Students

Beyond ChatGPT: Critical thinking in the age of AI

Olivia Peterkin — Wed, 24 Sep 2025 21:56:24 +0000

Beyond ChatGPT: Critical thinking in the age of AI Olivia Peterkin Wed, 09/24/2025 - 14:56

In this episode of School’s In, GSE Assistant Professor Hari Subramonyam discusses how AI can support critical thinking and creativity in the learning process.

October 16, 2025

By Olivia Peterkin

How can AI be used as a tool that supplements, rather than supplants, the learning process? And what does research say is the most effective way to use an AI tool to engage learners in the writing process?

According to Hari Subramonyam, assistant professor at �� Graduate School of Education (GSE), it’s important to stimulate critical thinking by creating a balance between student input and what the AI outputs.

“Many AI tools that we use today are designed to give you a polished, finished output rather than help people learn,” said Subramonyam, whose research focuses on augmenting critical human tasks like learning and creativity with AI. “When the student or learner is not actively participating in shaping the essay, a lot of the creative and critical decisions are made by the AI. And this is what is problematic.”

“But the good news is given the range of work going on in my lab, AI doesn't have to be the problem, and it can be part of the solution, if we design it right and if we teach kids the right way to use it,” he said.

Subramonyam joins School’s In hosts GSE Dean Dan Schwartz and Senior Lecturer Denise Pope as they discuss what research says about designing AI tools that promote creativity and critical decision making.

“As a human computer interaction researcher, what we find is that the human AI interface is missing the kind of affordances necessary for exploratory, dialogic critical thinking and writing,” Subramonyam said.

“In our research, we developed this tool called Script & Shift that is explicitly designed to support these low-level cognitive thinking processes,” he said. “So instead of treating AI as this magic box that you throw prompts into, Script & Shift gives students specific text, buttons, and interfaces that allow them to engage in idea formation.”

They also discuss AI’s relationship to assessment, and what parents and teachers can do to augment student learning.

“My advice to parents and teachers would be, don't ban AI tools,” he said. “Instead, help kids use them more intentionally, like asking for help with brainstorming, or clarifying an idea, or getting feedback.

“And I would also suggest that parents and teachers stay curious along with their kids,” he said. “When they're using AI, ask them what choices they made, why did they prompt it in a specific way, and then explore different ways of using the AI with the kid.”

Transcript

Hari Subramonyam (00:00):

AI doesn't have to be the problem, and it can be part of the solution if we design it right and if we teach kids the right way to use it.

MUSIC (00:08):

(music)

Denise Pope (00:12):

Welcome to School's In, your go-to podcast for cutting-edge insights in learning. From early education to lifelong development, we dive into trends, innovations, and challenges facing learners of all ages. I'm Denise Pope, senior lecturer at ��'s Graduate School of Education and co-founder of Challenge Success.

Dan Schwartz (00:35):

And I'm Dan Schwartz. I'm the Dean of the Graduate School of Education and the faculty director of the �� Accelerator for Learning.

Denise Pope (00:45):

Together, we bring you expert perspectives and conversations to help you stay curious, inspired, and informed.

(00:54):

Hi, Dan.

Dan Schwartz (00:55):

Denise, good to see you as always.

Denise Pope (00:58):

Same. What's going on?

Dan Schwartz (01:01):

Well, it's all AI all the time, so we're gonna have another podcast about it.

Denise Pope (01:06):

And this one's kind of AI with a little bit of a twist. We're gonna be focusing a little bit more on the thinking part. We want the students to be thinking while they're using AI. Not that we didn't want that in the past.

Dan Schwartz (01:20):

Yeah. What twist is that? (Laughs) It's like,

Denise Pope (01:22):

Well, the twist is I wanna start us off with thinking about critical thinking. So instead of talking about AI and technology right off the bat, I'm very interested in what you think critical thinking means. Like, what's the definition to you?

Dan Schwartz (01:36):

Right, 'cause people think the AI is gonna wipe out human critical thinking.

Denise Pope (01:40):

Exactly.

Dan Schwartz (01:41):

You know, some people think it's just pure logic is critical thinking. Some, some people sort of think it's more composition. My decision on critical thinking, what most people mean is don't be stupid is critical thinking.

Denise Pope (01:55):

(Laughs) Use your head. Just use your head.

Dan Schwartz (01:57):

Think about it. Uh, I actually have a definition of it.

Denise Pope (02:01):

Oh. I, I wanna hear it.

Dan Schwartz (02:03):

I'm not sure anybody else subscribes to this definition, but it, it's, it's the processes by which you decide what to believe.

Denise Pope (02:09):

The, wait, let me, let's break that down. The processes by which you decide what to believe?

Dan Schwartz (02:14):

Yes. So it could include what kind of evidence do you look for? Do you look for consistency? Do you even choose to seek evidence? Things like that. So, uh, do, do you check sources? So it's a little more complicated.

Denise Pope (02:30):

Yeah. Well, I, when I teach, uh, qualitative research, one of my questions is, how do you know when a claim is true? This seems kind of similar, right?

Dan Schwartz (02:39):

Uh, yeah.

Denise Pope (02:40):

Like what would you do to check that? How would you even know how to think about it?

Dan Schwartz (02:45):

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I think this would be a very specific brand of critical thinking.

Denise Pope (02:48):

Okay. All right.

Dan Schwartz (02:50):

It's a-

Denise Pope (02:50):

Well, yeah.

Dan Schwartz (02:50):

But, but anyway, there, there's a lot of people who say that, uh, ChatGPT, which you know, is very capable of writing prose and, uh, arguments, is going to displace people's opportunity to learn how to do critical thinking.

Denise Pope (03:06):

Because it's gonna just do it for them and they're not even gonna have to think. Is that the argument?

Dan Schwartz (03:11):

I think that's right. So let's take a slightly different approach to this. So, um, let's assume students aren't just offloading everything to the AI while playing some video game with their free time. Instead, the question is, how can AI improve learning important topics, skills, attitudes, things like critical thinking?

Denise Pope (03:30):

Okay, love it.

Dan Schwartz (03:32):

So the question isn't how's it gonna destroy it. Question is, uh, how can we make it so that it helps it?

Denise Pope (03:38):

Okay. We're taking a positive spin, and our expert here is gonna take us on that positive spin.

Dan Schwartz (03:43):

Well, we'll see. Today we're very lucky to have Professor Hari Subramonyam. His expertise is in human computer interaction and bringing it to education. So, Hari, thank you so much for joining us.

Hari Subramonyam (03:56):

Thank you for having me. I'm really excited to be here.

Dan Schwartz (03:58):

Yes. So I wanna, I wanna dive straight in 'cause you, you actually did a study that's sort of, uh, is, if I recall, like one condition does ChatGPT, one condition does nothing, and the other condition does your special secret sauce with AI.

Hari Subramonyam (04:13):

Yes, yes, yes. So I wanna start off by building on the argument that you were making about critical thinking, right? And like, you know, writing is a way for people to engage in critical thinking. It's only when you're writing that you're trying to identify what is the context and like what kind of ideas you have. What kind of connections do you need to make between these ideas? Are you having like a logical chain of reasoning from some like idea to evidence to insight? Are there gaps in your ideas? What are the evidence?

Dan Schwartz (04:43):

And you, you do that when you're writing?

Hari Subramonyam (04:44):

Yes (laughs).

Dan Schwartz (04:45):

You don't, you don't think it all through beforehand? You sort of, on paragraph 14, and I'm thinking, uh, what evidence do I need for paragraph 15?

Denise Pope (04:53):

Some of us are not as genius as you, Dan, and we can't just do it all in our head and then spit out the beautiful, all completed essay, prose, whatever.

Hari Subramonyam (05:03):

Some of it is mental where you're forming the argument, but also like having an external representation, like, you know, the externally written text also like helps you sort of iterate on your critical thinking specifically. So anyways, to the point of the study, and like what we were trying to do is with tools like ChatGPT and like, you know, this is maybe what you were alluding to earlier is students can give very little input and get lots and lots of text as output. So there is this imbalance between like how much input you give and what kind of output you get. So if I'm trying to write an essay, I can just go to ChatGPT and say like, okay, you know, help me write an essay about say, um, you know, healthy eating and nutrition. And it's gonna gimme like, you know, a three or four-paragraph long essay.

(05:49):

And I think that is, when the student or the learner is not actively participating in shaping the essay, a lot of the creative and critical decisions are made by the AI. And this is sort of like what is problematic. This is partly why we sort of see lots and lots of essays that sort of look and sound the same, because people aren't bringing in their authentic ideas and insights into shaping the essay. Now, in theory, you could argue that like, you know, students can break down their arguments and like instead of asking a ChatGPT to give the essay, they can like do this step by step by asking it to list out ideas, brainstorm with it, and all of that. But this kind of engagement is hard to do in practice because these tools aren't designed to support that.

(06:35):

And as a human computer interaction researcher, what we find is that the human AI interface is missing the kind of affordances necessary for like exploratory, dialogic critical thinking and writing. So in our research, we developed this tool called Script & Shift that is explicitly designed to sort of support these low level cognitive thinking process. So instead of treating AI as this magic box that you throw prompts into, uh, Script & Shift gives students like specific text and buttons and interfaces that allow them to engage in like idea formation and structuring ideas and so on.

Dan Schwartz (07:15):

So wait, wait. So, so this is interesting. I think we need to make it a little more concrete. Let's pretend Denise is in front of the computer and she wants to write an essay on the beauty of relationships between an owner and their dog. (Laughs) Do you accept, do you accept your assignment, Denise?

Denise Pope (07:35):

Okay. I accept the assignment, yes.

Dan Schwartz (07:38):

Okay.

Denise Pope (07:39):

And so I could just say, "ChatGPT, write me an essay on the beauty of a relationship between a human and the dog." And out would pop this essay, and I would have done very little thinking about it whatsoever. But now Hari has some kind of tool that I can use. Walk us through how I would use that tool.

Dan Schwartz (07:57):

What's the first thing Denise sees?

Hari Subramonyam (07:59):

The first thing Denise sees is a layer where she indicates what is her goal? Like in this case, writing an essay about her relationship between her and her dog. And then you need to think about like, potential audience. This could be like a general audience. So if you're trying to write it for a specific audience, so you can fill in some of these like, the metadata, like your goals and intentions behind your writing.

Denise Pope (08:22):

Like prompt, you're giving me prompts, like who's your audience? Like, are you kind of acting like an English teacher?

Hari Subramonyam (08:28):

Um, at this point, like you are sort of expressing like these initial goals. At this point there is no AI yet in the tool. Like you, you just, when you open the tool, there is an interface which tells you like, you know, what is your writing goal? What is your topic, what is your audience? Sometimes if you're using other reference materials for your writing, you can upload all those documents as well, which the AI will use at a later stage to sort of facilitate this like low level like thinking and the writing process.

Dan Schwartz (08:54):

But I, I agree you, Denise. Uh, thinking about who your audience is, it's something you gotta teach people 'cause they... Yeah.

Denise Pope (09:00):

Yeah. I mean, that's one of the things I teach people all the time before you write. What's your purpose? Who's your audience? Yeah. Love that.

Hari Subramonyam (09:05):

Yeah.

Denise Pope (09:06):

Okay. So then what happens? So I, we've established all that and then what happens?

Hari Subramonyam (09:10):

Yes. Okay. So at this point, I'm gonna like briefly tell you what the interface looks like. Imagine you were writing this thing on pen and paper, like you were writing this essay on pen and paper. You may have like a bunch of note cards or cue cards where you put in like, you know, different anecdotes or like things about your dog, specific events and experiences, all of these on like different cue cards. And then you're trying to then compose them into a coherent story. You can think about the order and the stuff within like each cue card. You can kind of think about like how you're gonna translate what's in the cue card to how you wanna say it to a specific audience. So the interface itself supports this kind of like, uh, a spatial layout with a bunch of layers that you can lay out flat in the table.

(09:53):

You can put in like different content on different layers. And then you can transform the things in like each layer to tailor to specific audience. So say, suppose that you have a really interesting event about taking your dog, um, on, on a first car ride or like a road trip. And in this case, you wanna figure out how you want to tell the story to different audiences. You know, if you're trying to tell this to like children, like you may wanna phrase it differently as opposed to if you are writing a blog article for like, people traveling with pets. So this is where like Script & Shift allows you to try out these different variations augmented by AI. So you can tell the AI in this, in Script & Shift to tell like, you know, like change this tone to be a little bit more like kid-friendly or like change this tone to be a little bit more like informative. And so this, this is sort of like the, the high level layout of Script & Shift, or like what, how, what the tool looks like.

Dan Schwartz (10:52):

I've sort of said the meta parameters of, of my writing task. It, it, it should be five pages, things like that.

Hari Subramonyam (10:58):

Yeah.

Dan Schwartz (10:59):

And then I fill out a bunch of index cards with different things I'd like to include, right? And then I sort of organize those cards. Do I sort 'em around the screen? Do I push 'em around and stuff like that?

Hari Subramonyam (11:12):

Yes. So yes, you can, you can move things around in the screen, and the, and the way the the tool works is once you stack them in a specific order, it'll then compile the final article for you. So you can look at the final article and the flow. And if you don't like it, you can change the order of the cards. You can remove a card, insert a new card in its place, and generate the article again. So this is what allows writers to be more creative and explore different variations and combinations of ideas and different order, which makes writing more creative and engaging.

Dan Schwartz (11:43):

It is taking what I say in my cards, like a set of bullet points, and turning it, turning it into prose that's connected.

Hari Subramonyam (11:50):

Well, kind of, but you, you don't to have bullet points. You, you, you're doing the entire scripting within like each card. Like I use the card metaphor to sort of simplify things, but it's, it's essentially a page. Each card is a page. You can write text in it. We have what we call the Writer's Friends that live in these pages that you can call up anytime you need help. So we have like an Idea Ivy. So if you're stuck in like the ideation phase, you can call Idea Ivy and like chat with Idea Ivy about what you're trying to ideate on. If you have written an initial draft, you can call like another friend called Structure Sam-

Dan Schwartz (12:26):

(Laughs).

Hari Subramonyam (12:26):

... who's gonna help you like, explore different structures for this idea. Or if you have a vague sort of like argument you've made and you want more details about it, you can invoke Detail Danny, who's gonna then like help you flesh it out. So we have these Writers Friends who live on like, individual pages. Some friends help you with like, writing, what we call scripting, some friends help thinking through like variations of what you have written, which we call shifting, like exploring different rhetorical strategies.

Dan Schwartz (12:54):

Ah.

Denise Pope (12:54):

This is an English teacher's dream. Instead of just having the kids like get better at prompting ChatGPT, you're actually building in some of the things that I as a high school English teacher would've wanted my students to really think about in a kind of fun way by naming 'em and, and, and not just like, here AI, just write my whole thing. I, I love that.

Dan Schwartz (13:16):

So I can't resist. I, I can't. Is there a Critical Thinking Karen?

Hari Subramonyam (13:18):

(Laughs) There can be a Critical Thinking Karen. Um, so these friends are configurable by the teacher. So just to, a little bit of background. Before we built this tool, we interviewed over 20 English and history teachers.

Denise Pope (13:31):

Uh-huh.

Hari Subramonyam (13:32):

And we co-designed a set of prompts, looked at like English grading rubric. And we sort of work with teachers to understand like where would they want students to get help from AI, where are they struggling.

Denise Pope (13:42):

Lovely.

Hari Subramonyam (13:43):

And what are the things they don't want the AI to do for students? So all of this is sort of like built into the tool, which is why as you said, Denise, it's the teacher's dream.

Denise Pope (13:51):

No, it's a dream. Okay, so now this is a really cool part, tell us about the study, 'cause I saw the findings.

Hari Subramonyam (13:57):

Yes.

Denise Pope (13:57):

And I was surprised.

Hari Subramonyam (13:59):

(Laughs) Yes. So the study, um, we, we recruited 90 undergraduate students, uh, and we assigned them to one of three conditions. One is no AI support, one is using a traditional interface like ChatGPT, and one is, uh, that the third condition is using Script & Shift. And what we found in sort of like, and, and they were asked to do this sort of document-based question answering task where they were given like a set of articles around like advertisement. And they were right to, uh, asked to write a critical article about advertisement, role of advertisement in society. And what we found is that the participants, or like students who use Script & Shift engaged a lot more in what we call knowledge transformation. So there are two concepts. There's knowledge telling and knowledge transformation. Knowledge telling is just, you know, retrieving what you have in your mind and saying it as is. So for instance, like going back to the nutrition essay, you can say like, you know, kids should eat vegetables because they have vitamins and minerals.

Denise Pope (15:01):

Right. Just spinning it back. Just not, you're not really thinking, you're just spinning back.

Hari Subramonyam (15:05):

Exactly Yeah. Yeah. Okay. But now imagine you wanna say this to a parent or a care- uh, caregiver. And the way you would say this is like, you know, um, introducing like colorful vegetables in your kid's diet is like nutritious and helpful and uh, it promotes a, a healthy eating habit. So that is sort of knowledge transformation where you're taking this fact that you wanna say and finding out a way to say this well within the context of this argument that is aligned with the kind of audience you're trying to communicate to. And that is knowledge transformation. And there are many different critical thinking steps. Everything from analyzing to synthesis to evaluating evidence. And the biggest finding was that kids who were using Script & Shift, because they were able to engage in these low level thinking process of writing, they carried out a lot more knowledge transformation sort of sub-tasks compared to like the other condition where they just used ChatGPT.

Denise Pope (16:02):

So did you, when, to find out that they were carrying out the knowledge transformation subtext, was that just because you watched them doing those pieces, doing the writing? Or did you have another kind of assessment afterwards to see what they learned?

Hari Subramonyam (16:15):

So we'd given them a set of source content based on which they were trying to produce this essay. So comparing the source content and the student-written like essay, we could observe and code for the specific knowledge transformation that went on from like the initial source that was given to them and the final content.

Dan Schwartz (16:33):

So, so if it, if it's uh, just replication, you're measuring the degree to which they're basically taking sentences from the source materials and maybe changing the grammar.

Hari Subramonyam (16:44):

Yeah.

Dan Schwartz (16:45):

And then knowledge transformation is they're introducing some inferences that aren't in the source material.

Hari Subramonyam (16:50):

The second sort of point is around, uh, agency. And when we talk about agency, it's often like control over the tool. But over here, when we say agency, we mean more control over their thinking process, right? Because the tool is aligned in a way that gives students or writers the space to engage in these sort of low level writing process. And they felt that they had more control in the way they were producing the text as opposed to the text being written for them.

Dan Schwartz (17:18):

Yeah. But isn't, isn't the condition I care about where there's no technology support at all? I thought there was a third condition here in this study.

Denise Pope (17:26):

Yeah. The ones who, who had to go back to like a blue book, right? Without any tech help.

Dan Schwartz (17:31):

How was their knowledge transformation?

Hari Subramonyam (17:33):

Yeah, so the no tech help and like chat LLM conditions did not have significant knowledge transformations along like the, the established set of dimensions, synthesizing, assessing, and all of these things compared to Script & Shift condition. And similarly, with agency, we didn't assess for agency in the baseline condition, but compared to like Script & Shift and a ChatGPT-like condition, like students who used a Script & Shift felt like they, uh, self-reported that they had a lot more control over their writing.

Dan Schwartz (18:06):

Alright, so there you have it. AI can be better than no AI, and good AI is better than ChatGPT.

Denise Pope (18:12):

Yeah. Scaffolded AI could be better than no AI at all. Why? Because yeah, you're teaching something (laughs). Like, to me, this is a, a no-brainer. Very, very exciting, Hari. But also like, yeah, with some help, like a teacher or a Script & Shift, you're gonna learn to do low level thinking instead of just sit down, write this whole thing. Oh my gosh, I don't know how to do that.

Dan Schwartz (18:35):

Okay, there we go.

MUSIC (18:36):

(music)

Dan Schwartz (18:45):

So we, we've heard about a study where they use technology and it, uh, led, led to better sort of knowledge transformation. They're, they're engaging the ideas, elaborating them, connecting them. So here, here's the big question for both Denise and you, Hari. Is the measure of whether this is effective that later on, I give them a writing task without the computer and they do better? Or do I just assume in the future, there will always be the computer? So if I want to test their learning, I need to give them these tools, right? So if I wanna find out if people can write, do I say, "Sorry, they can only use charcoal on parchment paper." Or do I say, "No, I'm gonna let 'em use the tools that they're gonna have in the future."

Denise Pope (19:29):

You kind of just answered your own question, Dan. I want you to, I, I, I'm gonna say, it's not going away, so the test should not be how do you do it without it, right? It's how do you do it with it? That would be my answer. I don't know. Hari, you're the expert here, but that would be my answer.

Hari Subramonyam (19:47):

Yeah (laughs). So I think the short answer is yes, I do agree with you, Denise. Like, I think we wanna test them on like how they would do things with the, with the tool. But you know, going a little bit more deeper into why we get kids to learn how to write and why we give them all these like essay writing assignment so that they can build sort of good internal procedures and ways to think about writing. And that is what we want essays on. Like, you know, learning is representing where like you're building good mental models and how should you be writing an argumentative essay? How should you be writing when you wanna communicate something to like a five-year-old? So the idea is that when you learn to write, you sort of internalize all of these, uh, scripts and concepts and constructs. Then what we wanna be assessing on is can they take these representations, how do you get them to apply these things in like new contexts and situations, and are they able to do that? And I think that is how I would think of assessing. Yeah.

Dan Schwartz (20:44):

Are they allowed to use the AI when, during the test?

Hari Subramonyam (20:47):

They're allowed to use the AI, like, just, just not ChatGPT.

Dan Schwartz (20:52):

They're allowed to use your tool during the test?

Hari Subramonyam (20:54):

They're allowed to use our tool during the test. Yes.

Dan Schwartz (20:57):

So, so we're scaffolding their performance, and we're not saying how could they do without the scaffold?

Hari Subramonyam (21:03):

Yes. Yes. Because I think that that the thinking and the, the, the testing happens in the way the students are leveraging these different like AI features, the way they're sort of prompting and interacting with these features. And that is what makes evident the like, understanding of like how to write.

