The What School Could Be Podcast

Jennifer Ahn is the executive director of Lead by Learning . She lives with her husband and children in northern California. The reason I asked Jennifer to be on this show is because I read an incredible book in 2024 titled Street Data . Carrie Wilson, the author of chapter 7 of Street Data and the former executive director of Lead by Learning wrote the following for this episode.  “I remember ove...

Emine Naz Can is a university student born and raised in Turkey who sees herself as citizen of the world. Emine is not simply studying industrial engineering—she’s actively engineering the future of education as one of the first students in a phenomenon called Nobel Navigators. Her journey is one of bold imagination and quiet courage, of bridges built between cultures, communities, and ideas. She’...

Listeners, imagine a student who always loved school—not just for the grades or the gold stars, but for the challenge, the structure, the sense of accomplishment. A student who moved frequently as a kid, not worried about making friends, but determined to succeed academically. A student who “played school well,” but, looking back, remembers teachers more than lessons, relationships more than curri...

Imagine a school, not just built with bricks and mortar, but with hope . A place where students don’t just learn—they lead. A space where innovation isn’t a buzzword—it’s the foundation of every single day. Today on the What School Could Be Podcast, we step into the future of education with two visionary leaders who happen to live and work in the Great State of Rhode Island: Bryan Byerlee and Heat...

Listeners, a little over a year ago I attended a leadership conference here in my home city of Honolulu. At that conference the keynote, a futurist named Richard Yonck referred to a book he felt the 1000 business leaders in the audience needed to read. The book he referenced is The Good Ancestor , by Roman Krznaric. Five minutes after Yonck's reference Krznaric’s book was on its way to me via my A...

Back in June of last year, listeners, my daughter, Emma got married in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in California. The day after her wedding my wife and I got coffee and breakfast at a Nevada City coffee joint. While I was in the restroom Cheryl spotted a guy wearing a floppy hat reading and writing at one of the shop’s tables. The book he had open was John Hattie’s Visible Learnin...

If you are listening to this episode on the day of its release, it is Christmas Day, 2024, listeners, and you are welcome! My Christmas gift to you is Sean Duffie, who, frankly, is a crazy awesome and amazing educator in the great state of Michigan. Sean is a Project Next PBL , and Spanish-Immersion teacher at Forest Hills Northern High School in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Along the way he has served...

My guest for this episode is LeeAnn Kittle , the director of sustainability programs for the Denver Public Schools.  LeeAnn showed up on my radar screen because of a headline in EdWeek’s weekly newsletter . The headline read, "This Leader Partners With Students to Build a More Sustainable Future for Her District." At EdWeek’s website I discovered two more articles about LeeAnn, and vowed then and...

Mitch Weathers is a brilliant educator, author of the book, Executive Functions for Every Classroom and the founder of Organized Binder . Organized Binder is an evidence-based MTSS Tier 1 universal solution. It provides a structured environment with clear expectations and routines, exposing students to goal setting, reflective learning, time management, study strategies, and organizational skills....

I am totally stoked to welcome to the show Mahealani Jackson , a remarkable 17-year-old senior at Kamehameha Schools in Honolulu. Joining as my color commentator is Hannah Grady Williams, Chief Rebel at d'Skills , who alerted me to this extraordinary young person who was part of her first all-virtual IMPACT10 cohort powering up kids on AI. Mahealani's journey is nothing short of extraordinary. Des...

Listeners, I could not be more excited to share with you that my guest for this episode is Dr. Kyra Monèt Caldwell Templeton . Currently, she is Program Director of Student Engagement, an inaugural position with the Atlanta Public Schools , which serves over 50,000 students in 195 schools with nearly 4000 teachers. Remarkably, the student-teacher ratio in the Atlantic public schools is a very low...

[During this episode reference is made to the work of mural artist, Dave Loewenstein . Here is his work.] At the Global Nomads Group website their vision, mission and about begins with this paragraph: “In 1998, four college friends had an idea to connect young people across the globe to foster dialogue and forge meaningful connections. They had heard about the emergence of video conferencing techn...

