Wellesly High School Students on Reimagining School for 2040

Students at Wellesley High School are helping imagine what learning could look like in 2040. In this episode of the Getting Smart Podcast, Mason Pashia talks with Alty and Anaya, two learners from the school’s Evolutions (EVOLS) program, about designing future-ready classrooms, visiting innovative schools, and building skills through hands-on, project-based experiences. From CTE-inspired spaces and collaborative learning environments to student voice and public speaking, this conversation offers a powerful look at what happens when young people are invited to help shape the future of education.

Outline

• (0:00) Introduction
• (3:28) What Is Evolutions?
• (6:54) School Visits & Inspiration
• (8:40) Designing the Future of Education
• (23:31) Student Voice & Changing Education

Introduction

Mason Pashia: Mm-hmm. You’re listening to the “Getting Smart” podcast. I’m Mason Pashia. Today is a super exciting conversation for me. I’ve been working on these blogs called Blogs From the Future, which all take place in the year 2040, for the past year or so, just kind of putting them out on occasion to really help people envision and live in what it would maybe feel like to have this learning future that we talk about all the time.

After a few of these came out, a friend of mine, Julie Kreis at Brightbound, let me know that a school in Massachusetts was actually using these blogs as inspiration and context for a project that they’re working on to kind of redesign the school building and the school day. This project was led by Tom Hennes at Wellesley High School, and it’s a really cool project about reimagining spaces and reimagining the structures of how you learn and where that happens.

Skills Gained in EVOLS

Mason Pashia: So today, I’m super excited to get to talk to a couple of the students who participated in this project. They are part of a program within Wellesley High School called Evolutions, which is where this project actually took place. So today, I’m excited to welcome Alty and Anaya. Thanks so much for being here.

Alty: Thank you for having us. Thank you for—

Mason Pashia: I’ve been doing some similar work, actually, with some high school students to try and think about the high school day, so I’m really excited to kind of compare notes and see what you all have come up with. So, to start, we always like to think about learning, where it happens in formal and informal settings, so the classroom or the world.

The classroom is also situated within the world, but sometimes we make a dividing line between those two. So I’d love to hear from both of you: What is a space or a place or a time that you’ve really enjoyed learning? And just describe that for me. What was the project? What was the thing that got you excited? And where did it happen?

Alty: I’m thinking back to a project we just did recently in Evolutions. It was called Community Joy, and I think I found the most joy in that project because it was different, and we put on a play to spread joy to a different generation, specifically people above the age of 70.

So I think that setup, and being able to come into class and think about a script instead of a textbook and worksheets, is something I enjoy and I find beneficial to me.

Anaya: For me, I like visual and hands-on learning, so building things, being able to see others build things, was really good for me for the Future of Education project.

And it was nice to actually build the things and see the different aspects of schools and everything.

Mason Pashia: Just for the listeners, we had Anaya speak second and Alty speak first in that response, as you’re mapping voices throughout this conversation.

Alty, when I was in high school, I went to the retirement home with a friend every Tuesday, and we would play music for everybody there as they were kind of eating dinner. And it was so fun to bring joy in that way and just kind of hear about all the different songs that they wanted to hear.

It was very different from what I was typically playing. So super fun. I love those projects. OK. So I think before we get started on the project that we’re going to talk about today, help our listeners understand what Evolutions is. It’s a program within a high school, but how does it actually work?

What Is Evolutions?

Anaya: So like you said, we attend Wellesley High School, where we have a course you’re able to take your junior or senior year called Evolutions. In this course, I’ve explored my learning through independent and group projects. We collaborate closely, go on field trips and even have had the chance to pitch our designs we created based on problems we were passionate about to New Balance professionals at the beginning of the year for our draw project.

Mason Pashia: Awesome. And how many days are you there? Are you there about five days or just a couple days out of the week at Evolutions specifically?

Anaya: Well, the school days—yeah, we’re here every day. What only changes is how long we’re here. Usually, it could range from two hours to three hours, but usually we’re here for a three-hour day.

Mason Pashia: OK. That’s so cool. And if I remember right, when I was talking to Mr. Hennes, he was saying that they’re typically about five-week projects. Is that right?

Alty: Mm-hmm. Yeah, around that.

