Kaya Henderson: Stop underestimating kids

What if the biggest problem in education isn't technology — it's that we've reduced school to reading scores and graduation rates and stripped away everything that actually makes learning meaningful?

Kaya Henderson took the lowest-performing metropolitan  school district in the country and made it the fastest-improving — not by drilling harder, but by bringing back art, music, field trips, and a curriculum built around problem solving. Now she's leading the Aspen Institute's Center for Rising Generations, building a national model for youth leadership. We get into the enrichment double standard between rich and underserved  kids, why AI companions are a much bigger deal than most adults realize, and what it would take to make leadership development a predictable part of growing up.

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Transcript

Wisdom Meets Imagination

SPEAKER_00 0:00

So one of my youngs said to me, Kaya, the solutions that we're seeking sit at the intersection of wisdom and imagination. And I thought, well, that's profound. And then I was like, wait a minute. Am I wisdom and your imagination? And she said, yes. And I said, okay, uh, I just want to know. She's like, but the thing is, wisdom can't do it alone, and imagination can't do it alone.

Alex Kotran 0:27

I'm really coming to this conversation with you, you know, interested in a little bit more about the big picture. Um, you know, I think there's we've had a lot of guests on that are like deep AI experts. Um, I am curious, you know, now that you're at the Aspen Institute and you're sort of have this like, I think, unique vantage point to really have a sense of the trajectory of technology and sort of like what's sort of looking on the frontiers of technology, you know, you also bring an incredible depth of expertise as an educator and as someone who led one of the largest school districts and certainly the most complicated, one of the most complicated school districts in the country. And and I think what's also been missing in these conversations is you know, even when you have the deep technology experts in the room, um, they don't really understand the the uh I'm gonna I'm gonna say meat and potatoes and not sausage making, uh, but the meat and potatoes of like what happens behind the doors of a school district. And so when these lofty ideas about the way that AI is going to change education, yeah, um, you know, sometimes you know, I look around the room and I'm like, I don't know if they if any of these folks have ever even stepped foot in a school, seriously, uh you know, since they left um high school. Um so that's a that's the rough trajectory of the conversation. I want to give, I want to spend you know, the first part just kind of hearing more about your own path, because you know, very few educators find themselves, you know, in one of the most storied think tanks in the world, the Aspen Institute. Um and you know, my mom is actually this is the Alex's uh childhood better edition of AIED CDs. You guys just see embarrassingly um my band trophies and speech and debate trophies. Um I'm I'm here I'm in Akron, Ohio.

SPEAKER_00 2:07

True.

From TFA To Leading DCPS

Alex Kotran 2:07

If you hear somebody in the background, it's my mom sort of buzzing around. She got home early from school today. Um give us a sense of your journey. I mean, I'd love to hear about sort of like how you got started in education and um, you know, you don't have to go through the entire resume, but but certainly just like maybe like the spark notes. Um what led you to what you're doing, obviously, today at at the Aspen Institute.

SPEAKER_00 2:28

So I um I am an unlikely educator. This is not what I set out to do. I went to school for international relations uh at Georgetown, but decided that while my friends were all going off to faraway places to help people and do things, um, that I needed to probably put in some time um here in the United States of America before I went abroad somewhere to help somebody. And when I thought about kind of domestic policy issues, the only one that I was really deeply interested in was education. I thought about doing some education policy work, but figured nobody would have anything to, nobody would take me seriously if I didn't have some classroom experience. And so uh I joined Teach for America back in the early days. I was in the third cohort of Teach for America. And I knew I didn't want to teach forever or I didn't want to be in education forever, but I felt like this was a good two-year kickstart to my career. Um, not only was it a kickstart, it changed my whole trajectory. So I taught middle school Spanish in the South Bronx through TFA, um, became totally obsessed with teaching and sort of the opportunity gap and all kinds of things. And so I was a recruiter for Teach for America. I became the National Director of Admissions for Teach for America, I ran the DC Office of Teach for America, and then after spending almost 10 years in Teach for America land, decided that I needed to understand why school districts weren't concentrating on the quality of their people. And so I joined the New Teacher Project and worked with superintendents and districts all over the country around issues of human capital. At the end of that uh stint, I was seven or eight years at TNTP. Michelle Ree, who was my boss at TNTP, was selected to be the chancellor of DC Public Schools. I was living in DC and had been leading a lot of our work in DC public schools when I was at TNTP. And so she asked me to come as her deputy chancellor, uh, which I did for the first three and a half years before she left and I became chancellor and did that role for six years, which is like dog years, right? I was all together at DCPS for 10 years in leadership, and then just was like, I'm tired. I need to slow down for a minute. Uh so I stepped down from the chancellorship, uh, consulted for a while and then went to work at Teach for All, which is the international version of Teach for America. And that is where I got back to my international itch. Um, and I worked with, we were in 60 different countries, and I helped communities understand the role that they played in educational transformation. And then the pandemic hit, and I thought this is a great time to do something which I had dreamed about, which was think about what an African-American curriculum might look like to teach young people African American history and culture. And so I ended up doing what I thought was a curricular project, but ended up being a company called Reconstruction. Um, and we used technology to teach African American history and culture to young people, and then later um incorporated AI to help teachers create more culturally responsive lessons. And then I was minding my business, running my little company, having a good time when um my friends at the Aspen Institute asked me to help them uh with a youth strategy, designing a youth strategy. I'd been on the board of the Aspen Institute for the last nine years or so. And I'd constantly been like, well, what about young people? We always had youth programming, but we didn't really have a strategy around young people. And so they said they had a strategic planning process and youth arose as one of the priority areas. And they said, Can you just come help us think this through? And I said, Sure, I'd be happy to help you think this through. This is what I've been worried about for a long time. And in designing that youth strategy, I sort of fell in love a little bit with the ideas that we were generating and made a big transformative ask for funds to support this from the Bezos Family Foundation, who said, we'd be happy to make a big investment, but only if you lead this work. And so here I am at the Aspen Institute leading the Center for Rising Generations, which is um thinking about how to make leadership development a predictable part of growing up for young people ages 14 to 24.

