Transformative Principal

Jethro Jones: Welcome to Transformative
Principal, where I help you stop

putting out fires and start leading.

I'm your host, Jethro Jones.

You can follow me on
Twitter at Jethro Jones.

Okay.

Welcome to Transformative Principal
and to AI for Education Real Talk.

I am Jethro Jones, and today I'm
sharing a little recording that I did

from my AI Leader Office Hours, which
was just a monologue of me talking

about some things that have been on
my mind lately that I haven't put out

yet, and to a broad audience at least.

So I wanted to share these with you.

Would love to hear what you
have to say and your thoughts.

Please reach out to me, Jethro at
Transformative Principal dot com, or

on any social network at Jethro Jones.

Look forward to hearing your thoughts.

I.

I'm going to share some of my thoughts
about where we're at with AI and what

we're doing, and I just kind of been
thinking about things and haven't written

'em down or, or spoken about 'em anywhere.

Uh, all, all in this
nice little package yet.

So I'm gonna do this today and
I hope this is valuable for you.

And more importantly,

I hope that you can see this as a way to.

Make a wake up call for how we're
doing things and do it better for the

people that are there in front of us
and be willing to change some things.

So I wanna start with a hard truth.

In education, we could not have
done a better job of preparing

our system to be overtaken by ai.

We have designed schools to be
easy for adults and not focused on

designing schools to be good for kids.

The way we did that is that we made
student work completely formulaic and

predictable and super easy to automate.

We did that for a, a decent reason, which
was we wanted to make it easy on teachers

to know how the kids were doing and know
how they're progressing and be able to

manage having 150, 200 students in a
day, as I did, as a, uh, middle school

teacher, myself and a high school teacher.

So I get why we did it, but the problem
is, is that we made the perfect system

for AI to step in and do a huge amount
of the work of students and teachers.

And that is just what we did.

And I don't think that we were like,
Hey, let's create the perfect system

where AI can come in and completely
take over what we're doing, but we have.

Effectively shot ourselves
in the foot with this.

Um, and by prioritizing adult
convenience over student learning,

we've literally dug our own grave.

And that is why we're
struggling so much right now.

Um, and to be honest, I don't think
we know how to reckon with the world.

The AI is created for schools.

We don't know what to do when kids
can so easily just put all their

answers into chat, GPT, and I'll get
to the, well, we should just hand write

our essays, uh, thing in a moment.

But the problem is that we've
forgotten what school should actually

about, should actually be about.

Schools should be about learning.

They should not be about assignments.

They should not be about tests.

They should not be about easy to
manage grading systems that are

there for the ease of the adults.

They should be about
learning first and foremost.

And so many of our schools are not.

Our schools should be designed
around whatever it is that makes

it easier for kids to learn.

Whatever it is that helps kids
focus on real learning and

their own personal capability.

That's what school should be about.

I've said this four years, but schools
should be designed around the people

that are there, the students that you
have, and the teachers that you have.

My book, school X. That I released
five years ago is all about redesigning

your school for the people that are
right there in front of you, that

are your students and teachers.

For the parents that are there, for
the teachers that are there, for the

community, that is there for you, who's
there, because just the way that your

previous principal did, it may not
be the thing that works best for you.

So lemme talk a little bit more about
how we set things up for AI to be.

The, how we set our schools up to be the
perfect target for ai uh, assignments.

We gave the same assignment to every
single student so the teacher can grade

it easily, and that makes it really easy
for the teachers, but it also makes it

really easy for the AI to come in and know
exactly how to answer it and how to do it.

We made grades based on the
assignments we say to kids.

You did X.

So you get the grade for X, and
the X is the assignment, the

test, the project, whatever it is.

We set it up so that they
check the box and they move on.

We created in an effort
to make things better.

We said we're gonna use a rubric instead
of just assigning a letter grade, but the

rubric literally says, check these boxes,
and that's how you get a perfect score.

And that is exactly what I have
done with my own kids and my own

students saying, look, the teacher
gave you the keys to the kingdom.

Here's the rubric.

Do exactly what it says.

And they have no reason to
not give you a perfect grade,

literally for getting grants.

You look at the rubric first, and then
you write your grant proposal in a way

that clearly shows how you can check
the box for each one of those rubric

aspects to be able to get the grant or
whatever it is that you're going for.

When a rubric is provided, it
says, this is exactly what you

need to do to get this thing.

So you do it, you check
the box and you move on.

Now, you may.

Hope as a teacher that kids are going
to get some learning outta that.

And to be honest, they do.

And that's all fine and dandy.

But the problem is, is that
AI is extremely good at doing

exactly those kinds of tasks.

Formulaic writing, standardized
responses, and box checking work.

AI is very good at that.

You tell it to do this thing and it will
do it, and it's very easy for it to do it.

It's very good about doing repetitive
structured, clearly defined tasks.

What do most of our assignments
in school look like?

Repetitive, structured, clearly defined.