Denise Pope (21:21):

So even, so I'm just gonna throw this out there. Tell me if I'm right or wrong. Yes, you're gonna test it-

Dan Schwartz (21:26):

Wrong.

Denise Pope (21:26):

... with the scaffold. Can you (laughs)-

Dan Schwartz (21:27):

Sorry. Couldn't resist.

Denise Pope (21:29):

Can they use it, right, now that they've done it once, can they do it again, right? But then we wanna see, when we do take the scaffold away, that is the meaning of a scaffold. Are they gonna look at AI in a whole different way and go, you know what? I'm not just gonna ask ChatGPT to write the paper. I'm gonna kind of think of those scaffolds and I'm gonna be like, "Hey, try it for like a fifth grader. Try it for like, how I would say it this way. Hey, can you change the order around?" So you eventually do wanna take the scaffold away, but you don't wanna take the AI away 'cause that's not going away. Am I getting that right, Hari?

Hari Subramonyam (22:00):

That is correct. That is correct.

Denise Pope (22:02):

Okay.

Hari Subramonyam (22:03):

That's exactly what I meant. Yeah.

Denise Pope (22:03):

Oh, I'm so happy (laughs).

Dan Schwartz (22:06):

Very good. Very good.

Denise Pope (22:07):

Everything you've done so far is so exciting, Hari, because instead of just push a button and have the computer do it for you, which is certainly out there and available right now, you have found ways to really scaffold different things that we know are important for kids to understand in the writing process or in creating a simulation or an understanding, scientific concepts, et cetera. So I think it's super cool. So I just wanna throw it back to you for a second. If you, we got a lot of parents and teachers who are super worried about AI out there. What's your advice, given, given what you know and what you've been able to do, what's your, what's your advice? What's the secret here to, uh, to handle AI in education?

Hari Subramonyam (22:49):

Yeah, yeah. First, I wanna acknowledge this concern. Many AI tools that we use today are designed to give you like polished, finished output rather than help people learn. But the good news, at least like, you know, given the range of work going on in my lab is like AI doesn't have to be the problem and it can be part of the solution if we design it right and if we teach kids the right way to use it. So my advice to parents and teachers would be to don't ban AI tools. Instead, help kids use them more intentionally, like asking for help with like brainstorming or clarifying an idea or getting feedback. I would also suggest that we look for tools that support these processes and not just the outputs. Like, you know, Script & Shift is a good example where the tool is designed to support the human cognitive process, human thinking process.

(23:39):

So those kinds of tools are really good and powerful in facilitating learning and promoting like kids' curiosity. And I would also suggest that parents and teachers stay curious along with their kids. When they're using AI, like ask them like what choices they made, why did they prompt it in, in a specific way, and then like explore different alternative ways of prompting and like using the AI with the kid. Like, you know, one of the teachers when we talked to earlier mentioned they don't care about kids using AI. What they care about is this productive effort in the interchange between the learner or the child and the AI.

Denise Pope (24:14):

Super helpful. Dan, you wanna bring us home?

Dan Schwartz (24:19):

Yeah, so I think one, one summary point is we need to have a show that's about critical thinking.

Denise Pope (24:24):

(Laughs) Okay. Sure.

Dan Schwartz (24:25):

I, I think there's just, there's some work to be done here. And, and may, maybe I'm the one who needs to be cleaned up on this. You know, I like Hari's vision. The vision here isn't, it's really about education, right? And he's making purpose-built tools to support education. And what I particularly like about the tools is they're not sort of doing what a lot of school is, which is just replicating what you've been told, right? You're told what to do and then you do it. And the AI can really push that 'cause it can keep saying, "You didn't say it right. You didn't get the right answer." Here, he, he's using the AI to enable people to surpass themselves. They're going beyond what they can do by themselves. And at the same time, that support is helping them learn how to reach further and do more. So I, I like this vision of AI where it's helping, uh, humans surpass what they could do on their own and then learn in the process.

Denise Pope (25:18):

That has been your line all along, Dan, and I think you're absolutely right, right? How AI can help us surpass ourselves. Hari, thank you so much for being on the show. What a great show. And thank all of you listeners out there for joining this episode of School's In. Be sure to subscribe to the show on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you tune in. I'm Denise Pope.

Dan Schwartz (25:39):

Uh, AI is still composing, uh, who I am. So I'll, I'll get back to you later.

MUSIC (25:49):

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Faculty mentioned in this article: Hariharan Subramonyam

Digital literacy in the AI era (Part 2)

Olivia Peterkin — Wed, 30 Jul 2025 20:09:38 +0000

Digital literacy in the AI era (Part 2) Olivia Peterkin Wed, 07/30/2025 - 13:09

Students | Teaching | Technology

In this episode of School’s In, a live panel including GSE Professor Emeritus Sam Wineburg and �� journalism lecturer Janine Zacharia discusses how to help students discern reliable information online.

August 7, 2025

By Olivia Peterkin

With online information that is vast and varied, how can schools help students learn to separate fact from fiction online — while competing with shrinking attention spans?

According to Valerie Ziegler, a teacher of history, economics, and politics at Abraham Lincoln High School in San Francisco, one way educators can equip students is by becoming familiar with AI, creating discussions around its use, and incorporating it into classrooms.

“I think the first thing is that, as educators, we have to practice what we preach, and use these tools,” said Ziegler during a live recording of School’s In.

A panel including Ziegler, GSE Professor Emeritus Sam Wineburg, �� journalism lecturer Janine Zacharia, and �� senior Alvin Lee joined host and GSE Senior Lecturer Denise Pope on School’s In as they discuss the importance of teaching students how to discern reliable information online, and how it can be built into course curricula.

“I think Gen Z is better equipped than other generations in navigating the complexity of disinformation online,” said Lee, who is founder and executive director of GENup, California’s largest youth-led education policy organization. “But I think by and large, we still really need to hammer in the importance of digital literacy very early on in our public education systems to make sure that we’re really addressing this crisis.”

This ability to determine trustworthy sources extends to news, especially since young people are increasingly turning to social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram for information.

“I think that it’s an urgent national priority that people understand how credible, fact-based news works and how to identify what you’re seeing in the news,” said Zacharia, who teaches journalism skills and techniques for understanding the changing news environment.

“In terms of identifying credible information, if you look at the sources, as opposed to reading everything that captures your attention, or echoes your confirmation bias without caring who they are, we’d all be in a better place,” she said.

Learn more about our LIVE event and view the event recording on the Cubberley Lecture/School's In LIVE event page.

Transcript

Alvin Hong Lee (00:01):

We still really need to hammer in the importance of digital literacy very early on in our public education systems to make sure that we're really addressing this crisis.

Denise Pope (00:12):

Welcome to School's In, your go-to podcast for cutting-edge insights and learning. From early education to lifelong development, we dive into trends, innovations, and challenges facing learners of all ages. I'm Denise Pope, senior lecturer at ��'s Graduate School of Education and co-founder of Challenge Success.

Dan Schwartz (00:36):

And I'm Dan Schwartz. I'm the Dean of the Graduate School of Education and the faculty director of the �� Accelerator for Learning.

Denise Pope (00:46):

Together, we bring you expert perspectives and conversations to help you stay curious, inspired, and informed.

Dan Schwartz (00:56):

So, in this section, Denise, who is a superb interviewer of a panel, is going to engage people with different kinds of expertise about the information ecosystem. So, Alvin Lee is pursuing a BA in Political Science at ��. He describes himself as a proud product of California public schools. We'd like to think of him as one of ��'s rock star future alums. Alvin is founder and executive director of GENup, California's largest youth-led education policy organization, and he has news. He was one of four �� students named as Rhodes Scholar for the fall of 2025.

(01:39):

Next is Valerie Ziegler. She teaches at Abraham Lincoln High School in San Francisco. She's been working with Sam for over a decade and was one of the first teachers to pilot Sam's new approach to teaching history through primary sources and trained her SFUSD colleagues to use it as well. So just... No, wait. Just this week, she had her students record their own podcasts about their AI experiences. So, Valerie, you may just be more prepared than us. And not surprisingly, she was named a California Teacher of the Year. Now.

(02:16):

Last, Janine Zacharia is the Carlos Kelly McClatchy Lecturer at ��, where she teaches journalism skills and techniques for understanding the changing news environment. She's written extensively on tonight's topic, including a newsroom playbook for propaganda reporting, helping even seasoned journalists manage the flood of misinformation. She may be the only female journalist unaccompanied married Jewish woman ever to be in Saudi Arabia. She went in 2011 during the Arab Spring to report for the Washington Post. It's really impressive. So thank you, Janine.

Denise Pope (02:57):

All right. I'm really excited for this panel. The way it's gonna work is everyone's gonna have a little chance to say a response to, after hearing the podcast, what is one idea that resonated with you, and then we'll open it up to more a conversation among us. So I wanna start with you, Alvin. If you think about that conversation, what's one idea that really resonated with you?

Alvin Hong Lee (03:21):

This is a bit sort of more specific. I, I, the two of them can probably more talk about the broader picture, but, uh, Sam had a point about how a lot of students these days are using AI as a way to understand, uh, different information and literacy sources they're navigating. A lot of my friends are huge perplexity fans. We're obviously sort of in the ivory tower here at �� in terms of how we consume information and leverage digital, digital technology.

(03:44):

But again, AI has this very powerful danger of hallucinations. Uh, I've seen a lot from firsthand experience. And so when we talk about misinformation and disinf- disinformation, it's not just about the overabundance of false information that's coming our way all the time, but even in these, uh, very narrow institutions and technologies we use to interact and understand the world around us. So I think that's something to think more critically about too, is how AI is really transforming how we understand and perceive information.

Denise Pope (04:14):

Okay. We're gonna, we are gonna definitely delve further into that in a minute, V- but thank you. Valerie?

Valerie Ziegler (04:19):

I'll key on two things. I think the first thing that Sam pointed out is that we could have this conversation in two weeks and it might be different. And as a classroom teacher, I am just trying to keep up with what the brain rot is this week-

Alvin Hong Lee (04:31):

(laughs).

Valerie Ziegler (04:32):

... 'cause it's always changing and the technology's really changing and where students are getting their information is changing. And I think that that's a challenge for us in the classroom to keep up and to, to navigate and to shift and to really be able to serve students. The second thing is that I actually see the positives of how students are now approaching their online selves.

(04:52):

And I think when we started this work initially, they didn't look for things to be fake. And now it's sort of the reverse, "That's fake. That must be AI." And so I think they're coming to it with a lens now of growing up in a world where they don't trust everything. And I think once they have the skills that we actually have a lot, I have a lot of faith in students to be able to do the digital literacy on their own.

Denise Pope (05:15):

Well, that makes me happy. Could you... We gotta teach that to my mom-

Valerie Ziegler (05:18):

(laughs).

Alvin Hong Lee (05:18):

(laughs).

Denise Pope (05:20):

... but okay. (laughs). Janine?

Janine Zacharia (05:22):

All right. I have a lot of thoughts, but first I wanted to say that, I wanted to, when you said, Sam, you know, our eyes deceive us and just, obviously, how hard this all is. And I was thinking back to the original problem, which is basically the internet turned everyone into a publisher, right? And so there are advantages to that. So you get to read more w- things than just, you know, everybody has a voice, but there are serious problems. And the second thing was just how angry I feel about the fact that it's all on us to, to figure this out. Well, who, there are other people who are responsible for this, namely many who live within 10 miles of here, the companies that have created these algorithms that are rewarding, um, engagement rather than accuracy. And so until we solve that problem, we're gonna be constantly fighting for downloads of curricula, right?

(06:07):

And so I think that needs to be centered. And, just how urgent it is for people to do what Sam's saying about knowing the author of the, thinking, being curious even. I was on a hike this past weekend and one of the guides heard what, me telling what I do, "I teach at ��, da, da, da." And, so I started asking him, "Well, what do you, what's your media consumption?" You know? And he was telling me about a, a podcast that he really likes, and I said, "Oh, tell me about the podcast." So it was called, I think The Emerald. And he was talking about it. And I said, "Oh yeah, who is it? He's, who, who does the podcast?" And he really relies on this podcast, right? He said, "Oh, it's Josh something." I said, "Well, who is Josh something?"

Denise Pope (06:47):

(laughs).

Janine Zacharia (06:47):

He had no idea. And this, I think, is people are, you know, resonating with material without even the basic curiosity of who's putting that material out there. So that is just so critical to teach.

Denise Pope (07:01):

Yeah. Sam, what, this is, these are the ahas, do you have a reaction to, uh, a- any of these before I go deeper?

Sam Wineburg (07:10):

The reaction I have, I, I, I wanna pick up on something that Valerie said, and, um, this woman is an extraordinary educator. One of the reactions that people have is the opposite of being gullible is not trusting anything. My colleague, Mike Caulfield, calls it trust compression. When we distrust everything we say, you can't believe anything that you read on the internet.

(07:37):

Ultimately, we put our hand, we put ourselves in the hands of authoritarians. And so when a, a leader says, "You can't believe anything, believe in me," that is a very dangerous place for democracy to be in. And so the critical question for us as educators is how to cultivate a sense of discernment of what to believe in and what to reject, not this sense of you can't believe anything.

Denise Pope (08:05):

Yeah. No, I think that's so important. And, and I wanna go back to Alvin because you're talking about misinformation and disinformation and all of your peers are using this. So what are some things that you and your peers do when you face this? Uh, are, are we in this like, well, we can't believe anything mode? Or are there actual things that you're doing?

Alvin Hong Lee (08:23):

Yeah, that's a great question. I think it's sort of in between. I think there's a lot of information where, you know, students might have requisite knowledge where, you know, they can sort of discern that this is probably fake news. Our generation, Gen Z, was the first generation that sort of grew up chronically online. And so I think the benefit of that is, you know, we understand the utility of the technology. We understand how to navigate this information ecosystem, obviously, not as well as we'd like to, but I still think there's that fundamental knowledge. But I think that where it gets really complex is when you're talking about information like political news, for example, right?

(08:57):

Uh, most folks are incredibly disengaged and civic engagement is very critical because not only are students, uh, playing this role in social society, but your vote really sort of has profound impacts on very critical policy issues that are affecting all of us today that we're experiencing in 2025. So, uh, I think there's different levels to it. I think Gen Z is better equipped than other generations in navigating the complexity of disinformation. But I think, by and large, we still really need to hammer in the importance of digital literacy very early on in our public education systems to make sure that, uh, we're really addressing this crisis.

Denise Pope (09:32):

So, Valerie, you see this daily. What are, what are some of your, I mean, you're Teacher of the Year, what are some of your hot tips? We've got a bunch of educators in here to help the sort of peer group of Alvin, uh, a- although there he's a little bit older than who you teach.

Valerie Ziegler (09:47):

I think the first thing is that as educators, we have to practice what we preach and use these tools. You know, I have been on ChatGPT and used it for different things. And when I started with the Digital Inquiry Group, looking at some of the lessons they were creating about AI, I said, "Before I can do this, I need to test all these things out and really get an understanding of how they work." So I think that's the first step. I think the other piece is just really helping students understand how lateral reading works.

(10:17):

We do a lot of that in my class. That 30 seconds, that's what you need, but also just really engaging them. And what's great is when you put a bunch of students to ask AI a question and they're all doing it a table of four, and they're all trying to get the same answer, and they all get different answers on the same topic, then you have a conversation, right? And so then you have this ability to say, "Why are we all getting different answers? What does that mean? How do we go look at these sources? How do we ask the questions in the right way to get where we wanna get?"

Denise Pope (10:46):

To me, Janine, this is like the core of journalism, right? I mean, is i- you're the professor, I'm not. So what, when you're teaching future journalists, and also future consumers, w- what is it that they should be looking for to know the credibility of a source?

Janine Zacharia (11:03):

So, I think it's an, ur-, I can't overstate this, I think it's an urgent national priority that people understand how credible fact-based news works and how to identify what you're saying, Denise. It used to be enough. I've been teaching at �� for 14 years. It used to be enough for me to go into the classroom and teach 15 to 20 students a quarter, these nice little, "How do you find news? Um, how do you do an interview? How do you verify information?" and send them out into the world? It is not anymore. And I can talk more after about the things I'm doing to expand that reach. But in terms of identifying, I mean, it's very, you know, it's doing a little bit of what Sam said, but knowing what leg- that legacy media, the much-maligned mainstream legacy media, The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, AP, Reuters, they're your Encyclopedia Britannica.

(11:55):

They're your history books that you teach in, in schools, and they abide by a certain set of standards, like there's an editor-reporter relationship, that there's actually like a team working there. It's not just one dude with a, with a microphone, right? That there's accountability that, "If I make something up, I'm gonna get fired." That, uh, there are rules on anonymous sources that you can see published on their ethics standards on their website. And that most importantly, they actually publish corrections. These are things that you can clearly identify to know it's a credible fact-based source in a news or news source.

Denise Pope (12:31):

Super helpful, right? The fact-checkers, right? The fact-checkers exist for some of these places, but they, they call me up and check my quote.

Janine Zacharia (12:39):

Right.

Denise Pope (12:39):

Not everyone does that, very few, but the ones that do, it gives me faith.

Janine Zacharia (12:44):

Absolutely. I mean, well, The New Yorker's fact-checking is, you know, it's legendary. Unfortunately, with cutbacks to journalism, we can talk about how that's the, that's a, that's a headwind that's affecting all these things I want them, you know, to do. But you don't have as many editors, right? So newspapers are struggling.

(13:01):

But still, your local legitimate daily newspaper, The Denver Post or wherever, you know, you're from or something, has a team, you know? And so that's what you... It's really not that hard. If you, if you look at the sources, right, as opposed to reading everything that catches your attention or ha- e- e- e echoes your confirmation bias without caring who they are, we would all be in a better place if everybody knew this one thing.

Denise Pope (13:26):

I 100 percent agree, but Alvin's friends are not getting their news from those places, right?

Alvin Hong Lee (13:33):

Yeah.

Denise Pope (13:34):

Where do you get your news? I mean, I'm putting you on the spot.

Alvin Hong Lee (13:37):

(laughs) Uh-

Denise Pope (13:37):

You're probably different from your friend. You can speak more generally. Speak more generally,

Alvin Hong Lee (13:40):

Uh, more generally speaking, uh, I think T- TikTok is by far the biggest way that at least speaking for college students consume their news. Uh, Insta Reels is another really popular one. I think YouTube was mentioned earlier. I don't really know if people are using YouTube. That might be like a younger thing. I'm kind of old now. There's like two Gen Zs now. I didn't know about that. I'm like the older generation of Gen Z.

Denise Pope (14:01):

Wow.

Alvin Hong Lee (14:01):

That's, that's trippy, aging (laughs). Um, but I'd say TikT-

Denise Pope (14:04):

(laughs).

Alvin Hong Lee (14:08):

(laughs) I say that as a 22-year-old (laughs).

Denise Pope (14:09):

Yeah. Oh to be 22.

Alvin Hong Lee (14:11):

Yeah.

Denise Pope (14:11):

Yes, yes.

Alvin Hong Lee (14:12):

Uh, but I'd say TikTok and, uh, Instagram, for sure. Uh, it's, it's, it's concerning, frankly, because, I mean, I have a lot of peers right now who are product design majors or Sym Sys majors here at ��, right? Uh, and their job literally is to then go into these tech companies, apply the latest cutting-edge, uh, psychological research, and basically help make this product more addicting. And it's really, really concerning because nowadays, TikTok, social, Instagram, these little 15-second reels that are pushed onto your feed, it's the primary way that these students interact with the world, right?

(14:45):

This is their identity. It's how they shape who they are, it's how they discover themselves. And that has really, really significant consequences that hadn't been seen before, sort of, digital media exploded. And so, yeah, it's, it's very scary. And I think that this is why digital literacy is so critical to that because it's very important that students learn, uh, how to understand the effects, uh, of this content that they're seeing.

Denise Pope (15:08):

So, Valerie, what's the pushback in your classroom? Do you say, "Folks, you know, you probably shouldn't get your news from TikTok"? Like what, what's the pushback?

Valerie Ziegler (15:16):

I, I don't say that actually.

Denise Pope (15:18):

Okay, good (laughs).

Valerie Ziegler (15:18):

Um, you know, I do current events once a week. I teach AP US politics, and, you know, I will show them a variety of sources, credible news sources, and then at the end I'll say, "Go find me a TikTok video about this topic."

Denise Pope (15:32):

Hmm.

Valerie Ziegler (15:32):

And again, then we have the conversation. And sometimes they are so different and some of 'em are nonsense, about 90%, right? But it's really that conversation of, um, and I'll sort of allude, opening their eyes to, "I would've scrolled through this, listened to that sound bite, and believed it." And it gets them to stop and say, "Okay, where, where's this information coming from? Where am I getting it?"

(15:56):

And just, I think, again, in high school, giving them the tools to think about that process, because again, their lives are digital. And when I ask students what do, what do they want their parents to know about th- th- their lives? They're just on their screens. And so I, part of that is having those conversations about where they're getting the information so that hopefully when they aren't sitting in a US politics class and someone's forcing them to talk about it and look at it, they're doing that on their own.

Janine Zacharia (16:20):

Denise, I wanna clarify something. We just did an event, our Rebele Symposium in the Department of Communication two weeks ago, right over there

Denise Pope (16:28):

(laughs).

Janine Zacharia (16:28):

... in an adjacent room called The New(s) Influencers-What Legacy Media Can Learn from Online Content Creators. So I'm not saying, uh, that everything on TikTok is, is wrong.

Denise Pope (16:38):

Sure.

Janine Zacharia (16:38):

Right? And so we had Peter Hamby, who has a very popular Snapchat news show that reaches like 11 to 19-year-old target audience, but he came from CNN and he abides by a certain set of standards. So people just, if they get psyched about someone, need to look at who that person is and what their training is. And on a positive note, I mean, I studied Sam's 2021 study, of course. I gave a talk at, um, our daughter's, they have, they go to a third through eighth public school in Redwood City, and they had a festival of words, and I made, like, an AI, you know, version of the principal. And I put it up next to the real one, and they-

Denise Pope (17:13):

(laughs).

Janine Zacharia (17:13):

... all very easily picked out, you know-

Denise Pope (17:15):

Which was right and wrong.

