Read the full transcript of Episode 10 of the NAIS New View EDU podcast, in which hosts Tim Fish and Lisa Kay Solomon reflect on the future of education and leadership. They highlight some of the “good news” for schools in a panel discussion with NAIS President Donna Orem and three dynamic, committed independent school heads: Ashley Harper of Wakefield School (VA), Lisa Yvette Waller of Berkeley Carroll School (NY), and Luthern Williams of New Roads School (CA).
Tim Fish:In this, the final episode of our first season of New View EDU, we're going to be talking with three school heads from independent schools, representing different geographies, different school size and focus. You know, it's been an inspiring journey so far. In the last nine episodes, we've talked with authors and thought leaders on topics ranging from safety to community, adulting to improv, coaching, and even how we think about becoming a citizen. So today is all about thinking about schools. Thinking about the issues that schools are facing, and the issues that school leaders are facing.
Joining us is Ashley Harper, the head of school at Wakefield school, a J K through 12th grade school, serving over 300 students on a beautiful campus in the Plains, Virginia, a rural community located about 35 miles outside of Washington, DC. Under her strong leadership, the school built on their reputation of offering an outstanding academic experience and emerged from the first year of the pandemic with thriving enrollment and incredible momentum. Prior to joining the team at Wakefield, Ashley was the director of advancement at Winchester Thurston school in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Dr. Lisa Yvette Waller is the head of school at Berkeley Carroll School, a pre-K through 12th grade school in Brooklyn, New York serving almost 1000 students from 60 zip codes. The school has a deep commitment to providing financial support for families and as awarding almost $10 million a year in financial aid. Prior to joining the team at Berkeley Carroll, Lisa was the head of upper school at Dalton school in New York.
Lisa Kay Solomon: And Luthern Williams is the head of school at New Roads School, a nationally recognized K-12 school in Santa Monica, California. With over 25 years of experience as a teacher, administrator and educational consultant, Luthern is deeply committed to democratizing meaningful access to high quality education for socio-economically disadvantaged students, and developing schools that become catalysts for societal transformation. He brings that passion to New Roads, where the emphasis is on building a foundation of wellbeing and liberating human potential for an authentically diverse student population. Together, our guests represent nearly a hundred years of experience as school educators , administrators, and leaders. That's a lot of experience!
We're also thrilled that NAIS President Donna Orem could return for this final episode to share her reflections and insights with this esteemed group. With this tremendous depth and breadth of experience in the conversation, we're going to focus on how some of the themes we've explored in the podcast are being embodied within schools, the practical side of leadership and change, including some real challenges that makes this work difficult and also rewarding.
Tim Fish: One big theme we've heard throughout the conversations is focusing on what matters most, designing, as our first guest Michael Horn suggested, with the end in mind, starting with purpose. When modern schools were created, academics were put at the center. Things like calendar and curriculum and assessment and college admissions were all the things that drove how our schools were designed.
But knowing what we know today about the child and brain development, would we add anything to the center of the circle? Would we reimagine the purpose of what school is really for? How can independent schools design for this moment? And should we be thinking about a different purpose in some ways? Donna, I'd love to throw to you for the beginning of that conversation around what is the purpose of school? We talked about it a little bit in our first episode. I'd love to hear your thinking on it now.
Donna Orem: Thanks, Tim. Thanks, Lisa. And thanks, heads of school, for being here. It's been an interesting year, 18 months. And it feels like we've learned a lot during that time. And in many ways, I think it's almost been like a lab for us to reflect.
I think, you know, we are stepping back because our world has been disrupted. At the same time, we're in the midst of so much change in the world, I think, you know, in terms of technology, attitudes. And so, you know, how do we both take the time for self-reflection to say what matters, and also to look at how we prepare students and ourselves for the change ahead of us.
