In this episode from NAIS podcast Member Voices, Jackie Wolking speaks with Autumn Adkins Graves, head of St. Anne's-Belfield School (VA). In their conversation, Graves shares the importance of curiosity in the age of artificial intelligence, and how her school created a portrait of a graduate with a futurist lens. She also talks about change management and how we affirm what's working well to move things along and how we have to stop trying to control tech or dismiss it.

New View EDU will return next week with a new episode on How AI Changes Everything and Nothing, with guest Peter Nilsson.

Related Resources:

• Member Voices Podcast
• AI Resources for Schools and Educators
• Recent Episodes of New View EDU

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Episode 80: The Future of Inclusion

With Kenji Yoshino

Available October 28, 2025

In this time of rapidly evolving law and opinion around terms like diversity, equity, and inclusion, what is the work of school leaders who believe in building stronger, more connected, more inclusive communities? Legal scholar and author Kenji Yoshino is the author of a forthcoming book called How Equality Wins: A New Vision for an Inclusive America. He joins host Morva McDonald to talk about the legal precedents of the past, the shifting culture of the present, and the strategies that can secure the future of equitable practice.

Guests: Kenji Yoshino

Resources, Transcript, and Expanded Show Notes

In This Episode:

• “I think lawyers are actually terrible at lots of things, but we're actually rather good at saying, yes, we disagree, but you're not my enemy, right? You're my debate opponent, and you're actually my friend on the other side. And so let's actually behave as if, let's carry ourselves in that way and let the best ideas win.”
• “I think that the younger generation has a greater understanding not of who they are, but, or not just of who they are, but also the skills that are going to be needed for us to survive, much less thrive, in a multicultural society that is much more global, much more diverse. And so the capacity to speak across difference, to work across difference, to bond across difference is going to be a critical skill for us going forward. And that's the set of skills that are embodied within DEI.”
• “So the question I always ask is like, it's really easy to get caught up in the heat of the moment and to get blown back and forth as the pendulum swings back and forth, right? But rather than doing that, like just sit in your values and think five years from now, who will I want to have been in this moment when everyone was telling me like cave or do this or do that? Like what is the kind of values based decision that I can make here that will make me proud of myself five years from now, rather than proud of myself tomorrow or proud of myself next week?”

Related Episodes: 77; 66; 64; 62; 37; 30; 17; 7

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Episode 78: The Power of Transcendent Thinking

With Mary Helen Immordino-Yang

Available October 14, 2025

“What does it mean to be a self-actualizing, fully integrated, socially contextualized human being in this new world order? And how would we design opportunities…to help a young person develop not just what they know now, but to potentiate in ways that change who they could become?”

Neuroscientist Mary Helen Immordino-Yang returns to New View EDU to share the work she and her team at USC CANDLE are doing to answer these, and other, deeply provocative questions about the science of teaching and learning. Her new research hones in on a specific type of cognitive process, which she terms “transcendent thinking.” And as Mary Helen explains during this conversation with Debra Wilson, transcendent thinking may be the key to unlocking long-term developmental outcomes for students.

Guest: Mary Helen Immordino-Yang

Resources, Transcript, and Expanded Show Notes

In This Episode:

• “So what we have here is this incredible suggestion that when kids dispositionally engage with complex, curious, deep thinking about big ideas. Not only are they deeply engaged by that, but they are physically and functionally growing their capacity to think in ways that over time produces a neural substrate that supports wellbeing. So we're actually growing a robust brain that enables us to be well, to manage in relationships, and to feel good in our own skin and to develop identities that transcend that are about big ideas and purpose and values.” (18:21)
• “What we show is that teaching well is not more work, it's different work. It's work in which you really engage with the thought patterns, what it feels like for these students to be thinking. What are their emotions about here? Are they having emotions about, you know, the amazing power of right triangles to help us, you know, sort of understand the geometry of the world and how powerful it feels to really engage in that kind of mathematical thinking? Or are they having emotions about, yay, I did it, I'm done. Or, boo, I didn't, and now I'm freaking out because I'm going to flunk, right? Because when the emotions are mainly about those outcomes, what we're finding is that the school is not promotive of development in the same way. It may be promoting quote unquote learning, maybe, but in the service of what? What are you going to use that learning for?” (33:33)

Related Episodes: 75; 72; 69; 59; 58; 47; 35

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