Technology Round Table Discussion

How are the opportunities and challenges that come with the future of technology being felt in schools? This episode, we’re joined by three educators, Rachael Thrash, Yasmine Aslam-Hashmi and Rory Douglas, to discuss futures focussed technology in education.

Rachael Thrash is the CEO and Co-Founder of Belong Hub, student leadership kits and services that guide adults and students to collaboratively create a belonging-centered school culture.  Rachael is a school leader and master teacher with 20+ years experience in the field of education.  With a Masters from Brown University, she has taught and led initiatives in independent US schools, public community colleges, and international IB schools, most recently the International School of Helsinki in Finland.

Yasmine Aslam-Hashmi is an international school educator with over 18 years of experience. She has taught in Canada, South Korea, Vietnam and Switzerland where she currently resides. Having taken on multiple roles within schools as a teacher, department head, curriculum developer, instructional coach, and an academic and action researcher – Yasmine is an inclusive and equitable schools' specialist, with additional specialist in learning support and teaching English to multilingual learners. She has taught middle school Mathematics, Science, Learning Support, English as an Additional Language, and Grade 11 and 12 Theory of Knowledge. She is currently a co-facilitator for the ECIS DEIJ Leadership Development Cohort, and is teaching at an international school in Zurich, Switzerland.

Rory Douglas currently serves as the Innovation and Learning Coach at Kennedy School in Hong Kong. He has been working with the ESF schools group in Hong Kong for the past 6 years, 3 at Beacon Hill School and 3 at Kennedy, as a Year 5 & 6 teacher. Before that he worked as Head of Early Years in East London, before making the move to Hong Kong. He is an ESF Centre for Research Fellow and also spends time supporting classes across the school in STEM subjects.

Our guests shared the following resources - 

"We are in the midst of a historical transformation. Current times are not just part of normal history." Sohail Inayatullah, ed., The Views of Futurists. Vol 4, The Knowledge Base of Futures Studies. Brisbane, Foresight International, 2001.

Jonathan Haidt:  The Anxious Generation

The Right Question Institute https://rightquestion.org/

10 to 25: A Groundbreaking Approach to Leading the Next Generation—And Making Your Own Life Easier by David Yeager

Technology & Ethos - Vol. 2 Book of Life by Imamu Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones)

The TIM - Technology Integration Matrix - https://fcit.usf.edu/matrix/

Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation by Steven Johnson

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Find out more about MSB and download our paper, Futures-Focused Leadership for International Schools, at www.makingstuffbetter.com

You can find us on Linked in at

Matt Hall: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-hall-msb/

Naomi Ward: https://www.linkedin.com/in/naomi-ward-098a1535/

Transcript

Matt Hall: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome back to Principled from MSB. 

Naomi Ward: This season offers international school leaders a provocation to think differently about the future of education and their role in the creation of this future. It's an opportunity to continue thinking seriously and deeply about the legacy that school leaders leave behind through concerted action in the present.

To frame this provocation, we will be bringing together the latest research and thinking about futures focused leadership, alongside insights from interviews with experts from across the international school sector and beyond. 

Matt Hall: Each episode, we will explore a different domain, and in the following episode, we will put the thinking through its paces with a panel of school leaders, some highly experienced, some new in role, and some emerging.

We're so pleased to have you join us.

For the purposes of the conversation, it'd be lovely just to hear, hear from each of you. [00:01:00] So hello. Let's, let's do some initial hellos and introductions. 

Yasmine: Uh, my name's Yasmine Hashmi. I am joining everyone from Zurich, Switzerland. I have a very diverse teaching portfolio. I've, um, taught theory of knowledge, grade 11 and 12, math, science, um, technology, EAL, learning support.

I was the head of department for learning support. Humanities, I recently taught a course on global futures and currently I'm teaching grade nine music. I'm also one of the co leads for the ECIS DEIJ leadership development cohort. 