It is also very good at
providing good enough responses

to some formulaic prompts.

If you ask, for example, for it to
describe what a certain theme in a

popular book is, the AI can do that.

That's really easy for the AI
to do that because it has that

corpus of knowledge accessible
and it knows what that looks like.

Some of the things that AI is not
so easy, so simple to use for that.

It's a little bit more challenging,
are highly specific, deeply contextual

and personal task unless you provide
all of that context yourself.

You have to tell it exactly
what to include and how to

feel about those things.

If you don't, then it
will just make things up.

For example, if you're like, okay,
instead of just saying, what's the

content of this book that we're
reading, you ask the students to

tell how it applies to their life.

A student can still say, this
applies to my life because, and

just plug that into chat, GPT and
it will just make something up.

And the AI can do that pretty
easily and very confidently.

That's why it's really easy
for the AI to, to trick.

People into thinking that it's
real is because it, it says things,

it replies to things with so much
confidence that you're like, yeah,

this is definitely, definitely true.

I can totally get this.

So this idea of school being designed
for the ease of the teachers has

set it up perfectly for AI to come
in and, and totally disrupt us.

Most people right now are using ai.

To do things faster and easier
and we're doing the same old

work just more efficiently.

I was just in Wyoming earlier this month
doing a training, uh, called AI for

Innovation, and what I was really focusing
on is everybody's using it for completing

these tasks and checking off the boxes.

We're doing the same old
work that we've always done.

We're just doing it more efficiently
now that's totally fine if the same

old work that you've been doing.

Is the work that you actually need to do.

But the problem is, is that is
not, that is not often the case.

Sometimes you really don't need to be
doing that work that you were doing.

I tell this joke is it's half a
joke, half real, that I would not,

uh, reply to anything or do anything
that the district asked me to do

until they asked me three times.

And people laugh when I say
that because everybody's like,

oh yeah, that'd be funny.

But the reality is, is that I did do that.

It did work because the district would
ask me to do things that they didn't

actually need done, but they're like
sitting in a meeting somewhere and

they're like, oh, we should get this
information from all the principals.

And so they would then ask
all the principals, and the

principals would be like, well,
there goes the rest of my week.

Now I gotta get all this
stuff in for the district.

But.

They would send that email and then
the next day they'd come back into

that same meeting with the same
group of people and say, you know,

nevermind, we don't really need this.

Meanwhile, the principals are
all working trying to find all

that information and get them the
information they need, and they've

already decided they don't need it.

So then the.

Principles, turn it in and they're
like, thank you for doing this.

That's great.

But then nothing ever happens.

I saw that happen so
many times in my career.

I decided it just wasn't worth it.

I'm just not going to do this until
I get asked for it multiple times.

'cause if I get asked for it multiple
times, then I'll do it because I know

that they really are looking for it.

But most of the time they, they
probably don't need those things.

So people are usually using AI to do
the same old work just more efficiently.

They're never asking the question.

Should I even be doing this work?

Should I even be writing this email?

Should I be writing this newsletter?

Very few people are using AI
to solve complex problems that

don't have a clear answer.

For example, how do I improve
attendance rates at my school?

There's not a single
right answer for that.

You can look at my TEDx video
where I got my, uh, where I shared

how I got my school attendance
up to 95% Jethro site slash TEDx.

You can go watch that video and see
how I did it at my school, but that

might not work at your school and
that might not work today because

things have changed so much since.

In the last 13 years since
I originally gave that talk.

There are multiple strategies and
multiple ways to solve a problem, and

you don't know what works until you try.

But that is a good question to ask
AI because we don't know the answer

and you may get something that you
don't know could work, but again,

you're gonna have to actually try it.

So using AI in that example.

May not be as beneficial as, how do
I write a nice truancy letter to the

family that makes them feel good?

Well, lemme tell you what, the truancy
letter does not work anyway, and if

somebody is at the point where they're
getting a truancy letter, then a

little letter in the mail is not going
to make them suddenly change their

mind about prioritizing education
and coming to school every day.

That's just not gonna work.

How do I know?

Because I've seen it hundreds of times.

I've sent out hundreds of those letters.

And did they ever work?

No, they didn't.

All they were was us documenting that
we were trying, so that if we ever did

go to court, then we could say yes.

We tried.

Then what happens now?

We're fighting with this kid
and their family in court.

Yeah.

That really makes a student
want to come to your school.

We are gonna force you by
coercion of law to make you come.

That's a winning strategy.

If you can't sense the sarcasm
in my voice, it's real.

So we need to have a shift in our
schools instead of just doing the same

old thing we've always been doing.

We need to stop a few things
and start a few things.

Number one, we need to
stop focusing, focusing on

assignments, tests, and passing.

And we need to stop designing
for ease of grading.

In fact, if I had my way, I would say
you're not allowed to give assignments

or tests anymore because we need to
figure out what these kids really know.

And the best way for us to figure
that out is them demonstrating it.

I'll get more into that in a little bit.