And, you know, if I was to center education around three principles in the future, it would be, it needs to center on knowing yourself, seeking to understand others, and finding your purpose. I think those are the three most important elements of education. I also think that, you know, we have to think of this more as an ecosystem, so it's not only about our purpose as an individual school, but our purpose in the context of other schools, in society, the entire education ecosystem. And when we start looking at it that way, as a much more complex system, I think we can not only more firmly commit to our purpose, but also how that purpose connects to the purpose of other systems and our ecosystem as well.
Tim Fish: Thanks, Donna. Lisa, I'm wondering if you have any thoughts on, on that one from your experience as a school head, and as you've been working with the team at Berkeley Carroll.
Lisa Yvette Waller: I do. You know, thinking about what Donna says about purpose, one thing that I've thought a lot about, especially in the past 18 months, though it's been on my mind for a while now, is the importance of, sort of, agency and internal motivation when we think about schools. And while I would never have wished COVID on any of us, and would never underplay the loss and the disruption and confusion that it brought, there were students who really did something during that time that I think we ought to be striving to harness and promote. And that, you know, students who decided that they wanted to learn about anatomy, students who decided that they were going to learn to play the guitar. There's a way in which students also tapped into their capacities, into their passions, and had more time and latitude to pursue them. And I think this then goes to the development of certain habits of mind in terms of seeking to understand perseverance, the capacity to present what you've learned, the capacity to create knowledge. Those things are as important as having our students parse language that has been created by others, knowledge that has been created by others.
And so I'm really thinking quite a bit these days about how we fuse to what is a more recognizable, if not always traditional, approach to education in our schools, with this business of student agency and internal motivation. How do we let them create curriculum and create paths as well, as we go forward?
Lisa Kay Solomon: Lisa, I love that so much. Agency has come up a lot throughout our conversations. And I think your point about recognizing it, getting better at putting a language around it, getting better at noticing it when it's happening and not thinking of it as other or extra, but really infusing it into the experience that students have at school, in classrooms and outside of classrooms. And Luthern, I want to get your take on this because I know that, something Donna said is a big part of your school, which is of self-reflection, so that students get a chance to understand their own agency and, and, and that's notion of pace and time and allowing space for that. So I wonder if you could share a little bit about the question around purpose and how that has been fueling agency and the kind of development in your students.
Luthern Williams: Well, I think, you know, when, when our founders sort of founded the school in 1995, they looked around and they said, you know, it's been more than 40 years since Brown. And we still don't have a socioeconomically, racially, and culturally integrated school in Los Angeles that offers a high quality education rich in the arts.
And they said, if this thing called the great American social experiment is going to work, it needs to start with kids living and learning together. And so I think what the school did was sort of start out with the assumption that kids have infinite potential and that the role of school is really to be an incubator of human potential in all of its forms.
And so for me, I think the role of education has to be now foundationally to provide a foundation for wellbeing. And, you know, as the basis for liberating human potential, in all of its forms and helping the kids sort of understand how to function in a variety of context. And sometimes when they don't have the skill, to create the skill, that they need to improve upon our condition and to serve the common good.
So I think this fundamental idea of, you know, identity, which kind of cuts into Dan Siegel, where identity is not just about, you know, our separate selves and who we consider ourselves to be in these bodies, but our relationship to other and our relationship to the earth. And so I think we have to shatter the notion of identity that creates a lot of suffering in the world.
Lisa Kay Solomon:I really love that notion of the foundation of wellbeing and the basis of human potential. Again, a theme that's come up around really re-imagining what wellbeing is, and how our school environments support that. Ashley, I know your school does a lot of work around thinking about wellbeing, also connected to this notion of, of what school is for. And I wonder if you could share a little bit about that.
Ashley Harper: Sure, Lisa, thanks so much. Building on what Luthern said, you know, at Wakefield, foundational to our mission is this idea of building capable, ethical, and articulate students who are ready to take on the challenges of the world. And that's a really bold statement in many ways.