Matt Hall: Thanks, Yasmine. Wow. What a, what a polymath. Is there anything you can't teach?

Well, thanks. Thanks for joining. Um, Rachael. 

Rachael: Sure. I'm Rachael Thrash, and I am joining you from Washington, D. C., where I just moved here. Um, I most recently was in Helsinki, Finland, [00:02:00] um, where I was serving on the leadership team overseeing student autonomy, service, Um, advisory and student leadership. And that's a real passion of mine.

My current role is as CEO and co founder of an organization called Belong Hub. And what we're focused on is making space for educators and students to work collaboratively on increasing student voice in schools. Um, and so one of my greatest passions has always been co constructing learning and how can we make students equal and active partners in thinking about how they learn and more importantly, why they learn and the responsibility of learning.

What does it mean to be a good learner and how does that help us be better global citizens? 

Matt Hall: Lovely. Well, that sounds, sounds like a podcast by itself. Thank you. I love that. Um, hi, Rory. [00:03:00] 

Rory: Hi, I'm Rory. I'm a learning and innovation coach at ESF, which is a Hong Kong international school. Um, before that I was a year five, year six, year three teacher at the same company.

And then before that I was teaching in, in East London. In various years, too. Um, I'm interested in kind of future ology and futurism in general. Um, and my job at the moment is to help teachers use technology and a pedagogically kind of minded way. Um, so we're developing different systems where we We've got technology in our school, but we're making sure that it's very meaningful for its purpose.

Matt Hall: Yeah, great. Okay, so so many Experienced perspectives coming to this conversation. Great. Well, let's get started. It's lovely to have you all here Educators from different parts of the world and different levels of experience working in different schools and we're bringing to the table our reflections and thoughts on this Technological [00:04:00] domain, but as we've all agreed Just now we're not going to say completely devoted to it because we know, um, we know that they're all related.

There's a phrase in the paper that talks about school communities moving with, with slow urgency, um, towards a kind of preferable relationship with technology and the relationship between technology and. Um, I think what we call technologically informed human interaction, if there is such a thing. I'm really interested about where you are in your schools with that.

How, how, how might we move towards this new relationship with, with technology, with slow urgency? Because I feel rushed. 

Rory: I think, um, everyone feels quite a lot of urgency right now. The number of times I, in my space, have heard the term Black Swan event or something like that about the, the birth of AI. And then when you think about how many events, or how many, you know, life changing technologies have come in the last sort of hundred [00:05:00] years, I do think a little bit of temperance needs to be, needs to be put in.

They interviewed a bunch of futurists, and this is in 2001, and they said back then, we're in the midst of a historical transformation, current times are not a normal part of human history. But that has been happening for a quite a long time now, you know, go back to sort of futurism movements around the 1900s and stuff that we're saying the same thing.

Oh, now is our time now is the time of acceleration. And I do think that you, you know, we do need to take a little step back at certain points, particularly with AI, because I think there's this feeling that the whole face of education is going to change immediately. And in reality. There will be many traditions and many sort of remnants from, from previous education systems that probably quite rightly will take a while to, to move on and to develop, and it's going to, there's going to be mistakes along the way and that there's going to be lots of, uh, [00:06:00] wrong paths probably, and there'll be lots of ideas that won't last.

And then over, over the years, we'll kind of weed out those that. That make a meaningful difference. 

Matt Hall: Yeah, it's really interesting perspective, Rory, that yeah, there is this, this urgency mixed with panic, I think, in that, yeah, description of Black Swan, Swan events. And, and, and yet maybe, maybe there's something, something distinct about this period that's That, that is different to previous emergent technologies.

Naomi Ward: You know, we've had these technological moral panics throughout history, um, and now I guess Tricia spoke to that. What's different about this one? If that, if that's the case, or is it the same if it's always been? 