Alex Kotran 7:09

Well it's interesting because I my experience with the Aspen Institute was their Socrates seminars, and it's you know, the the design is so it's really it's really beautiful. I mean, it's this moment where you have all these different folks, you're professionals in this space, um coming together, and it was like it's like three days of like almost like going back to school, and you're studying topics that you don't you're not generally super familiar with, you know, reading like hundreds of pages, you know, that many people are clearing the night before. Um you're sitting down and just like having these uh you know Socratic conversations um and discussions and debates. And it's very cool to think about Aspen also investing in that expertise and that sort of um that special sauce and sort of cultivating youth experiences as well and actually putting you know rubber to the road in terms of actually bringing that experience. Like what is the first year?

SPEAKER_00 8:03

I mean, you've been in this role now for almost August will make a year.

Alex Kotran 8:07

Okay. What has been the what has the first year been like? I mean, do you did you have like a clear set of priorities that you wanted to immediately get done, or were you also doing some sort of longer learning and planning?

Building Aspen’s Youth Strategy

SPEAKER_00 8:20

A little bit of both. So I came thinking three things. One, we needed to bring some cohesion and alignment to the Aspen youth programming that already existed. Um Aspen has 72 different programs, and most of them operate in silos. And so thinking about how we could bring the youth programs together and extend their reach. Some of them serve 25 or 50 young people, some of them serve 200 young people. But if we're talking about a predictable part of growing up, that means we've got to reach kids everywhere. And so, how do we extend the sort of reach and impact of our existing programs? Was question number one. Question number two is how do we push the rest of the institute? So, of these 72 programs, only about 15 of them work with young people. And we want to be a model for what it looks like to engage intergenerationally. And so I have some work with my other colleagues, getting them to think about and build their capacity to work with young people. And then thirdly, kind of getting out into the world to figure out who we should partner with to amplify amazing youth leadership work that's going on, or to create and innovate around new ways to engage young people. Um, and so this first year has really been kind of establishing ourselves as a brand, building connections. We did a research symposium in April where we brought together researchers and practitioners and young people to talk about changing the narrative on adolescence. We called it the promise impossibility of adolescence, but to move away from this deficit-based anxious generation, disengaged teen mental health crisis to something more positive and more proactive. Um, and it was amazing. We had close to 200 people engaged in deep work around what this kind of narrative change might look like. We did it in conjunction with Georgetown University. It was amazing. Um, we are also hosting the Rising Generation Summit, where we've invited young people from almost every single state, I think we're short three states, um, to come together for a weekend of leadership development activities and then to go back to their communities with a community impact project that they will be implementing over the summer. We have Pinterest as our co-sponsor because the young's use Pinterest to dream and envision. And so they'll be with us in June, um, 125 young people from around the country, and they'll go back to their communities and do these impact projects, and we'll feature them and highlight them and show what young people are doing all around the country. We are working on an Aspen Youth Ideas Festival because everybody loves the Ideas Festival, and that is sort of the way Aspen came to be. And the young people said, we want, you know, a youth ideas festival for young people, by young people, um, about young people. And so we're taking a group of young people to the Ideas Festival this summer so that they can then plan the Youth Ideas Festival next summer. So we get to do a lot of cool things. Um, and you know, we're building relationships with people all across the ecosystem, different youth serving organizations to figure out cool ways that we could partner. And so it's really been just kind of getting out there a little bit. Um, but I think longer term, the real play is how do we impact systems where young people are to ensure that they are getting civil discourse and civil dialogue training and hardcore leadership development skills and opportunities for civic engagement as just part of what they do. One of the things that I was just talking to a colleague about is, you know, we have a huge disengagement problem, right? Kids are kids hate school because school sucks. School is not relevant, it's not concentrating on the things that are important to young people. Young people are distracted by their telephones. And every single day I get to hang out with young people who are doing amazing things because they're leading. They're leading in their schools or in their communities and like they want to solve the world's problems. And so, why can't we engage young people in the things that are important to them and use that to help drive learning? Um, and so whether that looks like a curriculum for team captains, right? Because when you become the captain of the lacrosse team or first chair in the band, nobody tells you what that means from a leadership perspective, right? Like, how do you motivate your teammates? How do you set a goal? How do you do any of these things? And so we want to get into a place where we are impacting the systems where young people are showing up every day and getting them the leadership development that they need and leadership opportunities that they deserve.