Hey listeners. I have never done this before, so I hope you enjoy. This is a short, four-minute preview of upcoming episodes, the shows that will close out 2024. Fasten your seatbelts!

Today my guest is Theresa Tate, who currently teaches, guides, coaches and advises kids at the Orchard View Innovative Learning Center in Michigan. Theresa is a guest on this podcast because of a recommendation made to me by Chris McNutt, one of the founders of The Human Restoration Project , which just held its annual, virtual, Conference to Restore Humanity. Chris wrote the following for this ep...

Inspired by the Liger Leadership Academy, which, by the way, I featured in a previous episode, Cambodia’s Future Foundation , known as the CFF was created with the ultimate goal of "nurturing leaders and changing lives." In 2014, CFF identified and selected a cohort of ten, 16-year-old students with two years of high school before graduation. CFF recognized that, due to financial limitations, thes...

Months ago a colleague of mine alerted me to an EdWeek article titled “An Unorthodox Plan to Pay Students to Write Curriculum Is Raising Achievement,” which described some very unusual work being done by Dr. Kate Maxlow, an educator on the East Coast. The article opens with this: “Kate Maxlow admits to being the ‘first person in the room to get bored.’ As a teacher, she worked overtime to keep her...

[I am releasing this episode while in Nevada City, CA, where my daughter, Emma Reppun (now Emma Jean George), my 101st episode, just got married to her now husband, Jaden. It was a joyous occasion - so in that spirit, I release this 129th episode.] This episode features two guests and largely focuses on the What School Could Be, 2Revolutions masters program in Learner-Centered Schools & System...

Today's conversation is with Kris Swett , who wrote the following: “My passion is for the alternative. Making sure schools can better serve different students' needs, my life's work is to create alternative educational models. Conventional schooling is falling by the wayside and technology, and a global community becomes our new reality. We cannot teach the students of the future with the ways of...

Listeners, Real World Learning is a Kansas City-based initiative, incubated at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, in partnership with the community, that works to prepare its region, students, and employers for the future. Through immersive experiences like projects and internships with leading employer partners, students get a head start on achieving their career goals at an early age. I learn...

Andrew Culberson lives and works in New Brunswick, which is one of the 10 (and three territories) provinces that make up Canada. Andrew is a learning specialist for the New Brunswick Department of Education , with a focus on school counseling, mental health and high school change. He has been working in leadership roles in schools and in education and early childhood development over the past 18 y...

Meet Lee Fertig, the Head of School at the Nueva School in the San Francisco Bay Area. Lee has more than 30 years of leadership and teaching experience in a wide variety of educational settings including five international schools in Ethiopia, Brazil, Spain, and Belgium, a leading independent school in New York City, and a voluntary integration public magnet school in Minneapolis. In addition, for...

My guests for this episode are The River School’s Dr. Christane Connors and Dr. Sharlene Ottley. The River School is located on MacArthur Boulevard in Washington, DC. The pillars that The River School stands on, listed at their website, include the following: a commitment to progressive education, a play-based, child-centered thematic curriculum, a commitment to diverse and inclusive classrooms an...

My guest for this episode is a Fairfax County Public Schools music teacher, Annie Ray. For many of you listeners, her name will immediately ring a bell. To introduce Annie, I am going to read verbatim from a National Public Radio online article posted on February, 7th, 2024. “GRAMMY Awards don't only go to the people who produce and perform songs. For just over a decade, they've also been given ou...

My guest for this episode is Garrett Smiley, the co-founder of Sora Schools , a description of which, frankly, is very hard to pin down. Sora is an online learning experience, but beyond that, it is a complex and fabulous answer to the question, What could school be? So that you, listeners, know what you are in for in this episode, I am going to quote directly from Sora’s website. “Our curriculum...

My guest is Allie Wong, a PBLWorks National Faculty member who is extremely passionate about Project-Based Learning, mainly because as a graduate from a PBL high school herself, she has seen firsthand the benefits of student-centered, authentic and real world learning. From 2012 through 2022 Allie worked as a math science instructor, as a dean of students, as school director and as a graduate scho...