Stop Teaching 21st Century Skills, Your Students Need 22nd Century Thinking

Michael Conner: [00:00:00] Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, and welcome to another episode of Voices for Excellence. I'm your host, Dr. Michael Conner, CEO, and founder of the Agile Evolutionary Group, and of course, the proud host of VFE and today's guest is a guest that I admire, the work that he is doing as well as the company that he is with.

Michael Conner: Because first of all, you know, and Stewart and I had many of discussions about this, that we really have to now start thinking about the transition or the strategic shift of this 20th century, 21st century model. To be 22nd century aligned for generation, alpha and Beta and Code for Kids. Where Stewart is, where Stewart Brown is the director of partnerships.

Michael Conner: For, we had this compelling, compelling conversation. I believe it was roughly over an hour. We were talking at AASA with regards to the needs. [00:01:00] Or the generational needs and alignments that our students today, generation, alpha and beta, to actual pedagogies, products, solutions that are in alignment to their generational learning demands, and of course ensuring that we are essentially getting to that zone of proximal development.

Michael Conner: And I always say this, and Stewart laughs and everybody laughs when I say this. I said that within the next five to eight years, I'm, I'm gonna think of coding as cursive. To us when we were growing up. But coding is going to be essential, an essential skill competency that students are going to need in this 22nd century demand to have that equilibrium with artificial intelligence and the advancements of the disruptive technologies that we're engaging in.

Michael Conner: But I am so happy to bring my friend Stewart Brown. He is a multiple founder, has started companies, but currently he is the Director of Partnership for Code for Kids, a program, a solution that I am absolutely in love with, [00:02:00] and that's why I have Stewart here to be able to unpack that. So now we start looking at the symbiotic relationships with solutions that are gonna develop our students in this 22nd century economic demand.

Michael Conner: Mr. Stewart Brown, welcome to Voices for Excellence. How you doing? My friend? 

Stewart Brown: Thank you, Michael. I am doing fantastic. Great to, great to be here. I know we've been meaning to get this on the calendar for a while now, so I'm glad we could make it happen. 

Michael Conner: Yeah, of course. And you know what, Stewart? Uh, I'm, I'm glad with the, the, the saying is, what better late than never.

Michael Conner: Right? And because, you know, even though you know, we've been planning this, listen to my audience. Mr. Stewart Brown is harder to get in touch with the Prime Minister, the, the, the head of the ministries, the president. So finally, we were able to put a date and a time to get this recorded because I think it's so important.

Michael Conner: It's a, it's a, a critical imperative that we be able to talk about [00:03:00] what these 22nd century pedagogies solutions. Competencies that students are going to need moving forward in what I call this AC 2030 state. And Stewart, like I said, our conversation that we had is so profound that I want to be able to bring code for kids and introduce my audience to the work that you're underscoring within your company and what you're doing individually as well to advance 22nd century demands and indicators.

Michael Conner: But Stewart, before we get to the actual podcast. I'm gonna ask a fun question. Okay. You have been a founder of two successful two, not one, but two successful international ed tech companies. Currently the director of partnership at Code for Kids, and of course, one of the trusted voices in ai. Thank you for supporting AI Literacy Day that just happened last month, but for those that don't know you, Stewart, what song describes your leadership impact?

Michael Conner: in the AC stage of education, [00:04:00] which means after COVID-19. 

Stewart Brown: Yeah, really good question. I'm gonna say a song that is not necessarily my go-to or favorite song to listen to, but I think it's very testing of the times we're in in education and that's a sky full of stars by Coldplay. I think this moment right now in education that we're in is it can feel so heavy at times.

Stewart Brown: Um, because so much is changing and so quickly, quicker than we've ever experienced before. And a lot of the times we can kinda forget to give ourselves some grace and realize just because it's really heavy and really challenging that there's not a lot of opportunity and possibility that comes with it.

Stewart Brown: And there's a hu huge amount of possibility that comes with it. And so, you know, a sky foot of stars is ready about that. It's, you know. The opportunities are endless. A lot of my work is helping people in the education sector not focus [00:05:00] on, you know, what AI might be exposing in education alone, but also.

Stewart Brown: Maybe what it's exposing, but what that could lead us towards what direction it leads us to what, you know, ultimately is the future state of education that is gonna be so much more impactful and powerful and and relevant to students. And I know we spoke a lot about that relevancy and at a a SA and so, you know, that's, that's kind of why that song really stands out for me at this time.