We need to pay this.

One of the things, some of the things
we need to start are we need to start

paying attention to actual learning.

We need to be asking, can this student
really do what they need to be able to do?

And what does that look like
in each different subject at

each different grade level?

What does that actually look like?

We need to be able to design learning
that can't just be handed off to ai.

Now, there are some things that we
definitely should hand off to AI and

technology to do, creating thousands of
practice, uh, questions for something.

No teacher should ever
be doing that again.

You should have an AI do that
because the AI can make those so

much faster and so much better.

So if a kid needs a ton of practice, and
not all kids do, but if a kid does need

a ton of practice on low level addition
or multiplication or algebra problems or

calculus problems or whatever they are,
we should definitely be turning to another

tool for that practice that should not be
a teacher creating that, because if the

kid just needs practice and they know how
to do it, but they just need practice to

do it again and again and again, then.

We should provide them an
opportunity to do that.

And a computer, a piece of technology,
can do a much better job of that

than a teacher can, and it's a
much more efficient use of time.

But.

That's if the student
actually needs the practice.

If a student comes into your class being
able to do addition up to 10, for example.

I'm keeping it simple on purpose,
but you can apply this to any

standard that you can easily measure.

'cause that's most of
what we do in school.

If the kid can already do it, they
should really be opted out of any

practice or tests that work with that.

For example, when I was a middle
school teacher, I had a student

come in who was already reading
some amazing Victorian literature.

She already understood it way more
than my students currently did.

She understood how to write and
how to communicate effectively.

Those were my real jobs as an
English teacher, which I know is not

what most English teachers think,
but those were my real jobs, was

make sure kids could communicate
effectively this student could.

So I said, look.

You don't have to do any of the
assignments that I give in class, not a

single one, because you're way ahead of
all these other seventh grade students.

That was like blasphemy.

And I didn't tell anybody because I
knew people would not be okay with that.

I said, you get, you
passed the class already.

You have an A. So what we're
gonna focus on is you doing actual

learning that's beneficial to you.

So you figure out what you want
to learn this year, talk to me

about it and let's make a plan.

And that's what we did.

And this student who was amazing.

Did incredible work and turned in a
binder at the end of the year that

she checked in with me on regularly
and said, here's what I'm working on.

Well, how does this look?

What do you think?

And it was the best teaching experience
that I've ever had in my life because

this young woman was a genius and I
felt honored to be able to be in the

same orbit as her for that one year.

She was awesome.

Now.

She moved on and went on to
eighth grade and then high school.

And I don't know what happened to
her, but I do know that she knew how

to learn and she knew the content
that I was trying to teach already.

And it was amazing.

And I, I loved that year and that
inspired me for the rest of my career

to find opportunities to do that.

Now people are gonna have
some pushback in an AI world.

When AI can do the work so easily, people
ask, why should we do anything else?

And that's fair.

We gotta be honest about that.

If the AI can do it, why should
we spend any time with it?

And the reality is we have to be honest
about what AI can't do and what will

still deeply matter in human life.

What does it mean to be a human?

What does it mean to be a. A, a person
who can interact with other people in

this life, we have to address that.

We have to have an idea
of what that looks like.

So there are few practical
things that the AI cannot yet

do, and maybe it will someday.

Uh, so it cannot, for example, fix the
leaking sink under your counter, like the

ai, there's no robot right now that can
come in and do that, or physically fix

anything else in your home or on your car.

Right now, that's where it's at.

And in a few years that
may be very possible.

However, AI might be able to help invent
something like self-healing plastics.

It might be used in conjunction
with a scientist to figure

out how to create that.

It might be able to create flexible
pipes that never leak with the

help of a human so that you will
be able to have your sink going.

With one continuous thing that doesn't
have any junctions or anything that

could cause it to leak, that may be
the the possibility in the future.

Right now, physical hands-on
skills are still human things

that may change in the future.

In fact, I'm sure it will to some extent.

The other thing that AI can't
do is that the AI cannot.

Have human emotions, it can mimic them
and it can look like it has them, but

it cannot, I, I don't remember where
I heard this, and I wish that I could

because I, I've said it many times, but
AI does not have empathy, and it looks

like it does have empathy, but the real
difference between real human empathy

and AI empathy is that humans are limited
in how much they can give of themselves.

AI is not, and AI can keep talking to you
for 10 years straight and pretend like

it has empathy this whole entire time.

But humans have finite time and other
resources, and so we cannot, as humans,

take care of and care for someone else
100% of the time for the next 10 years.

It's just not possible.

Even parents, part of their caring for
their kids is obviously going to work

and getting a job and making money to be
able to pay for all the things that their

kids need, but they cannot only do that.

We have to recharge, we have to take
care of ourselves, and eventually our

bodies break down and we run out of time
to do all the things that we want to.

Just this week, you and I have both
not had the time to do something.

With someone that we love,
that we wanted to do.

AI doesn't have those limitations.