Rachael: I think a significant difference with what is happening with AI is how it really causes us to question what is the future?

assessment and how do we value [00:07:00] what is knowledge? And when so much of what we have traditionally assessed is now available at everyone's fingertips, what is authentically the product of a student, of a teacher, of learning. And I think that that is, at least what I saw in my last school, part of the panic.

How can we allow students to still be building? The knowledge that we have collectively as perhaps one might say Western society decided is the foundational skill set that everyone needs to know now who decides that, and how do we. Help kids walk through a set pattern we've already come up with while we are still one thing I loved [00:08:00] about the white paper was this idea that we need to be thinking about.

We can't go so fast that we have stopped providing the education, the safety, the systems and the structures that were already put in place, but we also need to be conscientiously saying we need to hold on to those structures while we're making intentional progress and including different voices. in that process.

And, and I think that that's what AI is pushing, which is beautiful, but also terrifying depending on who you are and where you sit in that process. 

Rory: I think you're so right about there, there being a, uh, the assessment points changing, you know, the, the essay, the written essay at home. is something that is clearly in jeopardy in my mind, you know, you can't simply ask somebody to go home and write an essay anymore and expect that that would be their knowledge in their mind [00:09:00] and a good representation because students nowadays know that there are tools to help them so much with that process and they couldn't probably repeat that process independently.

I think it ought to speak to a wider question though, which is who's responsible for assessment as well? Which is is it the education system that is responsible for the testing and ranking of students and and to say what skills are Valuable what skills aren't and who's better at these skills or is it does it become a responsibility of industry?

You know, at the job interview part of their life as, as people leave school and they go into the working world, the industrial sort of complex has, has, has meant that education has been ranking people for the last, I don't know, call it a hundred years. They've been saying, well, these students are A students and these are B and these are C and this is why you should employ them.

But why is that education's responsibility? 

Yasmine: Yeah, I mean, absolutely, [00:10:00] Rory and, um, Rachael, like I, I totally agree with what both of you have said. And just thinking about that concept of slow urgency, I mean, quite often it refers to the idea of making thoughtful and sustained progress without rushing. Right?

And yet recognizing that importance of taking action. And the thing with technology, because it's changing so fast, and the key word here is change, not everybody's comfortable with change. And hence, the slow urgency, we need to slow down and be mindful and conscientious of our steps forward. And when we're looking at, for example, assessment, or if we're looking at where knowledge is generated, you know, and I feel that, At the center of all of this is human vulnerability.

You know, do we really understand where the technology is going to take us? Do we really understand the implications? You know, because a lot of times, If we don't understand what the technology or the use, a purpose of technology is within [00:11:00] our educational settings, are we adapting to the technology, or should it be such that technology should adapt to us?

You know, that interaction needs to be meaningful. It needs to be purposeful, because historically, if you look at the way, you know, education or school systems, um, were formed, and I really appreciated a comment that Patrick Alexander said in his last podcast with, uh, both yourselves, Matt and Naomi, is that, you know, if you look at schools 100 years ago, 100 years ago in the UK, um, they would almost pretty much look the same as they do today.

But what if we went back a thousand years? What would education look like? What was the essence of education? Okay, let's go back a millennia. The time when the first person picked up a chalk or, or, or the piece of coal and started drawing on the walls of, of, of the cave. You know, and, uh, you know, what, what, what enticed them?[00:12:00] 

And it's that curiosity, you know, that, like, the ability to imagine, you know, a world beyond what we are today, you know. And when I was teaching my Global Futures class, one of the things that the, um, the kids, um, said to me, I'm like, well, you know what, if we're going to think about the future, what is the essence?

What do we want to work on as, as a human race, you know? And they're like, yeah, you know, we want to be creative. We want to be imaginable. Okay, but how are you going to do that? How are you going to do that? It's like, well, I guess Ms. Hashman needs collaboration, but if you look beyond the walls of the school, what kind of examples of collaboration are the kids seeing?

