What We Heard at the Innovative Learning Conference
Every so often, you find yourself in a room where many different conversations are happening—but they are all, somehow, circling the same question.
That was the feeling of this year’s Innovative Learning Conference (ILC) at The Nueva School. Framed around the theme EnlightenEd: Shifting Paradigms for Living and Learning, the conference brought together educators, researchers, students, and industry leaders from across the Bay Area for two days of big ideas and thoughtful reflection. The stated goal was ambitious—reimagine what education can be—but what made it resonate was how grounded the conversations felt in real classrooms, real relationships, and real challenges.
Again and again, across keynotes and workshops, a shared tension surfaced: we are living through a moment of rapid technological change, and yet the core questions of education remain deeply human.
What does it mean to belong?
What does it mean to be seen?
What does it mean to learn—really learn—in a world where answers are increasingly easy to generate?
Rather than trying to resolve these questions, we’ve gathered a set of moments from the conference that stayed with us—lines that sparked conversation, challenged assumptions, or simply felt worth returning to. The quotes that follow come from keynote speakers, students, and Nueva educators across sessions, offering a window into the ideas that shaped the two days.
Taken together, these reflections don’t point to a single conclusion—but they do offer a sense of where the conversation is heading, and what matters most as we continue to rethink teaching and learning.
(Quotes have been lightly edited for clarity and concision while preserving original meaning.)
Keynotes
Fostering Intrinsic Motivation & Dignity for Young People
Rosalind Wiseman, Author and educator on social dynamics and youth culture
The foundation of my work is understanding how words are received—especially by young people. Years ago, I realized that the word respect was particularly complicated for them, and I needed to understand why. Drawing on the work of Donna Hicks at Harvard, I came to see that when young people hear “respect,” they often react strongly because the word is so frequently misused in schools. Instead of feeling valued, they experience it as something being weaponized against them—as a demand to comply or obey.
So take this situation: a ninth-grade girl is upset because a boy has said something hurtful. The adult response is often, “You don’t have to be friends with him, but you have to treat him with respect.” To a young person, that can feel like being told to accept or tolerate behavior that goes against their values. One of the most common questions I hear is: Why do I have to respect someone who is dismissing or demeaning others?
All of us have had the experience of being expected to show respect to someone who isn’t honoring the dignity of others. And when that happens, young people disengage.
What’s more effective is to say: You don’t have to respect the behavior, but you do need to treat the person with dignity—with inherent worth. That shift interrupts the power dynamic and allows young people to respond in a more grounded and self-directed way. Too often, “respect” becomes a tool of power rather than a way of treating people well. Helping young people understand that distinction gives them a clearer, more authentic way to navigate these situations.
David Yeager, Leading expert on adolescent development and motivation
In our evolutionary history, in pre-industrial societies, belonging is a feeling that when you are vulnerable, your tribe will take care of you. It is actually a signal to your brain that you can survive in this group. Our brains haven’t evolved since then, so those same fears about being excluded or not valued are still incredibly powerful, especially in adolescence.
You can’t create belonging just by saying ‘you belong.’ Belonging is this signal to the brain that you are a valued, competent member of a group. If students never have opportunities to earn a prestigious reputation as someone who brings value to the group, then you haven’t created the preconditions for belonging. It is teachers’ job to create experiences where students can earn the kind of meaningful reputation that allows them to have a sense of self-respect and earn respect from peers.
AI Ahead - Insights from Industry and Academia for Educators
Fei Fei Li, Inaugural Sequoia Professor in the Computer Science Department at Stanford University and Founding Co-Director of Stanford’s Human-Centered AI Institute
The hype from both sides is overstated. Even if we had infinite productivity, it would not translate into shared prosperity. The extreme vision of total utopia is an overstatement and an irresponsible one. Equally overstated is the doomsday framing—words like human extinction and existential crisis used very frivolously. That kind of discourse creates anxiety, a loss of agency, and questionable policymaking.