Janine Zacharia (17:16):

... the real one. And they were, they were screaming, having fun. And then a little fourth-grader raised his hand and he said, "What do we do when the President of the United States posts an AI photo of himself as the Pope?" I was stunned, you know?

(17:31):

But the point is, I think they are so aware. You know, my 11-year-old who's obsessed with, with skincare products right now and is on YouTube all day, and I'll say to her, "Edie, what, go..." "Mommy, I researched it and I..." So she, I mean, she, they know, I mean, not all of them, but I'm kind of more, I'm, uh... Is it bullish? What's the word? Like-

Denise Pope (17:54):

Yeah.

Janine Zacharia (17:55):

... on the younger generation than I am the older generation right now a little bit. I don't wanna sound a lot like Jeff Hancock. My colleague here is always like, "Everything's gonna be fine." But they know a little bit of this, you know.

Denise Pope (18:05):

Sam, you're making a face.

Sam Wineburg (18:07):

Well, you know, uh, what, what, what's the difference between surfing the internet and trying to figure out what to believe and, I don't know, uh, learning how to water ski? If you are learning how to water ski and something happens, you fall in the water and you get immediate feedback.

Janine Zacharia (18:25):

Mm-hmm.

Sam Wineburg (18:25):

When you're on the internet and you fall into a rabbit hole, you don't know that you've fallen into a rabbit hole.

Janine Zacharia (18:31):

Right. There's no cost.

Sam Wineburg (18:32):

And so I taught, I taught a class, uh, one of my last classes when I, before we spun out as a, as a nonprofit, called The Future of Information. And I want you to imagine some dude walking in with gray hair to a group of �� undergraduates presuming to tell them something about the internet. Uh, you know, essentially, they, it was a, it was a morning class, so, which had all of the �� athletes there, they were on their iPads looking at whatever else, but not at all paying attention until I gave them, uh, a website called the American College of Pediatricians and said, "Is this a bonafide source for you should, that, that you should think about on the question of adolescent bullying?" And we had a kind of U-Poll where you could, uh, immediately did it. And something like s- 87% of the students said, "Yeah, this is a, this is a good site."

(19:24):

This is a site that the Southern Poverty Law Centers calls it an anti-LGBT hate s-, hate site. And when we pointed that out, all of a sudden the students who were looking down at their, at their iPads saying, "What's this guy gonna tell me about the internet?" All of a sudden the recognition of, "I can be an easy mark. I am easily duped." So the first kind of step is to help people understand that how easily they can fall into a rabbit hole. Now, Alvin was a, uh, one of the engineers, or certainly one of the people who, who cr- helped support this piece of legislation, California AB 873, which mandates the teaching of, of digital literacy in the state of California.

(20:09):

The problem we have, folks, is we have mandates without materials. There is no budget line for creating the kind of curricula to actually put flesh on the bones of this piece of legislation. So right now, it has the status of essentially legislative hand-waving without the kind of budgetary consideration. One of the things that we're doing, and this is the way the nonprofit sector has to fill this goal, i- i- is with our, our nonprofit, is trying to seek support to create the kinds of materials that would actually be able to enact this piece, piece of legislation and give it meaning.

Denise Pope (20:47):

No, totally. And I think it's great, and I'm so excited that, that you and your, your group helped to do that, Alvin. And I can tell you from my own work that I do with, with Victor Lee at the GSC, the students are much more involved and on ChatGPT and other large language models, and the teachers really aren't. I mean, Valerie, you're an exception to the rule right now. And more... And now that's changing, and more and more teachers are learning about it, but there's also a real scarcity of professional development opportunities for educators to learn this, to even be able to, to put that curriculum into practice. Would you, Valerie, what, what, what's your view of that?

Valerie Ziegler (21:28):

I'm not aware of any training on, for teachers how to use. I mean, I mean, I'm curious.

Denise Pope (21:33):

The School of Education, Graduate School of Education, we do.

Valerie Ziegler (21:34):

Yeah.

Denise Pope (21:35):

We have craft, we have-

Valerie Ziegler (21:36):

(laughs).

Denise Pope (21:36):

.. a, a group that does it.

Valerie Ziegler (21:37):

But I'm saying that no one's coming into our school district and offering this.

Denise Pope (21:39):

Yeah.

Valerie Ziegler (21:39):

This would be something that someone would have to sign up on their own free time-

Denise Pope (21:43):

Yeah.

Valerie Ziegler (21:43):

... or do it on their own. There isn't any, you know... Imagine starting out the '25 - '26 school year with everybody taking a professional development about that.

Denise Pope (21:51):

Yeah.

Valerie Ziegler (21:51):

You know, that's different than me going on to understand ChatGPT and asking it to plan my vacation to Sicily based on the white lotus-

Alvin Hong Lee (21:58):

(laughs).

Valerie Ziegler (21:58):

Which is what I did, right? I wanted to see how it worked, right? Um, and you-

Denise Pope (22:03):

And how was that for you, Valerie?

Valerie Ziegler (22:04):

It made a beautiful graphic.

Alvin Hong Lee (22:04):

(laughs).

Denise Pope (22:06):

(laughs).

Valerie Ziegler (22:07):

Um, but again, you know, once I started using some of the materials that were created for, um, for Georgia State, which was interesting, those materials were created, if I'm wrong, for an online class. Correct? And I'm doing this in person. And once I started going through those lessons, I just realized there was so much that I didn't know. And again, that's the void. And I think you're right, it's this unfunded mandate aspect of it, but there's a lot of possibility in what c- could be. And I think teachers are very interested in it, they're afraid of it, and therefore, they would be open to having more training.

Sam Wineburg (22:37):

The point about Georgia State is, wh-, some research that our, that our nonprofit is doing is working with Georgia State University to put these kinds of ways of thinking into the regular curriculum. We were working with a professor of political science who is responsible for 24 different sections of the class and over 4,000 undergraduates. And he said, "Well, I'm not, I, I don't have the mandate, nor do I have the budget to bring all of my faculty in to retrain them."

(23:03):

And we said, "Let's offer this asynchronously and have students do this online." Where we created and paired the kind of digital materials about the executive branch, about, uh, uh, Brown Jackson's confirmation for the Supreme Court so that we dovetailed the kind of media with the topics that students were already, already going to study. And we saw just over a, a short, uh, semester, an 18% growth in students' ability to make wise decisions. So there's a lot of useful things we can do until we wait for the revolution. These small changes, if they accrue, can have a big dent. The only thing we can't do is nothing.

Denise Pope (23:49):

Okay. Let's get (laughs) this question over here from this microphone.

Audience Member (23:52):

Thank you. I work with 11th and 12th graders as an academic advisor, so I'm not exactly a teacher, but part of the thing that I do is help, uh, with, uh, college essays like admissions essays and scholarship essays. And I kind of, uh, ran into, this fall, a situation where lots of students were using AI to help them actually write their essays. And I think that this is the type of thing that manifests, uh, especially when there are material incentives on the line, like there's money, there's admission to a prestigious institution, um, and it also applies to assignments at school. There are grades involved. Um, and I found myself feeling just like, I mean, I didn't have AI when I was applying-

Denise Pope (24:34):

(laughs).

Audience Member (24:34):

... for stuff, so I don't know what to tell them except for like, "It's the wrong thing to do." But, like, is there any way to approach that? Is there anything that educators can do to address that kind of bad incentive?

Denise Pope (24:47):

That's a great question. Valerie, do you wanna give your 2 cents?

Valerie Ziegler (24:51):

A, a colleague came to me the other day and said that, um, w- when she finally went to the lockdown browser, if you're not familiar with that, when you take an AP course, the students take their test in this browser that they can't go out, and this kid bombed. And she's like, "It was so weird because everything he had done before in Google Docs was great. And then when he got to the fact that he had to have original thought, he couldn't do it."

(25:15):

And so she pulled him aside and he said, he admitted he had been using that. And she said, "Well, here we are. You can't write 'cause you haven't had to." And so I think the conversation is, you're gonna get into college on that premise that this is what you can create and you aren't able to (laughs). And I think that's the hard reality and that, and she made him redo every assignment that he had done, and he did it.

Denise Pope (25:38):

So, I wanna go back, Alvin, you told a story about, I think it was your mom, uh, when we were first talking. So I, I kinda wanna get into what is some advice for parents, right? We, we've already talked about what schools need. They need PD, they need Sam's curriculum, they need teachers like Valerie, they need the Janines out there teaching about legacy media and how it works. Tell the story about your mom (laughs), not to embarrass Alvin's mom, um, and then what your advice would be for, for parents and for kids.

Alvin Hong Lee (26:06):

She's gonna get really mad at me for this one.

Denise Pope (26:07):

Okay. Sorry.

Alvin Hong Lee (26:08):

(laughs).

Janine Zacharia (26:08):

(laughs).

Denise Pope (26:08):

I'm sorry.

Alvin Hong Lee (26:10):

No, no, no. It's all good (laughs). Uh, so back in, ooh, I don't even know how old I was, but in 2016, I remember right before the election, that was nine years ago, so I was, this is too much math for me, guys, 13 or 14 (laughs).

Denise Pope (26:21):

No worries.

Alvin Hong Lee (26:22):

I remember one day my mom asked me, I'm sure you guys remember about Pizzagate 'cause a lot of the sort of first gen Chinese immigrant communities, uh, used WeChat as their primary form of communication. Uh, it's also where they gather and garner a lot of their political news. And so Pizzagate was really sort of going around. Uh, and I remember we were at the dinner table.

Denise Pope (26:40):

Wait, can you just say what Pizzagate is for me?

Alvin Hong Lee (26:42):

Oh, yeah. This was a conspiracy theory that, uh, Hillary Clinton was sort of the center of a sex trafficking ring out of a pizza shop in Brooklyn, New York, I think.

Janine Zacharia (26:51):

Comet Pizza in DC.

Alvin Hong Lee (26:52):

Yes, that's right.

Janine Zacharia (26:52):

(laughs).

Alvin Hong Lee (26:53):

Yeah. It was associated with QAnon and all these really far, uh, right, uh, circles. But anyways, it was just really, really shocking to me that it had landed here and it was very revelatory in a lot of things. I think the big thing being, I mean, you know, I'm very inspired by my mom's trajectory. She was a first gen immigrant from China. She got her PhD in, um, in biology from the University of Kentucky out in Lexington. So this was someone who has this very educated pedigree who is asking me about this really ludicrous question, uh, that me as a 13-year-old would be like, "Wow, this is, like, insane. Like, why are you asking me this, Mom? This is obviously not true."

(27:28):

Uh, and so I think to your point earlier, and Sam's point earlier, yes, our generation is a bit better equipped at discerning these credible and infactual sources. And I think the older generation is very much sort of at risk right now. And it's, I mean, you're seeing this play out in politics right now, but that doesn't mean that, that we're free from it as well. And even with conversations from a lot of my friends as well, they really don't know what's right or wrong these days when they talk about politics and all of these different issues happening.

Denise Pope (27:54):

So a piece of advice for either a parent or for your pals-

Alvin Hong Lee (27:58):

Yeah.

Denise Pope (27:59):

... would be?

Alvin Hong Lee (28:00):

Ooh, just to question what you're consuming and just fact check it. I mean, I think to the lateral reading point, it's work, it's extra work, I know, to open Safari and go to Google, uh, and throw it in, in the search bar and maybe just scroll around and see what the different outlets are, but I think it's-

Denise Pope (28:18):

It's 30 seconds, apparently.

Alvin Hong Lee (28:19):

It's 30 seconds, yeah.

Denise Pope (28:19):

Right?

Alvin Hong Lee (28:20):

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And honestly, 30 seconds is a lot, right? I mean, we're used to this 15 second immediate scrolling environment these days. Our attention deficits have really plummeted because of TikTok and the way we consume media. So, I mean, even 30 seconds sounds like a lot of work, uh, for most students, but I think, unfortunately, that's just what needs to happen.

Denise Pope (28:35):

No, that's-

Alvin Hong Lee (28:35):

But-

Denise Pope (28:35):

... what we're up against, yeah.

Alvin Hong Lee (28:36):

Yeah. But again, to the, to the final point, I think that's where digital literacy comes in. And I'll keep this really brief, 10 seconds-

Denise Pope (28:42):

No.

Alvin Hong Lee (28:42):

... but building on Sam's point, the beauty of this legislation and the call to action to everyone here in the audience today, 'cause I know we have a good amount of educators, is that this bill would require this state to look at incorporating media literacy standards into the statewide instructional curriculum. But it's really sort of up to local school districts, especially at the school district level, to have their curriculum committees then adopt this media literacy curriculum once it's rolled out by the state and then implement it at the school site level. So you all, as educators and members of the community, have a really big role to play in really ensuring that media literacy actually lands, uh, in schools and isn't just the state sort of waving a magic wand and virtue signaling.

Denise Pope (29:20):

No, I think that's so important. And, and, Valerie, you're in it every day. You're in the school, you're in the classroom. You know, let's say your, your peers hear about this media literacy. I can already hear in my head, "Wait, I'm a math teacher. I'm a, I'm a this tea-" You know, you, you have a, a- a- an edge, in a way, or people might say this, because of the topic that you're teaching. It seems like it really fits. So what, what would you say to your advice for your peers?

Valerie Ziegler (29:47):

You know, my other, I am a social studies teacher, but I'm also a CTE teacher.

Denise Pope (29:50):

Okay.

Valerie Ziegler (29:50):

And a lot of-

Denise Pope (29:52):

Explain what CTE is.

Valerie Ziegler (29:52):

Career technical education, um, and specifically in the energy utilities and environment sector. Um, and yes, there are lots of things out there about climate change, so that would be a natural. Um, but I, I think the conversation, again, is we're, there's content that's learned in high school, but there's also skills. And our job as, you know, as high school educators is really to equip students with the skills to be successful outside of it. There are soft skills, (laughs) you know, how to write a resume, how to have, get up in front of a group of people, how to have conversations. And I think this is one of these soft skills that all of us should be working together to make our students digitally literate.

Denise Pope (30:28):

Advice, Janine?

Janine Zacharia (30:29):

For parents, I think you have to model good behavior like everything else, right? Like, kick 10 bucks a month to your local public media, tell your kids what that is, put it on the radio. Um, subscribe to a newspaper and send them links to those articles and make sure they're logged in so they don't hit the paywall. Like, you know, ask them how they know things when they, uh, when they say something or ask them to show you the TikTok, "Oh, what is that? Oh, who is that person? Oh, really? Did you see that?" You know, engage with them about it. And that's what I try to do with our kids.

Denise Pope (31:00):

Love it. Sam, last word.

Sam Wineburg (31:02):

You know, the, the work that we're trying to do, which is to fill this gap and to give meaning to some of the kinds of things that we know need to happen. Right now, there's a, there is a chasm between students' lived experience and the experience that they have in school. We have to find a way to create a bridge between those two worlds.

Denise Pope (31:20):

Big round of applause for our panelists. Thank all of you for joining in this episode of School's In. It was so much fun to do. Be sure to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcast on Spotify or wherever you tune in.

Podcast

split

GSE area

Faculty and Research

Faculty mentioned in this article: Sam Wineburg

Digital literacy in the AI era (Part 1)

Olivia Peterkin — Thu, 17 Jul 2025 21:56:41 +0000

Digital literacy in the AI era (Part 1) Olivia Peterkin Thu, 07/17/2025 - 14:56

Events | Students | Technology

In this episode of School’s In, GSE Professor Emeritus Sam Wineburg discusses digital literacy and how to help students navigate the internet in the era of AI and fake news.

July 24, 2025

By Olivia Peterkin

As AI increasingly blurs reality online — generating lifelike images and believable misinformation — it’s essential that internet users learn to distinguish fact from fiction and spot reliable sources.

Sam Wineburg, PhD ’89, Margaret Jacks Professor, Emeritus, of Education at �� Graduate School of Education, says that it is incumbent on parents and educators to help students learn to be savvy consumers of information.

“Our students are living digital lives,” said Wineburg. “And it's our responsibility to help them navigate that terrain where they're spending so much time.”

Wineburg joins hosts GSE Dean Dan Schwartz and Senior Lecturer Denise Pope on the first live recording of School’s In as they discuss digital literacy in the school curriculum and the challenges and potential of AI in education.

“There's no place in the school curriculum for essentially bridging this gap between the lived experience of our students and what we teach in school,” said Wineburg, who is also the co-founder of Digital Inquiry Group, which conducts research and designs lessons for educators.

“What we’re trying to do with the Digital Inquiry Group is to create curricula that can be infused in all of the subjects of the school curriculum,” said Wineburg.“This is the only way that we're going to build a bridge between students' experience and how we want them to become informed citizens in a digital society.”

Learn more about our LIVE event and view the event recording on the Cubberley Lecture/School's In LIVE event page.

Transcript

Sam Wineburg (00:00):

Our students are living digital lives, and it's our responsibility to help them navigate that terrain where they're spending so much time.

Denise Pope (00:12):

Welcome to School's In, your go-to podcast for cutting-edge insights in learning.

(00:18):

From early education to lifelong development, we dive into trends, innovations, and challenges facing learners of all ages.

(00:28):

I'm Denise Pope, Senior Lecturer at ��'s Graduate School of Education and co-founder of Challenge Success.

Dan Schwartz (00:36):

And I'm Dan Schwartz. I'm the Dean of the Graduate School of Education and the Faculty Director of the �� Accelerator for Learning.

Denise Pope (00:45):

Together, we bring you expert perspectives and conversations to help you stay curious, inspired, and informed.

(00:55):

Hi, Dan.

Dan Schwartz (00:56):

Dr. Pope, it's good to see you.

Denise Pope (00:58):

It's good to see you too. I'm really excited.

Dan Schwartz (01:00):

Yeah. This is our first live recording in, in front of, uh, ��, so it's pretty exciting.

Denise Pope (01:05):

Yes. It is.

Dan Schwartz (01:07):

So, uh, it's digital literacy.

Denise Pope (01:08):

Ooh.

Dan Schwartz (01:09):

And, uh, I don't, I don't know what it is, so...

Denise Pope (01:13):

(laughs)

Dan Schwartz (01:13):

So...

Denise Pope (01:13):

Well, you're in the... You've come to the right place.

Dan Schwartz (01:14):

W- so here's my, here, here's my guess. I listen to Jane Austen digitally in my car, and so it's like, it's literature, which must have something to do with literacy, and it's digital.

Denise Pope (01:25):

Yeah. A-

Dan Schwartz (01:26):

Am I, am I there?

Denise Pope (01:27):

No. No.

Dan Schwartz (01:27):

No?

Denise Pope (01:28):

I... No. Uh, first of all, do you really listen to Jane Austen in your car? I don't buy it. I don't buy it. Do you?

Dan Schwartz (01:35):

I was a good humanities student.

Denise Pope (01:36):

Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dan Schwartz (01:38):

I was good. But my, my minor was English in college.

Denise Pope (01:40):

You-

Dan Schwartz (01:40):

You didn't know that?

Denise Pope (01:40):

I... You know what? I did know that your minor was... And your major was?

Dan Schwartz (01:45):

God, I forget. It j- it must have been important. I was, it was philos-

Denise Pope (01:46):

It was philosophy.

Dan Schwartz (01:46):

It was philosophy.

Denise Pope (01:48):

I know.

Dan Schwartz (01:49):

Yes, it was philosophy. Okay. Okay.

Denise Pope (01:50):

This is a very literate person.

Dan Schwartz (01:51):

Okay. Okay.

Denise Pope (01:51):

Although not digitally literate, I think, as we've just proven.

Dan Schwartz (01:53):

Yeah.

Denise Pope (01:53):

So it's a really good thing that we have an expert here today. So Sam, thank you so much for returning to the pod and especially in front of this live audience. And I wanted to get us started with just, what is digital literacy and how do we, how do we know when someone is actually digitally literate?

Sam Wineburg (02:13):

Well, thank you. First of all, thank you for having me. It's an honor to be back, be, to be back on the campus. So what is digital literacy? On, on, on the most basic level, it's the ability to go online and discern what is true from what is sham. So a couple ex- a couple of examples were, uh, in Springfield, Ohio, were Haitians, uh, grabbing their neighbor's cats and stringing them up and barbecuing them? Um, this is a claim that ultimately made its way to 67 million Americans. And so the ability to look at something like that and decide, no, I think I better check that out.

(02:55):

Now, let me say at the, in the same breath, more recently what's gone viral is the claim that Elon Musk turned the election using Starlink for Trump. And that actually, actually the winner was Harris. So again, this is the kind of thing that can be established if you know what to do. But if you don't know what to do, you become part of spread- spreading digital pollution. And so that's j- at a, at a basic level, given how much time and how dependent we are on our digital devices, it's the ability to have confidence in information about whether to believe it or whether to kind of hold off and say, "Mm, probably not."

Dan Schwartz (03:40):

So this, so this is really tangential. I love the expression digital pollution. Do we know, like, what percentage of the internet is digital pollution?

Sam Wineburg (03:49):

An awful lot.

Denise Pope (03:50):

(laughs)

Dan Schwartz (03:50):

Like, like, 45%? Like, my, the chances that I find something false are, like, really high?

Sam Wineburg (03:56):

Well, again, we can think of widely believed views that millions and millions of Americans are holding. And so clearly this is not a minor problem. This is a problem that affects us. It affects all of the subjects that we teach in school. There is no area of the curriculum that is not infected, if you will, by the kind of misinformation that is being spewed on a daily, daily basis. Now, let's just think about our youth. Our youth are spending... Today's teenagers are spending on average, stay in your seats, outside of school, eight hours a day online. 39% of teenagers in a recent Pew study said that they are on social media almost constantly. 39%. So our students are living digital lives, and it's our responsibility to help them navigate that terrain where they're spending so much time.

Denise Pope (05:04):

So last time you were on the pod, you did a little test with Dan and I, and we failed. And it was, how do you know... You know, if you, if you're looking at something, what's the first thing you should do to sort of make sure that it's true or make sure that the facts are correct? And the answer, and I took this with me and I do it, is to look at Wikipedia. Is that still the same answer? Is that one of the things that you would say to do? Or have we, are we beyond that now?

Sam Wineburg (05:30):

That's not quite... If you check the podcast, that's not quite the response that I had.

Denise Pope (05:33):

Okay.