It can, uh, praise us, work with us,
support us as much as we ask it to,

and, and that's just the reality.

So as humans, we have limitations and
those limitations are what make us humans.

And that's not a bad thing.

So the question becomes what should we be
teaching then if, if these skills, uh, if,

if the AI can't do these skills, should we
only be focusing on teaching things, uh,

that are not able to be found in a book?

The thing is, for a long time, Google
and Wikipedia and other technology

tools have made knowledge retrieval.

So easy, so trivial and AI has
just taken it to the next level.

So the things we need to be teaching
are not just information, because

information exists out there and you
can find it and access it very easily

through many different platforms.

What we should be teaching are human
skills that AI cannot easily replicate.

We need to be teaching deep thinking
and relational skills for each other.

The things that allow us to tackle
these wicked problems, which

are ambiguous, messy, real world
problems that we all run into.

Now that doesn't mean that we should
abandon teaching information because

it's much more valuable when you
can do mental math in your head,

when you can find a quote from
somebody that you want to share.

When you can, uh, share the things
that you know because you know them,

not because you looked them up.

There is value in that still.

And I'm not saying that we
should go away from that.

I was talking with some friends
the other day and they were.

Somebody brought up the idea of the
power of memorizing things and how

valuable it is to memorize things.

Well, in a classical education,
there are certain things that you,

uh, memorized or did recitations
in Latin or Greek or whatever, and

those can be valuable, but it's not
about the recitation of those things.

It's about number one, understanding
what those things are that you're,

that you're trying to memorize.

But also how those things
actually apply to you.

So recitations where everybody
recites the same thing.

The reason why that's done is so that
it is easy for the teacher to say, yes,

you got that thing and you recited it.

And that's, that's all well and good.

What's more valuable is having recitations
of things that are truly meaningful

to you, that help you with how you
understand the world and what that means.

That's the key.

And because of AI and technology, it's
much easier to quote unquote grade that

and say, yes, this person memorized this
thing, because we have all these ways of

tracking whether or not that that works.

So you can record that and the
AI can say, yes, this matches the

thing that they were supposed to.

To memorize.

Whereas in a traditional classical
classroom where everybody's memorizing

the same thing that was done to make it
easy for the teacher to say, yes, all

these students can memorize this thing.

And some of those, some of
those recitations do still

have value, and we can continue
those, but not all of them do.

So let me share an example.

I was talking to one of the principals I
coach the other day, and he mentioned that

one of his friends was doing, uh, some,
some PR work for a large organization

and they were writing the newsletters,
doing ads, doing doctor features,

working with the logos, getting press
releases out, all that kind of stuff.

And the organization replaced him with a
younger, more tech oriented person who's

using AI to do most of the content work.

Now, to be honest, I don't
really have a problem with that.

I don't, I don't think that's
a bad idea necessarily.

But the problem is, is when we identify
and say that a person's job is this thing.

Which is writing content,
putting out press releases,

newsletters, ads, doctor features.

If that's their job, then it's
probably pretty easy to say yes.

That's what that, that's, that's easy
to replace with somebody who costs

a lot less and knows how to use AI
and can do those things much faster.

However, that's probably not
what a PR person really does.

The PR person creates relationships,
connects with people, and develops

these relationships in a way that
the organization gets benefit

from those relationships and the
network that that PR person has.

This is really valuable and something
that, uh, we forget about when it

comes to hiring people for work.

The work is not just doing these discreet
tasks, however, part of work is doing

some discreet tasks, and when the discreet
tasks can be done better, more efficiently

and more effectively with ai, that's
not a bad idea to use AI to do that.

In fact, that's a smart, fiscally
responsible way to manage that.

So in this situation, the AI
can generate press releases.

And draft newsletters and
marketing content and create

ads and do all that stuff.

But what AI cannot do is build
deep relationships with donors

and the people that work there.

It cannot have nuanced
conversations that could bring in

major gifts to the organization.

I can't read a room and connect human to
human with somebody within that place.

So the real value of that PR role was the
relationships, the trust, and the high

stakes human connection to other people.

Those are the kinds of things that we
need to be teaching kids to develop

and understand because ai, while it's
great and can do a lot of cool things.

Still cannot do those things.

And to be honest, if an AI is doing those
things, it feels more invasive than if a

human is doing it because it feels like
it is mining you for data and seeking for

transactional outcomes from the things
that you are talking with it about.

So in our schools, we have
this formulaic learning.

Where students can now put a
calculus problem into chat GT

and get an instant solution.

They can paste in a history assignment
and say, write this like a 10th grader,

and make sure, oh yeah, make sure
you include, uh, spelling mistakes.

So my teacher doesn't suspect
that I used AI for this.

Everything that we've made formula in
schools, essay, homework, the basic

problems that we give students, even in.

The real world, like the PR stuff that
we were talking about, all of it is just

ripe and ready for AI to take it over.

But the human skills that we rarely
teach, but that we desperately

need are things that are essential.

These are what I like
to call organic skills.