Alex Kotran 13:33

It's funny because the narrative really is you know, how are we gonna help these poor young people who are gonna be left behind by technology? And um, I I think it's almost quaint for adults to feel like we are gonna have to go and help the kids figure out AI because in every context I've seen, it's completely the opposite. It's like they're gonna be they're gonna be running circles around us. And that's right. I was just talking to to um Jessica and at Stanford. Uh they said something called the the the tinkery, and it's basically a makerspace for for faculty. And the idea is like help faculty figure out how to use AI in their classrooms. Um, the mentors, and they have these mentors that sort of like sort of roam and sort of like help faculty with their projects, they're the students.

SPEAKER_00 14:16

Yeah.

Alex Kotran 14:17

And I do think it's interesting, right? That like we we we feel this but tell me more about this because it's it's not just about AI literacy. It's you're talking about civic engagement. You're talking about almost this narrative of um you you mentioned the anxious generation, which I'm for for those who aren't familiar, I assume you're referencing Jonathan Haidt's book.

SPEAKER_02 14:38

Yes.

Alex Kotran 14:38

Um, and also sort of the broader discourse that has sort of unfolded in part because of Jonathan Hayde, who basically has been sort of sounding the alarm for um the extent to which technology has created uh dislocation and uh dissatisfaction and feelings of isolation and depression um among young people. And but interestingly, even Jonathan Hayde will admit that when you ask young people about, you know, how do you feel about things like you know, TikTok or or Instagram, they'll they'll actually admit that like I if I could get rid of all of this, I would. You know, that they're not it's not that we need to pry it from their their fingers. It's they they they sort of feel um inexorably linked to it, though, because it's like their social lives, there's their their community is there. And so it's you're if you're if you ask them about TikTok, you're really asking them about their entire community. Um so I I love that mention. I mean, what you're you're tackling a very big challenge. I mean, can you just paint a picture of what this actually looks like? I mean, even maybe just going down to a single program, you know, for someone who's wondering, like leadership development is sort of an amorphous thing. Lots of folks talk about leadership development, but like the Aspen Institute has really dialed this in. Yes. Um maybe even just like the most recent example that kind of like can you know help our audience get a sense of what you're what you're building and what you're what you're envisioning.

SPEAKER_00 15:57

Yeah, I mean, so at Aspen, we sort of do three things, right? We dialogue, we convene and dialogue, um, and we develop leaders and we provide opportunities for civic action, right? And so that's the sort of thinking that we want for all young people, the kinds of experiences that we want all young people to have if they are going to lead. And I believe leadership is like driving, right? Like you don't learn it by reading it in a book or by taking a test. You actually learn it by doing it, right? And so how do we create opportunities for young people to dialogue across differences and to learn how to disagree? You know, have a program called Better Arguments, which is literally about equipping people to disagree and to disagree, you know, productively. Or, for example, we have the Aspen Young Leaders Fellowship, which takes young people through the same kind of a Socratic seminar over the course of a year monthly with a huge community impact project. So they're learning discourse and dialogue. They are digging deeply into content that builds their ability to lead, um, and they are choosing a problem in their community that they have to solve together. And so this is the kind of stuff I think that, you know, the Aspen Institute is super good at. We are very, we have a wealth of resources around, you know, skill building and leadership development. Even at the summit that we're hosting for young people next month, we'll do workshops like, you know, digital storytelling and how to engage community around problem solving. These are the kinds of things that when young people start doing that work, they get better at it and then they can lead. We think when I say leadership, we think about problem solving young people problem solving for themselves, for their communities, and for the world. And so if they, as young people, as high schoolers are solving problems for themselves and their community, it just grows. It's like an avalanche. Um, and so we feel like we need to get as many young at bats for young people doing leadership work so that they can take on bigger and broader problems. And not like 20 years from now, right now. Um, because as you say, I mean, every single day, I just came from an AI conference last week, and there were a number of young people there who were literally teaching us just how different their world is because of AI and how they're engaging with AI. And I learned more from the young people, of course, than I did from, you know, the rest of the conference. And so I feel like there's an important intergenerational piece that also has to happen that we're trying to support here at the Center for Rising Generations. Like one of my young people, we've we've hired a ton of young people to come work for us because I can't be doing programming for 14 to 24 year olds because I haven't been 14 or 24 in a very long time. And so we hired a bunch of youngs to come work with us. I also just deeply believe in giving young people real experiences to do hard work. And so one of my youngs said to me, Kaya, the solutions that we're seeking sit at the intersection of wisdom and imagination. And I thought, well, that's profound. And then I was like, wait a minute, am I wisdom and your imagination? And she said, Yes. I said, okay, uh, I just want to know. She's like, but the thing is, wisdom can't do it alone, and imagination can't do it alone. And that thing rings so true for me. Like, I feel like there are adults who have abdicated responsibility and have said, like, fix it, young people. Um, and then I feel like I talk to young people who want to engage intergenerationally. They want to know how can how can we do this together? Um, and so that I think is one of the better parts of my work that I get to do with young people.