(05:35):

See? See? This is what I'm saying. We failed. We failed. We're still failing.

Sam Wineburg (05:37):

So, so, so let me, let me-

Dan Schwartz (05:37):

It's, it's funny. You know, all, all, all, all I, all I remember is that I got the wrong answer. I have no idea what he said.

Denise Pope (05:42):

You didn't even know he... Y- okay, okay.

Dan Schwartz (05:42):

I have no idea what he said.

Denise Pope (05:42):

That's so funny.

Sam Wineburg (05:44):

Let, let, let me, let me provide a small gentle correction.

Denise Pope (05:47):

Thank you. Thank you.

Sam Wineburg (05:48):

What... I asked you a question, if you come across a website... And let me give an example, and you can, folks, take this one at home, theinternationallifescienceinstitute.org, it claims to provide vetted health information that has been approved by a scientific board. You look at this website, you see that there are scientific reports. You see that there's a peer-reviewed journal. And I said, "What do you do when you come to a website like this?" And you started to go into critical thinking and you said, "I will look at the about page. I will look at the scientific advisors." And I said, "Wrong answer."

Denise Pope (06:27):

Yes, I recall.

Sam Wineburg (06:27):

Unless you have all of the time in the day, if you are not already a specialist and you are not up on nutrition information... You have a limited amount of attention. And so what you should do is you should engage in critically ignoring. Rather than critical thinking, you should engage in critical ignoring. If you don't know what something is, what you should do is to use this incredible device that we have, an internet in which sources are electronically linked, and leave that and use the power of the internet to gain some context of what that organization is.

(07:04):

And within a few seconds, if you leave it and open up multiple tabs, a process that we've observed with professional fact-checkers, which we call lateral reading, you can learn through context that this actually is an organization that is funded by big soda, by big candy, by the agribusiness. And so Wikipedia is one among several sites... Particularly, you can go to Wikipedia... Now, again, what does Wikipedia provide? If it's a well-trafficked site, there are references at the bottom. And if you recognize something that there's... To the Wall Street Journal or to AP or to the New York Times, whatever news-vetted organization that you can kind of corroborate, that's your first move rather than devoting all of this time on a site for which you are not an expert about the topic.

Denise Pope (07:53):

So true. So true. And I have used that, by the way. I, I... It's a, it's a great tool. And I have done this, I've done my lateral reading, so thank you.

Sam Wineburg (08:00):

You get an A.

Denise Pope (08:01):

Thank you, Sam. Thank you.

Dan Schwartz (08:02):

So, so, but I, I-

Denise Pope (08:02):

I try for A's.

Dan Schwartz (08:03):

I d- I think I do exactly the opposite.

(08:06):

Right? So I, I look up something... I get, I get something from the doctor, and they, some result, and I started looking it up, and I'm basically searching for anything that confirms my belief that I'm about to die.

Audience (08:18):

(laughs)

Dan Schwartz (08:19):

Right? And, and as opposed to, like, saying the, choosing the credibility of the source.

Sam Wineburg (08:25):

Well, I mean, it, it...

Dan Schwartz (08:26):

Sorry. Sorry, Sam. (laughs)

Denise Pope (08:27):

There's, there's no help. There's-

Sam Wineburg (08:27):

Dan, Dan, that's, that's dark. I'm not going there.

Denise Pope (08:29):

No, there's no help for that. There's no help for that. Okay. But no, so now we have this little wrinkle, folks. We have AI. And I have fallen prey to believing a made-up video. I have listened to a voice on the phone that I thought was a famous person, turns out it wasn't. And I like to think that I'm sort of... You know, I'd like to think that I have a brain and can critically think my way outta this, but AI is really, really convincing. So how has this changed what you teach people to do, if at all?

Sam Wineburg (09:02):

Well, first of all, let's recognize that the, the ground is shifting under our feet at this very moment. So anything that I say and respond at this moment probably will not be valid in a month from now.

Denise Pope (09:12):

Fair.

Sam Wineburg (09:13):

And it might even be less time than that. Sure. I mean, our lives are about to be radically transformed by AI, if not already. And the teachers among us and the students among us know that you are using it whether it is approved or not. It has implicated itself into our lives. Any student, uh, certainly is using it. And there is an enormous crisis right now, a crisis of confidence in education. And so one of the things that's happening, particularly with the development of our ability to express ourselves in writing.

(09:49):

Now, this is a basic cognitive ability, right? The, the, the famous polymath, uh, Nobel Prize winner Herbert Simon said that what creates learning is what a student does or a student thinks. And if you use AI and you put a list of points into ChatGPT and it writes the essay for you, then what actually has happened? It's like, if we could come up with a machine that bench presses 300 pounds, um, why not sit in the corner of the gym and drink a smoothie while we're watching that?

Dan Schwartz (10:21):

(laughs)

Audience (10:21):

(laughs)

Sam Wineburg (10:22):

Um, but nothing really accrues if we have something doing the cognitive work for us, so that's clearly a problem. But in the same breath, there are huge, huge potentials of AI, and we have to be extremely cautious. Now, again, before we leave some of the, some of the challenges, let's just talk about the point that you raise, which is how convincing it is. So recently I asked, uh, I asked Chat about a topic that I know something about and that I've written about, which is this whole kind of question of did the atomic bomb have to be dropped in order to end World War II? This is a deep moral value, hard historiographic issue that's hard to contend with. But there is supposedly a quote saying that the Japanese were ready to surrender. And I asked Chat, "Please verify this quote." And it came back with this exact quote and said, "You can find this in the Japanese communications." And actually, I know that's not to be the case. And so I confronted Chat and I, I actually, I had to print it out because its response is so precious.

Audience (11:38):

(laughs)

Sam Wineburg (11:38):

So, so indulge me for a second while I read it to you. "You raise a very valid, important point. My demonstrated tendency to misrepresent information, particularly through inappropriate quotations, raises serious concerns about my suitability as a tool for high school history education."

Audience (11:58):

(laughs)

Sam Wineburg (12:00):

Now, we can use anecdotes like this, and yes, it is prone to errors. It can make up things. Is it better to go AI, to go to, to ask a chatbot about a, a historical fact or to consult a textbook? At this point, probably, I'm gonna go with a textbook. But in the same breath, there are unbelievable potentials for harnessing AI to develop the kind of intellectual capabilities that school since time immemorial has been trying to develop.

Dan Schwartz (12:30):

So I, so I have, uh, uh, an honest question. So a, a number of my colleagues say, uh, the fact that ChatGPT writes essays is gonna destroy critical thinking 'cause the way to learn to do critical thinking is to write essays.

Denise Pope (12:46):

Wait, can we define critical thinking before we even answer that question? Can I ask you to do... Because people always say, "What do we mean by critical thinking?" Sam?

Sam Wineburg (12:53):

Well, I think everyone in the audience can talk about the development of being able to take, uh, disparate ideas and to form them into a coherent whole that is convincing, that's persuasive, that uses evidence. The problem when we start to talk about technology is this automatic tendency to say, "Well, if kids are believing things that aren't true, we need to teach critical thinking." And, you know, we need to... Forget about 21st century skills. Let's go to 4th century B skill-

Denise Pope (13:26):

(laughs)

Sam Wineburg (13:26):

... BC skills with Socrates in the Agora. Now, the thing is that, that Socrates didn't understand search engine optimization, didn't understand-

Dan Schwartz (13:35):

(laughs)

Audience (13:35):

(laughs)

Sam Wineburg (13:35):

... metalanguage, didn't understand algorithmic bias, didn't understand the way that Google arrays search results. There's a great deal of information about this tool that we use, this internet, that all of us are driving on the information highway, and none of us has read the informa- the driver's manual, and we still are going crazy with it. And so there's a lot of knowledge about how the information that we consume comes to us that is, has to be added to our traditional notions of just being able to critically think through a problem. We need to know about the information environment in order to make thoughtful decisions about what to believe.

Denise Pope (14:13):

So teaching students where this... How it works, where it comes from, about hallucinations. What else would you add to that list?

Sam Wineburg (14:23):

Well, again, you know, one of the things that we've seen... So we, we did a large study in 2021 where we had 3,446 high school students across this, across the United States hooked up to the internet and we gave them a series of tasks. And so here's one of the tasks. The students saw a grainy Facebook video that claimed to say that there was widespread vote cheating in the 2016 Democratic primaries. Now, this video was actually shot in Russia, a fact that if you know the right keywords and you open up another tab, you can find. Three students in 3,000 actually made it to the right place where that video was created. Now, there's clearly an issue here.

Denise Pope (15:13):

That's so depressing, Sam.

Sam Wineburg (15:16):

Three students in 3,000. So, you know, we have to do something, and the ways that we're going about it are not the right ways to go about it. Let's go back to the beginning of, of the, of the questions. You asked about digital literacy. Where is digital literacy in the school curriculum? Right now, if you find it, it might be in a single couple lectures by the school librarian, if there is one.

(15:41):

I wanna give you a statistic. We, with the Digital Inquiry Group, we count our downloads. So for our history curriculum last year, we had over a million downloads of our curriculum. We had 67,000 downloads of our digital literacy curriculum. Why? Because there's no place in the school curriculum for essentially bridging this gap between the lived experience of our students and what we teach in school. So what we're trying to do with the, with the Digital Inquiry Group is to create curricula that can be infused in all of the subjects of the school curriculum. This is the only way that we're going to build a bridge between students' experience and what we want them, how we want them to become informed citizens in a digital society.

Denise Pope (16:28):

Love it.

Dan Schwartz (16:30):

Good proposal. Good solution.

Denise Pope (16:35):

Sir, you have a question?

Live Audience Member (16:36):

Question is that you've, you've cited the study from 2021. As fast as all of these technologies are developing, do you worry that the relevance of that study diminishes over time as a result of the changes in the technologies and the speed with which people are beginning to get used to using them in different ways?

Sam Wineburg (16:59):

I would worry about it if the subsequent studies showed a fundamentally different result.

Denise Pope (17:04):

Mm.

Sam Wineburg (17:04):

Unfortunately, to my, to our great dismay, they don't. And so there's m- more recent studies, but I think that that leaves a kind of pessimistic sense that I don't want to hover above this room. What we've also done since 2021 is we have done studies where, uh, in... We did a treatment control, randomized control study in Lincoln, Nebraska public schools. And we showed that in less than six hours of instruction, students grew in, at, at a rate of 40% in their ability to make thoughtful choices about what to believe. Six hours is two hours less than the average amount of time a teenager spends online in one day.

Denise Pope (17:47):

Yeah.

Sam Wineburg (17:47):

So just imagine what could happen if this was put into the warp and woof of the way that, of, of the curricula tha- that we have. So again, we can move the needle. These things are not intransigent, they're not things that can't be taught. But they need to be taught.

Dan Schwartz (18:07):

So here, here's one I think people need to learn.

Denise Pope (18:09):

Okay.

Dan Schwartz (18:09):

Uh, so the new thing about the AI is it's really easy to make stuff, and it'll be very easy for students to generate fake news, so to speak. And so you need to teach them why you might not want to do that. Teach 'em to think about responsibility, ethics, right? So that, that seems different to me, the ability to, for the students themselves to produce things that would show up on the internet. Could...

Sam Wineburg (18:32):

I... No, I, I agree. I think that's, I think that's, that's part and parcel of it, of course. Absolutely.

Denise Pope (18:36):

Because we do such a great job teaching ethics already.

Dan Schwartz (18:41):

(laughs)

Denise Pope (18:41):

Right?

Dan Schwartz (18:42):

Right.

Denise Pope (18:43):

I mean, now we need a whole other curriculum.

Dan Schwartz (18:45):

So, so you guys are proposing we get rid of trigonometry so we can make space for this? Is that the...

Denise Pope (18:50):

No, I don't, I don't think it's an either or at all. But I do, I d-... You know, there are parents out there, there are teachers out there who just wanna know what should we do? I think downloading Sam's curriculum, great idea, right? I think teaching responsibility and making ri- good choices and not posting deep fakes and pornography and blah, blah, blah, whatever that's called now with the cyber sex. Um, great idea. Don't do that. Right? But I think we need more. Like I get... I'm getting duped.

Dan Schwartz (19:16):

No.

Denise Pope (19:16):

(laughs) Help me. Help me.

Dan Schwartz (19:16):

No.

Sam Wineburg (19:20):

So, so-

Dan Schwartz (19:20):

Wikipedia.

Sam Wineburg (19:22):

Dan, Dan, you said eliminate trigonometry. No, that's exactly not the way to think about it.

Dan Schwartz (19:27):

Okay.

Sam Wineburg (19:27):

The way to think about it is that we c-... It's not either or, it's both and. So, a, a, a, a student is, comes across, uh, the, uh, uh... W- what are the browsers of choice for gen, for this, for students in high school at this point?

Denise Pope (19:42):

Oh I know the answer to that.

Sam Wineburg (19:42):

They-

Denise Pope (19:44):

I asked that to, to a bunch of kids.

Sam Wineburg (19:46):

Okay.

Denise Pope (19:47):

Uh, the majority of this generation gets their news from, uh, TikTok and, um, uh, Instagram.

Sam Wineburg (19:54):

And one more.

Denise Pope (19:56):

Uh...

Sam Wineburg (19:57):

YouTube.

Denise Pope (19:58):

YouTube.

Sam Wineburg (19:58):

These are visual media. And so you come across a TikTok video claiming, um... Well, again, claiming, uh, that the Holocaust didn't happen. Claiming that there were 20,000 African Americans who were put into concentration camps by Union soldiers in Natchez, Mississippi in 1865. This is heartfelt claims. Now, there's lots of things that happened, particularly in our history, that textbooks don't report. So how do you know what's true? You're teaching the Civil War, you're, and you come across, a student says, "Did you know that hundreds of thousands of African Americans suited up in Confederate Greys and fought on the side of the Confederacy, fought for their own continued enslavement? Um, here's evidence."

(20:50):

Now, this, when you're teaching the Civil War, these are the kin-... How- if you are interested as a, as, as an educator in preparing students not for more school, but for the society in which they live, the information environment that surrounds them, then this is not an either or. That TikTok video has to be brought into the classroom. It has to be interrogated. And we have to teach students how to be able to discern whether that's something to belie- be believed, or whether in that particular instance, that is a lost cause piece of propaganda.

Denise Pope (21:25):

One hundred percent. One hundred percent. Why are you looking at me like that, Dan?

Dan Schwartz (21:30):

Uh, I'm, I'm-

(21:31):

... still trying to figure out what I'm supposed to do when that TikTok video shows up. I think I don't quite have lateral reading. So, like, so I see this, a student brings it, or I see it, I'm not quite sure. You know, my, my intuition is, well, let me rely on my common sense, and then I'll make up some facts that help me believe what I wanna believe. And, and... But you have a technique here that I don't quite know.

Sam Wineburg (21:54):

So, I mean, here's what's, here's... Let's, let's begin with a common thing not to do that is often, often used. A TikTok video of a guy who says, "You know, we ought to ban high school football, or we certainly need to regulate it, because there's all these kinds of problems with concussions." And you listen to it and you say, "Wait a second. I mean, this is fearmongering. This is, you know, kind of raising our heartbeat for something that's really overblown. Who is this dude?" And his name happens to be, uh, Chris Nowinski. And what do you do with that? You say, "Well, I r- it, it, it doesn't seem that convincing."

(22:37):

That's not digital literacy. Digital literacy is to be- is knowing how to use this incredible tool, really, that's at your fingertips, literally at your fingertips, and saying, "Let's find out who this dude is." Now, it happens to be a Harvard-educated Boston University PhD in neuroscience who wrote a book called Head Games that became the basis for the NFL fundamentally rethinking its whole policy toward concussions. And so, as opposed to some random person, like the video I referred to in Natchez, Mississippi, who just sees some kind of things... Actually, that particular claim goes back to a person who says they're an expert who is the head of a society of paranormal activity in Mississippi.

Dan Schwartz (23:23):

(laughs)

Denise Pope (23:23):

There you go.

Sam Wineburg (23:24):

So again, should we believe her? She kind of conjures spirits to know what happened in the past.

Denise Pope (23:30):

Okay, wait, I have a question. This might, this is, could potentially be very embarrassing in front of all these people. I thought that people don't necessarily use their real name. So if I see this person on TikTok, all I'm seeing is a handle, like a made up, like, Miss Piggy kind of handle. And then how do I google to see who the person is? Am I, am I wrong?

Sam Wineburg (23:49):

Well, again, if there's, if it's anonymous and they're talking about Natchez, Mississippi, and they're talking about the Devil's Punchbowl, and they're talking about eight- uh, 1865, then you've got some keywords.

Denise Pope (24:00):

So that's what you meant by keywords.

Sam Wineburg (24:01):

And now, now let's, let's-

Denise Pope (24:02):

I gotcha.

Sam Wineburg (24:03):

... let's talk about AI for a second.

Denise Pope (24:04):

Okay.

Sam Wineburg (24:05):

Let's put this into Chat. Let's put this into Claude. Let's put this into Perplexity. Let's put this into Gemini. And if you s- and you ask for sources, you ask and you give the kind of prompts... Not just say to your chatbot, "Is this true?" But in addition to that prompt, and this is where we have to start to think about the new kind of education that our students need. How do we kind of think like the large language model and prompt it for the kind of solid answer that we want it to produce? So we ask not just, "Is this true?" But provide the sources for your information and preferably provide academic and scholarly sources. You get a very different answer and a much more thorough answer than if you just say, "Is this true?" Now, if you wanna then look at a source, then you go back to the source and say, "Is Breitbart a, uh, uh, uh, a solid source I should believe? Or is, um, something that is published by �� University Press more of solid ground to stand on?"

Denise Pope (25:11):

I'm not gonna answer that question. That sounds like a trick question. All right. So, um, tell... You, you're, you're a mom, you're a dad, you're a parent. What do you want the parents to know? Do you want the parents to be sitting with them and saying, "Hey, don't be spreading around TikToks that aren't true"? Do you want the parents to be teaching? Like, what, what's, what's the parent's role in all this?

Sam Wineburg (25:36):

So let's think about a hierarchy of harm.

Denise Pope (25:42):

Okay.

Sam Wineburg (25:44):

So what are the things that are most potentially harmful that our children are doing that we ought to know about? And there was a report, an exposé, in the April 26th Wall Street Journal about, uh, sex bots on Meta, uh, Meta AI, where there are user-generated sex bots. One of them is named Submissive Schoolgirl. And the Wall Street Journal reporter Jeff Horwitz, over a period of months, created scenarios where they, where he played the role of adolescents. And essentially what this chatbot engaged in was providing a menu of sexual and bondage fantasies and drawing adolescents into this kind of world.

(26:38):

So let's just be clear. There i- there are ever present dangers out there that if we don't know what our children are doing, it is, it's, it's not an easy environment to be in. So let's talk about that for a second with AI. Now, if our student is circumventing all of the assignments in school and using ChatGPT for them, then we need a kind of heart-to-heart, come-to-Jesus talk about what's the purpose of school and how do you develop that muscle? And do you wanna kinda send a robotic chat ch- chat into, into the gym to do the, the, the bench presses for you? And what will happen if you do that? Will you grow? And so there are a lot of things that we need to do as parents. Uh-

Dan Schwartz (27:28):

Sam. Can, could you make a TikTok video of that speech?

Denise Pope (27:31):

(laughs)

Dan Schwartz (27:32):

I think it would go viral to everybody who wants to be able to make that speech to their kids.

Sam Wineburg (27:37):

Onl- only if people then look up who I am-

Dan Schwartz (27:40):

(laughs)

Denise Pope (27:40):

(laughs) Ah.

Audience (27:40):

(laughs)

Sam Wineburg (27:40):

... and whether I am qualified-

Denise Pope (27:41):

That's so good. That's so right.

Sam Wineburg (27:43):

... to give this particular opinion.

Denise Pope (27:44):

That's so right. That's so right.

Dan Schwartz (27:45):

Very good.

Denise Pope (27:45):

Oh my god. Well, we could go on forever, uh, with this kind of talk, but we do have a panel, uh, coming up after this, so we could go on forever. Dan, I always put you on the spot for some takeaways for our audience.

Dan Schwartz (28:00):

So it, it's a little surprising. Digital literacy, if I've got it right, is knowing to track the source, figure out where it came from, which is quite different than sort of understanding different genres of digital media.

Denise Pope (28:12):

Yes. Hundred percent. Sam?

Sam Wineburg (28:16):

The takeaway that I want all of us to have is that our eyes deceive us. That there are, there are forces out there that wanna dupe us, that, that have a lot of money behind them, and to... If something looks good, the classic, if it quacks like a duck, if it walks like a duck, if it smells like a duck, it might be a duck, but it might not be. So the idea... We are called upon to make all kinds of decisions as a citizen, for things for which we lack the requisite background knowledge. Friedrich Hayek, the economist, said that the mark of a developed situation is being able to benefit from knowledge we don't possess. Now, the internet allows us, if we know how to use it, to be much smarter than we actually are. But we have to know how to use this incredible tool that's at our disposal.

Denise Pope (29:15):

I...Sam, it's so important. Thank you so much for that. I, I'm, I'm gonna leave here walking away not just with my Wikipedia from last time, but with this knowledge that I am- I can't possibly be an expert in everything I'm going to, uh, see. And so I've gotta do my homework, legit, to figure out what's right and what isn't right, and to really go deep and check the sources. And that means, that's time and energy. But my gosh, if we don't do that, we're gonna end up being duped as, as, uh, you know, as we see many, many people being.

Sam Wineburg (29:47):

Can I alla- allay your fears for a second?

Denise Pope (29:49):

Yes, please.

Sam Wineburg (29:49):

And go back to the example that I started off with, the International Life Science Institute. Denise, 30 seconds. 30 seconds. I mean, we tend to think of sources as in an environment of scarcity. We're in a very different environment. We're in an environment of overabundance. And so our critical thinking ability, the first step of critically thinking is to determine whether the object of thinking is worthy of thinking about. And in the case of, of so many things that establishing whether you should stay on that website or whether it's better to find, quickly find a- another source is a half a minute of your time if you know what to do.