Stewart Brown: I'm, I'm really trying to help those in education see that if we get. If we revisit, re-look, rethink the foundations that we are laying in school and how we're preparing ed educators, how we're, you know, rallying the metrics and outcomes we're looking for around that and how we preparing students for the, you know, this future 2030 and beyond states of, of the world that they're gonna be graduating to.

Stewart Brown: Um. There's a lot of [00:06:00] possibility, a lot of opportunities, and I think we need to remind ourselves of that and, and look at it from an optimistic lens. 

Michael Conner: Yeah. And Stewart, I appreciate the three words. The three Rs. Now I'm gonna categorize them as is, revisit, relook, and rethink. Right? And when we think about what this future of education.

Michael Conner: The education vector looks like we already know that there's inherited paradoxes that are embedded in that, but we as a collection of educators have to re revisit, re-look and rethink what those metrics are, what those outcomes are. You highlighted a critical year. I think this is, I always say that this is the essential linchpin.

Michael Conner: When we start seeing that transition really, which is 2030, just to give you a statistic, and again, this is just off a rope memorization that our kindergartners today are going to be matriculating out of. I believe they're gonna be retiring at like [00:07:00] 2082. Now think about what the world is going to be like at that time where.

Michael Conner: AI is not gonna be a separate silo and within a conversation, it's just gonna be ubiquitously embedded into the conversation and be a part of the thread that is gonna be everyday life. Just like when we talk about arrival ai, which the example is electricity that Aaron had gave previously here, it's the same thing that AI is gonna be in education, but you're right.

Michael Conner: We gotta give people grace and there's gotta be that. And there's great opportunity right now, as I say in the 22nd century because Stewart, you and I had this conversation, my audience had heard me say this. If we continue to level set and to concretize 21st, uh, 21st Century mindset, underscoring 21st century practices, there we're exacerbating gaps.

Michael Conner: For generation, alpha and beta. But I, I have this personal Affinity Stewart for Code for [00:08:00] Kids. I, I mean, I, I, I usually am not so overtly biased about anything, but I'm very biased about Code for Kids because it is to my audience. It's a computer science curriculum that has lessons with coding, robotics, digital literacy, steam Stewart will be able to go on the diatribe to that started that laundry list that I just highlighted, but.

Michael Conner: Again, Stewart, I wanna go back to this and everywhere I, I state or everywhere I go, I state this. Is that. Coding is an essential skill that every single kid need to have. Now we're talking about vibe coding. We're just talking, I'm talking about rudimentary levels of coding. But before we get into the alignment, right, with these 22nd century educators, because Stewart, what you guys are doing at Code for Kids and what you're doing is phenomenal, right?

Michael Conner: What was the genesis of the launch in 2018? This was in the BC stage of education. Before COVID 18 where AI and coding was [00:09:00] like, you're not cool. You're an outlier. You're an anomaly. So this was 2018, and then also Stewart, within your critical role, how are you framing the discussions domestically and internationally with the strategic urgency around curriculum and how it must be multidisciplinary and embeds.

Michael Conner: Computer science competencies to prepare generational learners for 2030 and the 22nd century and beyond. 

Stewart Brown: The world is very different in 2018 and it's, it, it's crazy that, that I'm saying that it was only eight years ago that, you know, so much has happened really because of the advances of technology.

Stewart Brown: But the genesis wasn't too different to what we are doing today. And the, the narrative and the, the discussions we're having, it was really about the fact that we weren't necessarily trying to turn every kid into a coder. We weren't, uh, trying to just. Strengthen the pipeline into software engineering jobs or anything like that.

Stewart Brown: [00:10:00] It was more about the realization that students were growing up surrounded by incredibly powerful technology, and the technology at that time was advancing and evolving very quickly too. Um, it's now just skyrocketed in the age of ai. But even though they were growing up or surrounded by technology and they were using technology every day in and outside of school.

Stewart Brown: They were not necessarily being helped to understand it, and we wanted to change that. You know, they may have been a computer lab in a school, but you know, maybe they were taught, you know, typing skills. Maybe they were taught, you know, mouse skills, you know how to Google something. It was very, very rudimentary, and we wanted to go level deeper to help every kid understand what is under the hood of these very powerful systems, and to do that.

Stewart Brown: You then when you learn how to code, you learn how algorithms work, you learn how patterns [00:11:00] work, and suddenly it becomes something that doesn't necessarily need to be this isolated subject, but this connective tissue across the core curriculum. So, you know, we have math teachers teaching a lot of our pattern recognition lessons in math.

Stewart Brown: We've designed our whole curriculum to be cross-curricular so kids could build their fir, do their first website ever and do text-based coding in fifth or sixth grade. But it's actually a social studies lesson and, and what we've seen is that. Over the years, as you know, we focus more and more on literacy scores, math scores, all the stuff that is seemingly going down that everyone's very worried and concerned about.

