're like, I wouldn't fund myself. I sound like I have no idea what I'm doing. I don't sound confident. I wouldn't even lend myself 500 bucks if I had to heard the hear this pitch. And so,
[00:13:06] Ben Kornell: and sometimes founders were the hardest on ourselves. Absolutely. But I do also think that there's this sense of gotta satisfy what the funders are.
Yeah. And like trying to remake ourselves into the way that we think funders need to see us, rather than standing on the conviction of. You're putting your time and energy into it, that's as important of an investment as any capital is. So like standing on what you believe, what your path is and what that vision is as you say.
Yeah,
[00:13:35] Nicole Jarbo: and just to like wrap up with that, I do think I recognize, I started this sort of controversial subjective. People wanna back winners thing, but I think what's like embedded in that is people who are funders are all individuals who have individual desires. Some are funding because they're very committed to their organization's sort of ethos and investment strategy.
Some people are funding because. Their boss thinks it's a good idea. Some people are funding because they went to school with that person, and so this idea that there's kind of one way to approach this, I actually think it's a real, you know, I feel really disappointed sometimes when I hear this sort of like superficial, if you just get this much traction or this much revenue, they're gonna fund you.
Because you'll hear back from founders, it's like, oh, you have all the revenue. You said we had to have to get to a Series A. But you're not funding us. And then you see these kinds of things, these moving goalposts across the space. And so is it funding capital? I don't know. I'm not sure. But I do think, again, starting from where your assets are and leading with your strength is actually like pretty fundamental to folks.
Not just pitching, but for funders to kind of identify like, is this person leading with their strength? That's somebody who might win. They definitely have a better chance of doing that.
[00:14:52] Ben Kornell: Yeah, I think it's really important to say that there is no secret formula and also sometimes the excuses of you've gotta hit this target or that are just somebody's kind way of saying no.
And I wish people would say no more forcefully. 'cause that's an opportunity to learn rather than say, sounds nice, here's what I'm looking for. Come back when you've got those. I think investors often value optionality, so they're afraid to give the critical feedback. But whenever I've given the critical feedback, I find entrepreneurs come back wanting more and more.
So speaking of critical feedbacks, part of the founding of 4.0 Schools was the acknowledgement that traditional school models were fundamentally broken, and that was 15 years ago. Here we are, our scores are all trending the opposite direction that we want. And you know that I'm not a big fan of test scores anyways, but any indicator of engagement of success.
It feels like we're heading backwards From your vantage point, what do traditional school systems most often struggle with to adopt innovation, and how can places like 4.0 Schools help bridge that gap?
[00:16:10] Nicole Jarbo: Yeah, I think people are just afraid of trying. And as you were talking, I was thinking about, this is probably like a stupid thing to say because I've been in the same relationship and married for a long time, but I watch a lot of content.
So I feel like some of this is about dating or just like interacting with people and even back to this idea of like, no. Right. So saying no. To things that don't work for you. And again, having a strong vision about like where you want to go. And I think that really actually like is lacking in our space generally.
I'm not sure. People know what school is for or there's like all these different answers and you know, we have people on our team who love to like jam and brainstorm on what school is and what it's for, and I'm like, I'm not even sure we're ever gonna get to the same answer there. And so that is, is that the right like use of time for us?
And I just wanna go to this concept that I think about and talk about constantly, which is that I actually think the space is in a imagination crisis. We've really lost the ability to. Think about new ideas. Even with things like AI, our creativity is like totally shot, right? So I think there's a piece of that that some of the folks making decisions around what happens in these like larger tradi, it could be like a larger school model or a more traditional school model or whatever.
Even a smaller place of micro school, when you've fundamentally lost the ability to imagine something different, you've lost half the battle of ever doing something innovative. And I think our system kind of rewards doing things the same, and then everything becomes about performance. So I'd say it's like a couple things here.
One, I think there's a larger identity crisis in the space around like education and what it should be for and what it does, and yada, yada. Like we don't know who we are, we don't know what we wanna be, we don't know where things are going. We don't have. Align standardized incentives that make sense for the collective, right?
So like there's that, that's always been true. I think micro schools are trying to change some of that. That's a little bit of a different conversation, but then I think that leads into this sort of performance crisis or this idea that we'll never perform. And then people are like, well, schools aren't for like tests and, and schools aren't for testing careers.