Mason Pashia: OK. Very cool. So what was the prompt for this specific project? I’ve seen the presentation.

If I get permission to, I’m going to put the links in the show notes so folks can kind of click through and see all the amazing images of what you all worked on. But what was the prompt for this one?

Anaya: So for this project, we explored how ideas about the process of education have changed over time and connected them to Wellesley’s Profile of a Graduate. We participated in discussions with school leaders, community members and students to understand different perspectives on public education today.

We then examined trends such as AI, experiential learning, career and technical education and STEAM by going on school visits. Using what we learned, we worked in groups to design a 3D model that shows an innovative educational program for the year 2040 and present our ideas to the community—for example, sixth graders, parents and educators.

Mason Pashia: That’s super cool. What is the Wellesley Profile of a Graduate, if you don’t mind me ask—it’s not a quiz, but…

Alty: It’s like a big, long profile that they want us to have when we graduate, so we can be well-rounded. But we were tasked with picking two to three of the specific, I guess, characteristics off the Profile of a Graduate.

So we have communicate and collaborate, engage locally and globally, think critically, solve problems, create and innovate, respect human differences and challenge equality or inequity.

Anaya: Inequity.

Mason Pashia: Yeah, challenge equality—very, very surprising Profile of a Graduate. Do you all like having this? Does it make you feel good to know that they’re thinking about you in this kind of holistic way as a learner and a member of your community? Or does it feel kind of hard to live up to?

How does it feel to have these benchmarks in your life as a student?

Alty: I feel like it helps us set goals for ourselves. I also think EVOLS does a good job of kind of doing each point, because we kind of engage locally and globally. We do that a lot, actually, and we’re always creating, we’re always innovating, we’re always communicating, we’re always collaborating.

So I feel like it’s just kind of things that come with our program, but I also feel like they’re important skills that we should have.

Mason Pashia: That’s awesome. And you just called it EVOLS as well? Is that like—

Alty: EVOLS.

Anaya: EVOLS, yeah.

Alty: Yeah. It’s just like a little slang.

Mason Pashia: Perfect. Just helping so we know, if we hear it again, what that is.

School Visits & Inspiration

Mason Pashia: Was it weird to visit other schools? Was it kind of interesting to pop in there and see how other people are having a school day compared to you, or did it feel sort of similar to your experience?

Anaya: I think it was so cool. My group went in and we were like, “Oh my goodness.” For example, the career and technical school was so weird to us because we’re not seeing, you know, they’re doing plumbing, building birdhouses, and there was even a house. I was just like, “Wow. While I’m sitting at school, these people are actually doing things that older people actually do.”

It was strange to see, but I was really inspired by it.

Alty: No, for sure. I went to see NewView in Boston, and it was a whole different experience. Walking in, the setup was just like a complete workshop and everyone was working on different things, and I think there was someone working on medical equipment for when elders fall down so that their loved ones would know.

And I just feel like it’s just so cool that, like Anaya said, we’re sitting here in school, and then they’re building actual equipment.

Mason Pashia: Yeah. That is really cool. We recommend people go to NewView all the time. That’s a really cool campus and a very inspiring space. What year in school are you?

Anaya: Juniors.

Mason Pashia: OK. And when you went to this career and technical education campus, that was the first time you’d been there?

Was there any kind of—

Anaya: It was our first time ever going, and it was so, so crazy.

Mason Pashia: Wow. Well, that’s super cool. That sounds impactful. And I mean, it sounds like you all get to do pretty meaningful real-world work in the EVOLS program as well, so you’re not fully just kind of in a classroom not doing real-world work. But I do know the distinction between kind of building a physical thing and then building a thing of ideas, which—both exist in the real world, both are real jobs, and they do feel kind of different.

Anaya: Yeah.

Designing the Future of Education

Mason Pashia: So that’s awesome. OK. So in this project, you were researching kind of the history of what school has been, how you’ve sort of gotten to where you’ve gotten to. And then part of this project was, I believe, using an iteration of the design-thinking framework. It looked like you all kind of used that within some of your design.

Was it hard for you to imagine school differently? Like when you actually had to sit down and kind of construct something, whether that be alterations to the day or to the building, was it kind of hard to color outside the lines of that box that you’ve now been a part of for 12 years of your life?