Stewart Brown: We've seen this increasing shift where the silos are getting greater across subjects and. Suddenly, you know, the purpose of a math lesson is fully on math sometimes, and the purpose of a [00:12:00] history lesson is fully on history, but there's so much connective relevance across the core curriculum. You know, there's art in science.

Stewart Brown: There's science in art and the and, and computer science. It's this like underlying connective tissue. Ultimately that helps to bring it all together and it's not just one extra thing. It's something that really strengthens the understanding of how technology works, which I think is ultimately the roadmap to instilling agency in our kids.

Stewart Brown: For the modern world, and then it, at the same time, it's reinforcing and supporting the core curriculum, so it's not competing with it, which I think a lot of the time, you know, those silos to the second part of your question, those, those silos and, and, and the curriculums that are very, that la lack, that cross-curricular integration.

Stewart Brown: I think that's often times where. We are always trying to jam one extra thing in [00:13:00] and they end up competing with one another, and that's not, at the end of the day, it's not about one subject's more important than the other. It's about. What is the world the students are growing up into? What are they gonna be graduating into?

Stewart Brown: What are, what world are they gonna be tasked with leading and shaping, and how are we preparing them across the school day and across the instructional day, across all subjects to have the skills and understanding and preparation to be able to step into that moment and do the most with that. 

Michael Conner: Stewart, great point because I think that we need to, that has to be this hybrid of a catalytic and essential question for every single educator within the ecosystem.

Michael Conner: How are we preparing students for their world? How are we preparing students for an economic, a [00:14:00] future economic demand through our curriculum frameworks, through our strategic plans, through our structural frameworks? Because you're absolutely right if you ask. 99% of educators, and I'll go out and say that 99% of educators were preparing our students for a world of yesterday.

Michael Conner: And it's not because of collective discussions, theories, practices that we're trying to put in place. It's because we need to address the standardized industrial model and the integrated archaic structures and systems that are in place. You stated it. What is the, how are we preparing them for their world tomorrow, and what does that look like within the academic day?

Michael Conner: That's where you see the multidisciplinary curriculum that integrates computer science and those key competencies and skills around coding the arts technology, like you said, in 18. It was technology 2026 is technology and [00:15:00] AI with that. But now Stewart, and this is kind of a sub-question, right? Leading and and unpacking the actual coach for kids curriculum, what does that look like?

Michael Conner: And specifically, as you stated, we have to prepare students for their world's moral and economic demand that we cannot see right now, but know that these essential skills competencies are going to be, are gonna have a direct impact. Within influence in their lives. What is a code for curricula, a code for kids curriculum look like?

Michael Conner: You talked about the strategic integration. You said social studies and math as an example, but can you unpack that further? 

Stewart Brown: Absolutely. So Code for Kids is specific, is specifically K to 8 focused. We're focused on building this foundational understanding before kids enter high school in knowing what's under the hood of AI and what's under the hood of technology.

Stewart Brown: And so we don't want kids. Landing on social media and being [00:16:00] effective and shaped and influenced by these powerful algorithms that they don't understand or are, you know, in often times they're blind to. And so we want to instill them with that foundation understanding. And so we, you know, we incorporate everything from coding to machine learning and AI literacy.

Stewart Brown: We're, we do a lot of, you know, full K to two curriculum. It's all focused. Majority of it is unplugged. It's all focused on 

Michael Conner: Stewart. And I just wanna interject because I, I, I normally don't interject, but on key points K through two, you see a lot of programs, strategies when it comes to developing these skills.

Michael Conner: Six through 12. You're an outlier. You said K through two. Building these skills at the essential foundational level. Why K through two? I know that [00:17:00] this is kind of like a, a really easy question, but you, we don't see computer science. We don't see machine learning, AI literacy at the kindergarten level. Can you just expand why.

Stewart Brown: Absolutely. So just for clarity, it's, it's a K to eight program, but we starting in K to two, we not necessarily diving into the, you know, the heavy layer details, machine learning in that grade, but there's underlying foundations that help a kid when they see coding in maybe third or fourth grade when they start on block-based coding or start learning about machine learning.

Stewart Brown: They, when they have those foundations. Where they learn about, you know, an algorithm is ultimately following step-by-step instructions. It's, it's guided and directed by human being. It's, it's not that much different to following a, a instruction [00:18:00] on how to put a desk together from ikea. It's not that different from following a recipe in a recipe book.