Alex Kotran 20:19

Yes, I mean the the the narrative so often is that you know young people are the victims and that technology is like the protagonist that's going to like how how do we unlock, you know, help students of problem solving and um and I think there's a lot of trouble with that uh definition and also just the idea it it's disempowering to you know be so focused on the risks and the concerns, and and there will be disparate impact. The question is the question is does it serve young people to just be so focused on the challenges and and not sort of reciprocate with uh some sort of agency that they can take? A listener might be hearing this and saying, well, yeah, but like that's what school is for. And surely, you know, you might you say things like problem solving and leadership development, like that's what we do in school, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 21:15

No, it is not what we do in school.

Why School Feels Irrelevant

Alex Kotran 21:19

I mean, you mentioned absenteeism. I mean, just um, you know, you don't have to single out, you know, Washington, DC public schools. I mean, it's this is something that's you know a national issue, but just like can you just paint a picture of what is the school like right now? Like what are the challenges that we're trying to tackle?

SPEAKER_00 21:35

Yeah, I mean, I think one, we have reduced school to its most basic elements, right? You need to read by the fourth grade, you need to do algebra by the eighth grade, you need a 75% graduation rate, and you need to prepare kids for college and career. We have deprioritized creativity and extracurricular activities and the things that make us alive. As humans, because we've been driving really hard towards these outcomes. And I think what I learned at DC Public Schools and how we turned it around, I mean, when I got to DCPS, we were the lowest performing urban school district in the country, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress. And when I left 10 years later, we were the fastest improving. And still today, I've been gone for eight years, almost nine years, DCPS is still the fastest improving. And part of the way we did that was to stop thinking about like the reductionism in education and to really speak to, I mean, none of this is rocket science. Like it is speak to things that engage young people, make learning fun, make people have agency. Like we turned our whole curriculum around to teach kids how to solve problems. It's different to teach volume with, you know, a bunch of examples in a math book. It is much more effective to get kids to think about how they're going to move water from this watering hole to this village that is two miles away and they need to actually have different size containers depending on how big or tall you are or whatever, whatever, to carry this water, right? And so when kids are solving problems, when kids are, you know, are stimulated, not just from I mean, we don't like just do math or just do reading, like all of it is in the context of life and larger questions. And so that's how we built our curriculum. And kids were super excited and super engaged. And that's how we turned around our academics by adding, you know, art and music and PE and foreign language and technology and field trips and extracurricular activities and study abroad at a time when most urban school districts were stripping all of that away so that they could drill and kill. That's not how people learn. Come on.

Alex Kotran 23:54

Well, and it's it's interesting because you know, Washington, like like DC I mean, I mean, the the student population that that DCPS serves is incredibly uh underserved.

SPEAKER_02 24:08

Yes.

Alex Kotran 24:09

There's like a huge, there's a there's an extremely like acute like set of um just uh sort of like fundamental uh challenges that those kids are are navigating on a daily basis when they go home from school. And I think that often the the rebuke of these like this like visionary, this is this vision of the future of education is like, look, it's great to say all that stuff, but at the end of the day, you know, kids are going home and they're they're dealing with really difficult um living situations. They may lack uh you know parents or guardians who are in the mix. And you know, it's it's just it's just not reasonable to talk about all of this, you know, pie in the sky ideas about the future of education until you've solved for those um you know basic needs. And yet you kind of are describing this sort of very optimistic and empowering view of like you don't have to you don't have to sort of like let all that stuff to the wayside because while these kids are just again, it's sort of that victim positioning.

SPEAKER_00 25:06

But here's here's what I always think, Alex, right? Like, don't you know wealthy white kids who struggle with reading, or wealthy white kids whose parents are disengaged? Yep, and guess what? We still let them go on a family trip to France, we still let them play lacrosse, we still let them take piano lessons, and we get them a tutor. So, why can't we treat poor black and brown kids the same way we treat wealthy white kids who have problems? Which is yes, and right. And so my thing is this is how I was raised, this is how, this is what I want for my kids, and this is what I, if that's what I want for my kids, then that's what I want for all kids. And I have not, and you know, the proof is in the pudding. Like we met outcomes better than most people from the largest increases in the history of the NAPE exam. Nobody had ever moved up as much as DC public schools had to reversing a 40-year enrollment decline against a robust competition field with tons of charter schools, to you know, the highest teacher retention in the nation, retaining 92% of our highest performing teachers to 90% student satisfaction rate. Like, you can't argue with my receipts, right? And so all I'm saying is none of this is is like brand new thinking. We know what it means to be engaged, right? You know what kind of work environment you want to be in, one where you're challenged, one where your work feels meaningful, one where you get to hang out with other cool people. Why can't school be that way? And so that's what we set out to do. And as a result, we got great results, great outcomes. But I think, and I think the same is true in the way we are characterizing this technology stuff, right? Like kids are not stupid. Kids actually understand deeply both the pitfalls and the possibilities of technology. You know, these young people who I was engaging with last week, a couple of them have started a nonprofit to um educate their peers about um about technology because they feel like informed, informed young people make smart choices, right? And and so, you know, there were other ones who are using AI to build, you know, new tools. And like they are one, this one young woman who I was talking to um who goes to Harvard and has built five or six different AI tools. Um, I said, well, what's your major? She's like, computer science and art. And I was like, say, what? And she's like, oh yeah, yeah. She's like, there's a lot of, and and I that's the thing, right? I think it is not that technology is sucking these kids in. I think these kids are learning to navigate um, you know, what the technological future looks like. And and I think we, I mean, I generally just think we give kids short shrift, right? We underestimate them, we don't trust them. And I think that that's why we have this like victimhood mentality for, you know, the robots coming to suck our kids' brains out, right? Like that, come on.