Denise Pope (30:34):

I love that. Sam, that gives me hope. You've just given me hope in this crazy world. I thought this might be a depressing topic, but actually I leave here very hopeful. So Sam, thank you. Thank you for being on the show again, uh, I would love to have you back. Thank all of you for joining in this episode of School's In. It was so much fun to do. Be sure to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, or wherever you tune in. I'm Denise Pope.

Dan Schwartz (31:00):

I'm Dan who does not have enough time Schwartz.

Denise Pope (31:02):

(laughs) But that was allayed, Dan.

Dan Schwartz (31:03):

(laughs)

Denise Pope (31:04):

We allayed your fears. 30 seconds. 30 seconds for the truth. Thanks again, folks. Really appreciate it.

Podcast

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GSE area

Faculty and Research

Faculty mentioned in this article: Sam Wineburg

�� education graduates urged to be flexible in the face of disruption

Carrie Spector — Wed, 18 Jun 2025 17:44:02 +0000

�� education graduates urged to be flexible in the face of disruption

Carrie Spector Wed, 06/18/2025 - 10:44

The GSE conferred 162 master's and doctoral degrees to education scholars at this year’s ceremony, in addition to honoring 50 undergraduate students who completed a minor or honor’s thesis in education. (Photo: Ryan Zhang)

Campus Life | Students

The Graduate School of Education conferred degrees across a spectrum of education programs including policy, technology, and research, as well as undergraduate honors.

June 18, 2025

By Olivia Peterkin

�� GSE students received their diplomas in a joyous ceremony that honored their perseverance and purpose — and urged them to stay flexible in a rapidly evolving learning landscape.

“There are many winds of change, and they’re very strong,” said Professor Emeritus Decker Walker, PhD ’71, who delivered the commencement address. “You need to be adaptable.”

Walker, an expert in curriculum and instruction who also started the technology in education program at the GSE, shared highlights of his “checkered career” as a high school teacher, professor, and researcher. He emphasized the need to stay open to change as funding for certain projects may evaporate, new education priorities emerge, or technology transforms.

“You have dreams, you have visions, and you have work that you would like to do,” he said. “Just be flexible.”

GSE Dean Dan Schwartz opened the June 15 ceremony by asking the graduates to stand, turn to the audience, and say thank you to their families and friends who supported their education. In return, the families cheered and hollered for their students – clad in their regalia, waving and smiling.

“An advanced degree is about the tolerance of ambiguity over a long timeline, and the only way you can make your way through is because you love and believe in what you’re learning,” Schwartz said.

The GSE conferred 22 doctoral degrees and 140 master's degrees in programs ranging from education data science and learning design technology, to teacher preparation, as well as joint degrees with law, business and public policy.

“I’ve learned so many things about education in the widest sense just by virtue of being part of this super diverse group of people that care about very similar things, but go about addressing them in many different ways,” said Julian Siebert, PhD ’25, who was the GSE’s flag bearer, and the first to receive his diploma, this year.

After graduating, Siebert will be a postdoc scholar with the Multitudes Project, a reading screening tool, at the University of California, San Francisco.

Record number of undergraduates recognized

The GSE also honored undergraduates who completed a minor or honor’s thesis. Nearly 50 �� undergraduates attended a ceremony recognizing their achievements on June 13, about double the number of participants of any year prior.

“One of the things that undergraduate students who study with us at the GSE are doing is they’re helping to spread the word to the rest of the undergraduate community that education is an important, status-worthy thing to study and pursue,” said Jennifer Wolf, a senior lecturer at the GSE and director of the education minor.

One such student is Christopher Badillo, who earned a bachelor’s degree in comparative studies in race and ethnicity and received a 2025 Firestone Medal for Excellence in Undergraduate Research for his education honors thesis on school board politics.

“Finding out I won the award for my thesis was such a great moment of perspective on the work I had done and the importance of my own contribution to education politics discourse in this moment,” said Badillo, who intends to pursue a career at the intersection of education policy and politics.

Eleven students plan on becoming classroom teachers, including four students who will enter the �� Teacher Education Program (STEP).

“The students who come to us have a strong justice and public service mindset,” Wolf said. “They are interested in using what they learn with us to serve the communities they’re from, solve problems, make the world a better place and I think they come to the GSE because they see us as a place where they can try on that identity as undergraduates and I’m glad about it.”

Foster deep thinking

Walker said cultivating creativity and curiosity are among the goals of education, even as the means by which students learn change.

“I think the need for teachers who can foster deep thinking on the part of the students is absolutely essential,” Walker said. “And researchers, I hope you’ll work on problems that help to support this kind of teaching and learning.”

He added: Don’t be afraid to ask for help. Find – or create – resources that you aren’t readily given. Collaborate. Don’t give up.

Then he ended with a charge: “Go forth and do wonderful things.”

�� GSE students received their diplomas in a ceremony that honored their perseverance and purpose. (Photo: Ryan Zhang)

Professor Emeritus Decker Walker delivered the commencement address, sharing highlights of his “checkered career” as a high school teacher, professor, and researcher. (Photo: Ryan Zhang)

Photo: Ryan Zhang

Photo: Ryan Zhang

Photo: Ryan Zhang

Nearly 50 �� undergraduates completed a minor or honor’s thesis in education this year. (Photo: Ryan Zhang)

Undergraduate students who study at the GSE "have a strong justice and public service mindset,” said GSE Senior Lecturer Jennifer Wolf, who directs the program with Associate Professor Ari Kelman. (Photo: Ryan Zhang)

GSE News

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POLS

Student absences increased under threat of deportation efforts, �� study finds

Carrie Spector — Sun, 15 Jun 2025 21:27:16 +0000

Student absences increased under threat of deportation efforts, �� study finds

Carrie Spector Sun, 06/15/2025 - 14:27

New �� research shows a sharp rise in student absences at school districts in California's Central Valley, coinciding with the escalation of immigration enforcement actions. (Photo: iStock)

Diversity and Identity | K-12 | Students

New research finds a 22% increase in student absences in California school districts subject to intensified immigration enforcement in recent months.

June 16, 2025

By Carrie Spector

Amid a recent surge of federal immigration enforcement activity, educators across the country are reporting growing concerns that immigrant families fearing deportation have started keeping their kids home from school.

New �� research substantiates their suspicions, showing a sharp increase in student absences starting in January at schools in California’s Central Valley, a region with a high population of Latin American immigrants.

Analyzing three years of daily attendance data from five school districts in the Central Valley, the study found on average a 22% increase in student absences in January and February 2025, compared with the same months in previous years.

Considerable jumps were seen in all age groups but particularly for younger students, with the increase among K-5 students more than triple the effect among high schoolers.

“The findings indicate lost learning opportunities, but this isn’t just about kids missing out on instructional time,” said Thomas S. Dee, the Barnett Family Professor at �� Graduate School of Education (GSE), who conducted the study with support from Big Local News, a project of the �� Computational Journalism Lab. “The stress that’s being put on these young children and their families is serious, and the increased absences are a leading indicator of broader developmental harm.”

The study, released as a working paper on June 16, evaluated absences day by day in each of the districts during the 2022-23 and 2023-24 school years, as well as the current 2024-25 school year through the end of February. With a daily time series of data over the three years, Dee could observe seasonal patterns typically associated with student absences, such as the days before major school breaks or community holidays like Day of the Dead.

“That allowed us to credibly answer the question of whether the patterns from this school year differ significantly from prior years,” said Dee, who is also a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and the �� Institute for Economic Policy Research, and faculty director of the GSE’s John W. Gardner Center for Youth and Their Communities.

GSE Professor Thomas Dee

In the months prior to the intensification of immigration enforcement in the Central Valley that began on Jan. 7, absence data for the current school year was indistinguishable from previous years.

“But in January, we saw a sharp and unusual increase in absences that was coincident with the raids,” said Dee. “And the fact that the increase was similarly high in February indicates that these effects were not transitory.”

The effects were grouped into four different grade spans: pre-kindergarten, grades K-5, grades 6-8, and grades 9-12. The impact was significant at all levels, with an approximate increase of 30% in pre-K, 27% in grades K-5, 17% for middle school, and 8% among high schoolers.

The study cites two factors likely contributing to the higher rates among the youngest students: first, that children living with undocumented immigrants are more concentrated at younger ages; and second, that undocumented individuals might be especially concerned about being separated by an immigration raid when the family includes young children.

Beyond learning loss

More than 5 million children under age 18 live with a parent who is an unauthorized immigrant in the United States, and the vast majority of these children are U.S. citizens, according to a 2024 Pew Research Center report.

Dee pointed to past research that has documented the effects of immigration enforcement activity on children’s academic achievement as well as emotional well-being, including increased levels of anxiety and depression.

In addition to educational and developmental harms to the affected students, the increased absences can impose negative impacts on schools more broadly, Dee noted. Teachers may need to backtrack instruction to help students who missed earlier lessons, slowing the pace of learning overall. Meanwhile, increased absenteeism could deepen the challenges facing school districts that were already confronting the financial implications of enrollment losses from the pandemic.

For educators, the findings suggest strategies to address or offset potential harm, such as offering virtual instruction or adopting trauma-informed teaching practices to support affected students.

“Teachers can be more effective when they’re aware of what’s going on in their students’ lives, and when they better understand the learning challenges and barriers students are bringing with them into the classroom,” said Dee.

Research Stories

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Faculty mentioned in this article: Thomas S. Dee

Financial literacy in school: Skills for the 21st century

Olivia Peterkin — Mon, 10 Mar 2025 19:56:43 +0000

Financial literacy in school: Skills for the 21st century Olivia Peterkin Mon, 03/10/2025 - 12:56

Education Policy | Poverty and Inequality | Students

In this episode of School’s In, GSB Professor Annamaria Lusardi discusses what financial skills are most useful for young people, and a new bill that is working to get students where they need to be.

March 20, 2025

By Olivia Peterkin

Last year, California became the 26th state to make coursework in personal finance a graduation requirement for high school students, with the passage of Assembly Bill 2927.

But what does it mean for a young adult to be financially literate in America? And what role can schools play in preparing students for the world outside the classroom?

Annamaria Lusardi, a senior fellow at the �� Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR) and professor of finance at �� Graduate School of Business (GSB), says that making personal finance mandatory is a step in the right direction.

“When you look at the proportion of young people who are financially literate, we see that it's disproportionately the white male college-educated young people who are financially literate. And so by making this course mandatory and accessible to everybody, we can give this access to those students who otherwise would not have it,” said Lusardi, who is also the faculty director of the Initiative for Financial Decision-Making, a collaboration between the GSB, the �� Institute for Economic Policy Research, and ��’s economics department.

“One of the most important determinants of financial literacy is, unfortunately, socioeconomic status, so we need to have it in the school to provide access to everybody,” she said.

Lusardi joins hosts GSE Dean Dan Schwartz and Senior Lecturer Denise Pope on School’s In as they discuss the complexities of financial decision making and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)' s Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), a financial literacy test for 15-year-olds.

They also discuss financial literacy’s impact on well-being and wealth.

“Financial literacy is linked to a variety of behaviors that bring happiness,” Lusardi said. “We don’t save just to save, we save to achieve an objective like sending our kids to college, having a secure retirement, or taking a trip. So it is that knowledge that allows us to better navigate the financial system, and therefore be able to be savvy in making financial decisions.”

“I always say (my personal finance course) is a happiness project,” she said. “It teaches you the things that are important so you can make the decision that allows you to achieve some of the objectives that you have.”

Never miss an episode! Subscribe to School’s In on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Transcript

Annamaria Lusardi (00:00):

Financial literacy is an essential skill to thrive in the 21st century.

Denise Pope (00:10):

Welcome to School's In, your go-to podcast for cutting-edge insights in learning. From early education to lifelong development, we dive into trends, innovations and challenges facing learners of all ages. I'm Denise Pope, senior lecturer at ��'s Graduate School of [00:00:30] Education and co-founder of Challenge Success.

Dan Schwartz (00:33):

And I'm Dan Schwartz. I'm the Dean of the Graduate School of Education and the Faculty Director of the �� Accelerator for Learning.

Denise Pope (00:43):

Together we bring you expert perspectives and conversations to help you stay curious, inspired, and informed.

(00:52):

Hi Dan.

Dan Schwartz (00:53):

Hi Denise.

Denise Pope (00:54):

Dan, today we are talking about something I think really important like a life skill, [00:01:00] financial literacy, and specifically financial literacy for high school students.

Dan Schwartz (01:06):

Right. So it turns out that a lot of people never learned about credit card debt accumulation or how to figure out are the terms of this loan good or even what's inflation due to the amount of money you have. So did you learn these things? Do you know about these things?

Denise Pope (01:24):

My god, I don't even know what I don't know. Right? I did not take financial literacy in high school or college. [00:01:30] I'm sort of embarrassed. I didn't even take econ in college. Did you?

Dan Schwartz (01:34):

No. My goal in life was to get enough money that I could hire someone to do my finances for me.

Denise Pope (01:41):

That's good.

Dan Schwartz (01:41):

Thank you.

Denise Pope (01:42):

That seems very financial literate.

Dan Schwartz (01:44):

I'm still waiting. But yes, that is a sort of type of literacy. So today we are very fortunate to have Professor Annamaria Lusardi who's speaking with us today. She's a professor of finance at the �� Graduate School of Business and she's one of the world's most cited [00:02:00] authors on financial literacy and she's advised the Office of Financial Education at US Treasury. So she's here to help us understand a new bill that's been signed in California that requires high school students to complete a course on financial literacy before they graduate.

(02:16):

So welcome Annamaria.

Annamaria Lusardi (02:20):

Very happy to be here today.

Dan Schwartz (02:22):

Good. So here's the first question. What counts as financial literacy and how did you decide that's [00:02:30] a thing?

(02:30):

Well, that's what people need to learn, I know income and expenses, am I done?

Annamaria Lusardi (02:37):

Well, you are not done yet. Financial literacy includes a few more topics, and this is what we hope also this new law will establish what we need to have in the schools are a set of knowledge and skills that we think define financial literacy. And we know those because for [00:03:00] example, already in 2012, the Program for International Student Assessment already had added financial literacy into the list of topics, at 15 years old need to know in order to participate to society. So it is a long and important list and it includes the many skills that young people need to have today.

Denise Pope (03:26):

I can only imagine because other countries always [00:03:30] outscore us on the PISA in so many other ways that we were probably really outscored on this in terms of the US. Is this, are we way down there? Is this part of the problem?

Annamaria Lusardi (03:41):

We are not down there in a sense that we are at the OECD average and we have been mostly at the OECD average. But this is not a good score.

Denise Pope (03:51):

Being average is not good, right? Being average is not okay.

Annamaria Lusardi (03:54):

Being average is not good. The US is the country with the most advanced financial [00:04:00] markets. And so we need to do and we need to do better. But also what the result shows is that it's not because you are born in a country with well-developed financial markets that you acquire financial literacy by yourself. That's a language you need to learn and you need to speak because nobody is going to explain it to you. And so if you are going to make financial decisions, that's the language or that's the term you are going to face.

Dan Schwartz (04:27):

What are some of the other terms? Stock, a mutual [00:04:30] fund, compounding interest would be ...

Annamaria Lusardi (04:32):

Absolutely. Inflation is another word we have used. And of course, for example, insurances, managing risk. So making a budget, managing expenses, planning for the future, these are some of the words we have used.

Dan Schwartz (04:49):

So this financial literacy course could be very intense mathematically. So risk diversification is an evaluation of probabilities, right?

Annamaria Lusardi (04:59):

So [00:05:00] when I teach personal finance at ��, we have a course here, we use a bit of math and I think students appreciate it because we also have a lot of students from the sciences and from computer science.

(05:13):

But I have to say you can teach personal finance with very little math. And how can you explain risk diversification? You use this example, don't put all of your eggs in one basket. You try to explain how growth can really be very fast, can be nonlinear. [00:05:30] But I've done the course in very simple ways and with very little math. I also teach one unit course during the summer. So you can do it with as little math as possible because we know that math can be an obstacle for many students to take this course.

(05:47):

And also I want to repeat, many people think while we teach math and therefore it is like teaching personal finance, but personal finance is its own topics. For example, you need to know the rule and regulation. [00:06:00] You need to know where it is useful to get information and so on.

Denise Pope (06:05):

I feel like I should hire Anna right now to teach me these things without math. Like compound interest, when you say compound interest, literally my heart starts going ... I mean I know to pay off my credit card every month because there is this thing that if I don't pay, it's actually way more money and it gets more. But again, I don't know the math. So what do you think about that?

Annamaria Lusardi (06:28):

I think I'm going to have you in my classes [00:06:30] as well because you have already explained in simple way many of the things we tell to the students. We try to explain what the concept is. We can explain it in simple ways.

(06:41):

One of the things I tell my students in the first class is you are going to learn the language of finance, but we start with plain English and we build that knowledge up so people learn little by little. And then we explain this concept in pure English. Sometimes we put [00:07:00] some of the formula on the whiteboard or the blackboard or on the slides, but we also explain it in very simple way. We explain the intuition behind it, things like the interest rate, which is how much your wealth can grow.

(07:13):

And so given that the interest rate is so high and it compounds, it builds over the interest, then it's really important, as you've said, to pay off your credit card quickly, or it is very useful to start saving as soon as possible. [00:07:30] So you can explain these things in simple ways.

Dan Schwartz (07:33):

I agree. I think it is important for people to learn these things.

(07:37):

So the military has very sophisticated equipment, and the first move was to train people to handle the sophisticated equipment. And that turns out to be very consuming. So what they did is they just made it easier to use the equipment. So here's an Obama-era law on credit card statements that they include [00:08:00] sort of the cost that you would pay, but if you paid the minimum amount, they show you how much it would cost you over like 15, 30 years. So why can't we just do that for everything? Just make it simpler for people?

Annamaria Lusardi (08:12):

Yeah. We can and we should, but it's not enough. It's not enough. We need also now for example, to make decisions about our pension, our responsibility to save and to invest our pension has been shifting upon us. And these are not simple [00:08:30] decisions. Also, decisions are interrelated. I have to decide not just how much to save for my pension, but also whether I want to buy a house and the down payment whether to pay off my credit card. And so if you simplify one decision, I still have to make decisions across different options.

(08:51):

The financial market, the world has become much more complex than in the past. So I cannot I think stop [00:09:00] that complexity. And I think this is what happened also for education. We need to increase and have a higher level of education because of the changes that we see around us. And this is precisely why we need to add this additional topic. The world around us are required to have that knowledge. We are not able to operate under just simplifying some of those decisions.

Denise Pope (09:29):

That is a great answer. [00:09:30] Really appreciate that.

Dan Schwartz (09:38):

So Denise, I don't know how you learned financial literacy 'cause you never took the econ course, but maybe it's there. So my question is what have you done to help your kids become financially literate?

Denise Pope (09:49):

Oh, that's a very good question. We have talked as a family about savings. And I know this sounds crazy, but early [00:10:00] on, so I was always told, don't pay your kids for chores. Okay? Stick with me on this. Don't pay your kids for chores because they should be doing them out of the kindness of their heart, out of being part of a family. This is what we do to help others. But I was told you should give your kids an allowance because giving them an allowance not tied to anything in particular, but giving them an allowance helps them learn financial literacy.

(10:28):

And so one of the things that we were told [00:10:30] is to have something where you give them an allowance that they get to spend a little bit, but they also get to save a little bit. And then also think about when we give to charity like helping others. So we get together right around Thanksgiving, we figure out where we want to put some charitable funds and we would always include the kids in that and they would put, when they were little, it was like I can give 25 cents, but you make a big deal out of it. So that's what we did in my family.

Dan Schwartz (10:58):

Wow.

Denise Pope (10:59):

What? How about- What?

Dan Schwartz (11:00):

[00:11:00] Nothing. I didn't give an allowance. He would have to ask for money. But then in college his roommate was the world's best online poker player.

Denise Pope (11:11):

Oh, well that helps.

Dan Schwartz (11:12):

And that's where he learned it all, right, from this guy who really understood sort of taking bets and risk and where do you invest, so.

Denise Pope (11:24):

Well, we need him to teach the financial literacy classes.

Dan Schwartz (11:28):

If I can just point out, [00:11:30] even though I did nothing, he's now a certified public accountant. So I don't know where it happened. It wasn't me. I didn't give him a credit card or something like that and say, "You have to pay off your debt, kid." I don't know where he got it.

Denise Pope (11:43):

Although that is interesting because that's the other thing that we were told, is have them have a credit card early on that you're a cosigner on 'cause they don't have enough to get their own, but they will learn. And then that's how you teach them about always pay off your credit card in full.

(11:59):

My [00:12:00] dad taught me that. My dad taught me how to balance. I used to have to balance my checkbook to the penny because that's what my dad taught me. I mean literally to the point I would just go through. Remember in the old days you'd have your checks and you'd go through and you'd check them off and see. Yeah, that's what I was taught.

Dan Schwartz (12:17):

I've never done any of that. I just look at my bank account and I say, "I'm not broke. It's okay."

Denise Pope (12:23):

It's okay.

Dan Schwartz (12:25):

That's about as far as I get, but ...

Denise Pope (12:27):

I will say this though, we do have students [00:12:30] who will think like, "Oh, I still have checks in my checkbook." I'm dating myself. "I must have money in my account." Right?

Dan Schwartz (12:38):

Ooh, I like that mis- I like that one.

Denise Pope (12:40):

There's problems. There's problems. It sounds like we do really need to invest in financial literacy, and the more, the better at this point.

(12:52):

Okay, so you have me convinced, Annamaria. We need this. Talk to me a little bit more about the bill itself [00:13:00] and what it's requiring and why high school and what this all means.

Annamaria Lusardi (13:04):

Yeah. So the new bill requires a semester-long personal finance education course to graduate. So the schools have to offer the course by the 2027 and '28 school year and make it a graduation requirement by 2030 and '31. So it has to be a standalone personal finance [00:13:30] course. And that's I think what makes it unique, and California will become the 26th state to require this standalone personal finance course to graduate.

Dan Schwartz (13:44):

So Denise, do you think students are going to love it? I mean it's so practical and relevant.