Stewart Brown: And we try to link it to things that are. So relevant to the systems and the everyday aspects in life around them. And then we help the kids to understand that there's patterns everywhere in the world. There's systems everywhere in the world, and a lot of the time we're unaware of it. We want to wake them up to the fact that these are the systems at play and these are the systems that are underlying the more detailed coding, machine learning, et cetera.

Stewart Brown: Um, that happens later on. And, and, you know, I think just to that point, the reason why we focus on this foundational years is that it, it, it gets increasingly harder. To learn this stuff if you're in sixth, seventh, eighth grade, or even in high school and you're seeing it for the first time, and we see that, we see schools that struggle with it.

Stewart Brown: We see [00:19:00] schools. You could have two, we could work with two different schools. And at one school you might have like a seventh grader who's are, who's learning. Foundational block-based coding for the first time. We might have a third grader doing the exact same lessons at another school, but they have had K to two foundations and sometimes the third grader might even be more professional than the seventh grader.

Stewart Brown: And I'm not even lying there. And that's why these foundations are so important. And so a lot of the time we're looking at AI literacy. Now we're looking at digital literacy. We're looking at computer science courses. A lot of that is happening. A lot of the work is happening in high school and it's almost too late.

Stewart Brown: It's, you know, it's almost like it's this react to, it's this reactive way to figure out, okay, how can we put the bandaid on this problem, but we need to do something with those kids. 'cause they didn't have those foundations. So yes, but we have to start earlier and, [00:20:00] and otherwise we're gonna just keep repeating this pattern of.

Stewart Brown: Kids entering high school, being dominated by these power powerful systems that we as adults are still trying to understand ourselves, and there's a, there's a better way to do this. So, so that's the foundational piece. The other piece is, you know, we're, we're teaching the kids the basics of cybersecurity, data analysis, pattern recognition, robotics.

Stewart Brown: There's a lot of coding, like I said, and everything like this is. It's all cross curricular and then a lot of real world relevance. So we, there's no gamified learning in our platform. We work very anti that we're not trying to keep kids on the platform and engaged and we don't, you know, measure. The metrics that we look at are not how long have kids been engaged on our platform, or how many lessons have they completed, but we're actually measuring what are the learning outcomes they're gaining.

Stewart Brown: So we, we built in benchmark assess [00:21:00] assessments to track, you know, where do the kids come in? At the beginning of the year, um, do they have prior exposure? Do they actually understand what you know? Does an eighth grader understand what an algorithm already is? And a lot of the time, schools don't know this stuff, so we help surface that.

Stewart Brown: And then we provide benchmark assessments throughout, throughout the year, and that helps to kinda connect it together and make sure that we're, we're tracking growth and proficiency and understanding as the, as the kids get ready to get into high school. 

Michael Conner: Phenomenal, Stewart, and thank you for elaborating on that because the rationale, I asked that question and to my audience, when we think about global competitiveness, right, and that's where we're at right now in the AC stage of education.

Michael Conner: We're not competing against each other internally, domestically here, but we have to think about it from a global standpoint and the countries and the GCC. India, China, [00:22:00] the UAE, through their country plan, we the UAE 2030 and Saudi Arabia through their country's plan vision 2031. They start AI and technology instruction at kindergarten.

Michael Conner: There's a designated amount of hours per week dedicated to AI integrated instruction starting at kindergarten right now here in the United States. To my audience, Erin and and people at the United States Department of Education have already started that conversation about what does the guidelines look like for now.

Michael Conner: Bring in AI literacy and these competencies within the PK 12 vertical. So when we think about what code for kids are doing specifically at the outset in 2018, they started thinking about this way before. Where we're at right now, where we're seeing other countries that are lamenting policies around AI instruction starting at [00:23:00] kindergarten, and it starts with those foundational components.

Michael Conner: And you're absolutely right, Stewart. It was very intentional, strategic on what you guys did at Code for Kids. But when you think about coding, machine learning, AI and digital literacy, cybersecurity, coding, robotics, data patterns, these are all. Future focused skills and competencies that kids are gonna be engaging with this on an everyday basis.

Michael Conner: So, Stewart, when I think about your work, when I think about what Code for Kids is doing, you are already, or you have positioned yourself pretty much to be on the frontier regarding the shifts, these pedagogical systems shifts in education, but how do we shift instruction? You started to talk about it, but I want you to go deeper with this.

Michael Conner: How do you shift instruction and curriculum mandates? To prepare generation, alpha and beta for 2030 and beyond? 