Alty: I feel like at first—well, I’m going to kind of rewind back to when I first started Evolutions, and then I’m going to talk a little bit about the project. But when I first started Evolutions, I think I was more narrow-minded when it came to school and what learning was supposed to look like.

And especially when it came to grades and stuff like that, because I feel like in regular school, it’s just A through F, and in EVOLS it’s different, and they target specific spots. But I also feel like—wait, pause. What was the question?

Mason Pashia: It was whether it was hard to imagine school differently.

Alty: Yeah. So I feel like with EVOLS, it just challenged my thinking on traditional school. And moving into the actual Future of Education project, when we were challenged with the “build your own classroom” piece, it’s kind of hard to think outside the box and think of what the future of education looks like, especially with new projects like Evolutions coming in and schools like NewView starting and things like that becoming more popular.

It’s just hard to envision what exactly education could turn into. But I feel like when we were sitting down and cutting up cardboard and making things out of clay and hot glue, and going out there and visiting schools and seeing the impact, I think that helped me change my mindset and just kind of think outside of the box.

Because Anaya was making sand in her room and sand in her classrooms, and I was making hanging VR from the ceiling. It was just like we were really just thinking outside the box.

Mason Pashia: That’s awesome. I want to be in both of those classrooms. That sounds great. Did you feel like when you started the research for where school has gotten to versus where you ended after kind of working with your peers through this project, did you feel like you had any assumptions that were just kind of wrong?

Like early assumptions that you were like, “Oh, this is something that would be really interesting in school,” and then by the end you’re kind of like, “Actually, I don’t know so much.” Or the inverse—something is really bad and then by the end you’re like, “Actually, I think we kind of need something like this.”

Anaya: I feel like at first we thought, OK, individual—you know, because when you’re in regular school, it’s a lot of individual work. You’re barely collaborating with others. So in my school, we started off having a collaboration corner and an individual island, it was called.

But over time we’ve realized collaboration is way more effective, I believe, because you’re able to share your ideas with others and get inspired by them. So that was something that really changed for my group.

Mason Pashia: That’s really interesting, yeah. The current education system, whether it be through grades or competencies or scores, it does sort of feel like an individual pursuit. It’s kind of like every person for themselves to graduate, go to whatever’s next, get a job, make it. And I do think that collaboration is much more the language of how people work together in jobs in the real world, and also it seems like a much better approach just for how we could be having people work together in school.

You just build a lot better, different, durable skills. So that’s a really interesting one. Alty, anything for you on that question?

Alty: I think Anaya answered it pretty well, but I feel like just to add on, before, I used to hate group projects, which is funny because now I survive off of them.

But I realized that you can learn so much from a different person’s point of view, especially when you’re kind of stuck and—what is that when artists have the—

Anaya: Mental blocks.

Alty: Like a mental block. Hearing it from someone else’s point of view or just hearing their ideas is so helpful.

Mason Pashia: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. OK, so you’ve given us a little sneak peek at the things you’ve designed. We got sand in the classroom, VR hanging from the ceilings. I guess, if you don’t mind, give just a short kind of description of what you ended up building and a little bit of what that process looked like once you’d done the school visits, once you’d talked to the superintendent about the Profile of a Graduate, et cetera.

Alty: You want to go first? OK, I’ll go first. So I ended up making the X Lab, and it had three different rooms, and one of them was like a plant-based room where students were going to be able to grow their own vegetables and do cultural things. And then there was the hanging VR space where students would be able to do their work through VR and through technology and stuff like that.

It was supposed to be thinking like that. And then—this is kind of hypocritical to what we said—but I did have an individual working spot. But it was more like there were 3D printers and pottery and things where students can work together, but on their own thing that they like.

And I feel like the process wasn’t easy, because I’ve never sat and built anything through cardboard or clay or hot glue. I burned myself so many times. I think I lost my fingertips. I don’t even know. But I think it helped me gain a new skill, because that’s just something that you wouldn’t do in a regular English class or regular science class.

But yeah, I also think the process of visiting schools helped gear the ideas, because I kind of gained the 3D printing and stuff like that from NewView and seeing it, because they had a whole woodcutter room. That was something I don’t really ever see.

