Episode 95: Shaping Future Citizens Through Dialogue

With Mia Charity

Available November 3, 2026

What’s the difference between deliberation and debate? And how can teaching students to practice deliberation help them form valuable civic and life skills? That’s the work Mia Charity leads through the Close Up Foundation, and which she describes in conversation with host Debra Wilson on this episode of New View EDU.

Guest: Mia Charity

Resources, Transcript, and Expanded Show Notes

In This Episode:

• “I think some of the common threads are that, you know, we all have different ways that these issues that seem so big, healthcare, immigration, you know, those sound like really big issues. But when you start breaking them down and helping people understand how government and public policy really impact and touch their lives, I think once you can make that connection, people understand why they should care…Like you think of these things as public policy, but you know, they're real health, housing, real day-to-day life issues that are wrapped up into policy and community and all the things that are around you, but that's not it, right?” (8:12)
• “I think the framework of deliberation has helped with listening and receiving information in a way that, like, okay, well, I'm not just trying to win an argument against you. I'm listening, and maybe what you're saying adds to how I think about an issue…There's a willingness from that framework to listen better, to take in pieces that maybe you hadn't thought of before. And so because it's, you know, we're talking about high school and middle school students. They, that they're used to coming into conversations that way versus adults who, even if I said explain deliberation versus debate, still maybe come into those conversations wanting to prove that whatever they're saying is correct.” (13.54)
• “Critical thinking is in your science class, that's in your math class, that's in all of your classes. And so how do we start defining those skills a little bit differently to help young people recognize like, no, that's something you're gonna do as a good citizen. That's, it applies to your next job. It applies to whether you're going to college or not, and it applies as a life skill that you're learning how to get new information, analyze it and engage with people who might think differently from you. Because I don't know any of us who get to go exclusively live in a bubble.” (21:12)

Related Episodes:Good Conflict, The Promise, Possibility, and Power of Adolescence, Schools in a Time of Hope and Cynicism, Pluralism in Education, Wisdom Road, Helping Students Shape Dynamic Futures, The Opportunities and Obligations of Citizenship in K-12 Education

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Episode 94: A Member View on AI in Schools

With Brent Kaneft of Wilson Hall School

Available October 27, 2026

In this Member View EDU episode, host Andi Gabrick sits down with Brent Kaneft, Head of School at Wilson Hall in South Carolina, to get his thoughts on how AI is impacting schools, and how Brent approaches his headship in an era of rapidly evolving technologies.

Guest: Brent Kaneft

Resources, Transcript, and Expanded Show Notes

In This Episode:

• “And what I am finding in independent schools is one of maybe the biggest challenges we have right now, is that we're in this cycle where we should be rebirthing, we should be recreating and reimagining what our purpose is, what our structure looks like, what we're doing in the classroom, what learning entails. But we're, actually we've been caught in this trap. And that trap is that all growth is good, that abundance means success, that progress is very narrowly defined as, you know, immediate and short term versus looking at long-term second and third order effects of our decisions.” (3:09)
• “My guess is most schools are going to, you know, if they can optimize, if optimization is already their value, they're not going to use that extra time for things that we would love to do, you know, like be slower in the classroom, take a walk with a student outside and just talk to them, maybe have a teacher reading a book, for goodness sake, you know, and just you know, enjoying themselves on campus. They're not gonna do that. They're gonna say, What else can you do? What other program can we add? Because we've got to be competitive with Joe Blow across the street.” (9:00)
• And head to 16:40 for the lightning round, where Brent shares what he’s reading, what he’s listening to, and what he does at the beginning and end of each day as a Head of School!

Related Episodes:

• Episode 93: Educational Design in the Age of AI
• Episode 92: Reducing Harm in a Digital World
• Episode 91: The Digital Delusion
• Episode 90: The Future of Digital Literacy
• Episode 81: How AI Changes Everything and Nothing
• Episode 78: The Power of Transcendent Thinking

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Episode 93: Educational Design in the Age of AI

With Carl Hendrick

Available October 20, 2026

“I think the big rupture that's happened in education recently is AI.” That’s how Carl Hendrick begins his conversation with host Debra Wilson, identifying a clear dividing line between the educators who approach AI as “this is the end of the world,” and those who see the potential for its use. Coming from a background in the science of learning, Carl has a unique perspective on exactly what he thinks the exciting opportunities are to advance our understanding of learning in new ways, and where he believes a more traditional, human-centered approach remains invaluable.

Guest: Carl Hendrick

Resources, Transcript, and Expanded Show Notes

In This Episode:

• “I think probably in 10 years' time, we're gonna see a world in education where a lot of the stuff that teachers do that they instinctively know is not effective, you know, marking books, grading books, a lot of administrative stuff, is just not that important. And we'll probably free up a lot of that and hopefully we'll see a world, we'll see a classroom or a school environment where teachers can really do the thing that teachers are so good at, which is being a mentor, being a coach. Inspiring, motivating kids, 'cause that's the thing that is the sort of hard constraint in schools.” (5:49)
• “The accountability is very much front loaded with the teacher for things that they're really unaccountable for, whether that be student motivation, poor curricular materials, bad behavior, a whole range of things. So we could create a system where the accountability is a lot more like, in that model where you have – and by the way, when the kids are working on laptops, there's no chatbots. They're doing a knowledge-rich curriculum, used spaced retrieval practice. They're, you know, they're kind of doing the same thing as like a lesson would be, you know, or a really well planned lesson, but they're just getting, they're cognitively, like learning happens when you think hard, when you have to take knowledge and apply it. And in a lot of our lessons, kids are not thinking at all. They're daydreaming, they're cosplaying thinking,” (24:25)
• “And so that's the kind of birthright of kids. I think we owe it to the kids to pass on that knowledge and give it to them. Now, whether they like it or not is irrelevant. You don't look at a science curriculum and go, you know, Darwin's a bit boring, so we'll do something else this year. Or we'll, you know, we'll leave out Newton and we'll you know, we're doing physics, but we you know, we don't like that, so we'll do something else. And so in literature and culture there's these kind of hugely important points that, just to be a kind of citizen and to be a part of our democracy, it's really helpful to know what these things are.” (29:15)

Related Episodes: 91; 90; 81; 75; 71; 68; 49

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.