AI Companions And Human Connection

Alex Kotran 28:24

Yeah. I mean, one thing that's really sort of on my mind is very much something that I've really included in mostly conversations with kids who are reporting this too, which is um I'm actually writing a substack about this, so uh we'll see if it's out before this this episode gets published. Um but essentially just like the the the rates of students interacting with AI companions or just people in general, but it's like mostly I think young people um interacting with the AI companions, like blowing up. I mean, it's like unbelievable. Way more people are talking to AI companions every day than are watching the NBA or the NFL or you know playing some of the most popular video games. Um and it's it's interesting because it's something that I I worry that adults don't even really have the the capability to like truly get into the mind of of a young person because they it's like a lot of adults think this is some future problem that we're gonna have to deal with. Oh yeah, one day people are gonna have AI girlfriends, and like I I watched the movie Her. I'm like the movie Her, which is about this um this guy who you know interacts with this very lifelike AI girlfriend. Um, it it is it's here, it's happening. Oh, yeah. It's a lived experience of millions of people. And and I was really clued into the severity of this in conversations with young people who are saying, you know, stuff like I have friends now that they don't, you know, text and ask to hang out. And I know they're just sitting at home and they're sort of like texting or sexting their AI girlfriend or their AI boyfriend. Um and it strikes me as the type of example where if we don't empower young people to help us understand how the world is changing, you know, it's gonna be a long time before adults, I think, figure out that how wide of an issue this is. Um and by that point, you know, we'll have missed an opportunity, which is, you know, and and and I also wonder, and I'm curious if you're taking this, like, you know, let's say you really believe, and maybe it's the jury is out, I don't know. But I I I let's say you're like me and you deeply believe that it's probably not a good thing for a kid to be sitting at home by themselves, you know, having these like extended conversations and relationships with AI that perhaps get in the way of human relationships. Um but let's say you agree with me on that. I mean, are adults really going to be successful in preventing it by just saying to kids, you can't do that? No, not at all. When has that ever worked? Um so I'm kind of curious: like, how much can can adults really do? And and and in what way do we really need to figure out how to harness young people as almost like the champions and messengers?

SPEAKER_00 31:04

Yeah, it's a really good question. I don't think I have as much of a handle on how much young people are engaging with these AI companions until very recently. But I was having a conversation with a young woman who was telling me that pretty soon, like her AI, she's gonna introduce her AI companion to her friend's AI companions. And I was like, what? Um and she's like, well, you know, it is a little bit like to really deeply understand me, like you need to understand kind of all of the things that are happening that my AI companion has captured. And I like it blew my mind. I also heard a young person say last week that it was just easier to engage with the AI companion than it is to engage with people in real life. And I know for sure that most adults have no idea that, I mean, even most of the newest AI stuff coming out is around companionship, right? Um, and I young uh most adults are not paying attention to this. Um we are not going to solve this problem, but I do agree with you that kids should not just be sitting at home um tugging to their AI chatbot or a companion or whatever. But um I think this is for me, like my big worry is how we make the case for staying sort of humanly connected, right? Like it is making sure that our kids are engaged in sports and other activities so that their life is not just on screens, like kids don't go to the mall anymore and hang out or whatever. And I think the thing that adults have to do is be intentional about creating environments for interaction, right? And that way there's not like it's it's like when you say don't do something, kids run to that thing, right? So, like, let's not trip about it. You can have an AI companion. I just don't want that to be your whole world. So, what else are we doing in addition to the thing? I think giving kids some agency around that. Like, let's craft a life together. What do you want? Like, what do you want this life to look like? What are we gonna do? How are we gonna learn, grow, blah, blah, blah? Everything is not here. So let's let's dream of something together. And I think that um I think that's how we start to deal with this. I also am just like it is, I think there's a little like pandemic hangover, right? Where for a while we were all so inside and just so insular and just talking on screens. And so I think that there are, I think for a lot of people, especially young people, right, who, and a huge swath of young people, right? So kindergartners during the pandemic who weren't playing with each other and who weren't, you know, whose initial socializing sort of learnings were kind of retarded to middle schoolers who like I think the pandemic sort of messed up our socialization across a lot of different age ranges and dynamics. And so there's a part of me that wonders like, is it just easier to engage across screens because we had this like pandemic moment? Or like, will now that like people are engaging more and you know, everything that I hear about is third spaces and places where people want to like I do think it's crazy. I was talking to one of my young persons who is telling me about third spaces, and I was like, well, third spaces used to be church and your bowling league and your civic association and your knitting circle. And I have young people who are telling me like they want to create knitting circles as third spaces. And I'm like, maybe this is maybe we're not in such trouble, right? Because I actually think that young people are still craving, you know, places to come together and put down their phones. That's all we've been talking about. Put down your phone and engage with people. And so I feel like we have to be as diligent about, you know, um scaling that technology as we are about scaling artificial intelligence.

