New View EDU

Episode 43: Building School 2.0 Chris Lehmann worked in a school that matched his vision of education by about 75% – and that other 25%, he says, was what gave him “license to dream.” What would you dream of if you had the opportunity to design a school from scratch? The founder of Educon, the Science Leadership Academy, and Inquiry Schools talks with host Tim Fish about his quest to create a full...

Episode 42: Seven Lessons for School Leadership Human relationships first. Academic study and arts training are co-curricular. Environment matters. Relentlessly make space for the things that matter most. Compliance is not the same thing as magic. Process matters and so does product. These are just a few of the ideas Jason Patera is obsessed with, which he brings daily to his work as the head of t...

Episode 41: Welcoming New Leadership to NAIS During the summer of 2023, longtime NAIS President Donna Orem retired, and new President Debra Wilson stepped into the role. In this first school year of Debra’s tenure, she sits down with Tim Fish to introduce herself to the NAIS community and share her personal journey with independent schools. Guest: Debra Wilson Resources, Transcript, and Expanded S...

Season 4 Bonus Episode: Noni Thomas López, Head of School, The Gordon School  This episode is a re-broadcast of an archival episode from our friends at the NAIS Member Voices podcast. The original episode and show notes can be found on the Member Voices Season 5 page. In the second episode of our three-part miniseries on Cultivating Diverse and Inclusive Communities, our guest is Noni Thomas...

Episode 40: Student Voice and Agency in Education In four seasons of New View EDU, we’ve talked a lot about what students need to thrive. In this episode, we’re going straight to the source. Host Tim Fish sits down with Ella Cornett and Mackenzie Link, high school students from One Stone School in Boise, Idaho, to get their real world perspectives on everything from classes and schedules to life l...

Episode 39: Lessons Learned While Leading NAIS After a long and distinguished tenure as the President of NAIS, Donna Orem is retiring in the Spring of 2023. Throughout her career, she’s seen the independent school landscape, and education in general, change dramatically. As Donna prepares to depart NAIS, what lessons has she learned? How has her career in education changed her? What wisdom can she...

Episode 38: Strategic Accountability in Education Planning for the future of our schools isn’t easy. In recent years, we’ve seen firsthand how even the best-laid plans can go badly awry, and schools have been left grappling with issues that no one could have predicted. So how can we continue to embrace strategy and future thinking in a way that allows us to not only make plans, but execute on them...

Episode 37: The Dignity Lens in Education Schools are first and foremost communities of people. When we plan for the future of those communities, how can we do so in a way that takes into account the dignity of every human being? How does strategy intersect with who we are and who we aspire to be? Dr. Beth-Sarah Wright’s Dignity Lens challenges schools to look at themselves with clear eyes and ide...

Episode 36: Reinventing Education Beyond 2020 No one can deny that the events of 2020 changed education in America, and arguably, worldwide. But three years after COVID closed schools, what is the actual state of our educational system? What lessons did we really learn, and what mistakes have we made? What opportunity lies ahead for transformation? Michael Horn returns to New View EDU to share the...

Episode 35: The Relationship Between Emotions and Learning Social-emotional learning and student wellbeing are increasingly showing up as priorities for schools. But what if research could prove that looking out for the emotional components of teaching and learning aren’t just important for mental health, but actually essential for academic growth? That’s the central premise of Dr. Mary Helen Immo...

Episode 34: Supercharging Project-Based Learning Design What if offering to work on a few projects with a homeschooled student sparked the idea to partner with a school? And what if then, groups of students started asking to make that project-based learning model their entire high school experience? That’s what happened when Saeed Arida, a PhD student in the Architecture department at MIT, tried r...

Episode 33: Innovating for the Youngest Learners Orly Friedman was in the fifth grade when she read the book that changed her life. The story, about a child who floundered in traditional school environments but thrived in an unconventional setting, inspired Orly to dream of opening her own non-traditional school one day. In this episode, she shares her successful journey as the founder of Red Brid...