These are connecting with people
authentically, building and sustaining

relationships, being supportive in
a crisis and helping someone through

a hard time, and collaborating on
complex, ambiguous assignments.

And there are so many more
of these organic skills.

But the problem is, is that these organic
skills don't show up well on a test, are

difficult at best to explicitly teach.

And so we don't really know how to do it.

So we often just.

Ignore it, but they're also exactly
what will matter the most when

AI can do almost everything else.

So the big question is how do we change?

That's tough.

And many educators feel like,
Hey, we've been doing this

for 20, 30 years of my career.

What are we supposed to do now?

I am old.

I've been at this a long time, and.

Completely changing how I practice
my teaching is gonna be a big change.

Also, the other question is, how
do we change when we don't even

know where the destination is?

We don't even know really what
we're preparing our kids for.

And so we're just gonna do the best we
can, um, and just, just try to, try to

do the best we can with what we got.

And that's all there is to it.

And it can feel like.

You know what it was like to
drive before GPS, for example.

You had a destination, you knew how
to get there, and that was good.

Now, GPS came along and now people use
it in the cities where they live and

they don't know how to get across town,
and they look up everything in their

GPS, even in the place where they live.

That's where we're at right now.

We have this new tool and we really
don't know how to, how to deal with it.

So if I were a principal right now,
this is, this is what I would do first.

And, you know, maybe this isn't first, I
should say let's, let's do this one first.

I was gonna say one thing,
but I'm gonna change that.

Here's what we should do first,
everything students create should

have an audience beyond the teacher.

If the only person who sees it is
the teacher, then it's essentially a

pointless assignment, and they exist only
to generate a grade and a check mark.

You can have many different real
audiences, classmates, families,

community members, online readers, or
viewers of whatever you're creating.

Students should be making things for
real people, not just for a grade.

So that would be the first thing.

If you're going to give a student
something to do or have them

do anything, then it's gotta be
for more than just the teacher.

And it can be anybody besides
the teacher, but it's gotta be

for more than just the teacher,
because if the teacher is only it.

It is just there to get a grade
and a check mark, and every kid

understands that and knows that.

The second thing that I would do if
I were a principal today is I would

say no more traditional assignments,
and I would demand that our student

information systems like PowerSchool
and Canvas and all these things were

redesigned so that we have no more
assignments and no more traditional tests.

Now I'm taking a hard stance
on that, but there could be a

place for a test for something.

But the reality is these things
are way too easy to fake with ai.

Also, they are often meaningless
and everybody knows it.

The students know, and the teachers know.

Furthermore, grades are just made up.

They always have been, and they always
will no matter what class you're in.

That grade is just made up so.

No more traditional assignments
and no more traditional tests.

So that's a big ask, isn't it?

I mean, that's tough.

I know that I am, people get upset when
I say things like that, but the reality

is we need to be assessing students
in a way that is real, that one proves

that they actually know what, what we
think they should know, and two, gives

them opportunities to do that as well.

It, it's really fascinating how several
of my kids', teachers in middle school

and high school have said things
like, well, we need to do handwriting.

Like we're gonna have our
students do handwriting.

Now, the thing that is frustrating about
this is, uh, is their reasoning behind it.

What they're not saying is kids can do
everything in chat, GBT, so we're doing.

We're doing handwriting because,
uh, that way they won't use hat.

GPTI guess some people are saying that,
and that's a pretty dumb reason because

what you're doing is you're forcing kids
to do something that is a longer and more

difficult process than typing things out.

We have the technology, it works better.

We should use it as an English teacher.

I know what it's like to read 200 essays
over the weekend that are handwritten.

You wanna know something that is
probably the fifth circle of hell.

Reading students' poorly handwritten
essays because it's way more difficult

than reading typewritten text.

It's way more difficult for the
teacher, number one, and it's

rejecting the technology that exists.

That should make it easier for us to read.

Now I did say before that, uh,
should we even be doing things.

Just to make it easier for teachers,
and I don't think we should, but

at the same time, teachers are not
making their jobs easier by having

handwriting as their, their re re
uh, their response to AI usage.

That's not the right approach either.

So when kids can.

The second thing I was gonna say, I
lost my train of thought for a sec. The

second reason teachers are saying that
kids should use handwriting is they

say, well, uh, it's been proven that,
uh, it's better for the brain if kids

write things long form with their hand.

And you know what?

I totally believe that.

But that is a really stupid
response when the last five years.

Even longer, but especially the
last five years, we have forced

everything into this typewritten thing.

If you really believed that you
would've been doing that for

the last five years and longer.

So that is just ridiculous.

What they're really saying with
that is, I don't wanna say that it's

because of Chap GBT, so I'm going to
say the brain science tells us this.

And while that may be true, and
personally I do believe there is great

value in writing things down, uh.

That is a lame excuse when
that is not how you've been

acting for the last five years.

These two responses, uh, just prove
that the work itself is meaningless

and it's not worth doing, and so the
kids should look for any shortcut.