A hundred years from now, if historians write about the beginning of the 21st century, my sincere hope is that the most important transformation will be an educational one. AI can be one of the most powerful tools to unleash human potential and superpower learning—but that begins with educating educators, parents, and students.
AI is a tool. There is no single silver bullet. No technology or person can tell everyone when to use AI or not use it, because that decision is rooted in human values, just like any tool we’ve ever used.
We talk about AI as if it can solve all human problems with the click of a button. It cannot. What is best for patients may not be best for nurses, doctors, insurers, or hospital systems. There is no purely technological answer to human complexity.
My thesis has always been: seize your agency. AI cannot take that away. Learn it, embrace it, use it to superpower yourself—but at the end of the day, human agency is at the core of this.
Chris Cox, Chief Product Officer at Meta
Anybody who is too Pollyannaish about this technology is naive, and anybody who characterizes it as pure evil that will destroy us is being unrealistic. The most enlightened view is a balanced one—AI will change everything, and it will happen rapidly, so we have to understand both the good and the bad.
What it means to be human is a question whose answer is changing. It used to mean, among other things, that we are the most intelligent species on Earth. But we also have love, compassion, art, literature, music, and culture. How we educate our children about what it means to be human is a really deep question.
Part of learning what great writing, music, or storytelling looks like requires taste—and that requires teachers and mentors. Helping people understand what quality looks like is something education will always need to do.
Andrew Hall, Davies Family Professor of Political Economy at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution
I think it’s unrealistic to forgo the benefits of these tools entirely. The real challenge is figuring out how to use them without eroding critical thinking. For example, in the class I teach, students are allowed to use AI for everything—but they’re still held accountable. When they come to class, they’re cold-called on the work they submitted, and it becomes immediately obvious if they don’t actually understand it. That tension creates a balance: they can use the tool, but they can’t outsource their thinking.
One mistake we often make as a society is comparing new technologies to an idealized standard rather than to the imperfect reality we already live in. You see this with driverless cars, which are often judged against the standard of never making mistakes—when in fact humans are incredibly bad drivers. The real question should be whether the technology improves on the baseline. The same applies in other domains: humans already make serious errors, so the goal should be thoughtful improvement. That means keeping humans in the loop, but doing so in a way that is rigorous, realistic, and grounded in evidence rather than fear.
Samira Ramatullah, Senior Director of Agentic Partnerships at Visa
With AI, many tasks can become automated, but ultimately there is still a human in the loop. It’s not that AI replaces us—it changes how we work and what we’re responsible for. People often imagine an AI agent running a billion-dollar company—that feels like science fiction. What’s more realistic is that a solopreneur, or a very small team, can operate a company of 30 to 50 people. The multiplier is real, but there’s still a human at the center. As educators, you’re in a position to influence the next generation very directly. One of the most important messages to share is about human agency—humans remain the accountable party. We set purpose, we apply judgment, and we decide not just what can be built, but what should be built.
What I Wish my Teachers & Parents Knew
Panelists
Andy M. ’26
I have a strong resistance to using AI in ways that dilute the educational experience. There was definitely a moment when I thought, I do not want to solve this problem at two in the morning, I could just ask ChatGPT to do it. But I came to the conclusion that if I did that, I was no longer actually learning.
Katy W. ’29
One big thing on a lot of students’ minds, especially in high school, is “How do I stand out? What is my unique voice among my community, especially since everyone is so passionate and gifted?” I think leaning on your community is really important. There’s a common misconception that in order to find your own voice, you have to kind of isolate yourself, do it on your own, not share your accomplishments with your friends, but it’s important to really reach out to those resources and rely on your community.
Langley V. ’28
Something I really appreciate is when teachers understand that each student is interdisciplinary, that we are more than just students in one class. The most meaningful assignments are often the ones that let us connect what we are learning to our own interests.
Rowan B. ’26
For me, being seen is not only about teachers being excited about my interests. It also goes the other way. Sometimes what makes a place feel like home is being able to ask a teacher about what they care about and having that turn into a real human connection.