Denise Pope (13:49):

I mean, I think it's to be determined, right? How is it taught? Is it taught in the way that Anna just did with me? Yes. Can we clone Anna and send her out to every high school in [00:14:00] the California? That would certainly help. I worry, and I can just tell you from my own experience, sometimes these classes get the reputation of the dumb math class. So you're not taking algebra one. You're not taking algebra two. You're in the dumb math class.

(14:16):

What I love about requiring everyone to take it is I think that that stigma is going to go away. And personal finance is not going to be considered sort of math for dummies, for lack of a better word, but it's going to be like, "Oh wait, this is really [00:14:30] important. This is how I buy a car. This really affects my future."

(14:34):

And I will say this, the fact that it became a full semester is really incredible because I've seen other things passed – there has to be some mental health education – that are short, maybe unit-long type things or you kind of cover it in, it's a checklist and you can check it off. But to make this a full semester long class shows you just how important the government thinks it [00:15:00] is for us to learn this. So well done, well done, Anna.

Annamaria Lusardi (15:05):

Well, I think the same. And I want to say judging from the students here at ��, I know these are not high school students, but when the course was first offered here, 362 students signed up.

Denise Pope (15:19):

Wow.

Annamaria Lusardi (15:20):

It became the most popular course within economics. And even now that we are teaching it, I'm teaching it also in the summer. We have had more than 400 students during [00:15:30] the spring and the summer term and we had to raise the cap four times. It's very, very popular among the students. So hopefully it doesn't have that stigma.

(15:40):

I actually want to mention something that people don't mention enough, which is the importance of making this course mandatory is because we made it accessible to every student. So when you look at the proportion of people, young people who are financially literate, and I've studied [00:16:00] for example, younger people but older than the high schooler, we see that it's disproportionately the white male college-educated young people who are financially literate. And so by making this course mandatory and accessible to everybody, we can give this access to those students who otherwise would not have it.

(16:24):

Our study finds something really interesting, which is that if you look at these young people that [00:16:30] have studied 23 to 27 years old, we can link that financial literacy to the wealth of the parents when they were growing up, when these people were 12 to 17, and in particular, if the family had retirement savings and stocks. In other words, young people today learn these topics at the dinner table, but only if they come from families which are well-off and which are college-educated.

(16:58):

We see this in the PISA data [00:17:00] as well. One of the most important determinant of financial literacy is unfortunately socioeconomic status. We need to have it in the school to provide access to everybody.

Denise Pope (17:14):

So important, so important.

Dan Schwartz (17:16):

I think that finding is not surprising, but it's incredibly important.

Denise Pope (17:20):

Yeah.

Dan Schwartz (17:20):

If you don't have money in your household, you don't spend a lot of time talking about your mutual funds.

Annamaria Lusardi (17:25):

Right. And also money becomes a source of anxiety, of worries. [00:17:30] We see this in the adult population as well. And also money is taboo. And so we don't discuss this easily and this is why eventually people will never learn about it. But it's better to have this knowledge before you make financial decisions than after and learning in school rather than learning by mistakes.

Denise Pope (17:55):

Totally. And that actually makes me think of this whole concept of money as taboo as a whole, [00:18:00] right? No one talks about how much they make. You're not supposed to say these things in public and at dinner parties or whatnot. It's just mystifying to me because another thing that I read that you said is it's not necessarily wealth that is connected to happiness, it's actually financial literacy connected to happiness.

(18:18):

Can you say a little bit more about that? I think it plays into what we're talking about right now.

Annamaria Lusardi (18:22):

Yes. What we say and the reason why we make the statement is that we have seen that financial literacy [00:18:30] is linked to a variety of behavior that is bringing that happiness. I would say that financial well-being, that financial security. We don't at the end save just to save. We want to save to achieve an objective, to, for example, send kids to college, to be able to have a secure retirement, to be able to do the things we would like to do, maybe take a trip, maybe help others. And so is that, I think knowledge that [00:19:00] today is so fundamental. Every decision we have to make is relatively complex. So it’s that knowledge that allows us to navigate better the financial system and therefore be able to be savvy in making the financial decisions.

(19:18):

I always ask my students in the first class what the course is about, what they think the course is about. And most of the students, I have to say – similar to I think what the [00:19:30] average person thinks – they think the course is about investing because of personal finance, you feel like, well, it has to be about investing. And I always say, no, this course is a happiness project. It teaches you the things that are important so you can make the decision that allows you to achieve some of the objectives that you have.

Denise Pope (19:54):

Well, there's your hook for high schoolers right there, especially given the mental health issues of kids right now [00:20:00] and the state of economy and the real wealth gap that we're seeing, right?

Annamaria Lusardi (20:05):

Yeah. Think how daunting it can be for a high school student today to think about a decision to go to college and how to finance that education. So that in itself is a complex decision. So right there, young people have to make important and consequential decisions very early on.

Dan Schwartz (20:26):

So I want to get back to one of the findings that [00:20:30] I saw, which I found kind of stunning. And so the claim is that 30 to 40% of differences in net worth are due to financial literacy. So that's pretty stunning. And I'm sort of thinking maybe the causal direction's the other way, that if you have a lot of money, you become more financially literate. So tell me, because 30 to 40% based on financial literacy is huge.

Annamaria Lusardi (20:56):

Yeah. This is actually part of a study that we did, but like [00:21:00] you were suggesting, we actually argue that financial literacy can also be an investment and that people who have a lot to gain from financial literacy will potentially invest more in financial literacy. And this is actually what we see as well in the data, that there is a little bit that endogeneity as well, as you have correctly indicated.

(21:25):

But our result at the end is indeed stunning and I think [00:21:30] is very much in line with, I think even a simple example. Suppose as we do, we both have a PhD, but I invest in the stock at age 30 and you don't invest in the stock market. 30, 40 years later, we are going to look very different just because of that decision. And that decision is often very much led by financial literacy. So financial literacy can really influence our wealth [00:22:00] much more than it influences our income.

Denise Pope (22:03):

I mean, I do want to point out though, you have to have money to invest in the first place. So if you're constantly living paycheck to paycheck, that's not even a reality for you. Right?

Annamaria Lusardi (22:14):

Right. But in our story as well, financial literacy helps in smoothing some of those shocks. So financial literacy is not just to accumulate for retirement, it's also to accumulate to smooth some of those shocks that [00:22:30] you might have. And so that ability, for example, to have a buffer stock of savings, putting aside a little and particularly early on if you can, is going to bring a lot in the long term.

(22:45):

I myself have to say, have regrets of not having invested and invested earlier on, for example, in this type of tax favor asset like a Roth IRA that really allows people [00:23:00] to grow in their wealth very early on. So there is really a lot we can learn and we can benefit from the financial market, the opportunity offered by the government and the employer, but we have to be aware of it and take advantage of them. And this is what financial literacy does.

Dan Schwartz (23:18):

So here's a complicated financial literacy issue that I had. So I had a job before I went back to PhD and I liquidated all my retirement to pay for my doctoral studies. [00:23:30] And so now I'm sitting here thinking, "Should I have left it? Would I be happier if I had not liquidated my retirement, which was age 30, or was my investment in a college education, advanced college education better?" I decided to get the PhD.

Annamaria Lusardi (23:49):

It's another investment I think you have chosen, but again, I don't know to know what is best. And I think that's also what we normally say, right? It depends [00:24:00] on you, what your decision are and what your knowledge is. But this could have potentially been a better investment because you have invested in education that has brought, I'm sure a very satisfying career and the things you wanted to achieve. So that's what money is for. That's the main lesson of financial literacy, use money for what is best for you.

Dan Schwartz (24:26):

So Denise, I liquidated my retirement so I could reach the [00:24:30] culmination of doing School's In with you.

Denise Pope (24:31):

I was just going to say-

Dan Schwartz (24:33):

That's how it cashed out.

Denise Pope (24:33):

You wouldn't be there if you hadn't have done that. So of course it was the right decision. Right?

(24:38):

Okay, as we wrap up, Anna, what's sort of one takeaway that you want people to get out of the show today?

Annamaria Lusardi (24:44):

The takeaway is that financial literacy is an essential skill to thrive in the 21st century. I am quoting the title of the first report of the Program for International Student Assessment [00:25:00] by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, or the OECD, who added financial literacy into PISA already in 2012. It recognized that that's a very important skill. And so my suggestion to young people is, while you are in school, take this course if it is offered. My suggestion to parents is talk about money to your children as soon as possible when the Tooth Fairy comes.

Denise Pope (25:30):

[00:25:30] Yes.

Annamaria Lusardi (25:31):

And my suggestion to an adult person is to try to acquire this knowledge because it's a good investment for the future.

Denise Pope (25:39):

I love that. Can I just say the Tooth Fairy, on that topic, talk about inflation. We gave our kids maybe a quarter. Maybe my third kid got up to a dollar a tooth. I hear it's like 20 bucks a tooth these days. Talk about ...

Annamaria Lusardi (25:54):

Inflation has gone up. We need to adjust that little money, right? In particular, remember inflation [00:26:00] was 8%, so please adjust the money accordingly.

Denise Pope (26:04):

I love it.

(26:04):

Dan, any last words?

Dan Schwartz (26:06):

Well, I think the answer is you need to explain to your children why they should put it in the piggy bank.

Denise Pope (26:11):

Instead of spending it on candy.

Dan Schwartz (26:13):

And you add 3% to the piggy bank every year.

Denise Pope (26:15):

Exactly. Nice.

Annamaria Lusardi (26:17):

So you can see and they can see how much it grows.

Dan Schwartz (26:17):

Yeah.

Denise Pope (26:20):

I love it. I love it.

(26:21):

Well, thank you so much Annamaria for being here. We learned so much. I personally learned a lot and I know our listeners did too. Thank all of you for joining [00:26:30] this episode of School's In. Be sure to subscribe to the show on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you tune in. I'm Denise Pope.

Dan Schwartz (26:38):

I'm Dan Schwartz. I will go back and look at my investments this evening.

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Faculty mentioned in this article: Dan Schwartz , Denise Pope

The evolution of Barnum Center

Olivia Peterkin — Fri, 07 Mar 2025 22:32:19 +0000

The evolution of Barnum Center

Olivia Peterkin Fri, 03/07/2025 - 14:32

A February image of the Barnum Center, which will be used as a classroom when it opens with the rest of the GSE later this year. (Photo: Joleen Richards)

Campus Life | Students | Teaching

The 119-year-old building was once the campus bookstore, a library, a career development center, and an office space for staff at the GSE.

March 7, 2025

By Olivia Peterkin

What piece of �� University architecture is 119 years old, survived both the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and an electrical fire in 2001, and was once the campus bookstore, a career development center, and a library?

The answer is Barnum Center, a one-story structure at the intersection of Lasuen and Escondido malls — and it’s the most historic piece of the Graduate School of Education’s (GSE) new campus.

“What’s special about Barnum is that it’s been with us from the beginning, and if these walls could talk, they would have a lot to tell about how the neighborhood has completely changed,” said Sapna Marfatia, director of architecture at ��.

“In the time it’s been around, the streets have changed, the people have changed, the buildings have changed, and an earthquake has happened, but it has been there with the main quad just quietly sitting and watching the whole evolution of �� take place.”

A look into the past

Before it was known as the Barnum Family Center, the building at 505 Lasuen Mall was home to the old campus bookstore from 1906 to 1960, the Western Civilization Library until 1967, and the Career Development Center until 2001, when an electrical fire burned through most of the building’s interior, leaving it vacant for six years.

Along the way, three adjoining buildings were constructed on the east side of the building: the first in 1910, which was used as a candy store, a YMCA, and later as an extension to Barnum; the second, a two-story structure built in 1930 and used as a shoe repair shop; and the third, a one-story addition built in 1984 that was attached to the 1910 building’s east façade.

In 2007 former GSE Dean Deborah Stipek was able to restore the space, which included demolishing the 1930 and 1984 additions and adding a one-story connector, with the help of a donation from the Barnum Family. It was then used to house existing GSE programs like the �� Center on Adolescence and the John W. Gardner Center for Youth and Their Communities.

“Barnum was a center for centers,” Stipek said. “It was a place that housed mostly multidisciplinary centers of activity, and it became a much needed space for the GSE.”

A step into the future

When its doors open again with the rest of the renovated GSE campus later this year, it will be as a classroom and gathering space.

“It’s going to be a really fantastic classroom that accommodates 100 students, and doubles as an event space for smaller gatherings,” said Olivia Crawford, associate dean for finance and operations at the GSE. “Our students deserve to have a really inspiring, light-filled space with the newest technology, and I think it’s going to be really special once we’re able to move in.”

While architects and construction teams have worked to retain much of Barnum’s original appeal, including keeping 50 historic windows, alterations to the space include removing subdivisions added in the early 2000s within the building to make it one large room, adding new acoustic paneling to the walls, installing projectors and drop-down screens, and demolishing the 1910 exterior addition to make room for the GSE’s south building and restore Barnum’s status as a standalone structure.

“Barnum in its newest iteration is designed as a flexible classroom, with tables and chairs that can move and be more theater-style seating,” said Mousam Adcock, a principal at CAW Architects who has been involved in the GSE’s construction project since 2017.

“From the inside it’s a very special experience because you’re surrounded by windows high and low, giving you natural light from all parts of the room,” she said. “It’s a really beautiful, multifunctional space, and this renovation is giving it new life.”

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Youth mental health: Teaching (and learning) empathy

Olivia Peterkin — Mon, 21 Oct 2024 18:05:06 +0000

Youth mental health: Teaching (and learning) empathy Olivia Peterkin Mon, 10/21/2024 - 11:05

Brain and Learning Sciences | Child Development | Students

Professor Jamil Zaki discusses the roles of empathy and compassion in bettering our relationships with ourselves and others.

October 24, 2024

By Olivia Peterkin

For most young people, one of the most important things on their minds is how they’re perceived by their peers.

Though this focus can sometimes be seen as a negative distraction, �� psychology Professor Jamil Zaki says that the adults in their lives can use this preoccupation with the thoughts of others to help youth create a community centered around empathy, a skill that will in turn build their overall mental health.

“We find that social norms are a really powerful lever that we can pull if we want to encourage empathy, especially among young people,” said Zaki, who leads the �� Social Neuroscience Laboratory and is faculty in the School of Humanities and Sciences.

A few years ago Zaki worked with middle school students in the Bay Area to ask them how they felt about empathy and its value in their lives. In private, students shared that it was useful and powerful — something they might not have said in public if they were unsure of how others felt.

“We then showed students’ responses to each other. And when students learned those social norms, compared to students who didn't, they were more motivated to empathize,” Zaki said. “And then when we came back to these classrooms a month later, those students who learned about the popularity of empathy were also more likely to be acting kindly towards their fellow seventh graders.”

Zaki joins hosts GSE Dean Dan Schwartz and Senior Lecturer Denise Pope on School’s In as they discuss the power of empathy and how to cultivate it in young people. His research focuses on the neuroscience behind decision making, self regulation, social cognition, and perception, among other social and behavioral functions.

In the episode he also talks about self compassion, and how practicing it can have a positive effect on mental health and performance.

“In fact, we find at �� that when students are not self compassionate, they have a harder time bouncing back if they get a bad grade,” Zaki said. “So not only is it hard to be self compassionate. We have a backwards notion in our culture of what self compassion even means.

“It’s, in essence, extending the same grace and kindness to ourselves as we would to somebody else we care about.”

Never miss an episode! Subscribe to School’s In on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Transcript

Jamil Zaki (00:00):

If you want somebody else to listen to you, one of the best things that you can do is listen to them first.

Dan Schwartz (00:11):

Today, we're continuing our conversation around mental health that we've been having over the last few episodes. We know this is a big subject, and there's so much to unpack in this space for both students and educators.

Denise Pope (00:22):

That's right. We'll be focusing on empathy and how it can play such a large role in our ability to have healthy relationships with others and also, kind of interestingly, the role of empathy with ourselves.

Dan Schwartz (00:35):

Denise, I have this feeling that I may be the kind of student that our expert likes to teach because I think I'm something of a cynic.

Denise Pope (00:43):

Dan Schwartz, what? You a cynic? Please. Come on. Yeah Dan, I think that's right. Let's get into the episode and find out.

(00:56):

Welcome to School's In, your go-to podcast for cutting-edge insights in learning. Each episode, we dive into the latest trends, innovations, and challenges facing learners. I'm Denise Pope, senior lecturer at �� Graduate School of Education and co-founder of Challenge Success. And I'm with my co-host, Dan Schwartz, Dean of the �� GSE and faculty director of the �� Accelerator for Learning.

Dan Schwartz (01:23):

It's my pleasure to introduce Jamil Zaki. He's a researcher, author, teacher, professor, working to understand how people connect with each other and how we can learn to connect better. I've been learning the wrong direction, I think. And his research focuses on how empathy works, how it helps people in situations that make empathy harder. People like me. He is the author of The War for Kindness: Building Empathy in a Fractured World, and he has a new book called Hope for Cynics: The Surprising Science of Human Goodness. I got it. That's why I'm a cynic. I've been waiting my whole life to hear the truth of this.

Denise Pope (01:58):

Hope for Cynics is ... It has Dan Schwartz written all over it. I'm excited to talk. Good. Good. Welcome, Jamil.

Jamil Zaki (02:04):

Thanks for having me.

Dan Schwartz (02:07):

Just as a starter, empathy, sympathy ... Can I be empathetic for myself? What..? Help.

Jamil Zaki (02:14):

Big questions. Empathy is the word that we probably associate the most with the science on this subject. Researchers think of empathy as an umbrella term that describes at least three ways that we connect with each other's emotions.

(02:28):

One, Dan, is that sense of feeling what other people feel. Taking on their emotions. The thing that would make a mind reader go absolutely haywire if they were around a lot of people hearing their voices and feeling their emotions.

(02:41):

A second type of empathy, which we all often call cognitive empathy, is our ability to travel into the perspectives of others and understand how their version of the world might be different from ours.

(02:54):

And then a third piece of empathy, empathic concern or compassion, is our desire to help other people thrive. And it's the piece of empathy most connected with things like volunteering and donating to charity.

(03:07):

You asked about sympathy. Sympathy is a word with a much muddier scientific status. Back in the day, philosophers like Adam Smith used sympathy to describe what we would now call emotional empathy. But since the early 20th century, that idea was sort of market corrected by the rise of empathy as a notion. And so, we don't really use sympathy that much in the science anymore.

(03:32):

Your last question, can you have empathy for yourself? Absolutely. And there's this whole science of self-compassion, and oftentimes we think of being empathic towards ourselves as selfish or self-indulgent or lazy, but it actually turns out that being compassionate for ourselves helps us be resilient, bounce back from failures, and to be there for other people more effectively.

Dan Schwartz (03:56):

I'm having a little trouble with that. It feels very recursive. I'm empathetic for me. I'm empathetic for the me who's being empathetic for me. Does this stop? Do I reach some higher level of empathetic consciousness?

Jamil Zaki (04:12):

Compassion is a response to suffering, and every living being suffers, and that includes ourselves. The idea that we have to only feel compassion for others actually is not recursive, but it's strange in that it almost treats you as an exception to the human race. And I think a lot of times we try to do that. People in leadership. People in healthcare. Teachers. We often think that we're supposed to be kind to others, but we act as though we are not human beings who ourselves require kindness. And I think that, actually, being compassionate towards ourselves is less recursive than it is human. It's an acknowledgement that we are human beings too.

Denise Pope (04:52):

I love that. I love that. And I also know that it plays a role really in terms of mental health. In our work with teens, there's a lot of self-berating, beating themselves up, "Why didn't I do this better? Oh, my gosh. I'm stupid. I'm an idiot," and they start to internalize what they think other people are thinking about them. And I think your notion of self-compassion, then, and being empathetic to yourself goes a long way.

Jamil Zaki (05:18):

And it's really hard, especially in high-achieving settings. I teach a class on empathy and kindness here at ��, and I ask students to practice different things. Reach out to somebody you disagree with and listen better. Try to help somebody in need, and students love to do all this stuff.

(05:34):

But then when I say, "Try to be there for yourselves," they hesitate. They think that the way that they've achieved so much is by being really hard on themselves and beating themselves up.

(05:44):

In fact, we find at �� that when students are not self-compassionate, they have a harder time, for instance, bouncing back if they get a bad grade. Not only is it hard to be self-compassionate. We have a backwards notion in our culture of what self-compassion even means. We think it's a form of weakness, and actually it's more like a strength.

Dan Schwartz (06:05):

I'm kind of a procedural guy. Give me some tips about how to have self-compassion. Generally, I say, "Dan, you screwed that one up. We'll go get it next time." That's sort of as far as I get.

Jamil Zaki (06:21):

Well, that's not terrible. I mean, that's actually a good start.

Denise Pope (06:24):

You're okay, Dan. You're okay.

Dan Schwartz (06:27):

Thank you Denise.

Jamil Zaki (06:28):

I think the first thing is to, I guess, reflect on what we're talking about here. In our research, we find that when we teach people that self-compassion is adaptive, can help them do a better job in the future, they're more willing to try it out. The first is to kind of lay the groundwork by changing people's beliefs about self-compassion.

(06:48):

The way that Kristin Neff, who's the, I guess, the scientific guru of self-compassion in my field ... The way that she suggests practicing this is through three steps. The first is mindful awareness. Simply saying, "Wow, this is hard. I'm suffering." Sort of, Dan, like what you just said. "I screwed this up." Just naming the problem and naming that it's actually causing us some suffering.

(07:11):

The second step, which I've been alluding to already, is called common humanity, and that's the understanding that our suffering and our failures don't make us different or worse than other people. That, in fact, one of the only things that every single person does is to suffer. The fact that we are hurting just makes us like other people.

(07:30):

And the third is what we could call goodwill. It's, in essence, extending the same grace and kindness to ourselves as we would to somebody else we care about. One thing that I often tell people to do is try to reverse the golden rule. The golden rule. Treat others as you'd like to be treated, but lots of us actually treat other people really well and treat ourselves really poorly. I often ask folks, "Hey, if you're suffering, try to think about what you would say to a really close friend or family member who is suffering in the same way, who had failed in the same way that you just have." And oftentimes, people can generate really kind, understanding, and open-minded things that they would say to somebody else, but they've never even thought about being that kind to themselves. That's one trick, one procedure, that you can try to practice self-compassion.

Dan Schwartz (08:21):

What do you think, Denise?

