Key takeaways from this international conference in DC
A Taste of Home transplanted in a new city w/ a smaller mix of people
When I lived in the UK I had the pleasure of attending the Festival of Education at Wellington College at least 3 times- each time the experience revitalized my teaching practice allowing me to connect with other educators who had similar passions and intention to serve ALL students with the best educational offer. It is a mix of private and public school practitioners building on the common struggles of teaching- student motivation, engagement, reading challenges, leadership capacity, … My last time at Wellington was in 2022 where I presented on AI- Friend or Foe. The room packed in and I led a discussion about the role AI could play to equalize the playing field and offer students individual tutors regardless of economics. Of course there were concerns and one had to have some guardrails in place to make this happen. Through the conversation we collectively identified that we need to improve assessment practices so that students couldn’t only rely on AI to complete assigned tasks.
Fast forward to 2026- Festival of Education, USA – my session was “Empowering Students to Use AI Ethically and Safely” because AI is now a given though not truly understood as to how to leverage it as a tool. There were many sessions about AI and the keynote speaker shared a framework on how to manage AI to keep students engaged.
Though my session was not well attended and the entire conference was on a much smaller scale- 200 to 7000 in the UK- I still walked away energized and excited to embark on my next chapter. Besides the rich conversations about AI I attended sessions on coaching- on the macro scale of setting up pilots to wanting to dig in to coaching for Human Flourishing. Much of what we are doing in my organization was validated in the work that was shared and I am proud to be part of a system that is prioritizing the development of Global citizens not just helping youth achieving the best results.
(photo from instructional coaching session- presenter’s journey…)
Dr. Rebecca Winthrop in her keynote walked us through some of the major issues with AI without guardrails and how to mitigate this- she highlighted that AI could cause cognitive stunting where people choose to use AI instead of thinking for themselves. Research shows that 1 in 3 teens are talking to an AI Friend equally or more than a human leading to challenging social development. The one that surprised me was the reduction in trust in education as a result of AI- teachers may use AI to generate feedback, students are not happy with the feedback- parents use AI to review the feedback given and share back their two cents. All of this dances around owning learning and teaching and sidesteps the instructional core. Then there is engagement and the Four modes she identified in her research: resister, passenger, achiever and explorer. She framed these modes against agency and engagement- identifying where as an educational system are leading learners and where we as a society need learners to become. In this context ‘AI’s risks are at a different level of magnitude and can undermine student’s relationships and ability to learn; we need to teach how to leverage AI to benefit’ and empower learners not dumb them down. She presented a framework to help with this- called Prosper, Prepare and Protect. See below the key takeaways:
Next I attended a session that reminded me of what good teaching practices are with a focusing on metacognition and thinking routines. The two presenters- one from Newcastle, UK and the other from Quito, Ecuador shared how to implement these strategies into lessons to increase the level of engagement and thinking. These routines coupled with Kagan cooperative learning practices make for a balanced learning environment where all students can thrive. The routines come from Project Zero- definitely worth a look:
https://pz.harvard.edu/thinking-routines
At some point during the day I popped in the speakers’ lounge and met with Dominick Hand, a professor I had met the day before outside of Trader Joes. He shared that he was giving a talk on race and education where we fail and how to build awareness of our roles and the language we choose. His session was called “See Your Power or Forever Remain Silence: ‘How the Stories We Avoid Impacts our Role in Education.'” It felt so good to have a frank conversation and be able to offer personal experience, research and passion towards this topic- so much of what we do in education is out of our own experiences as a learner which no longer applies in today’s complex environment. I was happy to share one of my favorites in this space, Cultural Proficient Literacy by Randall Lindsay, et al.
Following I attended the first of two sessions offered by Iain Henderson- the Director of the Bridge at Wellington College. The Bridge is a small team dedicated to spreading this concept of Human Flourishing as a direction education should take towards developing their students towards having successful, thriving lives in the future. Passionately he speaks about the current trends and the decline of basic skills as measured by the PISA. The OCED will be changing the metrics of the PISA recognizing that what we measure as success in education needs to change- they will be adopting a model closer to one that measures the components of flourishing. Interestingly these are not so different than the Global Competencies.
In Iain’s second presentation when he wondered what a school would look like aligned to these skills and competencies I shared come and see Vista…. The room silenced and heads turned- I shared “Vista Charter Public Schools is a place where TK-12th grade are working towards the global competencies as part of our portrait of a graduate. Students engage in student led conferences and we are launching portfolios building off of our senior practice. This year leaders will create their portfolios and then we will be invite teachers and students to develop theirs.
Related to the discussion since it was UK based- I added that as a parent living in the UK and Portugal I exercised my privilege to return to the US to give my daughter a US based high school experience that focuses on learning and not exams- unfortunately (or fortunately) it will mean that she won’t be considered for Oxford or Cambridge since they require AP exams as part of the entrance requirements. Small sacrifice to know that she will flourish.
After the last session a group of us hung back wanting more discussion and more dialogue. We talked for a bit and it left me hungry to engage further- seek out additional training for me and my coaches and pursue an ISTE qualification for ed tech… all this happened while I had 23 5th graders and 4 amazing chaperones touring DC making for a return to the hotel re-group with them that much better. Check out that story here: https://teachinghacks4all.com/2026/10/10/first-times-4-wins/
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