And people get into this thing that fundamentally is about like identity, and that's connected to if you're doing a good job or not too. And so for me, again, it's like stopping at this point of just saying, I. At 4.0 in particular, like our job is actually to give people the infrastructure, not of funding, not of like access to all this sort of different scaled education, but the infrastructure actually to help people imagine a possibility that does not exist today because we are actually designing for like a pluralistic society.
You and I have a lot of things in common and care about a lot of the same things and share some perspectives. We have very different goals in our life, and anybody who's taught knows, if you go to a middle school classroom, a kindergarten classroom, a high school classroom, a college class, every single person student in that room actually has different interests, a different life path, and different outcomes are calibrated the right way will be transformational for them.
Yet our tools are not specific enough. We have AI, we have technology. We have super brilliant people, but our tools are one size fits all. And so yeah, back to the founding of 4.0 and just kind of quickly to talk about Matt Candler, our founder, I think in the charter space, in the ed reform movement. His claim to fame was as KIPP's first chief growth officer, and he really took this.
Approach of this works in this community, so it must work in this community, and how do I help build the infrastructure, the access to put more out there. But then we're seeing sort of the, I'm not gonna call it backlash in particular, but I can't think of a better word right now, but we're seeing some of the issues that's springing.
Right. So I think John Arnold had just talked about some of his investments in these, like the charter movement and things like that. We're seeing the actual like effects of that approach, the super scale approach. If it works one place, it must work everywhere. We're actually dealing with. The real reality is that even in a classroom, we have 30 different desires, shared goals, interests, profiles.
How can we do that for tens of millions of kids? Right? So I do think, again, like in that founding of 4.0, that 4.0 is almost the opposite of that mentality, which actually acknowledges the reality that there are plural futures. Of education because we actually live in a society full of different people who care about different stuff.
[00:20:49] Ben Kornell: Yeah. And that a school is not monolithic, it's a scatterplot of human beings and therefore. Classroom to classroom, having variability is actually essential to meeting the needs of every child because you've got variability among students and learners and variability among staff. And I think one of the things I try to talk to people about is like for school models, what's loose and what's tight?
And when you create scalability, being really, really clear on what's tight. And allowing for some space of what's loose is critical. One of the things we had was no one washes a rental car, and it basically means that if you don't own it, you don't take care of it. So this idea of what's tight, the founders really care about the type, but the truth is the people who carry the flame forward and expand, they care a lot about what's loose.
That's their chance to make it their own. And so when you can bring that intentionality as you scale, so that each lesson, each day that teacher is owning that classroom or whatever your model is, to be honest, that that learner is owning his or her learning experience. Their learning experience, I think is a critical part of figuring out this social scaling, social impact organizations.
So. You talked a little bit about funders. The other challenge is like from a founder standpoint, if you've got a promising pilot and you do want those funders who want to scale you, and you've got some evidence of early traction, but it's really hard to make that leap, what advice do you give to the founders who think that they're onto something or can show they're onto something to kind of get that to that next?
Round of growth and scale and impact.
[00:22:49] Nicole Jarbo: It is like the number one question our alumni ask. And just for folks who aren't familiar with our programming, so we, we run two programs, one called Essentials, which is basically kind of just a foot in the door around some of our innovation frameworks and practices.
And that's like a weekend. So you meet everyone. It's community building. We're actually taking it on the road, which has been really fun. So we did our first one in Oakland in September. And then we are going to Texas to run a few of these at the end of the month, which is really interesting because like our model with this is let's let communities grow their own innovation and let's actually put our money where their mouth is.
Like if we say this is context dependent, how do we actually step into that? Right. And it actually, you know. It's part of, I think of, of a world that we're moving towards just like more in real life, more human connection, more authenticity. You know, when you pick up the phone and think you're talking to AI, like this is kind of an experience right now that people are not ready for, right?
And so it's how do we, again, bring folks into a kind of future? That like feels more real and feels more possible and interesting, right. So I think when I think about moving from pilot to scale, well that's a hard one 'cause I just was like, we're anti scale, not anti scale. And so I think there's a part of it being of like anti scale without anti-impact.