But the purpose of education is embedded in that hope. Because if we talk about the purpose of education, it's to prepare our children to be the citizens that we want in this world and to give them the opportunity. And so our content creation and the foundational knowledge that they have must be embedded at that first. And I think that's what's been so inspiring to me. Piggybacking just a little bit on what Lisa said, COVID has been such a time of pain for our world and our communities and our children. Yet there have been so many things that we rightly let go of to get to the purpose of what's real and necessary in education. And so moving forward, I see such opportunity not to pick those things back up.
And to make sure that we're staying focused on wellbeing, agency, this idea of grounding. Tim said in the introduction, you know, our school sits on 65 acres overlooking the Shenandoah Valley. It's a Vista view from here. And I talk to the students about that a lot, that their agency has a grounding in this idea of a Vista view. And what are you going to do with it? You've got this opportunity. How are you going to craft your path forward, given the opportunities that exist and the opportunities you want to create. And so, I think that sense of wellbeing and that opportunity and bringing those two things together so that kids are using their agency.
They have a faculty, a staff, a family, and a community that's supporting that. That's what's exciting to me coming out of this.
Lisa Kay Solomon:Ashley, I really appreciate that Vista view. And in many ways that also embodies another theme that Donna and Michael set up from the very beginning, which is this notion of hope and optimism and the stance that we take. So I want to talk a little bit about your embodiment of hope as leaders. And I know this is something that Donna really talks a lot about, you know, about how that then sets the tone for the kind of school environment, the culture, the community.
Luthern, I want to start with you here because I, I know that the messaging that you create, the way that you articulate this very exciting and new vision for, for your school, shows up in all kinds of ways, throughout classrooms in the community.
Luthern Williams: Well, it's interesting. I think of, you know, my school, New Roads, as a, as a microcosm of the world. And I think about sort of the greatest aspirations of America and, and how it is that we can cultivate human beings who are looking at not only determining their own destiny, but thinking about service to the common good.
And one of the things that I'm going to talk to the kids about, you know, soon is this, you know, I have done a lot of soul searching over the last, you know, several months. And one of the pieces that really struck me is out of the Bible, it's from Corinthians. And it's like, if one member suffers, we all suffer together.
And I think that that's one of the fundamental lessons that we have to come away is that we're one global human family. And I guess we try to promote that in the kids. And I see it in the kids. I see their ability to be able, not only to honor their differences, but to connect to each other in profound ways. And therefore they naturally want to create an environment in which everyone can thrive. And so for me, I keep reminding them of the fact that they are my source of hope, and I'm reminding them that they can transform the world, despite acknowledging the tremendous challenges that they are going to face.
Tim Fish: Luthern, I love this notion of the interconnected community, both within our schools and within the world. And I think so much about that notion of hope, seeing it within our students and also seeing it within our faculty and our staff and all the other elements and folks in our community.
And one of the things that has been so interesting to me about this last two years has been how our faculty in our schools have stepped up to this moment, and have created the pathways for students to find purpose, and to explore that purpose in greater depth. And I've also been fascinated to see how schools have responded to this moment and this evolving situation and how we think about school for operationally and how we brought other people in. Lisa, I was so inspired by one of our conversations early on in the pandemic, when you talked about how you started thinking about bringing others into the community, how you needed folks, just adults, around to help, and how you brought some young people in—people who maybe didn't have traditional academic experience, were maybe just out of college or maybe even still finishing, and the impact they had on the community as a whole. I wonder if you might speak to that a little bit?
Lisa Yvette Waller: Sure, Tim. You know, that initiative was born of necessity. I remember sitting on a loading dock in Brooklyn thinking, how are we going to open this school in the ways that we need to, to keep everyone safe? And it was clear to me that we needed more adults to engage in this project of helping to educate our kids. And, you know, it's, I think back about the fact that when I began my independent school journey, I was 21 years old, and my oldest students were about 18. So it was really looking over my shoulder. You know, they had older siblings who were older than I was, and yet here I was trying my best to be the role model, the teacher, the Sage, et cetera.