We need to step back and, and, and think about, you know, we're creating these spaces in our classroom. Are we, are we as educators being creative? Are we being ethical in the way we are assessing our students? Are we creating those forms of, uh, or those platforms within our classrooms to make sure that, you know, education is accessible?

We can think the Industrial [00:13:00] Revolution style, you know, rows, you know, and that's the reason why schools were, were, students were put in rows, is to make sure that they were able to adapt according to the economic systems that were in place at that time period. But today that's necessary, not necessarily the case.

We need people to be more creative and that does require a slow agency urgency because we need to, um, we need to, uh, people to understand what does change really mean? 

Naomi Ward: So much going through my mind as you're talking Yasmeen around what we're holding onto and yet what we've forgotten. And so we talk about this shift from urgency.

You know, I've had schools described as landscapes of reactivity. And here's a shift to slow urgency. So what needs to shift in us first, or what's required of us as educators to support this change? 

Yasmine: Yeah, I [00:14:00] mean, I'll just say something really quickly. I came across a paper by Imamu Amari Baraka, and she wrote an essay in 1965 on technology and ethos.

And she wrote in this essay in response to, um, the person, the man who walked on the moon, who landed on the moon. And she said, you know, technology itself must represent human striving. It must represent at each point, the temporary perfection of the evolutional man and be obsolete only because nothing is ever perfect.

The only constant is change. And she was talking at the standpoint of, this essay was written in 1965, and she is a, is a black woman who wrote this essay, and she's like, that's great, that technological advancement is okay, it's great for that person who stood on the moon, but for [00:15:00] me, Being a black woman during the civil rights movement, what benefit is it for me?

How is that going to change my condition?

Rachael: Thank you Yasmine.

Matt Hall:We're sitting in awe of that statement. Rachael, does your point link to that? 

Rachael: I do think it does because I think about how the essence of what we're talking about is moving from answers to questions. and the great opportunity of the human imagination. And so, even referencing the essay that Yasmine so eloquently just quoted, it's about how, what does, every individual Is coming to the organization from their own perspective, and we need to think about how we can help them and inspire them to grow.

So are they feeling like there are no opportunities anymore [00:16:00] because everything they can do is being replicated by technology or is outside their scope of influence? Or are we allowing them to be asking? The questions that give them agency in this process, give them the ability to question the technology, to question what the rules are, to co create those rules so that they re assert their, their power and their sense of control, because so much of this is.

Where has the nexus of control shifted and we feel panicked, we feel grief when we feel that it's outside of our system and then schools become places of reactivity, but how can we slow down enough? One of my favorite organizations is the Right Question Institute. If you've heard about it, it is designed, it began with helping the most marginalized people in society learn to question.[00:17:00] 

Their environment. So those people who were part of the, um, judicial system and who didn't know that they had rights and they could question, they were coached to question and they've brought those questions to the classroom as well. So that if we think about how we encourage people in our community to frame what is happening here, why, why do I know this?

Why do I want to know this? We've opened up. An opportunity to learn regardless of where the technology is. 

Naomi Ward: Yeah, so there's something here about, um, yeah, questions rather than answers, letting go of control, um, and questions lead to collaboration, right? And um, a few of you have said like inviting the right voices, diverse voices.

Yeah. So what's come up for you Rory as you're listening to Rachael and Yasminee? I just 

Rory: liked what you were kind of alluding [00:18:00] to there about like the criticality of technology, um, and making sure that, you know, we are. I think I myself am very guilty of, I always think that thinking about what could, what could be these exciting prospects that could happen and yet we also have this responsibility to, to be critical and to, to, to protect.

Children who are the people that are the heaviest, most heavily influenced. We were talking earlier about, is this a unique period in history, um, in terms of technology and possibly one of the ways that it is quite unique is the unfettered access that lots and lots of people and particularly children have to quite powerful technologies.