Denise Pope (08:23):

Well, I like it. I know we use that with teens. I mean, one thing that we talk about often is, who do you talk the most to in your life? And it's really yourself, right? People don't realize that, but your inner voice. And so, we do that same flip, which, Jamil, is, how would you talk to yourself like you would talk to your friend? And I love that. I love that. We talked about how to teach self-compassion.

(08:44):

How would you teach what you're calling cognitive empathy? What are some lessons?

Jamil Zaki (08:50):

Cognitive empathy - the ability to understand others. There are two big routes that we take to it. The most famous is perspective taking. This is the idea of walking a mile in somebody else's shoes. If I had a nickel for every time I've heard that phrase. And it's a well-intentioned notion that by imagining how I would feel in your position, I can better understand you.

(09:14):

The problem is that perspective taking often fails. If I understand or try to understand how I would feel in your position, I often end up understanding how I would feel in your position, not how you actually feel in your position.

(09:29):

In fact, I think walking a mile in somebody else's shoes is a perfect analogy for perspective taking. If I wanted to know, Dan, how comfortable your shoes are, the last thing I would ever imagine doing is taking them from you and putting them on myself. First of all, it's kind of gross. And second, your shoes probably don't fit me and neither does your experience.

(09:50):

And so, a better alternative, and the way that I try to train cognitive empathy, is through what I call perspective getting. That is directly inquiring in a careful way with other people about their experiences and practicing active listening as they answer. And I know that sounds almost trivial in its simplicity. If you want to know how people feel, just ask them. But asking good questions and listening well, I think, are more complex than people realize.

Denise Pope (10:18):

Can you give just two or three quick examples of some really good questions?

Jamil Zaki (10:22):

I mean, I think that it's not so much the initial question. It's how we follow up. One of the techniques from psychology and actually that people like journalists and detectives and good physicians also use is called looping to understand. You ask someone a question. For instance, tell me about your best moments over the long Memorial Day weekend. And they tell you. And instead of just saying, "Okay, I've understood your answer. We are perfectly aligned now," you follow up. You say, "Okay, what I heard is," and then you paraphrase to the best of your ability what the gist of what they've shared is. And then you ask. You say, "What am I missing? What else is there?" Right? And you iterate until both people agree on one person's experience, right? Until you and I both agree about what you've been through, what your experience is like. That technique of iterating and paraphrasing can get us much closer to true cognitive empathy than just assuming that somebody else would experience something the same way that we would.

Dan Schwartz (11:26):

When you go to a movie that has a sad moment, do you cry? Like Steel Magnolias. I don't know if people remember that movie. It's basically designed to make you cry the whole time.

Denise Pope (11:42):

First of all, you're dating yourself, Dan, but I have seen Steel Magnolias. This is what you should know about me. And people probably already do. Listeners probably do. I cry at everything. I cry at commercials that are sappy. I cry at sad books. I cry when I ... I just cried, we were saying goodbye to a board member at Challenge Success, and I broke down. I am a sap. True sap.

Dan Schwartz (12:04):

Do you go to movies where you get to cry? Do you seek it out?

Denise Pope (12:08):

Well, I mean, it's kind of... There's a nice release. I will purposely read Holocaust fiction because I know it's going to be sad and intense. And I'll be on a beach reading Holocaust fiction, and my family thinks that's the weirdest thing, right? But I like to get it out sometimes, a really good cry, very cathartic, but I just also can't help myself. I mean, literally, I can't help myself.

Dan Schwartz (12:32):

Do you think this is something you learned? Your parents somehow trained you to be teary-eyed and empathetic?

Denise Pope (12:40):

I think I come from a long line of criers. My grandfather. I feel like there's might be a genetic component, but I don't know. How about you? Are you a crier?

Dan Schwartz (12:54):

No. No, not really. I was born so empathetic, Denise. I was just so empathetic that I learned to actively suppress it.

Denise Pope (13:05):

Wait, Dan, first of all-

Dan Schwartz (13:07):

No, I'm serious.

Denise Pope (13:09):

You're being serious?

Dan Schwartz (13:10):

If I didn't suppress my empathy, I'd be like that vision of the poor mind reader walking down the street, hearing the voices of everybody on the street, and going crazy.

Denise Pope (13:19):

Oh, my God.

Dan Schwartz (13:19):

If I freed up my empathy, I'd be overwhelmed. Just looking at you, I'm feeling a little teary-eyed. I've got to suppress-

Denise Pope (13:27):

Flaclench. Flip flaclench is the word. Oh, my gosh. Well, Dan, I ...

Dan Schwartz (13:32):

Put it another way. I could never give people bad news if I didn't suppress my empathy because I don't want to feel their pain.

Denise Pope (13:41):

You seriously have done some thinking about this and trained yourself not to empathize in order to give someone bad news?

Dan Schwartz (13:49):

Or to get a little abstract about my empathy. To switch over to sympathy.

Denise Pope (13:52):

We're throwing around some words here.

Dan Schwartz (13:54):

We have so many questions.

Denise Pope (13:54):

Yes. Yes.

Dan Schwartz (13:56):

Is it possible that I didn't learn to be empathetic? I learned to shut it down. I just made up this theory.

(14:08):

We got to get to the cynic book because-

Denise Pope (14:11):

Can you tell already, Jamil, that we need to get to the cynic book?

Dan Schwartz (14:15):

I imagine this conversation where ... I've had this conversation. How did that make you feel? And then I sort of say, "Oh, it was sort of like this." I'm trying to make the bid to hone in on it. The answer is, "No, you just don't understand me." Then they say something else, and I go, "Oh, it's kind of like this." "Gosh-

Denise Pope (14:32):

Dan, what you're basically saying-

Dan Schwartz (14:33):

... you just don't understand me."

Denise Pope (14:33):

... is you need to take Jamil's class. You need extra practice.

Dan Schwartz (14:40):

No, I'm thinking I need eight-hours-a-day therapy for four months.

Jamil Zaki (14:46):

Four months is a pretty fast track, actually.

Dan Schwartz (14:48):

Is that right?

Jamil Zaki (14:49):

I mean, I would say, Dan, that you're right. A perspective getting ... Trying to understand people is an art. It's really hard work as well. And I think that your experience is really common. It can be really frustrating when you're trying your absolute best, and you still aren't getting through. This is why I think that oftentimes we can ask people to help us.

(15:11):

Empathy often seems like it's supposed to mean having the right answers, but it can actually mean having better questions. Instead of saying, "Oh, so you felt this," which sort of sounds like you're suggesting that you already know the answer, you say, "It sounds like you are feeling this. Can you help me, though? What am I missing here? How could I understand this a little bit better?" Collaborating with people to understand them can be a powerful technique.

Denise Pope (15:36):

You could see that tone is really different from what you said, Dan-

Dan Schwartz (15:44):

No, it's good. It's good.

Denise Pope (15:44):

That's good.

Dan Schwartz (15:44):

okay so it's six months. No, that was good. That was good.

Denise Pope (15:45):

You mentioned that it was really around perspective getting and perspective taking. In your class, you work with students to reach out to someone who they disagree with, and I can only imagine, given the state of the world right now, just how important this concept is. Talk to us. What's your take on why this is such a crucial time for empathy?

Jamil Zaki (16:08):

Well, let me first say that I think every time is a crucial time for empathy. Empathy is simply one of our fundamental human skills. And if you think about our species, the special thing about us is not what a single human being can do. It's what we do together. And empathy is one of the psychological foundations that allows us to collaborate, cooperate, to treat each other kindly. It's related to all sorts of metrics of personal and social wellbeing. Everything from mental health, happiness, strong relationships, to strong communities.

(16:45):

I think, right now and in a polarized and divided time, empathy is perhaps even more crucial than ever. I'm often laughed at when I say that empathy can be a powerful tool in a polarized setting because it seems like, gosh, division is so toxic. Empathy is bringing cotton candy to a gunfight or something, but it turns out that actually being empathic is an immensely powerful tool in the face of difference and division.

(17:16):

In our lab, we find that when people believe that empathy is a strength, they communicate with people they disagree with much more effectively. They don't pretend they don't have opinions. They represent their own view just as strongly, but they appeal to common values, and they communicate compassionately in a way that makes the other person, the person who disagrees with them, feel more understood, more connected, and, get this, more convinced.

(17:45):

Actually, if you want somebody else to listen to you, one of the best things that you can do is listen to them first. That's a scarce resource in our current moment, but I think a precious one.

Denise Pope (17:55):

Can we send you to the Senate? Can we send you to different places? All the red and blue states all over the place. Just more empathy, people. We need it. We need it.

(18:06):

I can also see how this would play a role in schools right now. I mean, we're hearing division in schools and teachers and kids not seeing eye to eye, parents and teachers not seeing eye to eye, but also just in general how to get along well. Talk to us. I know that you've worked with schools.

Jamil Zaki (18:26):

I think that there are lots of ways to encourage empathy among communities. One that we found that's especially powerful in schools and among adolescents, in particular, is using social norms. What do 12 and 13-year-olds care about more than anything on Earth?

Denise Pope (18:43):

Themselves. Being popular. Being popular?

Jamil Zaki (18:48):

Yes. Yes. Thank you, Denise. Other 12 and 13-year-olds. What other kids think.

(18:54):

And so, we worked with a few middle schools in the Bay Area a couple of years ago, and we asked students, "How do you feel about empathy? Why do you value it?" And students, first of all, when answering in private, love empathy. They talk all about how useful it is and how powerful it is and how much they want to have an empathic community, but they might not say that in public if they don't know that's what other people feel.

(19:20):

What we then did is we showed students' responses to each other. There are no lies here. We're presenting students with each other's actual opinions and beliefs. The social norm in these schools was invisible but powerful. People wanted empathy. And when students learned those social norms compared to students who didn't, they were more motivated to empathize. And then when we came back to these classrooms a month later, those students who learned about the popularity of empathy were also more likely to be acting kindly towards their fellow seventh graders, in this case.

(19:56):

We find that social norms are really a powerful lever that we can pull if we want to encourage empathy, especially among young people.

Denise Pope (20:05):

It's a teachable skill is what you're saying? I mean, even just hearing that, I think, gives me hope. I know we're moving into Hope for Cynics, the name of your book, but the fact that it's a teachable skill ... I think some people think, "Oh, she's a really empathetic person, and he's not," or whatever. It's a born thing. It's a trait.

Jamil Zaki (20:26):

Well, it is absolutely both. People are born more or less empathic. Empathy is heritable, meaning that it passes down from generation to generation, but it's also extraordinarily malleable. People can change and do change over the course of their lives. Specific events in our lives can cause our empathy to go up or down, but also the right practices and habits can help us cultivate empathy on purpose. Yes, it is a skill.

(20:57):

And my sense from the last 20 years of research that I've done in this space is that it's a skill that we can build, but one of the hardest things is not helping people practice it. It's getting people to want to practice it, right? Basketball is a skill as well, but I'm never going to make it to the NBA. I've tried, and it's just not in the cards for me. I don't practice my jump shot because there's nothing in it for me. One of the important things to do is not just teach people how to empathize but teach people why to empathize. Give them motives to understand how this can be a powerful tool in their lives, and then they're more likely to practice it and to learn it.

Dan Schwartz (21:39):

Back to me. Tell me about-

Denise Pope (21:42):

Someone who needs practice.

Dan Schwartz (21:43):

Well, no, tell me about Hope for the Cynic.

Jamil Zaki (21:45):

Well, I've studied empathy forever. And more recently, I've become interested in a big massive social trend around the world, which is that people have lost faith in each other and in virtually every institution you can imagine. People around the world believe less in science, education, the media, government, industry, everything than they did before. I've become really curious as to why that's happening, what it's doing to us, and what, if anything, we can do about it.

(22:22):

And one of the big messages that I discovered in going through decades of evidence on this is that cynicism often feels a lot smarter than it is. We have this stereotype that if you are hopeful and optimistic, you're a gullible rube. And if you think people are awful, then you're probably real wise. It turns out that that's almost exactly the opposite of the truth. Cynics perform less well on cognitive tests than hopeful people. They tend to be worse at understanding who's a liar and who's telling the truth. And it turns out that cynicism, in many cases, reflects not wisdom but bias. A bias to see the worst in others.

(23:03):

That's bad news, but the good news is that if we pay closer attention to the data around us, and I don't just mean scientific data but the everyday data of how people really act, there are pleasant surprises everywhere. People tend to be a lot better than we think they are.

Dan Schwartz (23:20):

What is the test that you give to see how cynical people are? I need to start studying.

Denise Pope (23:24):

I knew this was coming. I knew this was coming. Dan does not like to do poorly on tests. On any test. He's already worried. He's already worried, Jamil.

Jamil Zaki (23:33):

There's something ... The original cynicism test was developed by educators, actually, to measure whether teachers would get along with their students. Cook and Medley, these two psychologists in the 1950s, developed this test. And it has questions in it like, "People are only honest because they're worried about getting caught," for instance. And so, there's 50 statements, and the extent that you agree with them reflects how cynical you are. And again, Cook and Medley designed this for teachers, but it turned out that this cynical hostility, which is what it's now called, predicted all sorts of outcomes for all sorts of people. If you're high in this, you're not just a great time at parties. You also tend to, for instance, be more prone to loneliness, depression, divorce, alcoholism, and even heart disease.

Dan Schwartz (24:25):

You're imputing negative intent is sort of the-

Jamil Zaki (24:27):

Yes. That's right. That's right.

Denise Pope (24:30):

And it's bad for your health. I mean, this is ... I love that point. I could see that. I can see how a cynic just is more and more blah, right?

Jamil Zaki (24:39):

I mean, one of the best things that protects our health and well-being is our connection to other people. And cynics, by imputing, Dan, as you're saying, ill intent from folks all around them, including their friends and family, deprive themselves of the benefits of connection. They live this sort of ... There's this internal split between themselves and the rest of the world, and that turns out to harm them in basically every way you can measure.

Dan Schwartz (25:06):

That sounds lousy. Be walking around suspicious of everybody. It's kind of a cynicism meets paranoia. Denise, I'm not a cynic. I'm an ironist.

Denise Pope (25:16):

Care to define?

Dan Schwartz (25:19):

I enjoy the contradictions in existence.

Jamil Zaki (25:23):

Dan, can I offer something?

Dan Schwartz (25:25):

Yeah.

Denise Pope (25:25):

Yes.

Jamil Zaki (25:26):

I think you might be neither a cynic nor an ironist, although I've never heard that term, so I can't say conclusively. I think you might be a skeptic. And oftentimes people confuse cynicism and skepticism, but they're really quite different.

(25:40):

Cynicism is basically having this bias against people and, often, assuming that you're right in the absence of any evidence. Skepticism is thinking like a scientist, not willing to rest on your assumptions but looking for evidence, even pugilisticly demanding evidence from people for their own claims.

(25:59):

What I argue in the book that we should aim for is not to replace mud-colored glasses with rose-colored glasses, to replace cynicism with blind or naive gullibility and trust, but rather to replace it with what I call hopeful skepticism. That is taking a data-driven view on our lives and relationships and people and also understanding, this is the hopeful part, that our assumptions are often worse than reality. Understanding that people are probably better than we think. Using that as a starting point and then thinking like a scientist.

Dan Schwartz (26:36):

I'm buying 50 copies. I'm doing it now.

Denise Pope (26:40):

I know. First of all, look at that. Right? You just made Dan so happy. Tips. Tips. You say there's hopes for the cynics, and I love the distinction here. I think it's really important.

(26:50):

What are some quick tips for folks to try out?

Jamil Zaki (26:55):

A bunch come to mind. The first is to be skeptical of your own cynicism. Remember, when you start to draw sweeping conclusions about people, that you might be biased against them. That this is the way that our minds work. We pay so much attention to negative versus positive information.

(27:14):

A second tip would be to collect more data. If you feel, for instance, that people at your job are all lousy and selfish, ask a few folks for a favor. If nobody helps, then maybe you're right. But if anybody helps, which they probably will, maybe it's time to start questioning your assumptions.

(27:33):

And the third, I guess, would be to remember that we have much more influence on others than we realize. When we treat people like they are awful and selfish, they actually often end up becoming more awful and selfish around us, making us decide that we were right all along. When we instead trust people, they often step up to meet our expectations. This is something that economists call earned trust. One thing you can do, if you want to treat your life like an experiment in small ways, is to take leaps of faith on people to purposefully put your faith in them as a sort of, again, as a little study of your own and see what comes back. And notice the positive effect that your trust and faith have on others.

Denise Pope (28:18):

I mean, can you imagine teachers and parents take that leap of faith, put the trust in it, right? Approach with curiosity, approach with good feelings, like this is going to work. And how different schools would be. How different the parenting is when you're doing that as opposed to rules, rules, rules, rules. If you break them, that's it. Boom. Right? It's a real different feel. I love it. I love it.

(28:43):

Jamil, thank you so much for joining us. We have learned a lot. Dan Schwartz has now learned that he is neither a cynic nor an ironist, but ... Right, Dan? You're happy.

Dan Schwartz (28:57):

I am a scientific skeptic about my own emotions.

Denise Pope (29:05):

Oh, my gosh, Dan. That is perfect. Jamil, well done. We figured it out. Yay.

Dan Schwartz (29:12):

Thank you, Jamil, for sharing everything with us today. It was great. I learned a lot. I think I learned a lot about myself, which makes it even better. Thank you.

(29:21):

Denise, I think it's your turn. What did we take away from this?

Denise Pope (29:25):

Well, I think the biggest takeaway is really just the importance of why we need to empathize with others. That we cannot make it through this world alone, right? We're much stronger as a community when we show up with empathy.

Dan Schwartz (29:40):

I agree, and I like the point that it's not just about the questions you ask, but also about how you respond to those answers. Be curious. Ask, why is that important? How did that happen? Follow up if you need more information about how someone is feeling, and it's okay to keep asking people and be truly interested and gain a deeper understanding. Just that shift alone can have a huge impact.

Denise Pope (30:05):

I agree. And what was also really interesting to me was this idea of how to do this internally. Hold experiments in your own day-to-day life. Who does that? That could be really helpful, right? Challenge your cynicism with some hope, Dan Schwartz, right? Really treat yourself how you would treat others. I think that's really hard for people to do, and not enough people do it.

(30:27):

And then for school settings, this idea of social norms, I think, is so important. To show kids, "Hey, most of you really do want to show up with empathy." And if you show kids that this is what most people want, then it kind of draws them in, right? It's the cool thing to do.

Dan Schwartz (30:44):

Well said.

Denise Pope (30:46):

Jamil, thank you. Look what you've done for Dan alone. And thank you, really, for being here and informing us today. And thank all of you for joining us on this episode of School's In.

(30:56):

Remember to subscribe to our show on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you tune in. I'm Denise Pope.

Dan Schwartz (31:03):

And I am Daniel Lewis Schwartz.

Denise Pope (31:05):

Is Lewis your middle name?

Dan Schwartz (31:16):

Yes, it is.

Denise Pope (31:17):

My God. I don't think I knew that.

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Faculty mentioned in this article: Dan Schwartz , Denise Pope

Collaboration is key: New education students build a community bound by purpose

Olivia Peterkin — Tue, 01 Oct 2024 19:04:31 +0000

Collaboration is key: New education students build a community bound by purpose

Olivia Peterkin Tue, 10/01/2024 - 12:04

GSE students pose for a picture at the dean’s fall kickoff barbecue on the CERAS rooftop on September 26th. (Photo: Joleen Richards)

Announcements | Students

Nearly 150 students joined the GSE this fall hopeful to effect positive change through teaching, policy, technology, and other levers for success.

October 1, 2024

By Olivia Peterkin

When Carter Cote was a high school student in Santa Clarita, Calif., one of his greatest accomplishments was building a career exploration website that connects students in rural areas to resources that would help them secure their dream jobs.

However, just before his school district was about to acquire it, Cote shuttered the project.

“The problem with that solution is that it was a library that literally gets outdated every year because jobs are changing all the time,” said Cote, who is a master’s student in �� Graduate School of Education’s (GSE) Learning Design and Technology (LDT) program.

“The only way that people adapt is through other people, through social capital and cultural capital,” he said. “Here I want to learn how to build something in AI that gets rid of all the friction that existed in that first solution.”

Cote is one of several students who joined the GSE this fall hopeful they will effect positive change in education through teaching, policy, technology, and other levers for academic and professional success.

The new cohort includes 24 doctoral students and 121 master’s students, 57 of whom started in the �� Teacher Education Program (STEP) over the summer.

GSE Dean Dan Schwartz, in an address to students during new student orientation, said many at the school have the same overarching goal even if there are different ways to achieve it.

“What matters most is that we all want to get to the same place, which is where all learners are prepared to thrive,” he said.

Professor Anne Charity Hudley, associate dean of educational affairs at the GSE, offered another bit of advice during new student orientation: stay true to yourself.

“I would like students to keep a sense of all of the experiences they’ve had so far that brought them to this place and how those experiences have helped shape their values,” said Charity Hudley. “I hope they keep that sense of self and who they are with them — we need to all learn from each other in that way.”

PhD students participate in an improv session as part of new student orientation. (Photo: Joleen Richards)

Connection builders

Mychaela Anderson, STEP ’25, sees her year in the teaching program that combines class time at �� with instructional time at a local school as a period of growth. She’s looking for skills that will help her teach with intention and for the long haul.

“One thing that has been on my mind a lot is what it means to be a resilient educator,” said Anderson, who is originally from Honolulu.

She says she leans on the varied perspectives among her peers for support and insight.

“Something I’ve been learning about with my cohort is this concept called thick solidarity, where we think about how we can build connections because of our differences rather than in spite of them,” she said. “It’s something I’ve really been holding with me in my interactions with a lot of my peers that’s really been framing my time here.”

New students pose with props at the photo booth station during the dean’s fall kickoff barbecue event. (Photo: Joleen Richards)

Solution seekers

Tonya Murray, LDT ’22, is returning to �� for her PhD in Learning Sciences and Technology Design (LSTD) after working as a research coordinator with ��’s Rapid Online Assessment of Reading project, or ROAR, which assesses foundational reading skills under the �� Reading & Dyslexia Research Program.