And it became clear to me, that relationship, that teaching and learning relationship, is not about who's the oldest, who's the smartest. It's about that give and take and that trust. And I knew that these young people who we were bringing in wanted to do this thing, they wanted to come into a school in a time of uncertainty and pandemic to help kids learn.
And so with that, and you know, some basic training, we knew we could have them with us helping our more seasoned teachers to shepherd our kids on through, and a number of these young people are staying on at our school. A number are going to other schools and are really beginning the educator's journey. Because our school was willing to give them an opportunity in the same way that that first school for me gave me an opportunity at the tender age of 21 to go into the classroom and also, importantly, to bring my identity into the classroom. I was able to teach African-American history and literature in that school. And to talk about how the journey of African-American people in this country impacts me, impacts them, and impacts our world. And so there's a way in which that level of trust and empowerment that we can extend to one another furthers the journey and also brings more educators into the fold.
I always say in a school, there is no one who is not an educator, everyone in the school is an educator, and that's the sort of position and posture that everyone should take.
Tim Fish:Ashley, I'm wondering what you've noticed about the journey of your faculty during this past couple of years, and how they have been able to move forward. And is there anything in particular that you found that's helped them to be able to evolve in how they think about teaching and the art of teaching?
Ashley Harper:I think, you know, in my experience it really was thinking about this word agency. And how I'm always talking to the faculty about creating student agency and me actually eating my words just a little bit and stepping back and providing more faculty agency. And really, you know, we were about 18 months into a five-year strategic plan. And when the pandemic hit, we were doing all of this work, and good work, and we were moving forward and I was proud of what we were doing, but I felt like in many ways we were taking very incremental moves. And something bold had happened and incremental moves weren't going to make it. And so in that moment, I said, I want you to take those stacks of paper and put them on your left-hand side and forget that they're there. And I want you to do what's right for the students in your estimation. We have 48 hours for you to pivot from one style of learning to another style of learning for our students. And I trust you.
And what's come out of that has been this really amazing sense of entrepreneurial spirit in our faculty that has come down to our students. We have seen really dramatic changes in our school, like letting go of traditional student government, and we now have something called a community council where every student is a member. And we do have leaders of small groups, but they are taking agency, and when there are dress code changes to be made, I make proposals to the students. And together we talk about what comes next.
You know, that's such a tiny example of the type of agency we've created, but that idea came out of a faculty member who said, We've got to figure out a way to engage kids. We have added eight new courses in the last 18 months. We have changed our elective offerings. Our students now have more time in their day. We had created time during the virtual environment for them to just have moments to rest and reflect. When we came back to an in-person environment in the fall, we kept those. So, there have been just a lot of really positive things that have come out of letting go.
Lisa Kay Solomon:Ashley, that is so inspiring. I got chills when you brought us back to that moment. You have 48 hours to change the way you teach.
Donna, as Ashley was speaking, it reminds me a lot of what I've read of your work, talking about leadership in this moment, right? Leadership around living in the tensions, navigating what is fixed, perhaps your school values, perhaps your mission, but what is also loose, how you engage, how you bring that forward. So I wonder, you know, just would love to hear your perspective here around this, this notion of leadership in these tensions.
Donna Orem: I think what we all learned this year is about letting go and the power of each other. Luthern started to really just talk about this movement from the, you know, you're in it by yourself, you're in it for yourself, to that collective good. And I think, you know, so much of what traditionally has been written about leadership is about that hero unicorn leader. And that just did not serve well during the pandemic. I think, you know, we stood back and started to recognize that it's with each other. It's by collaborating, it's about letting go and saying we can't do it all by ourselves, that we were able to succeed.