That's what the kids hear.

This is meaningless, and we should try
to find the fastest way to get it done.

If the assignment is pointless, then
changing the medium, the pen and paper

instead of typing doesn't fit the problem.

It just makes the pointless
task even more tedious.

Now again, I'm not saying
that writing long hand with a

pen and paper is a bad idea.

I actually think that it's a very good
idea and I love my, uh, fountain pens

that I use every single day, even though
I really love using technology also.

So let's, let's make
sure that that's clear.

Now with all this ranting that I'm doing,
there are some things that you might

think I'm saying, but I'm actually not.

I'm not saying we don't need
reading or writing anymore.

I think we actually do more so than ever.

I'm not saying we don't need
critical thinking, we just need

kids to regurgitate things.

I'm not saying that.

I think we actually do need that.

I am saying we still need to learn to
read, write, think, and communicate.

That is important, but we also have
to add purpose to that, and there are

many different purposes that are valid.

For example, reading because
it's enjoyable and meaningful

to me is a perfectly valid goal.

I can read whatever I
want and that's great.

Writing because it reaches a
real audience and matters to

someone is powerful as well.

Writing is essential.

Writing is how we communicate effectively.

The, the critical thinking that we must
have for our students allows them to

further understand when an AI is being
truthful and when it's hallucinating.

That's very difficult to see right
now and that's understandable.

I know that a lot of, uh, educators
will object to the things that I'm

saying and I'm, I'm okay with that.

Um, one of the main things is if
Jethro, if you say that we can't

give real assignments, then one, I'm
gonna lose the whole classroom and.

If you say that as a principal, your
teachers are probably gonna metaphorically

flip you off like some of you are.

Were doing, and I bet a lot of people
just stopped listening when I said

that and they're like, this guy
doesn't know what he's talking about.

He's full of baloney.

I'm turning this off and I'm gonna
go complain about it on social media.

That may be the case, and I get it.

I get where you're at.

I've been saying this for a long
time though, and I've been pushing

for school to look like this.

For a very long time, ever since I had
that student in my class, I've been

pushing for this kind of an education,
an education that is real and means a

lot and, and gives kids the skills that
they really need in life, regardless of

what their life or the future looks like.

And I understand the resistance, but.

Well, I understand the resistance
and it is really hard to change.

I get that.

Here's the other thing.

We talk about rigor.

We just love to talk about rigor
and PLCs and other meetings, and

we spend all this time saying,
well, what does rigor really mean?

Well, the reality is relevance is
more important than rigor because

relevance helps us see that what
we're doing actually has meaning.

That in and of itself forces
us to step up our quality.

So the key questions we need to
be asking is, is there a real

reason or purpose for this work?

Why am I doing this work in this class?

Kids need to know the
answer to that question.

If it is because I need to get an
A, that's a pretty terrible reason.

Kids and everybody can do a lot of really
hard things when they're meaningful.

People can go to great lengths when they
have a real relevant meaning behind it.

That is a powerful thing.

The other idea I mentioned of having
an audience beyond the teacher is

that it gives a simple, concrete
way to start building relevance.

And so if instead of having an assignment
of, you know, for whatever class it

is, write an essay about this thing.

Instead, explain this to your mom
or dad, like just start there.

Explain this concept to your parents.

Explain this concept to a, to
a younger sibling or an older

sibling, or something like that.

A lot of teachers will ask, what?

What would I do with students all
day if I stopped giving assignments?

What would their res,
what would they even do?

Well, we live in a world where there
is infinite information and learning

opportunities, and the question
of what will I do all day comes

from this mindset of filling time.

It does not come from a
mindset of unleashing learning.

And so if you had, if you could get rid of
all the assignments for whatever subject

you may teach or you taught, if you could
just get rid of the assignments and say,

how could I really maximize kids learning
information and having a real audience to

show things to, what would that look like?

What would that unlock for you?

What would you be able to do?

I started this my first year teaching,
and I got in trouble for this because I

had students blogging on the internet,
and these were inner city kids at a

school that should have been Title
one, but we didn't do Title one for

the middle schools, only for the
elementary schools, but all of the

elementary schools that were Title
One fed into our middle schools.

So we really should have
been a Title one school.

We started blogging and these kids that
everybody said they don't know how to

write, they're not going to write, they
won't ever do poetry because they hate it.

These kids were writing regularly.

I only had six computers in my classroom
and I had to, uh, fight the kids to.

B to like give everybody time to do it.

And kids were just hammering to get
onto these things to write their

blog with in the early two thousands
with hardly anybody reading it.

But knowing that it was out there and they
could access it from a different computer

somewhere else was a huge thing for them.

And they thought that was incredible
and they loved that what we were

doing was actually being out
there for someone else to see.

And that my job in grading it was.

Was asking them questions about what
they were learning through their

writing and how they understood things.

It was incredibly powerful.

I didn't have to worry
about filling my day.