And so what I would tell kind of founders is if you have something that works, then no front and back. Like this is what the best founders I've seen do. Just like no front back, like the back of your hand, why your product makes a real difference in terms of value. And what I've found right now is that folks are building things that look so similar and they're focused on this like tiny product differentiation, but they're losing a really meaningful part in the story, which is like, what is a unique value it brings to, again.
That community that it's meant for, and I actually think that's like a really powerful piece that I would push founders for. Like, who is this meant for? Right? Then you do all the fun market stuff and say, well, how many of those people are actually out there? Right? How many of that ideal customer, ideal client profile, if you're building a business, right?
How many of those people. Actually exist. But again, I think the most brilliant, most interesting, most durable, and I wanna be really clear, not just like moving from pilot to like continue on, but the most durable companies have honed in very specifically not just on who that customer is, but. On the specific value and like the, the later stages of value that they will inevitably bring to that user's experience.
And they can articulate and define that with like a level of clarity that just makes you wanna be on their team, right? And it goes back to that winner thing. Winners know exactly where things are going and you know, Tom Brady knows how to change his throat depending on like the wind. Or if he sees a player coming up.
I'm watching like too much football right now, so I'm glad, I'm glad it's almost over, but like he's, he's talked about this, that, you know, if he sees a player coming for a tackle, he throws that ball, you know, low. He makes sure. That like, you know, his player's not gonna get knocked. It's that level of precision and knowing how to execute and repeatedly executing that, that's powerful.
And so not only do that, but then as you're pitching to leave pilot stage, be able to articulate that you've done that and where it takes you next and, and that's really where I see the most meaningful stuff happening. Again, not just in founder life. But an excellent life, an expert life. And I think that's something that we just need to reveal for people and teach them how to do with a level of precision that makes people confident in what they're building.
[00:26:37] Ben Kornell: So let's talk a little bit about AI. It's rapidly reshaping not just the EdTech landscape, but really our world, the lives of young people. There's so much that we don't know. How are you seeing founders at 4.0 Schools approaching AI responsibly, especially when it comes to equity, trust, and real classroom utility.
[00:26:58] Nicole Jarbo: Yeah. Well, you know, I would actually throw that question back to you and back to the audience because I think that right now is the question, right. And I think a challenge, if I'm being honest, is that we have sort of AI experts in this space, but they run the gamut of different types of expertise. So, you know, we've got folks who know the technical stuff.
We've got folks who've just employed it well and are actually great business people. And so like their ability to understand an LLM, how it works, even the compliance that they're signing up for when they use one of these like larger LLMs like. They might not know that stuff. Right? And so when I think about using it responsibly one, again, I don't know, because like this technology is like moving so quickly.
That's a piece where we just have to be on our toes. I think the people who have the best chance of using this responsibly in terms of founders are people who acknowledge the deep deficits. In the systems around compliance, security, and the kind of open questions that still exist on the technological standpoint.
I think those are the folks who are thinking about the right things. I don't know if there's like one standard answer, but I think that's actually the question that educators wanna answer because I do think they wanna employ this technology, not just in a way that makes their lives easier and better, but a way that tally changes like their experience and working with students.
[00:28:23] Ben Kornell: Yeah, there's a way in which it's like meditation. The way to do mindfulness is to be mindful. Mm. The way to do AI right, is to be mindful of doing AI. Right? And as as we learn more, as we understand more. The what it is has to evolve, but when people bring intentionality to it, they're in control of what the risks or outcomes are.
Whereas if they're bringing un intentionality to it or not bringing anything at all, they're really at the whims of where, where things are headed. I do feel like, you know, this is also one of those where we, we end up taking. A sense of great responsibility, but your point about people arguing the minutia, this versus that, like we also need some storytelling mm-hmm.
Around what safe, responsible AI looks like. That's relatable to students, parents, educators, because if as founders weren't imposing it on them, there's so many ways in which they can go off the rails. But if we're educating them and helping them be a part of responsibly using AI in a safe and productive way, then I think there's a real opportunity.
Let's talk a little bit about the future. So when you and I were working on Envision Education. Our claim to fame was these portfolio defenses where students would build their competencies, demonstrate these deep projects, show deep reflection over a period of four years around how they've grown as a learner and help set them up for college career in life.
That's what we said. Man, college and career and life seem a lot more uncertain and dynamic today than they did back then. You know, looking forward, what kind of capabilities or mindsets will students need education leaders need? Entrepreneurs need most to navigate a future where technology plays a much bigger role in teaching, learning in society.