And, you know, during the last six months, my muse. I don't think he knows he's my muse, but I have been reading one of your colleagues at Stanford, Lisa. Jamil Zaki, who's done all this research around empathy, and I find that I just can't get enough of reading him because I think he takes us back to that notion of leader as someone who really builds that foundation for empathy. And just yesterday, I read a piece that he wrote and it was in honor of Dr. King on his birthday. And he was talking about his research into empathy and the importance of empathy in leadership. And he said something that I think was so important, is that, you know, too often, we are led to think, particularly as leaders, that it's around status or accomplishment, but that is exactly the opposite of what makes people flourish. And he writes about one of Dr. King's last sermons, where he talks about the drum major instinct. And that instinct, which is so deep in our society, is that desire to be out in front, to be the leader of the parade.
And ironically, it's what makes us most unhappy. And what he talks about, which, you know, for me just resonated, is that we have to move from that, and we have to move to having the drummer's instinct. And that is an urge not to lead people, but to be part of it in rhythm with others. And I think that that's a piece of what each of the heads have said, is that we have grown and learned so much by letting go of those instincts, by being vulnerable, by being humble. And so, you know, if I have a huge hope for the future for leaders, it's that we all adopt the drummer's instinct.
Tim Fish: You know, it reminds me, Luthern. You've mentioned many times your relationship with Dr. Siegel and how you're thinking about the mind, and how you're thinking about the inner reflection, and how you use that to build community and build the work you're doing that's at the center of New Roads, and your mission. I wonder, I'm going to, I'd love to hear more about that relationship, more about that work, and more about how it's informed your practice.
Luthern Williams:I, I think that for many years, you know, New Roads was a laboratory. I mean, they were trying to figure out how do you create this climate and culture that gives every child an invitation to realize their full potential. And sort of really have embedded in it, this notion of personalized curriculum before that ever started, because the school really flexes with the students. It's not the typical industrial model of education where one size fits all. In fact, its assumption is one size fits all fits no one.
I think we didn't know how, what I call the magic in the mess, worked. You know, and so my journey was to try to figure out how does this magic that we see in New Roads, in the soil, how does that work? It just so happened that I stumbled along in my journey, Dan, who was giving a talk at live talks at New Roads and the first talk, we didn't really talk very much. But the second one, we were like these old friends who talked for hours. And I started then really immersing myself in Dan's research. And I realized that his research gave language and a foundation to why New Roads works. And it really is built on this concept of what Dan calls integration and the notion of an integrated mind, where you honor the differences and you promote the compassionate linkages. Dan sort of says that is the basis for a self, a complex self-organizing system, like the mind, and that a healthy mind is—he calls it FACES. Dan loves these FACES, so that it is flexible, adaptable, coherent, energized, and stable. And we discovered that's what the New Roads culture and climate is.
And so we started doing it even more intentionally. And as you know, Donna was saying, like, I always say, people look at me as the head of New Roads and I get these opportunities to talk about the school, but New Roads is an ensemble. And I always tell them my role is no more important than anybody's role. Whether it's security, facilities, we're all interdependent.
And part of what our job, as in terms of teaching in goes to the core of what we consider intellectual rigor is for our students to have an awareness and understanding of the interconnected nature of reality. And so that guides everything we do. And as Donna said, I mean, I, it was never more true than in this pandemic, where I literally couldn't do everything and I was overwhelmed, and I truly had to put my money where my mouth is and really trust that we could do this together.
Lisa Kay Solomon: Your work infusing some of the research around neuroscience to help us understand, you know, as biological beings, our response to threat and our response to reward and how that shows up in, in mini moments and macro moments. And, and this notion of having, Donna, your point, a different view of leadership, that leadership is much more about building rhythms, and Luthern's point about an ensemble versus an individual leader.
Ashley. I'd love to, you know, pick up, you know, and your thoughts on that. And particularly if you could talk a little bit to thinking about modeling that not just for students, but for the multi-stakeholders that you have in your school. For the parents, for the community members. And how you hold onto that empathy, particularly when there's probably lots of competing viewpoints around what should be done.