Alex Kotran 35:29

Yeah, but I was actually gonna say precisely that it's really impressive to hear um, you know, a founder like yourself, you know, talking about this grand vision for the world. And and what is at the center of it is not technology, but but creating uh you know community and like physical experiences. And sure, I mean you mentioned ways that technology can be like a really powerful tool that gets harnessed, makes you like you mentioned, like sort of community projects. And if I can I can think of a hundred ways that technology could help a student do a really badass community project, but the hard thing is not figuring out the technology. The hard thing is how do you get those kids together in that space? And it's it's just like less sexy. It's like you can't growth hack something like bringing kids together and like empowering them to um, you know, like even just the process you described of like bring kids to Aspen Ideas, like that invaluable sort of like qualitative research that those kids are doing, you can't sort of like skip over that. Um it's inspiring to hear you that just like, yeah, let's put the time in, let's put do the hard work. But you were you were gonna react. I mean, do you do you see a world where this could be scaled? I mean, like from it.

SPEAKER_00 36:43

I just I think about technology. So, like, you know, whatever. But we didn't have the internet when I was growing up. We didn't have like all of these, we didn't clearly didn't have the technology that we have now, right? And do I spend too much time on my phone? Probably. But my phone enables my life, right? Whether it is, you know, whatever, tracking my steps or my weight or my whatever to, you know, scheduling things. So like everything that I do is technologically supported, but like the tech is not my life. And I think that um I think we, we, like we, we have these pendulum swings, right? It's either all technology or no technology. That's not life, right? Life is somewhere in the middle. And so, can we imagine a life for young people? Like, my whole entire career has been about enabling young people to like reach their fullest potential, to be whoever they want to be in the world. And I feel like technology, let's technology, let's use technology to do that. That's what technology is supposed to be doing, right? Like you, we just talked about TikTok, is where people find community, right? It is how people are making change, it's how people are advocating for issues that are important to them. So cool, let's use it for that. But let's not make the thing the thing, right? It is AI. What is AI? I mean, what like the real question is what problem are you trying to solve and how can technology help you do that?

Alex Kotran 38:11

What advice do you have for you know, because we we we work with a lot of system makers, and there is just a lot to tackle right now.

SPEAKER_00 38:21

Yeah.

Advice For Overloaded Superintendents

Alex Kotran 38:22

Um you mentioned sort of like the COVID hangover, and it really does feel like that. Like we're we're just starting to even just get a sense of the extent of the learning loss and you know how you know not everybody is necessarily back, but we have teacher shortages that are more and more acute. It's really interesting that you're you're included, like this big heavy focus on the teacher capital and the human capital component of schools, because I really everything that you're talking about, there is a teacher on the other side of that vision that we're bringing it to life. Um so whether or not that's actually part of your answer to this, I'd I'd be curious. But the your advice is this to a superintendent of a district who now they're hearing this and they're like, okay, I thought I just had to solve AI literacy. Now I'm hearing that I need to figure out how to make learning more engaging and create more physical spaces. Like their heads are probably swirling, so much, there's so much on their plate, and there's so many burning priorities. Like what are any of these things interconnected? Like, is there sort of a set of you came into a district superintendent back in the leadership role? Like, what would your sort of like top of your agenda be in service of some of the things that you're you're describing, this sort of vision of like empowering youth and bringing giving them agency?

SPEAKER_00 39:42

Yeah, I mean, it's interesting because this is what I like my superintendent friends are fatigued and burnt out and uninspired by even what they are doing right now. And so I've said to them, Well, what if your job wasn't whatever you think it is? And what if your job was to build a cadre of leaders, to turn out leaders from your school district every year who could, you know, solve problems, change the world, whatever, whatever. And they're like, Well, if I was doing that, I would do lots of things differently, right? And so I think, again, like we've reduced education to this set of metrics instead of thinking holistically, like a school is very well positioned to create physical experiences for kids because that's where they are. Is it's easy to build community at a school. It is like all of the things that we're talking about are actually the things that schools are good at, right? But we've got them doing 250 different things instead of the five good things that they are really good at or should be good at, right? And we've got 25 different people holding them accountable from the school board to the city council to parents to whatever, whatever, because we don't have a shared view of what their job is. And so if I were, if I had advice to a superintendent, I would say stop doing so much, concentrate on a couple of things that you know you can really do well, and don't ignore your expertise. We have policy people who never set foot in a school building telling us what we need to do for young people. Trash. These are people who have spent their lives as experts on children. And so let's rely on our expertise. I had people telling me I should do all kinds of things at DC public schools. And I was like, yeah, that's not, that does not jibe with what I think. And so I'm gonna do the things that feel true to me in, you know, making things move for kids. And as long as there were enough of us who kind of had a center of gravity around those things, those are the things that we did. Sometimes you gotta black out all the noise and do the things that you know are good and right.