Stewart Brown: Very good question, and I'm gonna start by saying it is not that simple. And I, and I think this is again, you know, [00:24:00] to that first question, we gotta give ourselves some grace and, and, and just take a moment to breathe and, and, and realize this is.

Stewart Brown: A work in progress. It's gonna, uh, this is like, this is the marathon. This is not a sprint. We get, there's, there's some low hanging fruits for sure, but this is, we are not gonna turn around this tomorrow. And I think, you know, from a systems perspective, the question is what do we measure as success? In the educational day are, you know, those grades that we measure, the literacy school, the schools, the graduation rates, all of those things.

Stewart Brown: What are we, what are we measuring for? And then whatever we measuring for, we naturally optimize for in the school day. And, and I think what that does is sometimes it leads to mandates coming out that are not necessarily in the best interest of learning. You know, we, you know, in our work [00:25:00] at Code for Kids, there's been an increase of computer science mandates coming out.

Stewart Brown: Um, we're now, Mississippi is the, the 13th states that just last week announced it's got a computer science and AI mandate coming out that. Every kid needs to learn computer science before they graduate high school. Now, those mandates are great, but sometimes when you mandated it, they, they don't think it through very well.

Stewart Brown: A lot of the times in reality, it's, it's a teacher that not, is not necessarily a computer science teacher, then, then has to teach it. It's almost treated as this like compulsory subject or course that students have to do and so they. They're, they walk into that as something that they have to do. It's compulsory and not something they want to do.

Stewart Brown: And this again takes me back into the foundations. So, you know, we are make working with this one school district in Louisiana, and I mention them because they've been [00:26:00] so phenomenal to work with. They've got a mandate too that they need every kid to graduate high school completing a computer science course.

Stewart Brown: And they came to us because. The CTE director there realized the importance of vertical alignment in the younger grades. He wanted the kids to enter into ninth grade and have this compulsory computer science course and actually want to do it rather than being forced to do it and they have to do it, uh, don't get me wrong, but, but he wanted to, you know, really plant that exposure from a younger age.

Stewart Brown: And then I think. We need to look at, we need to look at PD for the teachers around this. We need to look at, uh, the training that the teachers get before they even enter the profession. And we need to zoom out and look at just for a lot of the time, we, we throw additional compliance and mandates on. We don't take a moment to take a beat and [00:27:00] actually zoom out and say, wait, but what is the domino effect here?

Stewart Brown: What is adding this mandate gonna do? Because we hear it all the time. The teachers say, this is just one extra thing they have to do. Then they asked themselves, why did I get into this profession in the first place? They wanted to help kids learn. They wanted to facilitate learning and see kids grow and thrive and develop, and their job has become sometimes 70, 80% of the time just making sure that they can check this box and then try squeezing some like real facilitative Socratic learning.

Stewart Brown: Um. And, and that's ultimately what we need to make sure that we have room for. And if there's too many mandates, we don't have room for that. And so it's not to say mandates are bad, it's to say, let's look at it from a big picture and let's look at what. What are the outcomes we want work backwards from there.

Stewart Brown: We always say a code for kids. Let's begin with the end in mind. And that's, that's how we have to do it. And I think a [00:28:00] lot of the times we are very reactive. You know, not to go off topic too much, but I'm sure you've seen like the big debate right now over like, first it was the, you know, the anxious generation and the cell phone bands and social media, and now it's the digital delusion book and how it's like.

Stewart Brown: I think we're in this place where that we haven't given the leaders of today any foundational understanding of how technology actually works, but we're asking them to make the very intense, important decisions about what technology's role is in the classroom and, and no one wants to harm kids. But they're not approaching it from an informed perspective, so let's change it for the future generations.

Stewart Brown: Let's make sure that they understand how technology works, so that when they, when it comes into figuring out what role the 20 30, 20 40 version of AI is and what [00:29:00] role it has in the classroom, they can approach it from a very informed perspective with that foundational understanding. 

Michael Conner: So well put eloquently stated, 2040 Stewart.

Michael Conner: Man. We're gonna be talking about agent AI 5.00 

Stewart Brown: man. Well, that's that. You know, my son's in kindergarten now. It your, your, your kids what in first grade? 

Michael Conner: No, no, he's in fifth grade now. Fifth grade just turned, just turned 11. Now Stewart, we're going to be, and, and here's the thing, right? We're gonna be living vicariously through this, through our own kids.

Michael Conner: You know, these active transitions that we're gonna see, you know, in education over time. Stewart, you, you highlight it four critical points and you know, when I think about, and. I'm glad you brought that up. And to, to my audience specifically, district and school leaders, I challenge you not to have your coding courses as electives.