In fact, I had to worry about having
too much stuff for the kids to do

because I didn't have enough time
for them all to be on the computers.

That was what the real challenge was.

And again, don't, don't
get it twisted here.

Don't think about the wrong thing.

It wasn't about the computers and
it wasn't about the technology.

It was about the audience.

The relevance that somebody
else was reading their writing

and that mattered to them.

Now, did it matter to every student?

No, not every student wanted their
stuff out there in front of everybody.

Guess what was really easy?

Okay.

Just turn into me and I'll be
the only person that you're.

Uh, that is the audience.

That's totally fine too.

But the thing is, is when I gave
them an opportunity, the kids were

clamoring because kids love when they
have agency, they can do incredible

things when they are given the
chance to pursue meaningful work.

And even if they start with something
like playing games like Minecraft,

they eventually want more and they
want more beyond what they do.

So our deeper goal for education
is we need to raise good people

who can think critically.

We need to raise individuals who can hold
two opposing ideas in their heads at once.

And we need to raise young people
who can resist the algorithmic rabbit

holes and polarize thinking that our
current society is so big on right now.

We need people who don't
default to tribalism.

We need people who can disagree
without dehumanizing each other,

and we need people who won't kill
each other figuratively or literally

over the differences that they have.

We need to raise human
beings to be good adults.

The goal should not be to get this kid
from first grade to second grade, or

from 10th grade to 11th grade or from
high school into college or career.

The goal should be.

To help this child become the
most flourishing human being

that they possibly can be.

And sometimes that means we're gonna
spend a lot of time on reading in

the early grades and make sure that
they have the skill of reading.

Sometimes that means we're gonna go down
these rabbit holes and kids are gonna

change their mind on the things they're
interested in a hundred times, and we're

gonna be annoyed as the adults because
they go down a path and then they stop.

Right before they get to
something good and that's okay.

That's part of being a human.

We can let that happen because if
we're not focusing on assignments

and test scores, we can focus
on them developing into the kind

of human beings that flourish.

That's what we want.

Inevitably, people ask this question,
well, what about state testing?

What about the state
assessments that we've built?

Everything around?

Well, you know what?

That was a bad idea.

No matter when we did that, that was
a bad idea because a test, a state

test especially, is a legislatively
convenient way for somebody else to say

whether or not we're doing a good job.

And you know, people don't like this
view either, but it doesn't really

matter if we do this other way of
learning that I've been talking about.

Those test scores come.

The thing that's amazing is that
when kids have relevance and they

have a real audience, the things
they learn grow exponentially.

It's a really bad idea to build an
entire system around one big test.

That was a dumb decision, but we did it.

Okay, what are we gonna do?

When I ran this type of
project-based learning at my

school, students were working.

Students who were working on real
projects learned far more than they

would have from traditional lessons.

You can go hear about it on my
podcast, Transformative Principal.

Go to Transformative Principal
dot org, click on episodes and

search and search for synergy.

And you can learn all
about how we set that up.

This is what it looked like.

One group of students, they met an hour
and a half, uh at a time, twice a week.

And over the month or so that we watched
these kids and what they were doing,

they passed off over 45 standards that
if we were to create a lesson plan

for each one of these standards, for
them to pass, it would've taken way

more time than what they actually had.

The standards were not just
their seventh grade standards.

They went all the way up to 12th
grade and they covered multiple

content areas and not just one.

We have interdisciplinary, uh,
learning happening with standards

from seventh to 12th grade and get
this, they learned things that we

didn't have standards for, but it was
obvious that the learning occurred.

Let me give an example
of what that looked like.

These kids had had said, we're gonna
bring on some other kids into our group.

They, they brought the other kids
in for a couple weeks and they said,

Mr. Jones, this is not working.

How do we fire these kids that we
brought in without them thinking

that we don't value and appreciate
them, but we recognize that this

just is, this just isn't gonna work.

Do we have a standard for
compassionate firing in K 12 education?

No, we don't.

Is that a valuable skill to learn?

Yes, it sure is.

It's a very valuable skill to learn.

How do you treat people with compassion
even when they are completely failing

at what you expect them to do?

This kind of learning
is incredibly valuable.

It is exactly what we should be
striving for, and it doesn't come

from worksheets or test prep.

It doesn't come from assignments.

Tests.

It comes from real,
relevant, valuable work.

But here's the other thing.

When I talk to people about this,
they complain and say, well, we're

held accountable for test scores.

The reality is, is that you're not.

What happens when a school
fails on state tests?

Well, in my experience, we got more money
when we failed, so that's the opposite.

Of getting punished, but
usually nothing happens.

Teachers and principals rarely
lose their jobs over scores.

However it does happen and there is,
uh, there is a mechanism for that

to happen that if you do so poorly,
that the state takes over your

school and they fire half the staff.

Uh, and by fire I mean they do
reduction in staffing, which means

that you don't actually lose your job,
you just go to a different school.

So there really is not a lot of
accountability for test scores.