Alex Kotran 41:57

Yeah, and I I I mean, I think that so much of the work that we do is you know, it's like like the demystification of artificial intelligence, um but in service of really empowering education leaders to and and teachers to like bring their expertise to the table because it's like we again is there's the same sort of like protagonist, antagonist sort of like victim framing that we have in for teachers. It's like, oh, well the teachers they're they can't figure out what's going on with Chat GBT and they think it's cheating, but it's actually not cheating, and they're just Luddites because they're you know too afraid of the technology, they need to embrace it. And it's like this idea that teachers are afraid of technology and they're they're they're Luddites, really it is such a disservice and it doesn't honor like their deep intuition. And I like to replace cheating with with shortcuts because maybe it may or may not be cheating. This is a semantic argument. It is definitely a shortcut. Teachers totally get it.

SPEAKER_02 42:58

They totally get it.

Alex Kotran 42:59

It's like these kids are and and what and I think what what sometimes, and I'm actually doing a uh a PD on this at my mom's school tomorrow. My message to teachers is look, you're on to something, you you are a little bit behind the curve on that. Like the thing that the thing that you're intuiting about cheating, uh your kids are just way more advanced. And so part of like what you needed to figure out is like try to keep try to get maybe not maybe not completely keep up, but try to at least understand like how they're using technology. And then you have the tools yourself to kind of design these, like, you know, project-based learning is not some new innovation. That's ultimately the uh the answer to to like chat GPT and cheating is like more project based learning. Technologies don't really have any place to lecture teachers about how to do PPL. Um, but I think right now teachers don't necessarily understand that like it's almost that simple. Yeah. Um and and their their assumption is that this is some sort of like and often it's like they're and I I'll you react to that for a second just a second, but it's one thing else is on my mind, which is um they a lot a lot of times we are now throwing more technology that's like, oh, well, the way to get ahead of the kids is to catch them cheating as they're using the detectors as this enforcement, which is just such a it's just so interesting to see us going through the same like revs that we went through in the past.

SPEAKER_00 44:22

Well, I think one, we have this like I went through it, and so you have to go through it too, right? Which like I didn't have to, if I didn't have to learn my times tables like through rote memorization, because there was always gonna be a calculator in my hand, right? I would have preferred not to. I could have been doing some other things. If teachers knew that they could, you know, use technology to grade their papers or to write their lesson plans or whatever, of course they would ask any professor at Harvard who is now using Chat GPT for their whole syllabus, right? Like, and so why wouldn't we give kids the tools that they need to be successful and then use that shortcut to take it up a level, right? To do the things that technology can't do. And I've seen lots of teachers who are into it, who are using generative AI, who are crafting their lessons. I mean, it's so interesting to me the hypocrisy of the K-12 world, which is still embroiled in this whole cheating thing, versus higher education, where I feel like I'm watching professors craft meaningful lessons using generative AI, right? Where young people have to use generative AI as part of the work. And somehow or another, in college, it's acceptable for us to use technology and tools to solve problems and to be efficient and whatever, whatever. But like in K-12, you got to slug it out and do it the old-fashioned way. Why is that?

Alex Kotran 45:58

But it is it's interesting. There's a student is actually, I don't know if he's suing the school, but he's um he's oh wait, I think he's demanding his a refund on his tuition because he discovered that a bunch of his professors are using AI to create assignments and to sort of like create lesson plans. And they have a ban, I think, on the use of AI.

SPEAKER_00 46:18

And it was this like, so if they have a ban on the use of AI for students, it is quite hypocritical for to be supposed to use it. But that's why there shouldn't be a ban on these things, like I don't know.

Alex Kotran 46:31

Yeah, it's uh it's certainly the case in the workplace, right? Like companies are over themselves trying to figure out how do we get our employees to use AI. I think going back to what what the conversation, like the earlier conversation we were having about it's like human relationships, and you talked about uh just to sort of like paraphrase, but you talked about sort of like the importance of high friction in sort of building sort of like the the skills to be a human.

SPEAKER_02 46:58

Yes.

Alex Kotran 46:58

Um and I do think that there's a legitimate question about and I'm gonna talk about human relationships, but I think there's a corollary to like you know things like arithmetic or like writing essays, like just the hard stuff that you don't necessarily want to do, but maybe you have to do some of it and the question is which pieces are critical. Um but you know, I think like I think it's a really formative part of being a kid to like tell a joke and have your friends not laugh at it. Ask somebody out on a date and say no and to sort of like sit with that rejection.

SPEAKER_02 47:30

Yeah.

Alex Kotran 47:31

And I know it's like easy to say that as an adult looking back. And I know as a kid when adults would tell me stuff like that, I would kind of roll my eyes, but I really believe it's true. And so I worry about the like the tendency of AI to be really powerful for folks like you and me who have already gone through that. You know, we've we've gone through those. I mean, I'm sure you've dealt with quite a lot of rejection and complicated, if not outright, uh hostile human uh relationships uh as a leader of a big district. Um, but surely you would have struggled in that work, your work at DCPS if you hadn't like sort of just like put the time in, sort of like built the calluses and the the thick skin that you need, and also the ability to like know when you need to come in and empathize. And so we use I mean, I'm just curious, like I mean, you you're also building the answer, I believe, right? Because like the answer is I think we've discussed is sort of like, well, you just have to, you can't that's not a curriculum, that's just an experience that you have by being around other people. Like five years from now, is there a world where your work at Aspen will have kind of like catalyzed like impact beyond just what you're able to convene or or reach directly? Like, do you have any sense of like what it would look like for what you're building to become almost like a model that other either in is it schools? Like, like what would it yeah, like what is the what is sort of like the grand vision of of of how like your work could yeah? So I think push us closer to this.