Michael Conner: Now, that's going to present some [00:30:00] controversy, Stewart, when we think about, you know, that's going on an outlier sense, but when we think about, you know, intentional design. Designing for our kids in mind. Kind of like that design thinking, empathy. And when we look at their needs, their skills, ma, or the skills matrix, you know, I always unpack and the skills and competencies that they're gonna need.

Michael Conner: Stewart coding is gonna be a part of it. Under AI literacy or understanding diverse intelligence systems is gonna be a part of it. So that's why I always say that Now. Coding and those type of courses need to be embedded in the core academic program. And because it's gonna be an essential thread with anything that they're gonna do.

Michael Conner: Um, education. Moore's Law, we talked about human intelligence, or I like to say humans and machines, you know, working in this equilibrium. Same thing in education, human intelligence of how students are gonna be using AI in their natural world and even in [00:31:00] education that we gotta emulate that. But you talked about vertical alignment, which is so essential.

Michael Conner: Professional learning and having that with this reciprocity with AI literacy, you talked about it. Our students and adults need to have core literacy foundations to integrate, discern. As well as identify specific intelligence systems that's gonna be a part of this strategy. You talked about it going out broadly.

Michael Conner: What can we eliminate or what can be deemphasized? To now create that domino, as you talked about, coherence to my educators that are out there, Stewart, you're putting it in a context where they can understand you and not understand me. But I love the design aspect. Reverse engineering. Can you see normally, Stewart, I'm not biased.

Michael Conner: About a lot of things. I try to be very objective, but when you unpack code, code for kids, for me, I'm like, I love it. I love it. I was like, if [00:32:00] I was the, if I was, if I was still in my executive role, we went K through 12 and create a vertical articulation, uh, within that. But what I love about this too, Stewart, is that you formed a partnership with the Economist Education Foundation, and you created a course called.

Michael Conner: Fake news and ai. I want you to unpack that for me because you know, I want you to couple it and decouple what are the activities that are embedded in it, but more importantly, why is it a strategic imperative to develop student literacy skills with evaluating media and AI content with this critical lens that you talked about?

Michael Conner: And then what do these skills look like in action? With students analyzing media and AI content ethically. So like when you see your kindergarten son or my fifth grade son doing that, how do we know that those strategies are in application and action? 

Stewart Brown: I think I'll start by [00:33:00] saying media literacy and AI literacy I see.

Stewart Brown: Is so, it's so correlative that you know, 'cause a lot of the time. So much of AI literacy is looking at information that is written really well and sounds very confident, but is not necessarily always true. And so, you know, we. We realized as adults, but also children, that we were being dominated by information coming at us from every direction.

Stewart Brown: Um, and it was making us feel different things and adding, you know, adding to that mental health burden. But it was also, we, we realized that kids needed this critical skill to analyze the information in front of them and know. How to dissect it, how to break it apart and ask the important questions to know, is this from a trusted source, is this not?

Stewart Brown: [00:34:00] And how do I figure out that, you know, which steps do I take and everything that we do. You know, just to this other point is there's so many durable skills that we teach through computer science and AI literacy at Code for Kids. Where we are always making sure that we're teaching kids, how do they unpack uncertain, complex problems and, and, and, and debug them ultimately.

Stewart Brown: And, and, and so that's what we, that's what we did. We've, you know, we've got similar lessons where we talk about the fact that. Uh, you know, every person, as soon as you get on the internet and you know, create a profile with an app, you've now got a digital identity and what that means, and a heart follows you for the rest of your life.

Stewart Brown: And so we, we are not trying to. Scare kids about what the dangers are because I think a lot of, a lot of what's out there is like that. We're trying [00:35:00] to get them to understand this is what's happening under the hood of all these things that you encounter on a daily basis. So this is how you can app, uh, approach it from a very informed perspective.

Stewart Brown: And again, it comes down to giving them agency and judgment in, in, in that world of uncertainty where everything. It is coming at you really quickly and you can't really tell what is true, what is not, and how to dissect that. 

Michael Conner: A a, a a. Amazing because Stewart, you know, I was just, as you were providing your answer, I was crosswalking with different frames and indicators of my 22nd century education model, specifically the learner domain.

Michael Conner: And it touched upon six different indicators. And when I think about that, it, those six different indicators fits under this auspice of readiness. I think that we need to take much more of, of a direct position on how we level set readiness and [00:36:00] literacy simultaneously. And I think that you guys are doing that, you know, at Code for Kids because that skillset right there.