Some people at the moment are talking about the hybrid mind and about how a technology you can kind of work with technology and that will change your thinking. A great example is like Google Maps and now I'm, I know how I used to drive around a car with a paper map and I could drive most, you know, most of the places in London [00:19:00] and now I don't even know where the local MTR station is because I don't have to anymore.

And it's changed my thinking and arguably not for the better in that case. And then we've got a group of people who we are all working with who are at their most susceptible point in life. And so, whilst, yes, we do need questions, there's also a, I guess that's the urgency side of the slow urgency is, well, hold on, if we don't make some, just some strong choices here or some, some recommendations, that this could Have negative impacts to one of the questions from the paper.

The white paper talks about human technology. Focus human interaction. I think it is technology informed. So, uh, human interaction. And I think in some ways It's, it's absolutely amazing. Look at what we're doing right now. We were having this amazing discussion thanks to technology that wouldn't have been around maybe 10, 15 years ago.

[00:20:00] Um, but then we talk about entertainment and socializing. Well, how has technology affected those aspects of our lives and has it brought us together or has it separated people? And so, yeah, it's very, very difficult as you say, to, to, to sit back and just ask questions when there's that, that elephant in the room.

Yeah. 

Matt Hall: And I really see that elephant, um, I've just, just started reading and I really recommend it. Um, the author of Sapiens, whose name I'll get wrong, Yuval Noah Harari, um, famously wrote Sapiens and has just written Nexus, which is a brief history of information technology or information networks. I mean, don't read it before you go to bed cause you won't sleep.

He makes this kind of distinct point that the AI is the first thing that we've created. That's, that's not a tool, it's an agent. It has the ability to think for itself, it has the ability to generate content, it has ability to instruct itself. And the bit, you know, [00:21:00] as the father of three daughters, the bit that I think links to your point Rory that really, really does keep me awake is, is the, um, is, is the How quickly can we grow a criticality in our young people when it comes to using this tool, you know, that my daughter who sits scrolling on an Instagram feed thinking she's seeing the stuff that she likes is not aware that she's not seeing the stuff she's like, she's seeing the stuff that the algorithms are putting in front of her.

Um, she's, they are making decisions to, to, um, to put certain things in front of her for certain periods of time, because, um, and these are, this is well documented that the platforms are geared with one intention, which is engagement time. The longer you can keep someone on the platform, the more successful the platform is because that, that, that that's attractive to, um, To advertisers, the urgency for me in this, I think as a father, as an educator is, is around that criticality, you know, are [00:22:00] we, are we engaging in these tools because that's just what we do and they're, they're evolving and emerging and, and we can't stop them, um, which is true.

Um, but you know, what roles might schools play in, in offering a critical, a detachment of realization that these things are separate from us and we can be in relation with them, not subject to them. Um, and I say that as someone who's no longer working in a school. So I'm really, really interested in your perspective on the schools on where and if maybe I'm wrong.

Maybe it's not. Maybe it's a parent's job. But where, where does school sit on that? 

Rory: This is something that our company and our school particularly are just really struggling with at the moment. Um, I don't know if most of you have probably read Jonathan Haidt's book, The Anxious Generation, which is a hot topic at the moment.

And I'm part of a wider network of people in my position who are in all the different schools and we're kind of discussing like, Well, what are we going to do about this? You know, is it our responsibility to tell parents how to [00:23:00] parent? We are teachers, there's a distinct line there. Or is there, in fact, a duty to share something that So I got into this sort of side of education two or three years ago.

And I probably wouldn't have read this book was they not in my shoes. And I have two young children who are three and four and luckily don't have smart devices yet, but it's really affecting the way that I think and plan for, well, am I going to bring iPads into my house? Am I going to do smartphones?

What age would that happen? And so we're actually having on the, later in November, we're having a book study. So we're going to ask parents to read it, and if they haven't read it, we'll do a little description of what the book, the main ideas, and then a discussion with our community, and say, what do we think?