[00:30:30] Nicole Jarbo: Yeah, I mean, in your last response you talked about intentionality and so I just like wrote it down and like wrote like a million underlines under it because I actually think that's a, a piece that like we need as like, kind of like a central grounding way to move forward. And so when I think about the sort of future.
I referenced this earlier, but I think there are actually multiple futures, right? I, I think we have to be okay living in this sort of, you know, don't wanna get too woo here, but like living in this sort of, there are a million different universes sort of existing at the same time and kind of. Adopt this almost science fictiony like sense of like what's possible.
And so I think if we could give anything to anyone, right? And this is why I'm at 4.0, right? Like I, I left my FinTech company failed and people are like stay in financial services in tech, go to a family office. But when I saw the kind of changes happening in our ED space, it was very clear to me that the story I wanted to be able to tell in the future was that I turned it towards something hard and not away from it.
And many days I regret that choice to be honest. But I'm here and I want this to be part of my story. And so I will go back to what I started with this idea of like imagination. And, and going back to this idea that people are focusing on infrastructures to scale things, when I actually think the infrastructure that is so sorely needed and it has been needed in education probably since the beginning, is the infrastructure that allows every single person in our space to imagine with a kind of precision and vision and articulate that.
So the storytelling point that you made earlier is incredibly important, but infrastructure to imagine what's possible. We already have the tools to build it. AI's taking care of that. We already have the tools to build the future. We don't need to keep doing that stuff. We need to help people activate parts of their brain that have laid dormant because our system has failed to move at the pace of culture.
And so, yeah, I mean, look, I'm, I'm biased here. I'm not gonna say imagination, but just think about how much more fun this work would be. How much less depressing this work would be, how much different this work would be if everybody was able to. You know. Leverage this ability to imagine, to think of a future that's like possible, right?
So I think that's sort of like the big thing. And then the question is how do you make that happen at the the school level, right? Student to student level. How do you make that happen? Teacher to student level, how do you make that happen? Teacher to many students level, how do you make that happen to teachers and grade level, chair level, you know, to principals, to district leaders, to universities?
I think that is the piece. That is an outcome that we all kind of get from education, but it's not sort of revealed for people and then like honed again with a level of precision that other things are right. So I think there's that, that's a more like hopeful, like high level woo answer. But I wanna leave something practical.
Going back to. Sort of traditional school models. I think folks who are making these decisions, not only again do they need to kind of imagine better, like I'm gonna hammer that home more if I can. It's not just that I think it's actually like about adding this just ability or desire or like pride in that so much.
They want to tell stories of like true imagination and like inspiration, right? We actually like need to know what's possible. Because people have built it. You know, our podcast, which started off as an experiment last year, we got three of these two gold and one silver. And so this one I'm holding up Signal Awards are an international podcast award thing.
You know, they've got all kinds of fancy voters, judges like Jay Shetty, all these like big podcasters. And we won three awards, but one of them was best new podcast, and this was across all genres. We are fricking education innovation podcast. Let's go. Right? And so when people tell me that this work doesn't matter what I will say that I hope like inspires people to turn towards this work.
Like I did living FinTech, come back to this work. 'cause people wanna hear these stories and this is like the one. Place in the whole world, or at least in this country, I don't wanna speak for the world. Education is the one place where every single person you walk into, any library, any bar, any grocery store, any movie theater, every single person in that space can tell you what they loved about education, what they hated, and what they wish they were better.
This is the only place so ripe for imagination and innovation, yet it is the slowest, most stagnant. Actually turn that into something real, like what are we doing? And I would just go back to, you know, I left the space and Matt was writing about micro schools 15 years ago, and I'm reading reports now that are saying the next big thing, micro schools.
I'm like, what This. Is not how this is supposed to be working. We are the place of like full of like fertile minds and creativity and ability to take risks and do low stakes work. Yet we are the slowest to implement imagination. Right. And like there's something that we need to do about that. And, and I think it starts with like believing there's a different way, a different way to teach, a different way to learn, a different way to fund these initiatives.
And, and it just bringing that excitement to the space. And so yeah, I have this because it's a RI reminder to me and also it's super heavy. It's very nice. But I have this because I look at it and I'm like, this is. A manifestation of what's possible. There are people all over the world who wanna hear about a micro school in Texas who wanna hear about AI making attendance smarter, who wanna hear about mixed reality and how it works in classrooms.