Michael Conner: Stewart I, and don't laugh at me when I tell you this, okay? And when it first came out, a friend sent me a video and I forgot who the two it was. It was Tom Cruise and somebody, I can't remember. You've probably seen it. And they were fighting each other and I'm like, oh, is this the new mission? Impossible, you know, four or five that's coming out or something.

Michael Conner: Wow. I wouldn't see that. Those two have a dynamics, you know, in a movie. Was AI generated, but Stewart, you couldn't tell the difference. So just imagine the level of advancement, the sophistication that these engines and models are going to have. Agent and machine learning supervised algorithms that are gonna be playing into these models where now.

Michael Conner: The tivity of growth is gonna essentially have something like a Tom Cruise fighting Michael Conner, and everybody's like, why are you fighting Tom Cruise? But [00:37:00] just, and, and again, those, that's a skillset and competencies or competencies that students are going to be able or going to have to master as we continue to move forward.

Michael Conner: But. There's this great novelty, Stewart, with integrating disruptive technologies into the education model. When I start thinking about. Preparing students, you know, for this AC 2030 paradigm when I start thinking about, you know, redesigning and, and reimagining what the new model looks like for the, what I'm calling the intelligent model within the 22nd century.

Michael Conner: But when we think about that, there's this great variability with capacity and implementation. Rightfully so we're at this really baseline level, and there's that tension to try to achieve coherence, you know, with education leaders and ed tech companies and companies like Code for Kids To unpack this around this modernization [00:38:00] of the model, but from your international and domestic experience, what approaches are being underscored to achieve this level of coherence and innovation within the instructional model?

Michael Conner: But more importantly, Stewart, how do we achieve sustainability during this time of uncertainty? 

Stewart Brown: Yeah, so the way we approach that at Code for Kids is we know that every state, every district, sometimes every, uh, the very schools within, inside a district are incredibly unique. And there's local context that is not necessarily the same as the district next door.

Stewart Brown: So we have a very customized implementation approach to districts. It's very consultative at the beginning, understanding. What is the current state? Um, sometimes it's, you know, we might be serving the teachers, the students, you know, is this something new? Are teachers terrified about the subject more so than the [00:39:00] students?

Stewart Brown: And oftentimes that is the case. And then we, we look at, we are not trying to solve. But all the problems will get to this very end goal in year one because it's unrealistic. Um, we could try, but we are gonna, you know, get it. We're gonna frustrate a lot of people in the process and probably be counterproductive.

Stewart Brown: We look to work towards a three to five year plan. Uh, and it's, and it's what is the state right now? Where do we want to get to? We want to get there as quickly as possible, but also as practically as possible. And so. That might, uh, we'll look at, you know, what is available in the instructional day. Is this something that in year one, maybe it makes sense to, you know, introduce on elective basis, on a specials basis, where the kids rotate through an, uh, an isolated subject that is taught within, you know, stem or technology or something like that.

Stewart Brown: Then we look to work, [00:40:00] work towards this kind of cross-curricular, integrated, embedded approach that's often a little bit more complex and it takes time. We, we might have a technology teacher or a computer science teacher teaching this once a week, but then we'll work with that technology teacher to bring a group of the core instructional teachers together and say, okay.

Stewart Brown: You're teaching about the solar system in science this upcoming quarter. You're teaching about this in history, you're teaching about this in art, bring in these subjects, these lessons. We've done some of it with students. The students like it. They really like getting ready, creative, and doing digital art.

Stewart Brown: So maybe swap out one of your lessons and have them do this. And they'll also be learning computer science at the same time. Uh, you know, build an app about the solar system rather than just, you know, doing it off the screen. But it's very intentional. It's not trying to just throw computer science in where it doesn't have a place where it integrates.

Stewart Brown: Well, that's where we recommend it [00:41:00] and we, you know, we do it on a very fluid basis. 

Michael Conner: I love what you stated, right? Because everything in Stewart, to my audience, Stewart, knows how I think Stewart's been around me. This is not his first encounter, so he knows how theoretical my mind operates. Stewart, you just highlighted Peter Sage's work within the fifth dimension.

Michael Conner: Current state desired outcomes. Right? Where are we at? Where is this? This diagnostic lens of where are we at now? How do we move strategically in this phased manner to get to our desired outcomes? To my audience, Stewart said, this is a three to five year process. You know, I, I would even go now with the activity and the evolution of ai and because there's these foundational basis of AI literacy across, whether it be.

Michael Conner: From a stakeholder standpoint, families and students, that might take a a little longer, but Stewart, the way you [00:42:00] contextualized it, I always reference back to this work around systems integration with ai. A large body of work scaled into parts and prototype for change over time. Your approach to my audience code for kids steward's approach is dismantling or deconstructing silos that now there's that level of interdependent collaboration to be able to create these multidisciplinary experiences.