I mean, we're in Hong Kong, we've got to be culturally aware as well, that book is slightly Western centric. But then there are similarities and paradoxes to be drawn there too. Um, so that's just something, that's [00:24:00] one thing that we're doing. Um, Yasmine, I don't know if you want to add to that. 

Yasmine: Um, yeah, absolutely.

I think as educators, when we teach, we always do like that diagnostic assessment of what is known in our classrooms. And then from there, we use that as a sounding board. And if we are anxious about technology, we need to address that anxiety. And figure out why are we anxious about technology and educate and have that convert open conversation with our students as well as our parents.

I feel that, you know, there needs to be a level of flexibility and resilience as well, you know, and, and sometimes it has to be taught. Where are our communities when it comes down to technology? What is their understanding? Um, we need to address those misconceptions of what AI is, for example, since that's like the biggest [00:25:00] form of technological development that we're dealing with right now.

But like, what is, what is their understanding? Cause there are a lot of misunderstandings of what AI is. And I think we need to address that and one of the frameworks or I guess it's a matrix that I really appreciate. It's, it's called the TIM matrix. It's the technology integration matrix and it was developed by the Florida Center for Instructional Technology and it was, it was developed for the Florida Department of Education.

And it basically, the matrix basically maps out, you know, where are you as an educator, you know, are you at an entry level? Are you at an adaptive level? Are you at an infusion level of using technology? Are you at a transformational level? And it looks at like, you know, the meaningful and purposeful use of technology within your classroom.

You know, is it goal [00:26:00] directed? Is it authentic? It is, is it collaborative? Is it constructive? You're just not bringing the technology into your classroom for the sake of having technology there. It has a reason, it has a purpose. And I feel that if we just bring technology into the classroom just for the sake of bringing technology into our classroom, that will actually exasperate the anxiety because we are not addressing the misconceptions.

Why do we have it there? What is the purpose of it? How is it going to help the educational system? How is it going to help the learning of our students? Because we know that technology also supports a lot of learning in our classrooms. It has actually helped make curriculum a lot more accessible for students who otherwise wouldn't have been able to access curriculum.

Or just how can we extend our students further by using, um, tools within AI as well. So I, I just feel like, you know, in order to be innovative, we need to [00:27:00] bring everybody at the table, have those open conversations, address those anxieties. So that way. We can be solution driven, but to be pragmatic as opposed to reactive.

Rachael: Going back to The Anxious Generation with Jonathan Haidt. I read that book as well, and I was reading it while I was working with grade 10 students and actually with my own teenage children. And it was giving me a lot of pause and concern. And I brought many of the points he was making to the students.

And they kept being upset with me that I was reading the book, frankly, and they said, I think that this is too reactionary. And they didn't use those exact words. But they said, there are many ways in which we are getting value from our technology, and we are bothered when the older generation assumes that they know more and assumes that we should be using it.

[00:28:00] Now, there are many valid points and many research pointed to in the anxious generation, but I almost think that our, we're perhaps the anxious generation and we're projecting some of that onto them. And I've been reading David Yeager's book, 10 to 25, um, I highly recommend it. And he has much more of a mentoring perspective around students that how do we challenge them.

and support them in their growth and learning and I think that that's universal going back to Yasmine's point about whether we're talking about people learning initially in community. We need to bring students into the conversation and these discussions are hard and there are no easy answers but this is a giant leap forward.

In human evolution, and they're the ones who [00:29:00] need to guide some of how this is, how this is going to be humanized, and how we are going to manage and still learn to collaborate and still learn the important, quote unquote, soft skills that will make AI and other technologies be effective. 

Naomi Ward: And I think throughout the conversation as we're coming to the end, there's something about reframing that is so powerful and just having that.

critical consciousness, not to just. Receive, but to take a step back and, and, you know, this conversation we've had here feels life giving and that feels like bring the young people into this conversation, ask these questions, sit with it, be with the not knowing. That's life giving and there's the source of our creativity.