Ashley Harper: Thanks, Lisa. No, I think this idea of linkages that Luthern brought up is so important and looking at the fact that community is built around purpose, and you know, the parents, the stakeholders, the students, the faculty at Wakefield, if they were to say, you know, if you were to ask them something about what is central to me, the number of times that I refer to our mission and the mission of this school and the fact that we together have chosen this place, whether we've chosen it for our children, whether we've chosen it as a place to practice our vocation, Luthern and Lisa both talked about everybody on the faculty and staff being a part of that community and that the cogs that make all of this work.
And so, I think this idea of partnership, and authentic partnership. I say over and over again in admissions presentations in particular, that we are a perfectly imperfect human organization, but we will always work with you knowing that your child is at the center of what we're trying to do, and what you're trying to do. And that if we can work from that space, then we can find linkages, relationships, partnerships.
Sitting where we sit, about 35 miles from Washington, DC, you can only imagine the breadth of perspectives that we have here on the hill. And I'm trying to talk about diversity and equity and inclusion and what that means. You know, really trying to make sure that all of our constituents are represented in the way that we do our work and that people do not feel isolated or sidelined, and trying to give voice and compassion. And as a leader, that can be hard, because it means you have to be open to criticism that you don't want to hear. And it means that you have to be ready to know that even with good intention and hard work, you're going to do it wrong, and you have to be prepared to unpack that and deal with that and find ways forward through partnership. To me, that level of authenticity and vulnerability is really an important part of leadership. And modeling that to my entire community means so much to me personally. I think, I hope it creates a safer space for all.
Lisa Kay Solomon:Ashley, I just think you touched upon a couple of things that are so powerful, that really underscores Donna's point of empathy, right? Empathy for others' viewpoints, to not be reflective of it, and empathy for ourselves, of how hard it is to hear that. And how to hold onto that duality of being open and innovative and experimental, and also being resilient at the same time. That's, that's a lot, that's a lot to hold at the same time. And the power of working with others to help you do that, that that's not a solo job, that's really where perhaps the trust in the leadership team, the trust you've built with the community, with the faculty and even with students.
Tim Fish:Yeah. You know, this, this whole conversation, as I knew it would, has inspired me to think about our schools. And to think about the work that the three of you are doing with students, and where that is taking us and what the future can hold. And at the same time, I'm also a little bit worried about the long-term sustainability of our schools. There are pressures coming in from a lot of different forces that are acting on our communities.
As we look forward, there's challenges regarding access and affordability in the future. And there's challenges relating to how do our schools find a way to bring more children into the fold to make even a greater difference in our communities. Lisa, I'm wondering as you think about this idea of navigating challenges, and you think about this idea about the long-term sustainability of Berkeley Carroll and other schools. I'm wondering if you have thoughts on the role of heads and leadership and how schools might continue to navigate this?
Lisa Yvette Waller: I do, Tim, and it's interesting that we've all spoken to empathy. It's something that I have written here on my notes, because it's a place where I always like to begin. And one of the things I think is really important when I think about Berkeley Carroll is the extent to which we try constantly to instill certain habits of mind that are necessary when we bring people together from different parts of the city, different parts of the world, et cetera.
So, you know, the curiosity, the empathy, the humility, the confidence, the bravery, these things are as important as the sort of content and curriculum and arguably in many ways more important in terms of what we at Berkeley Carroll call, you know, the greater endeavor, leading a life of critical, ethical, and global thinking. Like, what does that look like at school? And we need to understand that, if we're to understand what it looks like in the city and beyond.
As a scholar, and I do bring my scholarship to my leadership, and it's something that really grounds me. As a scholar, my work is on the New York City public school desegregation movement of the 1940s, fifties, and sixties, and the ways in which that movement was successful with regard to organizing and not successful with regard to creating schools that are multi-racial and accessible for the broad cross section of our children here in the city.
And so, you know, kind of warts and all, challenges and all, the things that Ashley, you speak to and Luthern, you speak to, a school like Berkeley Carroll is one of the few places in this country where we have a broad and racially diverse, socioeconomically diverse population, where we can try to do the thing that we say we want to do as a nation. Right? And so notwithstanding the challenges and, and certain kinds of failures that prevent, we have the people in the room and in the school house to try to do this work. And so Berkeley Carroll to me, the excitement is that the community is there. And so the nurturing and the repairing and the visioning and the trying can actually happen.