“I got into this field because I have a child who was successfully remediated from dyslexia,” said Murray, who is originally from St. Louis, Mo., and previously worked as a software engineer. “So I’m really interested in how our schools can support all students to learn to read.”

Her goal is to learn how to better translate some of the cognitive research she’ll gather over the next five years into practices that will be used in schools.

“I’m really interested in foundational reading because I think it’s a fundamental right that every kid in the country learns to read,” she said.

Blake Castleman, a fellow LSTD student, plans to find ways to use AI to enhance teaching and learning, and to create tools for students and educators.

“Currently with AI, I feel like a lot of people overemphasize and try to incorporate it into tools where it might not be needed or be inefficient,” said Castleman, who received his master’s in computer science from Columbia University last year. “I’m really hoping to be an integral part in pragmatically using these tools in education in ways that really benefit everyone.”

He will use his time at the GSE to gain more knowledge of the learning sciences, and make use of his exposure to professionals and thought leaders in other facets of education to try to create holistic solutions.

“In a place like the GSE, where there could be a lot of different perspectives on how to implement an idea, action or policy, you really have to listen to your colleagues and ask why when you don’t understand where they’re coming from,” he said.

PhD students sit on the floor to share personal stories during an improv session as part of new student orientation. (Photo: Joleen Richards)

Lifelong learners

Yue Ma joins the GSE’s Social Sciences, Humanities, and Interdisciplinary Policy Studies in Education (SHIPS) doctoral program this fall for what will be his second PhD.

Prior to starting with the new cohort in September, he spent four years working as a researcher with ��’s Rural Education Action Program (REAP), where he used his background in economics to conduct field experiments that will benefit the children of China’s rural poor population.

“Gradually I realized that the things I was doing were becoming less challenging, and I hit a limit where I saw that I needed to improve,” said Ma, who is originally from the Shaanxi Province in China. “I want to gain the ability to come up with cutting edge and important research questions to help the poor.”

Despite working in academia “for a long time,” Ma says he’s looking forward to enjoying every opportunity to learn and interact with different opinions on how to improve education.

“Right or wrong, politics or research, I just want to practice engaging in a way that’s not so black and white,” Ma said. “This means gently speaking up about my opinions and fundamentally giving myself more compassion when it comes to being challenged.”

Similarly, Cote anticipates hearing from educators on what challenges are most prevalent in the classroom.

“What I’m excited about this year is finding people who are authentically passionate about the problems we’re solving,” he said. “That civil discourse between people on different sides of an issue is what actually creates the solution.”

New students pose for a picture during new student orientation week. (Photo: Joleen Richards)

New students mingle and get to know one another at the dean’s kickoff barbecue. (Photo: Joleen Richards)

The newest cohort of Education Data Science master’s students, with program director Sanne Smith (far right) (Photo: Ryan Zhang)

The newest cohort of International Comparative Education master’s students, with program director Christine Min Wotipka (far right) (Photo: Ryan Zhang)

The newest cohort of Learning Design and Technology master’s students, with program director Karin Forssell (far left) (Photo: Ryan Zhang)

The newest cohort of Policy, Organization, and Leadership Studies master’s students, with program director Ann Jaquith (far left) (Photo: Ryan Zhang)

The newest doctoral cohort at the GSE includes 24 students. (Photo: Ryan Zhang)

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Youth mental health: Finding support

Olivia Peterkin — Fri, 20 Sep 2024 20:22:19 +0000

Youth mental health: Finding support Olivia Peterkin Fri, 09/20/2024 - 13:22

Parenting | Race and Equity | Students

On this episode of School’s In, �� Dr. Steve Adelsheim discusses destigmatizing mental health needs, how adults can support student success.

September 26, 2024

By Olivia Peterkin

The mental health crisis among youth has led parents, educators, and policymakers to look for solutions that benefit the well-being of children and adolescents. Dr. Steven Adelsheim, clinical professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at �� School of Medicine, says early intervention is key.

“The earlier we can link young people to the supports they need, as well as their families, the better outcomes people have,” he says on the latest episode of School’s In, a podcast of �� Graduate School of Education. “Not only short-term, but long term as well.”

Adelsheim joins hosts GSE Dean Dan Schwartz and Senior Lecturer Denise Pope as they discuss destigmatizing the expression of mental health needs, how parents and schools can support students, and models for success in improving well-being.

Adelsheim’s work involves cultivating behavioral health partnerships in the community that value the input of young people. Part of that work has included the creation of Allcove, a model that brings community-based behavioral and mental health resources to places near where youth live, learn and play.

“One of the things that's exciting about these Allcove models is that they really are grounded in the idea that young people have a critical role in creating safe and comfortable places for other young people to come in,” Adelsheim said.

He says the input from young people and peer mentoring relationships available at Allcove centers are possible because newer generations feel less stigma in discussing the topic of mental health. A model he hopes parents and older adults will follow.

“I think there's more of an acknowledgement that all of us as human beings have these issues,” he said.

“For young people from very diverse cultures, there was quite a bit of stigma and taboo in many cultural groups around talking outside of the immediate family about mental health challenges. And I think for many of our young people, there's more of a willingness to acknowledge it.”

“And so we're seeing a lot of peers interested in supporting each other as well.”

If you or someone you know is struggling with their emotional health, the National Institute of Mental Health lists resources on their webpage.

Subscribe to School’s In on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Transcript

Steven Adelsheim (00:00):

We do need to acknowledge we have serious challenges in terms of really creating the mental health support that our young people need.

Dan Schwartz (00:11):

Today, we are addressing a critical and timely issue. This is the mental health of our children. Unsurprisingly, the pandemic played a large role in our students' mental health, and it intensified the challenges many young people face. It's made it more important than ever to understand the signs and know how to support them.

Denise Pope (00:30):

I completely agree, Dan. We are seeing rising rates of anxiety, depression, other mental health issues, and it's really crucial for parents and educators and communities to come together to support the young people. This is not just a side issue. This is a really central issue facing our kids today.

Dan Schwartz (00:47):

Fortunately, we have Dr. Steven Adelsheim, and he's going to help to guide us through this conversation about mental health.

Denise Pope (00:56):

Welcome to School's In, your go-to podcast for cutting-edge insights in learning. Each episode, we dive into the latest trends, innovations, and challenges facing learners. I'm Denise Pope, senior lecturer at �� GSC and Co-founder of Challenge Success. And I am with my co-host, Dan Schwartz, who is Dean of the �� Graduate School of Education and Faculty Director of the �� Accelerator for Learning.

Dan Schwartz (01:26):

He's a child, adolescent and adult psychiatrist who works to support community behavioral health partnerships locally, regionally, and at the state and national level. He is the Director of the �� Center for Youth Mental Health and Well-being in the Department of Psychiatry. And he's partnered in developing statewide mental health systems, including those focused on school mental health. And so for many years, Steven's been developing and implementing early detection and intervention programs for young people both in school and in primary care. So Steven, I'd sort of like to start indirectly. How did you get into this business?

Steven Adelsheim (02:03):

The truth is Dan, I actually started thinking in high school that I really did want to actually become a child and adolescent psychiatrist. And I was a pre-med psychology major in college. And my first job was on an adolescent inpatient psychiatric unit. And then I worked in a very rural community in Alaska and actually went and worked in schools doing... In villages, in rural Alaska, working with kids in different school settings. And I did that for a year before I started medical school.

Denise Pope (02:40):

So then Steve, I know you did a lot up until this point, but one thing that I'd love to talk about on this show is this new thing, this allcove. Do you want to ease us into that?

Steven Adelsheim (02:53):

Sure. I was a director of school mental health programs actually in the state of New Mexico for about 16 years. And I was in New Mexico for 28 years before coming to work at ��. And during that time, I spent at least a day a week working in school-based health centers. And in that role I worked with all the school health and mental health professionals. I worked side-by-side with primary care providers working in school-based health centers. And at the state level, we were really expanding access to health for adolescents really through school-based health center settings. I found that after doing that for a very long time, it was really great work in terms of early detection and there were young people that didn't want to talk to someone at the school. There were issues about what would happen over the summer. There were concerns about issues related to the confidentiality.

(03:55):

There were principals turning over on a regular basis, some of which said, this is all really nice, but our job is education. It's not about the healthcare of our students. And so there was a point where I started looking for other ways to provide the support in the community side-by-side with school mental health services so we could more broadly build those connections. So we learned about this model called Headspace back in Australia. This was before the meditation app. And Headspace was this clinical program for young people, 12 to 25 to come in on their own or with a friend for early mental health care and primary care, support, education, employment.

(04:42):

We learned it was a model that was very successful in Australia, and I'll share with you now there 170 Headspace centers in Australia, which is half the population of California. And this is a model that every legislator in Australia wants to have in their home community. And it's a model that really has taken off all over the world. And so we started exploring how do we bring this community-based access to the young people of the United States and particularly starting here in California.

Dan Schwartz (05:17):

So you rent space off the school campus or?

Steven Adelsheim (05:21):

Actually no. We really look for physical spaces in the community that are near transportation, that are near community centers, that may be accessible from the school but aren't really by or necessarily next door to a school, but accessible for students. And we continue the initial model. We see young people 12 to 25, and our role as a center has really been to support the implementation of this model. And so we've worked with the state of California's Mental Health Services Commission to create some initial funding. And now through the Department of Healthcare Services, there's more funding. There are three of these centers open right now, one in Palo Alto, one in San Mateo, one down in Redondo Beach, allcove Beach Cities. And we've got eight more actually on the way that are sort of in the process of getting started that are physical spaces in the community for young people.

Denise Pope (06:25):

So Steve, if I am a parent who's worried about my kid or a teacher who's worried about a kid, how does this work? They go to allcove and what do they get? How do you get in?

Steven Adelsheim (06:35):

Great question, Denise. So these allcove centers are run by different agencies and basically young people can walk in for some initial support. And these centers have early mental health care. They do sort of short-term therapy. They have physical healthcare providers as well. They have peer support specialists. They have people who work with you around supported education and employment, early addiction treatment as well. And you can schedule an appointment or you can go in. Most of the centers have evening and other weekend activities so that young people can come in for a group or an activity and just get a feel for the place, see if they're comfortable there. And then they might decide they want to talk to a therapist there. They might want to talk to a peer support specialist about some issues that they may be dealing with or want linkages to other supports and services. So we see these as central hubs for young people to access the supports they need either on site or with linkages into the community.

Denise Pope (07:46):

And I just want to point out that that's super rare, that typically what used to happen, and Steve correct me if I'm wrong, is someone would be worried about a kid. Maybe they'd have to go to an emergency room and get a psych hold placed on the kid and the kid would... Then they'd have to find a place like a hospital to hold the kid. Or you just are on a wait list for months to try and find a therapist for your own kid and to have the ability to walk in and get care almost immediately, right Steve? it's like a miracle for some of these kids and for some of these families.

Dan Schwartz (08:21):

So, well, I've heard from teachers and principals that mental health issues on adolescents are becoming more pressing concern. And I know you do lots of important surveys. Do you collect information on this?

Denise Pope (08:40):

Yeah, so challenge success, we don't collect specific information like a modified depression index or something like that. But one of the main questions that we ask early on in our survey to adolescents is what are some of your major sources of stress? And we have about 30% of our students are saying that mental health is a major source of stress. So most of them are choosing workload or homework or grades, but mental health comes up quite frequently, and particularly if they are LGBTQ or from historically marginalized communities, we see that even higher.

Dan Schwartz (09:24):

Does the item say mental health?

Denise Pope (09:26):

It says mental health. Yeah. So it's a pull down menu, right?

Dan Schwartz (09:29):

How do you think people interpret that?

Denise Pope (09:31):

That's a great question, Dan, because sometimes they'll say it's just overwhelming stress. Sometimes they will name things as depression or anxiety, which may not be officially diagnosed depression or anxiety, but they will say things like, I can't fall asleep because I'm always so stressed, or I'm freaking out about this, or I get so nervous that it prevents me from doing things. Or I'm afraid to do some of the things that I'm normally doing. I can't get out of bed in the morning, right? So we hear all sorts of things in our focus groups. But we also just know from statistics around the country, even the U.S. surgeon General has written about this, that particularly since COVID, the mental health of adolescents has really been getting worse. And there's a very high percentage of parents who said 35% of teens according to parents experience mental health issues. And it's definitely become a more prominent thing that people are worried about, always worried before the pandemic, but now even more so.

Dan Schwartz (10:38):

Some of it is I don't do the things I normally do.

Denise Pope (10:43):

Or I can't, my brain is not allowing me to, right? I'm perseverating or I'm catastrophizing, or I just can't fall asleep because I'm spinning, right? We have some of that, but we also have literally, I'm too anxious. I can't get out of bed, I won't go to school.

Dan Schwartz (10:59):

That's a complicated set of feelings.

Denise Pope (11:07):

We know that the challenges facing youth's mental health today are really, really significant, but the good news is, so are the opportunities to make a difference. So Steven, can we go a little bit deeper into how these community-based approaches like the allcove model are really empowering young people to take control of their health and also to support each other?

Steven Adelsheim (11:27):

One of the things that's exciting about these allcove models is that they really are grounded in the idea that young people really have a critical role in creating safe and comfortable places for other young people to come in. So the allcove centers all have very active youth advisory groups that are made up of the diversity of the communities where they're developed. And those young people make a lot of the decisions about hiring, about the look and feel of the place, about the groups and different activities that happen at allcove centers.

(12:01):

And they are the voice of outreach also that will tell their friends, this is a comfortable place to come into and you should feel free and comfortable coming here. Whether to be hanging out with other youth or be able to get access to some type of service as well. So that peer voice is really important when young people come in. A peer specialist is often the person that greets you at the door and helps you decide what kind of services you might want or gives you a tour of an allcove center so you can get a sense of what's going on there and what's available as well.

Denise Pope (12:39):

So a peer specialist is like a 15-year-old, like a kid?

Steven Adelsheim (12:44):

No, no. The peer specialists that are there, generally people with lived experience who are employed and work there. But at the same time, one of the things that's interesting Denise, as you say, is that we're finding that actually many of our youth advisors, as they're progressing through their maybe year or two of leadership training and development of the youth advisors, a number of them are actually taking jobs as peer support specialists in these different allcove settings. And we're seeing it become almost beginning of a behavioral health workforce in terms of seeing those roles happen.

Denise Pope (13:21):

Well, that's good because I know we are desperado for more people to go into this, right? We don't have the adults employed to cover the need of all the kids who need clinicians and therapists, right?

Steven Adelsheim (13:34):

Absolutely. And one of the things that also has been happening is we see young people, and I would say the generation of youth, we have now quite a bit more comfortable talking about mental health issues. The stigma issues are much less for them than for many of us in our generations. And so we're seeing a lot of peers interested in supporting each other as well. So we're seeing frankly at many of the high schools in California and in programs across the country, the development of peer-to-peer opportunities. And this is for that 15, 16, 17-year-old student you were talking about, to get skills to learn how to support themselves and support their friends and have those conversations. So we've also been working with a group of young people as well to develop a peer-to-peer curriculum so that youth can start then supporting other youth directly, allcove centers as potential places where then that training and support can also happen down the road.

Dan Schwartz (14:38):

Can I ask a slightly tangential question?

Steven Adelsheim (14:41):

Sure.

Dan Schwartz (14:42):

So a couple years ago, I'm at a dinner and a very senior famous psychologist professor asked me about my feelings and I say, "I don't really like to talk about my feelings." Is this a generational shift? This sort of willingness to talk about one's mental contents?

Steven Adelsheim (15:02):

I think there's more of an acknowledgement that all of us as human beings have these issues. I think culturally, we see a real difference. I think for young people from very diverse cultures, there was quite a bit of stigma and taboo in many cultural groups around talking outside of the immediate family about mental health challenges. And I think for many of our young people, there's more of a willingness to acknowledge it. We see it in our famous American athletes now breaking down that stigma. And for many others, it's becoming more comfortable just to acknowledge that this is part of our lives.

(15:43):

Just like any other medical condition, we have mental health conditions as well. And so I do think at least there's some more honesty about it. We will encourage parents to be more honest with their own kids about their own challenges, their own failures, their own struggles. So their parents don't often come across as sort of perfect beings that never had a problem in their lives. And then their kids thinking, well, what am I doing with all these issues? My parents are so perfect. So we're trying to build that intergenerational conversation, but it's the young people who were more comfortable with it, frankly right now.

Denise Pope (16:23):

Okay, a cynic... And I'm not a cynic, but a cynic might say, is this too much? Because now you've got kids who are sort of self diagnosing as depressed when they're not. Everything is now elevated. I'm having a mental health crisis. We see some reports saying maybe we're doing too much. I am not this person. I'm just asking you as a potential cynic might say. How would you react, Steve?

Steven Adelsheim (16:49):

I still feel like we have a long way to go to be doing enough, to be quite honest with you. I think it's great that young people are getting more sensitized to these issues. I am grateful that we're creating opportunities to develop resiliency skills potentially in some school settings. We had a youth mental health crisis before the COVID epidemic, and it's only been accentuated over time. And so even if you look nationally at the rates of young people with serious depression, anxiety, higher rates of not only suicide attempts, but at times suicide rates going up in our young people, we do need to acknowledge we have serious challenges in terms of really creating the mental health support that our young people need.

Denise Pope (17:37):

So if you are a parent or an educator, what are some things to look for? Because I think we miss a lot, right? What are some things to look for?

Steven Adelsheim (17:46):

I think some of the key things really to be looking for are a change in a young person. And that can often be whether or not they're struggling to get out of bed to go to school, but also less interest in social activities, more time spent at home alone in their room not interacting or socializing with friends. Often tearfulness, for many young people there are also increasing somatic complaints. So what I mean by that is sometimes kids will have more stomach aches or more headaches or more physical complaints or saying, I don't feel well. I can't go do whatever my regular activity might be as well. So all of those things can be signs of the potential of an early mental health challenge, which at least it's important to check in well with our kids and see how they're doing.

Denise Pope (18:47):

And we usually tell people, if you're at all worried, you go talk to a pediatrician, talk to the school counselor, but don't just ignore it. Parents are like, oh, teenagers will be teenagers. They're moody, they're sulky, they have outbursts, right? But it's better to catch this early. Is that right, Steve?

Steven Adelsheim (19:04):

Well, like any other medical condition, early intervention has really shown for all mental health issues to be really beneficial as it is for anything else. And so the earlier we can link young people to the supports they need as well as their families, the better outcomes people have. Not only short-term, but long term as well.

Dan Schwartz (19:26):

What's an example of an early intervention to help?

Steven Adelsheim (19:30):

In a school setting, it would frankly be a young person telling their friend that maybe they're feeling like they don't want to go out with their friends anymore, they're feeling sad, or they're feeling like they don't have the motivation anymore to do their work. And they tell their friend and their friend actually convinces them to go with them to talk to the counselor at school in very simple terms. Or if they refuse to go to that friend, maybe even telling their parent, I'm worried about my friend here and I just want you to know that this is going on. And then having that family member taking it seriously. And then really, like Denise said, maybe calling up the pediatrician and asking for that early guidance.

Dan Schwartz (20:18):

So the kid goes to the counselor and then what happens?

Steven Adelsheim (20:22):

The truth is, I think it really varies in terms of our school settings and our counselors. Right now in California, as we're seeing the broader potential for school mental health professionals to be more involved directly in therapy, I think there are more opportunities for young people to get that supported school, often, as I mentioned, working in school-based health centers. We have community providers also in school where even that school counselor can say, let's go talk to that person from the neighborhood mental health organization who's at our wellness center. And let's have an initial conversation with them and see what kind of support you need.

(21:06):

And then it might be some kind of talking through with that young person what's been going on, helping them maybe in a few sessions sorted out. Or maybe that young person says, "I don't want to talk to someone at school."

(21:18):

And then the counselor can help make that call or connection to the allcove center down the street to be able to help that young person get over there for a first visit as well. Or maybe talk to the family with that young person and get them to the allcove center for early support.

Denise Pope (21:35):

This has been so helpful. I have one question that I know people will probably have on their mind, which is early prevention. What can I do as a mom to really support mental health? I mean, should we take the phones away? Should we prevent them from ever going to parties? People are just grabbing at things because they're so nervous about this suicide rate going up and the levels of depression and anxiety. What do you think?

Steven Adelsheim (22:06):

Yeah, I think we're seeing a lot of things about the dangers of social media, but I have to say that from the work that I and our center teams have been doing, I think we feel like there's some real benefits for young people around social media. And what's important is they get support to think about how to use it safely. Our young group of advisors through a good for media program, our young people that are mentoring other youth and how to use social media in ways that support their mental health, they put out a guide for parents on how to talk to your kids about using social media.

(22:43):

They provide support for young people and how to think about what to turn on and what to turn off for it to be safe. I think for parents, what's really important I think, is to find those ways to check in and to listen to young person and to be able to do that in informal ways, to do it in a non-judgmental way. And I think our young people are getting pretty good at sort of having a sense of what they need. And I think being able to trust that without us really sort of telling them necessarily all the time what they need in terms of some of those issues.

Dan Schwartz (23:17):

We hear you Stephen. We definitely want to equip everyone with the right tools to succeed. So thank you so much for sharing your insights today. The work you're doing to support youth mental health is crucial. It's innovative, it's making a difference, and it's going to help us face these ongoing challenges.

Denise Pope (23:35):

I completely agree. I completely agree, Dan. And now it's time to talk takeaways and I will kick us off this time. I think the biggest one for me is really the importance of early intervention. Catching mental health issues early seems to make all the difference. And I think having community-based resources like the allcove centers also really helps make support more accessible for our kids. It gets them in there and we know that they're getting the help that they need.

Dan Schwartz (24:00):

And for the parents and educators, the thing that stood out to me is remember to stay engaged and watch for changes in behavior that might signal something more serious. And of course, just continue to encourage conversation as much as we can.

Denise Pope (24:14):

That's right. We've got to show up for the kids. So keep your eyes and ears peeled for those opportunities. So Steven, thank you so, so much. We learned so much today. Thank you for this really important discussion and thank all of you for joining us on this episode of School's In. Remember to subscribe to our show on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you tune in. I'm Denise Pope.

Dan Schwartz (24:40):

And I continue to be Dan Schwartz.

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