So—

Mason Pashia: Amazing.

Anaya: And then for mine, mine was called the Thrive Girl Ready Academy. So the Profile of a Graduate that we focused on was communicate and collaborate. So we had a room where it was kind of like Community Joy, basically, where there was basically an auditorium where students were able to perform their work and everything to really start working on public speaking.

Because, you know, before this, I couldn’t speak to anybody. I was very sheltered and stuff like that. So we thought it was really important so students can learn that. And then we had basically a career and technical education room where they had woodworking because, again, before this, I had never even seen that before.

I was confused. And then we had, like Alty was saying, basically agriculture outside, so students are able to grow their own fruits and vegetables because it’s really important nowadays to be eating healthy. And then we had a collaboration area where there was a smart board and then there was a circle table and desks all around so people are able to have group discussions and everything, which is also really important to us.

Mason Pashia: That’s really cool. So something I’ve been thinking a lot about is a lot of the time we provide learners with these cool experiences. So in this one, it’s designing a school day or a school building. And oftentimes, it’s kind of hard for them—it’s hard for everyone—but it’s hard to recognize the skills that you’re building in that project.

It sounds like some of yours was communication, Anaya—that that’s part of it, just the presentation, the communication, collaboration with your peers. But do you feel like you, I guess on this project or just over the course of EVOLS, have a set of skills that you feel like, “Oh, I’ve actually been really developing these in this program, and I can actually attach, cite kind of moments along my learning journey where I’ve been like, ‘Oh, there’s a really big difference between day one and now when I’m talking to these people about this thing'”?

Maybe it’s doing a podcast. That might be a huge change for you. But I’m curious if you have any of those kind of anchor moments that are connected to this EVOLS program.

Anaya: I would say creativity. Before this, I’m not really a good drawer or artist or anything. So I would say creativity a lot because even in the draw project or the Future of Education project, I was able to actually collaborate on my ideas and make these little art pieces.

And before this, yeah, like I was saying, I’m not really a creative person, and other people were able to look at me like, “Oh, look, Anaya, you did so well in that. Oh, you’re really artistic.” And I’m like, “What? I never thought I would be artistic,” you know?

Shorts Content

Mason Pashia: It’s like Ratatouille. Anyone can cook. You got it. Anyone can do—

Alty: Yeah. I think EVOLS has given me a lot of skills that I didn’t come in with, but I feel like the main one that I’m always talking about is my public speaking. Because if freshman-year me would’ve seen me now, I think my jaw would’ve been on the floor, because the No. 1 thing I struggled with was just talking and starting conversations with new people.

And Evolutions has just pushed me out of my box completely. There was no option for me to try not to speak in public because the first project is talking in front of professionals and presenting a design that you made. And you’re coming into this program with a bunch of people you’ve almost never had classes with, a couple of your friends, and you kind of just have to get to know them because you’re spending most of your day, most of your time, with these people in these groups, whether you like it or not.

So I feel like it just built a good life skill of communication, collaboration and just being able to be in a room with people and not feel awkward.

Mason Pashia: That’s a hard skill, but that is really good. I’m curious about one more aspect of this projects thing, and we can connect it back to the Community Joy project if we want. But I’m curious about how you choose what project you’re going to have. It sounds like there’s some sort of theme, so maybe Community Joy was the theme, and then was that specific solution of kind of performing, creating a play, was that something that you all as students were like, “Oh, this would be a really cool thing to do,” or was it sort of like, “You will write a play”?

How does that piece actually work within this program?

Anaya: So for the Community Joy project, as you said, basically we were given an overall prompt. So we had to talk to our sages, we call them, or the seekers are the young folks, and then the sages are the elderly. So we were able to talk to our sages about their life, and we all had different aspects.

So personally, I had hometown. What’d you have?

Alty: I had the greatest love.

Anaya: So basically we had to ask them questions about that. So I asked, “Oh, what was your school like growing up?” And my person, she went to a boarding school. So in my play, I actually focused on that.

So I had a game show when I was Heave Starvey, you know, like off-brand Steve Harvey.

Alty: Mm.