And I think ours is a really exciting place to try to do that, because these ideas are instilled in our kids and in our community, from the start. You know, from the preschool, right the way through. Again, with stumble, but constantly coming back, constantly taking it on. That, to me, is really exciting, that these schools, whatever one might feel about where a given school is at a given moment, are actually incubators for doing this work of creating a participatory democracy, a place of justice and a place of empathy.
Lisa Kay Solomon:Lisa, it's beautiful. As you were saying, I was reminded of the conversation we had with Baratunde Thurston on how to citizen, that this notion of citizen as active practice, and really schools as an opportunity for active practice, that we can't ask leaders when they go through school to be masters at things they haven't had a chance to practice in a safe place where they can learn from others and they can try and take risks and have the support of faculty and mentors and, and the community around them.
And as you were talking about habits of mind, Ashley, I couldn't help but think of the courtesies. And as I read them, I thought, wow. They're not just values, they're values in action, they're values with a verb, they're values with intention. And I wonder if you could just talk a little bit about the Wakefield courtesies and how they help infuse agency and that kind of practice with your students.
Ashley Harper: Absolutely Lisa and, you know, similar to what Lisa Waller said, our courtesies are foundational to the school. They've been there since the founding, and it's 16 statements centered around ourselves, our school, our community, and others. And how we intend for our students to know, and our faculty and staff and our community, to know how to interact with the world around us. And they are active. They invite critical thought. They invite reflection, they invite empathy. They invite action. And it is foundational to who we are. It's also a space where we've been challenging ourselves. In, how do they apply in today's world? Something created in 1972. Does it still apply? Is that the right statement about who we are today?
And to date, we have refined the way we think about some of them, particularly around perspective and how we take perspectives, and this idea of tolerating perspective, and is tolerate the really, really the word that we want, or do we want to move forward with that? I think that those conversations around values systems are really important to schools, whether it be habits of mind, or missions, that the conversation and keeping that going and it not being stale on a poster or on a wall, but a lived experience, is critical to nature of schools and goes back to Donna's earlier point about the purpose of education. And to your point, Lisa, about citizenship. If that's really what we're driving toward, what are the experiences that we're creating and the value systems and community norms that exist?
And so, when you're on Wakefield's campus, it can feel a little idyllic at times, because a student opens the door for you or greets you by name, and those types of things. But that sense of safety and security and identity is really an important part of who we are and what we want to be.
Tim Fish: Luthern, I'm wondering if you have comments and thoughts about the future, and about the opportunity for our schools.
Luthern Williams:Well, it's interesting. And I've learned so much from Ashley and Lisa and Donna, and it resonates so deeply with me because I think we've all been moving in that direction of trying to say, what does the foundation of education look like? And to me, there was an acceleration that happened in this pandemic that was kind of the death blow for the industrial model of education. That is really asking us to rethink what education looks like to prepare kids for an evolving world that's constantly changing. And I think foundational to that has to be the wellbeing of our children. I think if that is not at the core, then nothing else really matters. And we have now this peace park and peace lofts in our elementary school.
And so when the children are dysregulated, they can go to the peace loft and they can do yoga, and they can do meditation, and they can do mindfulness, or they can take out a book. Because we realized that it has to start with an internal journey. One where you are trying to strive toward inner peace, awareness, not shame, but awareness of one's thoughts, awareness of one's feelings, as a way of informing one's actions.
And I think it goes back to what Donna was saying about schools being a part of a larger ecosystem. I see New Roads as a part of Santa Monica. It's a Santa Monica school. I think we should be in partnership with the Santa Monica public schools because they have some things that they can teach us, and we have some things we can teach them. And that we're all in it together trying to create these informed people of conscience who are the citizens we need in the workforce, who can work together, who understand the local problems and see themselves as engaged in those, but also the state and global context. We have to create schools that, to me, build our awareness of the global family. And if we can't understand the interconnected nature of the global family, then I think there is no way that our children will be able to build the cooperation and compromise that'll be necessary for these existential threats they face.