Saaz A. ’28
What I really appreciate in humanities classes is when students are working in small groups, using whiteboards, diagrams, and visual thinking instead of just listening to a lecture. That kind of tactile, collaborative work forces students to really process what they are learning.
Camille C. ’27
Anatomy and physiology has been especially meaningful for me because it has involved so many immersive experiences, and it has reinforced how much I love learning through exploring and discovering. It also shows how powerful it can be when a class grows out of both student and teacher interest.
Allen Frost, Nueva Upper School English Teacher
At the beginning of the semester, I meet one-on-one with every student who is new to me. I ask what has made them excited to be in an English class before, how they like to work with a teacher on writing, and what they are excited about this semester. I want students to feel that I am interested in them as people, not just as students in my class.
Once I know what matters to a student, I try to work that into what we are studying. If a student is passionate about science while we are reading Frankenstein, then part of the work becomes exploring the scientific world that shaped that novel. That effort to make students feel known goes a long way in our community.
Nueva Teachers Presenting Sessions
Critique as Generosity: Reframing Feedback as Visibility, Mindfulness, & Growth
In this workshop, Nueva Upper School art teachers Rachel Dawson and Blake Masi explained how they reframed critique as an act of generosity rather than judgment, creating an opportunity for visibility, mindfulness, and growth rather than final evaluation. The session also explored how critique can support learning as an iterative and reflective process.
Rachel Dawson, Nueva Middle and Upper School Art Teacher
Imagine that you’ve spent weeks, maybe a month, working on a painting. You’ve been layering it, sanding it, reworking areas you’re not even sure about, except that it felt right. Then critique day arrives. Your work is on the wall, there’s a half circle of students with notebooks, the teacher is off to the side, and suddenly your painting is no longer yours—it is public.
Someone says, “I don’t think the composition works,” or “The color palette feels confusing,” or even, “I think I’ve seen something like this before.” None of this is necessarily cruel. It’s just the language students have been taught. But your body reacts: your jaw tightens, your palms get sweaty, and instead of thinking, How can I push this work further? you start wondering, Am I actually good at this? The painting feels small now, and so do you.
Now imagine the same studio, the same painting, the same group—but the critique begins differently. The teacher starts with, “What do you notice?” Students respond, “I notice how the surface shifts from matte to gloss,” or “I notice how you’re using the grid and the organic shapes to create tension.” Then the teacher asks the artist, “What are you exploring?” The conversation builds from there.
No one decides whether the work is good or bad. The work is treated as unfinished—alive, worth investigating. There is a different nervous system in the room, a different identity story, and a different relationship to revision. Studio critique was never meant to be a performance of talent. It was meant to be a site of inquiry, a space where work evolves through collective attention.
Somewhere along the way, critique became a kind of theater of judgment, and students started defending instead of exploring. What we want to do is reclaim critique as an act of generosity—a place where rigor and psychological safety strengthen each other rather than compete.
Blake Masi, Upper School Associate Art Teacher and Studio Manager
Historically, critique was not meant to be a judgment ritual. In ancient traditions, religious scholarship, and apprenticeship models, it was a kind of communal inquiry space. It was meant to strengthen ideas, enhance craft, and deepen understanding.
But after the 19th century—with mass industrialized schooling and Enlightenment rationalism—critique became much more hierarchical and merit-based. It became tied to standardization, and with that came a lot of negative associations. Students started to connect critique with identity, perceived ability, and opportunity.
Here at Nueva, we’re trying to think about critique as foundational to how students learn. We use it to support dialogue and reflection, and we want students to understand that critique should be connected to a growth mindset. It is not some black-and-white day of reckoning. We want to return critique to a communal inquiry space rather than a moment of judgment—not “good” or “bad,” but a way of thinking together. The goal is to get rid of the fear that has become attached to it. Students will take more risks when they are not afraid of humiliation. If the environment feels safe enough for mistakes, they will take more creative risks and more intellectual risks. They will feel like they can actually try.