And maybe, maybe someone may get moved out
of a school, but that is rarely the case.

And when that does happen, you're getting
moved out of a school not fired from your

job and losing your teaching license.

That's, that's not what happens.

And if somebody has evidence of that
ever happening, please share it with

me because I've never heard of that.

You know who does have accountability
when their kids don't learn Parents,

they have the real accountability of
having that child who hasn't learned

appropriately for their whole life
with them for the rest of their lives.

If you have a kid in your class who
fails, they most likely go on to the

next grade or a different teacher, and
you most likely never see them again.

That is the real thing.

You know, who else fails our
communities when we have kids who

don't know, who turn into adults
that don't know how to do things

and become a drain on the community?

That is who's accountable?

Schools are not actually held accountable.

We are held accountability in things
that don't really matter that much,

like rankings and awards and labels.

But another way that we are held
accountable is in the public perception.

But if that public perception is
purely based on test scores, it's

really actually not that good.

That's not actually that beneficial.

We think that it is, but it really isn't.

Parents don't want kids who
are good at taking tests.

They want kids who are living
happy and fulfilled lives.

We've created a system that rewards
the things that we decide to measure.

That's what we always do.

We decide to measure test scores, and
so we create a system that rewards

that, and then we keep doing those same
things because that's what's measured.

Let's think about a different measure.

Let's suppose that we just said,
all right, here's, here's how

we're gonna measure our success.

If the key metric was, let's say, US
News and World Report said, we're gonna

change our algorithm and how we rank
schools, and we're gonna say that the

percentage of students whose writing
is published somewhere in a book, a

blog, local paper, magazine, whatever.

We're gonna measure the number, uh,
the percentage of students whose,

whose writing is published somewhere.

What do you think schools are gonna do
the very next year they're going to start

talking about and publishing and sharing?

How many of their students
published a book, a blog, a

local paper, an online magazine?

Whatever that was.

Schools would shift so fast
to helping students publish.

Teachers would redesign all their
assignments to produce publishable work.

If that were the thing that got us
the kudos, that's what we would do if

a state had the courage to say, we're
done with test scores and instead.

We're going to measure
good acts by students.

Hey, there's another side thing that would
be a terrible thing to build your system

around because then kids are just doing
good acts because they get noticed for it.

But let's say that happened.

What would schools start doing?

They would start publicizing how
many good acts their students are

doing and they'd start recording it.

The thing is, is that it's really
quite simple to change the system.

Doesn't mean it's easy.

It is quite simple.

What you focus on and what you
measure is the thing that gets done.

We could start changing that.

What we measure ourselves right away.

What if we created a national ranking
of schools based on this percentage of

students who have published something
and we just started ranking that.

What if, uh.

Even if we started with just
five schools and we said, this

school is the number one place.

If you want to go, if you want
to have your student publish, be

a published author in some way.

What if we change that?

However, to, uh, this, this
school produces the, uh, highest

number of YouTube followers.

This school produces the highest
number of Twitch followers.

People would instantly shift and they
would change instruction to get that

work, whatever it is out into the world.

And and we could put guardrails on it
and say, it's not just any publishing.

It has to be this certain level.

And we define that.

If we start a list, people would start
changing and saying, this is the kind

of thing that we want to be known for.

Now, I've gone on a bit of a
tear about all these things, and

I'm already at almost an hour.

Obviously I could talk about this
for a long time if you're still here.

Bless you.

Thank you.

We should chat because if you're
still listening to this, then we're

obviously of the same, same, uh,
mind on some of these things, and I

don't have all the perfect answers.

Don't get me wrong.

Here's the big picture.

Our current system was
built for pre AI world.

It rewards test scores,
compliance and convenience.

AI has exposed how fragile and
shallow a lot of our system is.

How easy it is to cheat when all
of our tasks are meaningless.

Right now we have a very real
opportunity to redesign schooling around

real learning, real relationships,
real purpose and real audiences.

That doesn't have to be the whole world.

That can be a very small group.

It can be the person's family.

That's, it's not the point that
we're trying to make, you know,

content creators and Instagram
famous and YouTube celebrities.

That's not what I'm talking about.

What I'm talking about making it
real so that it actually matters.

Working with an actual local business to
help them redesign their marketing, those

are the kinds of things that are valuable.

The other part of our opportunity
is to build a generation of students

who can, can think deeply and
can connect meaningfully and can

navigate an i an AI saturated world
as fully flourishing human beings.

That's what our opportunity
is to create right now.

And if you are.

If you're like, yeah, that's what I
want to do, then we should connect.

Let's talk about this more because
I'm not in a school anymore, so I have

time to think about and support people
who are trying to do these things.

When you're in the middle
of it, it can be difficult.

So reach out.

Let's connect Jethro at
hey.com, 8 0 1 7 Jethro.

Gimme a call.

Would love to chat with you more, but
let's get started and let's start making

some of these things come to pass.

Thanks so much for listening.