Yeah. So, um, Rory, what's coming up for you? 

Rory: Just to say they're completely right. Yeah. I think that what we're hoping will come out of this, this [00:30:00] book study or this. This look at smartphones in general is that we'll have more co consuming and that these devices with this amazing power can be these triggers for some actual, um, kind of parent to child moments, you know, look at this amazing thing that we can do together and, and as opposed to something quite separate, which I think is what we, as you say, we are anxious about it being Um, but maybe students are co, co consuming together, they're making connections and it's just something that we haven't quite got our head around how to do with our own children.

Yasmine: As I'm hearing Rachael and Rory, everyone, Naomi, Matt, all of you talk about this topic. I think about Stephen Johnson's work, his book, actually, where do innovative ideas come from? And okay, he talks about the hunch and where ideas come from and then, but it's through true collaboration and exchanging our ideas that brings the innovation out.[00:31:00] 

And the conversation is one that needs to be done, needs to be had with the community and not just our students, but with the parents, the teachers, those individuals within, beyond the school community as well that interact with our students. So that way, you know, it's a communal. And we get those different perspectives that get us thinking more pragmatic about technology and how we can act in and use it in meaningful, purposeful and ethical ways.

Matt Hall: Thank you, Yasmine. What a lovely place to finish the conversation today, um, with an invitation to continue the conversation. But I think as you've all just highlighted, most importantly with the students that we. Work with and work for thanks so much.

I mean, well, first of all, well done. We did it our first round table five people in one podcast We said we do things differently [00:32:00] this series and we have and it and it worked I think I really love the richness of that Conversation. 

Naomi Ward: It's just a joy to be around people who are living this Just so thoughtful and, and, and discerning and, you know, connect us back to the deeper grounding truths beyond that sort of fear of the new.

That as human beings, we can default to. So I think I'm leaving with that sense of, again, it comes back to having conversations with, with young people, with, with parents, with schools around what we want technology to be, how we want it to, um, to support us and, and, and to have a, to have agency in that.

Yeah. What are your, what are your thoughts? 

Matt Hall: I think I come immediately away with a reminder to be cautious of assumptions. Um, you know, [00:33:00] the assumption that we need to change this because young people are. At risk, um, that really links me back to the conversation with Tricia when she talked about, you know, what do we need to let go?

What are we grieving? And there's something, something that came out of that conversation with me about I've got this idealistic view of how my childhood was, and therefore, I don't want this kind of AI social media platforms coming in, interfering and making it kind of any different for my kids or the kids that our schools are educating, like they need to have this idealistic 1980s.

Kind of conservative childhood, as if that was great. Um, and suddenly there's a threat and actually, yeah, go back into the conversation with young people. They're not necessarily saying to us, protect us, protect us. This is scary. We're using it all the time. We're being hijacked by it. Um, there's some truth in that.

I don't dismiss that, that fear, but, but again, we need to be really careful that we both don't build our own into assumptions into what's needed or what [00:34:00] is true. 

Naomi Ward: And this is the world they live in. So to have that criticality and self regulation is something we need to talk about and engender rather than just say it needs to go away and we need to control it.

So, uh, yeah, as always, we're probably reflecting on our own parenting 

Matt Hall: and 

Naomi Ward: our own conversations that we need to have. And this is, this is the bonus of, uh, these sort of far reaching conversations. 

Matt Hall: It is. So that's me a way to, um, connect with my people on Snapchat and make a TikTok. And, uh, I'll see you next time.

Naomi Ward: Yeah, see you next time. I look forward to that. 

Matt Hall: You can download a free copy of our paper, Future's Focus Leadership for International Schools, by signing up on our website, makingstuffbetter. com. And don't forget to like and follow Principled so you don't miss an episode. 

Naomi Ward: You've been listening to Principled from MSB.

The podcast was produced by Emily Crosby Media, [00:35:00] with music by Lucy Farrell, released on Hudson Records.