SPEAKER_00 49:00

Um I think I think that my like personal goal for this work is to have legions of young people who are so accustomed to leading, whether it's in school or in community or whatever, that like they like that the adult world is just not ready for how assertive they are, how effective they are, how like that is just not ready for them. Um, because we don't generally think about young people this way. But because they've had so much leadership experience, they can go out and do things that people might not expect. And I do think that this is way beyond just the young people who we can put our hands on, right? I think this is about systems change as well. How do we ensure that in many of the places where young people are, that they are getting this leadership opportunity stuff built in? Um, kids are learning everywhere. And I think that's a huge um, it's a huge opportunity for us because I don't just have to go to schools. I can actually affect young people in, you know, in community-based organizations. I can affect young people who are incarcerated, I can affect young people, you know, online, offline. Like there are lots of places where young people are. I can convene them, we can push out curriculum to folks who are serving young people. There are just so many ways to reach young people nowadays. And we love school because school is one place where they actually all show up, but we ask school to do too many things. That's why school is not as effective as it needs to be broadly. And so I think we should let other people do stuff with young people. I'm big on sort of the kind of credentialing and independent study and curating your own set of learning experiences and then going somewhere and get credit for that, as opposed to putting the onus all on the school to do every single thing. And so I feel like we can reach lots of kids well beyond the ones that we can just put our hands on, even sort of with these 125 young people that we're convening next month, like they're gonna go out into their communities and they have to figure out what their communities are passionate about. And that's what their work has to be about, right? They're gonna engage people in this project that they're doing. And, you know, for the 125 who who I'm touching, you know, think times 10 that they will be engaging with just to do this small project that we're asking them to do. So I do believe that it is possible. I believe that um, if I do my job right, young people and their parents are going to start to demand why doesn't school look like this? Why isn't school giving us these kinds of meaningful experiences? And that's when I think we crack the nut of what is school.

Alex Kotran 52:10

Yep. Sam right. And if anybody can do it, it's you. And this is why and this is why we, you know, AI EDU, we're so f we talk about AI readiness, not just using AI, but um, you know, durable skills and engaging, uh uh uh building agency with kids. And I think part of the goal is uh really push to like use this moment. We have the zeitgeist, like AI is is the shiny object. Um and that's powerful. I think people will roll their eyes at it, but like I think a lot about presidential campaigns and successful presidential campaigns almost invariably have this like zeitgeist that they're calling. Yeah, the thing that people just just it just lets on to it draws people to it, it puts it at the top of conversation. AI is that thing. And we the the question is do we just use that as an excuse to sell more tools into schools, or do we use it as a catalyst to actually help a superintendent see this as you know, you may not think about um you know, student leadership development as part of AI readiness, but that's really what's important. Yeah, like the ability to communicate and problem solve and you know use technology for specific uh you know outcomes for your community, like that is what companies are gonna be looking for. That's what I think colleges sooner or later are gonna realize they need to be looking for. Yeah. Um and so that's why I think you know what expanding the horizons of what people think about when they think like being ready for AI, I think what you're doing is sort of almost needs to be not just at the peripheral, but almost at the heart of it. And the tools, you know, you tell us what tools you need, right? Like that's like we we can we will be able to build you people should be able to build you the tools that you need to, but but in to what end? And it's not just better math scores. I think that is like where a lot of folks are getting stuck. Like, how do we use AI to increase our math reading scores?

AI Readiness Beyond Test Scores

SPEAKER_00 54:03

And that's important, but it's yes, but that's not that is that is a means to an end, right? The end is living a great life, you know, problem solving, leading, whatever. And we have in education made the means the end, right? We can't be afraid of this technology. We have to jump in with both feet. Adults have to start playing around and start getting familiar and and whatnot. And like, I I feel like the worst thing that we could possibly do is run away from it. Cause I feel like we're abandoning our young people and and who knows what the world is gonna look like if we don't stay in it with our young people. They want us to be in it with them.

Alex Kotran 54:50

Yeah, we have the responsibility to um lean in.

SPEAKER_00 54:54

Yeah.

Alex Kotran 54:54

Umerson, such a pleasure. Fine, I'm glad we were able to make it. I I will uh are you you're in Washington sort of most of the time these days?

SPEAKER_00 55:03

Are you Yes.

Alex Kotran 55:04

And then you'll be at Aspen Ideas, I presume.

SPEAKER_00 55:07

Yes, I will.

Alex Kotran 55:08

What in like three weeks or something? It's pretty it's coming up.

SPEAKER_00 55:12

Yeah, end of June, last week in June.

Alex Kotran 55:14

All right. Um I won't be there, thank God. I am I have like tapping out after June 12th. Good for you. But um yeah, thank you so much again for for making the time and we'll uh we'll send you the the cut once it's once it's ready to and with a transcript if if you're someone on your team wants to kind of go through and um redline. Thank you, Alex.

SPEAKER_00 55:37

I appreciate the opportunity.

Alex Kotran 55:38

We appreciate it, of course.