Lisa Kay Solomon:Beautiful. I think really, you know, thinking about how the choices we make ladder up to these bigger picture aspirations we have, how to honor the global family, how to really prepare students for a future we can't yet even imagine, because we know it doesn't quite exist yet. All of you really highlighted things that have come up a lot throughout our conversations of New View EDU, which is that it often comes down to the micro moments. Yes. We can put up big words and aspirations, but Ashley, to your point, do students greet each other in the eye, by the name, right? Luthern, how do we name the spaces that we're in? Do we call it a peace lab or we call it a lounge? How do we really signal that kind of intentionality?
Donna, we want to close with one final question for you, before we wrap. As the president of NAIS, you get to see patterns across school leaders and the schools and the issues that they're facing. And my gosh, has it been a time for school leaders where there's so much coming at them to be in a reactive mode, versus really holding onto that intention of thinking longer term and thinking about not just the future of this year, but the future of years to come. And so I'd love for you to close us out with just some thoughts you have about the way you think about the future of independent schools, and really your hope for school leaders, and how they can work within their communities and work with each other to get there.
Donna Orem: Well, first I want to say I'm in awe of school leaders. This has been the toughest journey, and I feel like school leaders were really right there, front and center, having to be the leaders through uncertainty, unlike anybody else in this globe, really. And so I'm in awe of the work that they did and how they kept their communities together and their students safe.
And then if I have hope for the future, I want to, really want to pick up on what Luthern had to say. I think this is a moment when schools, particularly independent schools, can be part of societal regeneration. We have a lot of problems out there that we have to solve, and I think we have to stop thinking of ourselves just as independent schools. And, you know, I think this theme of collaboration has come up throughout our conversation. I think school leaders collaborated more during this time than they have in all the time that I've worked at NAIS, and a lot of that competition that was there beforehand just disappeared.
So my hope for the future is that schools continue to collaborate with each other, that we think about the bigger picture, and we look at the world that we want to be a part of. And we start to figure out how we make the changes so that we're leaders in that societal regeneration. I mean, that's a tall order, but I think it just starts with looking at your purpose, and what are the rocks in the stream that you have to remove in order to make progress on that dream? And I can't think of a better group of people to lead that, than the heads that we're talking to today. Luthern, Lisa, and Ashley are just incredible leaders and incredible people.
They're people who lead with humility and empathy. And they're my hope for the future that will be a different one for all children, for our society, because they care about that bigger purpose.
Tim Fish:Thanks, Donna. You know, here we are at the, at the end of season one of New View EDU, and I'm taking a look back at the 10 episodes that we've had. This conversation has been absolutely inspiring, informative. You know, and the, the theme that's emerging in my mind is that, something that's come through throughout all of our conversations, is this is an opportunity for our schools to not go back, not look to go back to whatever we had, but look to really set a stage for moving beyond. Beyond the individual and focus on narrowly defining the individual on their achievement, and moving beyond to that community.
To beyond ourselves, to all of those around us, to be embedding empathy and wellbeing and agency and community and care in the work that we're doing. And I think so much of what we've come up with, so much of what we've seen, is this, this opportunity and moment for our schools to continue moving forward. And I just, Lisa, I can't wait until the next season, and who we bring on board and what we get to talk about as we continue to look forward to the evolution and the forward momentum of our schools.
Lisa Kay Solomon: Tim, I agree with you. It's just been an extraordinary journey. And I think one of the things that holds all of us together, is to show up as learners ourselves. So really, thank you all so much for being a part of this journey with us today. Part of this larger New View EDU journey, and what an honor it is to learn from you, learn with you, and to be able to share that with a broader audience, because as we've been saying, we are in this together.