Tomorrow Schools: 7 Microschools Offering a Window Into the Future

Four of my former Harvard master’s degree students—Ruben Villarreal-Halprin, Matthew Millikin, Jaysan Shah, and William Wiltshire—joined me to discuss their independent study project exploring seven diverse microschools across the United States: the Village School, Elizabeth City-Pasquotank Public Schools microschool, NuVu, the Levitt Lab, Khan Lab School, Red Bridge, and Alpha School. Several of these I’ve featured here before; others are new. The conversation dove into the range of models, philosophies, and uses of technology and AI within each school to reflect on the spectrum of innovation in schooling, the challenges and opportunities of choice, and the importance of creating learning environments that both lift the floor and blow through the ceiling for students. I look forward to your thoughts and where you all want to learn more!Show Notes:Tomorrow Schools on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomorrow-schools-50881b3b6Michael HornWelcome to the Future of Education. I’m Michael Horn. You’re joining the show where we’re dedicated to creating a world in which all individuals can build their passions, fulfill their potential and live lives of purpose. And to help us think through that, today I’m, I’m really excited. I’ve got four of my former students. I say former because not only did I teach them several months ago at this point, but they’re all graduates now at, at Harvard. So congratulations to them. They all made it through the rapid fire year that is the Harvard Graduate School of Education experience.But welcome guys. We’ve got Jaysan, Matthew, William, Ruben, all just amazing. You’re all amazing. You all come from really cool different backgrounds with education. And, first, welcome. And then second, I, I’ll say the reason I wanted to talk to you guys is because in the second semester you chose to do an independent study with me for some, you know, inane reason of wanting to continue to work with me, but you did it around a series of microschools that are emerging that in your words, like start to allow us to question the principles of what is a school? What’s the purpose of schooling in this era of AI? What are the things that are most important perhaps, or how can we think about things perhaps differently from how we have? And you did these deep dives into these seven microschools around the country and got to visit and spend time in all of them and create some really cool rapport and reflections around them. And I wanted to dig deeper with you on the podcast about it. So welcome.Maybe let’s start, just go around, if you will, the proverbial virtual studio and, and just sort of give the thumbnail sketch of who you are, your background. Why this was an interesting conversation for you to do research in for an entire semester. And we’ll, we’ll start there. So William, why don’t you jump in first?William WiltshireSure, yeah. Thank you so much, Michael, for having us. I was a middle school math and history teacher in New York City before coming to the Harvard Graduate School of Education at a charter school. And charters were thought to be the innovation to traditional education when they kind of started gaining momentum. And in my teaching experience there, I enjoyed my time and loved working with the kids, but there was certainly nothing innovative about the role of a teacher in that school. State test was kind of the North Star and seat time regulations and requirements were super strict. And so as AI was coming on the scene in the world of education. I started kind of expecting change in my role, but not seeing anything meaningful.And so came to Harvard to try to better understand where the profession is moving and kind of where schools in general are shifting and evolving. And met these three great guys in your class in the fall. And we just kind of went 100 miles an hour on this school visits project. And it was incredible. So, really glad to be here. Excited to keep chatting.Michael HornYeah, let’s do it. So, Ruben, let’s go to you next. Tell us your background. We didn’t officially intersect pre Harvard, but we kind of did because you were at a school that an organization I was a founding board member had funded. So tell. Tell us a little bit about your background and how you jumped into this.Ruben Villarreal-HalprinYeah, we were awfully close to running into each other. I spent three years at that school as an assistant principal. It was in Richmond, California. I ran the humanities department there. Prior to that, eight years teaching humanities as well, all around the country. Memphis, Tennessee, San Francisco. Came back to my hometown of Cambridge in the Ed policy program. This project really excited me. My time in schools