Addressing Writing in the Age of AI
In their presentation “Addressing Writing in the Age of AI,” Nueva teachers Pearl Bauer, Alex Brocchini, and Jennifer Neubauer framed the conversation around the question, “How can we reorient our discussions of AI in humanities classrooms?” They shared specific projects and activities that they have been doing in class to illustrate their answers to the guiding question.
Alex Brocchini, Nueva Upper School History Teacher
The History department at Nueva holds much of the argumentative writing instruction in the Upper School. As Covid was ending, all of our assignments in ninth and tenth grade world history courses had an at-home written component, which formed the bulk of a student’s grade. These assignments are obviously vulnerable to AI misuse. This got us to the question: How do we make timed writing and assessed discussion feel authentic, interesting, and valuable?
“In an in-class writing assignment about Samarkand [in the middle of the unit], students were able to produce 400 to 600 words in an hour, which might take some students three hours at home. Timed writing actually lowered stress for some students because they could just come in, do it, and know I wasn’t looking for a perfect product… The big realization for me was that after students write a full essay, they actually know so much—it becomes easy for them to have a real discussion. They’re ready to engage, argue, and disagree. The discussion was a way for me to see “Do they actually know what they wrote about?” And what I saw was students talking for an hour, and needing to be cut off because they had more to say.
This is by no means AI-proofing the essay. You could still prepare by plugging in the questions and getting answers. What I care more about is the experience—students realizing that writing leads to real discussion, real interpretation, and real engagement.
Pearl Bauer, Nueva Upper School English Teacher
We decided to stop commenting on [students’] essays entirely and just give them their standards. Then students had to go back to the rubric and explain their own grade—whether they agreed with it and why. They had to close-read their own writing and connect it directly to the criteria, identifying where they demonstrated analysis and where they were just summarizing. That process was really eye-opening for them. They realized they had to actively engage with their own work instead of relying on us to tell them what it meant.
One of the most powerful shifts was that students began to understand the rubric for the first time because they actually had to use it. They would say things like, ‘I got partial mastery here because I was summarizing instead of analyzing.’ That level of reflection changed how they approached their writing. They weren’t just receiving feedback—they were interpreting it and making sense of it themselves. It moved them into a much more active role in their own learning.
For students who did use AI, it creates an awkward moment—because they’re close-reading something they didn’t write. And that realization matters. It’s not AI-proof, but it pushes them toward more authentic engagement. And overall, the students are really loving it—it’s faster for grading, and they’re actually learning more.
From Black and White to Shades of Gray: Teaching Middle Schoolers to Honor Complexity in History
Sam Arndtsen presented the approach he and fellow Nueva Middle School humanities teacher Michelle Greenberg for honoring complexity in history. Sam walked attendees through the opening unit of their sixth grade humanities curriculum, in which students explore their individual perspectives and identities, build skills in close reading and note-taking, and finally approach historical events from multiple perspectives.
Sam Arndtsen, Middle School Humanities Teacher
My general approach to teaching history is very different from how I learned it. I begin with the present—something that happened in the last ten years—and use that as a catalyst for inquiry. Students naturally start asking, ‘How did we get here?’ and that question pulls us into the past. They research, analyze sources, and build understanding so they can return to the present with a deeper, more complex lens. Then we go one step further and ask them to imagine the future: Where might we go from here, given what we now understand about history?
The goal is to bring depth and complexity to issues that are so often portrayed as black and white. When students look at something—like the controversy around Columbus Circle and the Christopher Columbus statue—they begin to see that there are many different perspectives, each rooted in history. They have to understand pre-Columbian societies, colonization, immigration, and identity to even begin forming an opinion. By the end, they’re not just taking a side—they’re proposing thoughtful, creative solutions that take multiple communities into account. That’s the kind of thinking we’re trying to build.
By starting with a real, contemporary issue which sparks curiosity, then building historical understanding through research and analysis, and finally applying that understanding to imagine what comes next, it creates intrinsic motivation. Students actually care about the question they’re trying to answer. History stops being something static and becomes something they are actively using to make sense of the world. That shift is what makes the learning meaningful.