Episode 32: Restoring Humanity in Education Trust Kids. That’s the takeaway from public school educator-turned nonprofit founder Chris McNutt, whose work at the Human Restoration Project aims to revolutionize teacher and student wellbeing. What would schools look like if we designed an educational system around trust? How could student agency and teacher creativity become pillars of a progressive,...

Episode 31: AI and the Future of Education The hottest conversation in education right now revolves around ChatGPT. What is it, how is it being used, and what does it mean for our traditional systems of teaching and learning? Season Four of New View EDU begins with a discussion about the rapid evolution of Artificial Intelligence and the impact ChatGPT and other AI innovations will have on the fut...

Episode 30: How Equity and Wellbeing Work Together in Our Schools Schools exist to help prepare students for the future. But in a society that prides itself on equality, how can we create equitable schools that prepare students to enter a world where inclusion is crucial? And how does focusing on the wellbeing of our school communities go hand-in-hand with building inclusive environments? In this...

Episode 29: The Future of Higher Ed Much of the work of K-12 schools is focused on getting students to the “next step,” which, for many of them, is college readiness. But increasingly, it feels like we’re not working on college readiness so much as we’re working on college admissions. Preparing kids to successfully apply to college, in the hyper-competitive admissions landscape, is almost a full-t...

Episode 28: Supporting Healthy Habits for Students in a Digital World Technology has certainly changed the face of education in recent years. In some ways, it’s even become vital to the way we “do school” – especially in times when virtual classrooms have been the only way for students and teachers to stay connected. But tech also comes with significant downsides. Digital distractions, socializing...

Episode 27: Developing Mastery in Approaches to Education As the world continues to rapidly evolve, so do the skills students need to be successful in the future. Educational models that revolve around seat time, content memorization, and age-based pacing are starting to fade into the past. But what should replace them? One idea that’s gaining traction is the concept of mastery. On this episode of...

Episode 26: Bringing Virtual Reality into K-12 Education After COVID forced schools all over the world to dive headlong into experiments with online learning, most educators are delighted to have the chance to return to in-person classrooms. But what if the answer to a number of challenges in education – equity, access, student agency, efficiency – actually lies in going more deeply into the virtu...

Episode 25: Developing Independent School Leaders for the Future As our schools and communities have undergone swift and often unpredictable transformations in recent years, leadership has also changed. What worked before may not be what schools need now. Our ideas about the characteristics of leadership, who owns the title of “leader,” and how leadership gets distributed are evolving rapidly to k...

Episode 24: International Perspectives on the Independent School Landscape In an increasingly connected world, what can school leaders learn from their counterparts across the globe? The events of the past few years have affected schools in every country, not just the U.S., and highlighted the fact that when it comes to our hopes, dreams, and challenges in education, we’re probably more alike than...

Episode 23: Designing Schools for Self-Directed Learning What would school look like if we designed education based on the belief that every child is a genius who can change the world? What if we put learning into the hands of the student instead of the teacher? What if our instructional models included less “instruction” and more time guiding kids to finding their own answers and inspirations? Th...

Episode 22: The Purpose and Nature of Higher Education  Since the beginning of the New View EDU podcast, we’ve been asking guests to help us answer the question: “What is the purpose of education?” Now we’re expanding our search for answers into the realm of higher education. What’s the purpose of college? Is it just to get a foot in the door of a competitive job market, or is there something...

Episode 21: How to Create a Generation of Super Collaborators What if Elon Musk approached you one day and asked you to create a school? How would you approach the design of a radically different educational environment founded in the shadow of SpaceX and intended to provide deeper learning for the children of some of the most innovative thinkers in the world? That was the starting point for Josh...

After a wonderful second season of New View EDU, we are excited to share the first episode of a three-part miniseries on “Fostering Innovation” from our sister NAIS podcast, Member Voices. The series is hosted by NAIS Director of Innovation Programs, Jackie Wolking. Episode 2 was released earlier this month, and the third and final episode drops June 6. We hope you’ll listen and learn from all thr...