FocusED Show Notes with Guest Ben Farrell

Ben starts off by telling us about a committee that he has going to help unpack “emerging technology,” and things are literally changing overnight. 

For us to lead in a tech-driven environment, Ben says that we have to be willing to say, “I don’t know what that means yet.” 

He tells us about the human-centered design process that they use at his schools–building something for empathy for the end-user of whatever we’re building. 

Joe asks Ben to talk about anything traditional that they’re abandoning in the curriculum to be able to spend the time they do on future-driven learning. 

Don’t miss what he says about grading. They figured out how to create a competency-based system that spits out a letter grade at the end. 

Ben talks about the influences of his background: Beijing, Montessori, Thacher, Bowdoin, and more. All of this feeds his ideas about schools teaching more of an entrepreneurial thought process. 

He shares about the competitive nature of the marketplace for schools in Beijing. Students literally need to have an international passport. This means that the schools are all working to differentiate themselves from others like them. 

We discuss what it looks like to prepare students to do jobs that don’t exist yet. Ben talks about the fact that one important thing we can do, even though we don’t know what the jobs are, is to help students learn how to navigate competition within a start-up environment. 

It’s awesome to hear how he elevates student voices by asking them to tell him what the future of schooling, including the use of AI, should look like. 

Joe reminds listeners of our podcast with Don Wettrick. 

Ben recognizes that many parents are still a bit leery about system changes, and he comes back to what students are going to need for the rest of their lives, including the moral responsibility to use these new tools ethically. 

Philosophically, he wants his students to explore their passions in the evening versus doing more school work. 

All 9th graders at NEIH take Foundations of Entrepreneurship. 

Ben invites our listeners to reach out to him at NEIH. He calls it the gift of time to just sit and talk. 

Ben tells us about an experience he had in Rwanda that showed him that if they could overcome what they needed to overcome, we can do anything. 

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