Anaya: And so I was able to say, “Oh hey, who went to boarding school?” Or something like that. “What were the overarching schools like in the town or whatever?” And she was able to be like, “Oh my gosh, that’s me.”

And we all brought in different aspects from our sages. It was three people in the group. So my other person, she brought in her sage, and they were in the West Side Boys—that was their little clique. So we were able to be like, “Oh my gosh, you’re from the West Side Boys. Do you know the handshake?” It was really funny, but we were able to pull different aspects from our sages, which was really nice.

Mason Pashia: That’s cool. So was a play the key project deliverable for both of you? It was like, this is the theme, this is the play, and then you each had a different kind of subtheme within Community Joy, like hometown. OK. I’m tracking.

Alty: Basically how most of our projects are run, we usually are given an overview, and there’s some things that we can select and pick. Like we picked our sages, we picked some of what goes into the play, but usually our teachers give us the umbrella and we add the details. But there are two projects throughout the year, our midstone and our capstone—which midstone’s in the middle of the year, capstone’s at the end to, you know—

And cap it off.

And this is where we’re completely individual and we get to pick our problem, pick what we want to do, how we want to express it, like top to bottom.

Mason Pashia: Cool. That’s awesome. OK. When the projects feel a little bit more prescribed—do a play in conversation with this topic—does that feel like a fun stretch? A play sounds like it might have been not something that you’d done before. Is that something that’s, “Ah, I wish I could actually just do this in a way that feels more natural or comfortable for me,” or is it something that you’re like, “I’m really glad they pushed me to do that. That was really fun, and I feel like I learned a lot”?

Anaya: I would say I’m really glad they pushed me to do that because, of course, at first when we get these projects, we’re scared. We’re like, “Oh my gosh, we have to present it in front of people.” Even with the Future of Education, we had to explain why we did things and how we did them and everything.

And for this one, we were all scared, but we practiced it a bunch of times, which was really important for us. And by the time we got on, everyone was spot on. Everyone was laughing the whole time. So it was fun. We were able to show the sages that we really care for them and we really learned from them.

Mason Pashia: Yeah. That’s one of my favorite things about—like I alluded to earlier, music’s a big part of my background—but I always loved how the arts, you kind of just go from zero to 60. It’s “Oh, I’ve never—there’s no lines, and I don’t know any of them,” and then suddenly it’s showtime and you’re like, “I’ve memorized all of my lines and I’m in front of people, and I’m dependent on this person to also know all of their lines.”

And it is a very stark contrast between where you start and where you end, which is really cool. OK. On the midstone-capstone stuff, I’m just curious how you both are going about finding a problem that you want to address. What does that process look like individually for each of you?

Alty: I think EVOLS has kind of challenged me to be more curious about things in general. With midstone, I focused on something that was kind of going on in the world, which was the detainment of U.S. citizens. And for capstone, I’m looking forward to doing something more personal, more within the community.

I think it also has a lot to do with the fact that we see a lot of past projects, things that alumni have done, which also gives us inspiration. So even in the hallways, when we’re just walking around, there’s a sculpture from the project we’re doing right now, and it’s waves of plastic going into a restaurant, and it’s been there, I think, the whole year.

And just things like that add inspiration.

Anaya: This was basically a dress made out of plastic to show the climate and everything.

Alty: Yeah.

Mason Pashia: Wow. Love it.

Alty: So things like that just always give us inspiration, and also the fact that we’re able to go out to the community and see things and we’re dealing with real-life problems.

We always have something in our head as EVO kids.

Mason Pashia: I love that. That’s going to be the blurb from the episode: We always have something in our head as EVO kids. OK.

Student Voice & Changing Education

Mason Pashia: My last question—and this is kind of a weird one, but it’s something that I’m personally just very curious about. So I’ve been kind of obsessed with this idea of movements for a while, and education doesn’t really have one that is very cohesive.

It’s a lot of different people saying, “We need more work-based learning,” or “We need more literacy,” or “We need more whatever.” And there are a lot of things people are asking for, but they don’t feel very unified, and it’s not very clear what the end goal is. So the last year I’ve been talking to a lot of people, specifically young people and youth organizers in different social movements, like the Sunrise Movement, which does a lot of climate work, which is a fully youth-led organization.