Michael Conner: Stewart, all I just gotta do is this.

Stewart Brown: Well. Well said. Well said. It said, said it better than I could. 

Michael Conner: Well listen if they'd rather hear it from you because it's much easier to understand, but Stewart. My brother, this is the last question. Now, I don't know if I can hold you to this. I've been saying this for four years now on the podcast, but I try to hold my guests to three words.

Michael Conner: It normally doesn't happen, and when they are rule [00:43:00] followers, I say, please expand because they're so good. But Stewart, for our last question, what three words do you want our audience today to leave with regarding? Artificial intelligence, coding skills, and a future focused model to level set, what I'm calling the 22nd century or 22nd century AI centric learning ecosystem and the AC stage of education.

Stewart Brown: These are my three words. I'm gonna keep it there. I'm gonna try agency understanding direction. 

Michael Conner: All right. I'm telling you to break the rules. 

Stewart Brown: I will elaborate. So, so agency, because students need to feel that they can shape the world and not just consume it. They need to see themselves as active POS participants in this AI world that they're gonna be graduating into.

Stewart Brown: I think right now, without this education, without this understanding, they're gonna be passive consumers and users of these tools, [00:44:00] but not the drivers. And we want them to be drivers. And you know, that's where what we're the end goal is instilling agency in them from, from understanding, I think. The surface level exposure, it's just not enough anymore.

Stewart Brown: I think a lot of, you'll see AI literacy written everywhere by so many providers and vendors, and when you go into it, you often see that this is very much like it's just too surface level. We need kids to really understand the. Have the foundational understandings of these tools because the tools are gonna continue changing.

Stewart Brown: The system's gonna continue evolving, but if we equip them with the foundations, they will be able to adapt and still understand the version of AI that we might see in 10, 15 years from today, which is gonna be very different. Um. We don't want them to, you know, be experts at like Python and JavaScript in terms of coding, but we want them to [00:45:00] understand coding as a language, as something that they've learned and not be, you know, language experts.

Michael Conner: Stewart, can you say that one more time for my audience so they don't have to rewind it? Coding becomes a what?. 

Stewart Brown: No, what I was saying was we don't want, we don't want the kids to be experts in any tools or any coding languages. We want them to understand the foundations behind. Coding language. Absolutely. And that's why we don't have a Python course.

Stewart Brown: We don't have a Java script course. We don't have an HT ML course, so we want them to know a little bit of every coding language. But you know, what they're gonna see in maybe 10, 15 years from now are gonna be very different languages. And the foundations are what are gonna give them the agility to adapt and, and still stay relevant as the world around them evolves.

Michael Conner: Absolutely. So Stewart. Agency understanding and direction. [00:46:00] Uh, triangulate that. I think we're gonna be moving, uh, a whole lot of kids in generation. Alpha, beta. My son, your kids, your son. We will be preparing them. Well, Stewart, thank you for coming on Voices for Excellence. Uh, just a great host. Like I said, I am completely subjectively biased about what you guys are doing over there.

Michael Conner: I told you when we met, uh, to my audience, when we met in person at AASA. It was supposed to be a 15 minute coffee. It wound up being like an hour and a half discussion of just kind of geeking out. But Stewart, if any of my audience members want to get in contact with you, learn more about code for kids, how they can have code for kids be a part of their learning organization, districts, or even schools, how would they be in touch or how would they be able to get in contact with you?

Stewart Brown: Yeah, so my email is Stewart, S-T-E-W-A-R-T, at c4 k.io. So that's [00:47:00] C the number, uh, the letter C, the number four, and the letter K. And then our website is c4, K do io. And uh, LinkedIn is also another place I, I'm posting there all the time. So feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn too. 

Michael Conner: Yes, and to my audience, you know, um, I'm, I'm not a salesperson for Code for Kids, but I'm a big advocate for the work that they are doing.

Michael Conner: Please, please, please get in contact with Stewart or any member of Stewart's team at Code for Kids. Um, you'll be greatly. Not surprised, but you'll be greatly happy, uh, to want to investigate this because it is up and down, aligned to the 22nd Century education model. Stewart Brown, again, thank you for coming on Voices for Excellence.

Michael Conner: I know that we're gonna be talking, communicating, um, moving forward with this work. Um, we gotta do this. So thanks my friend for coming on. 

Stewart Brown: Thank you, Michael. Thanks so much for having me. 

Michael Conner: Absolutely. And on that note, onward and upward, [00:48:00] have a great day.