And so our job is to imagine how to reach those people. Partner with them. Resources, storytelling, finances, doesn't matter. Like that's what our job is, to actually like make this better. And yeah, it is proof that it's wanted, it's proof that this is the only place, the only place. It's not healthcare, it's not geopolitics, it's not identity, you know, social identity stuff.
It's actually education. This is the one place that is the most important institution culturally, practically, economically to our world. And it is the slowest to move. And that's something that we can all fix. 'cause we actually all have the tools, right? So again, our job is to imagine what's possible and use the technology we have to build.
What's possible, and, and that's kind of what I would leave anybody with. And, and again, you know, just when it comes to these decision makers, when you're evaluating million dollar contracts for your district, when you're thinking about bringing in PD strategy consultants, pick someone who's different.
Pick someone who hasn't been chosen before. Give yourself a chance to try something new. And if we can do that at a scale that works for people, I think we'll start seeing way more interesting schools, way more interesting outcomes and more focus and intentional to use your word, society, which can actually hopefully go from thriving.
'cause that's where we're, are surviving. That's where we're right now to thriving. And I know that's cheesy, but I do think thriving is about. Intentionality, self-actualization, and actually like getting this stuff done that's in alignment with those things. That's my TED talk, that's my soapbox. Oh, listen to pitch playgrounds.
[00:38:19] Ben Kornell: Yeah. Playground. I mean, just to your point about we should be the most innovative spaces and we move slowly, often, describe. The a hundred year gap that exists in schools today. 'cause we're largely running our schools like we did 50 years ago. And we're training kids, you know, kindergartners are gonna be in the workforce 50 years from now, and we're supposed to be preparing them with skills to be successful in that world.
So the delta is really a hundred year gap. And if we could teach teachers, educators, school leaders, innovators. To be living in that future tense. Of course, they're gonna get some things wrong, but they're also far, far more likely to think flexibly about what they have to get right. And build students that can thrive regardless of what that kind of multiverse, whichever version of the multiverse we're in.
Well, thanks so much, Nicole. It's been awesome to have you on the pod. If people want to hear your pod or wanna learn more about 4.0 Schools, where can they get? Yeah,
[00:39:23] Nicole Jarbo: well, I think you all can drop this in the show notes, but there's one super important plug that I have to put out there. At the end of next month, we are holding something called the Playground Summit.
And it is what we're doing as sort of a small innovation ideas festival where we're actually being intentional, again, stealing this intentional about bringing people from different spaces in to talk about how they do innovation, to talk about how they ideate. You know, we've got folks who are influencers coming, astronauts, bunch of other folks, a lot of our alumni are speaking, but it's a pretty intimate space.
It's happening in New Orleans. Start, you know, finishing where we started. It's happening in New Orleans at the end of the month. I'll give you the links for all that stuff, but it will be@playgroundsummit.com. And then if you wanna learn more about 4.0, you can go to four. The number PT number zero.org.
You can follow us there. We're on all the socials. We have another newsletter called Playground Posts that we write, which is a basically a news roundup for anyone who's actually building innovation in the space. So we talk about policy. Actually, we just did a huge EdTech insiders kind of trends piece there.
So trying to plug your work whenever we can. But it's really, again, it's infrastructure to imagine if you can read an article about a policy change in the space and you as an innovator can imagine what could be built better. That's what we wanna help cultivate. And so all of our playground work is about inspiration, innovation, getting people to start imagining a different world.
And then our Core 4.0 work is about helping people who have that bug actually build.
[00:40:58] Ben Kornell: Yeah, yeah. Well, you are an inspiration to us here at EdTech Insiders, so thank you, Nicole for everything you're doing. Thank you to 4.0 Schools. And for our listeners, please follow up on those. If there's more to report on 4.0.
You're gonna hear about it here on EdTech Insiders. Thanks so much, Nicole.
[00:41:18] Nicole Jarbo: Thanks Ben.
[00:41:20] Alex Sarlin: Thanks for listening to this episode of EdTech Insiders. If you like the podcast, remember to rate it and share it with others in the EdTech community. For those who want even more, EdTech Insider, subscribe to the Free Tech Insiders Newsletter on substack.