And I’ve been trying to understand why students haven’t tried to mobilize around education, like trying to fix the system. It sounds like you all have a really cool opportunity with EVO, so there are a lot of kids that don’t have quite as cool of an opportunity as that. And so I’m just trying to figure out what is it that makes saving the entire world from climate catastrophe—which is so existential and so big and so hard to wrap your arms around—compared to education, which is somewhere you are every day, and you’re kind of fluent in the language of grades kind of suck.

Being here for eight hours and not having any control over what I do kind of stinks. It does feel a little bit more like something where you are a key stakeholder daily. Same with the climate. But I’m just curious about what makes it feel so hard to change, or like you all don’t have a voice in that process.

Alty: I feel like, seeing it from an outside point of view, I think it’s a lack of confidence. I think a lot of our peers think that just because they’re younger and they don’t have that much of a voice, they won’t make any change. And I’ve seen how that’s just not true because we’ve done—even if our things have been small—they’ve done something to help.

We’ve raised money from doing Evol Walks and sent it to our organizations. Even small things like that make a change, and I feel like the problem has a lot to do with social media, and I feel like people are just so used to seeing that they don’t have the resources, they don’t have the connections, they don’t have this, they don’t have that.

But realistically, if you want to, there’s a will and there’s a way. And I think that even if you make a small step—even if you start using glass straws instead of plastic straws—I feel like that’s a small step. Or a reusable bag, because we’re learning about plastic now, so I feel like now I’m so like—everything I use is plastic. Everything. So—

I feel like they’re not educated on how to make a change and where they can start to make a change. Because before Evolutions, I don’t think I was very educated on things like this and what plastic and microplastics are, and how there’s probably microplastics in my brain and things like that.

Mason Pashia: Yeah. For sure. So it’s a general lack of awareness, both on climate stuff but also on education, like how to change—what are cool education options? How can you get access to them? And also the fact that some people have them and some people don’t is kind of unknown. OK.

Alty: Because a lot of students at—we’ve—I’ve seen kids that don’t even know about the Evolutions program at our school. So it’s like, maybe they would’ve joined if they knew more about the program and more of what it has to offer.

Mason Pashia: For sure. Anaya, what about you? Anything you would add to why students don’t feel—why there’s not a movement from students to be like, “We have to redesign school to make it more relevant and better”?

Anaya: I would say the same thing, but also I feel like they’re just stuck, like they don’t need the change. We’re so stuck in this mindset of, like, you have to get the A-pluses only. You have to go to these classes, you have to do this.

So I feel like even the Evolutions program helped them get out of that mindset. Like, I don’t need to just always be doing by myself five hours of homework a night, staying up till 1 in the morning. It’s just—I feel like it’s just that set mindset that doesn’t help you progress.

Mason Pashia: Yeah. Yeah, that’s a good point. OK, so the true final question now. We’ve got a bunch of people who listen to this show that are principals, superintendents, educators, people in schools. I guess what would be a key takeaway that you have for them about how to either approach changing things for students to make it better for them day in, day out?

Alty: I think my biggest takeaway is: Talk to your students. I feel like talking to your students and having actual one-on-one communication and trying to see the product of the environment—even just talking to alumni, people that have graduated—I think that is super beneficial.

And I also think not being afraid to make a change, even if it gets denied or something. If you know, as a teacher, as a principal, that you can do something and make education better for your students, then I would push for it.

Anaya: Yeah. I would say basically the same thing: Talk to your students because I’ve learned that I’m a hands-on learner, so basically figuring out what your students need to become the best student they can be, and honestly, being passionate about your topic as well.

Students are not going to be able to give their full 100% if they’re not passionate about the topic, because if they’re not passionate, then—

Alty: There’s no motivation.

Mason Pashia: Exactly.

Amazing. Well, this has been super awesome. Really grateful to both of you for being here today and sharing about your journey in EVOLS and also just in the world writ large. So thank you, Alty and Anaya, for being on the “Getting Smart” podcast.

Alty: Thank you so much for having us.

Alty and Anaya: Of course. Thank you.

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Links

• Watch the full video here
• Wellesley High School
• Student Presentation
• Check Out the Blogs from the Future Here