Schools Urgently Need a Redesign. Here's How | Aylon Samouha  ## Metadata - Author: [[TED Talks Daily]] - Full Title: Schools Urgently Need a Redesign. Here's How | Aylon Samouha - Category: #podcasts - URL: https://share.snipd.com/episode/57fd649e-6370-48c9-89bb-906c6efad606 ## Document Notes ## Highlights - **Studio-Style Brooklyn STEAM** - At Brooklyn STEAM students create real products like marketing campaigns and safe website hacking with industry partners. - Aylon Samouha describes the school as an engineering studio where students earn diplomas and industry credentials while building networks. Transcript: Aylon Samouha You've never seen a school like this. In the middle of the Brooklyn Navy Yard, surrounded by cranes, startups, design studios, young people aren't just sitting in classrooms. They're creating digital marketing campaigns for small businesses, wiring real houses. Down the hall, a student named Natalia is hacking websites safely with the guidance of cybersecurity pros. These students are part of the Brooklyn Steam Center, a public high school that looks and feels more like an engineering studio than a traditional classroom. They're earning college-ready diplomas and industry credentials. Building professional networks while discovering what they're good at in the real world. And none of it happened by accident. I lead a school design organization called Transcend. And when we began working with the Brooklyn community, our first step wasn't to bring in a program. It was to listen. Students, families, educators, local employers all told us the same thing. We want learning that actually connects to the world kids are growing into. So with the school's founders, we stitched together decades of practice and research, career-connected learning, project-based learning, purpose development. The result? A learning experience that's rigorous, relevant, and engaging. ([Time 0:04:13](https://share.snipd.com/snip/a9e4c1f9-347d-49e8-91c8-6ffcbb1ac401)) - **'Fine' Signals Fading Potential** - Most students report school is boring or merely "fine," showing engagement collapses with age. - Aylon Samouha argues schools were designed for the factory age and no longer fit today's learning needs. Transcript: Aylon Samouha Transcend recently surveyed 70,000 students across the U.S. Less than half said they love school. Two-thirds said it's boring. Less than 4% said they get a chance to explore and be in charge of their own learning. And the older students get, the worse it gets. Nearly three-quarters of third graders say they love school. But by high school, barely a quarter say they do. And the data is just telling us what every parent already knows. You ask, how was school today? And you hear one word, fine. But fine isn't fine. It's the sound of potential quietly fading. Here's the truth most of us don't say out loud. School isn't broken. It's doing exactly what it was designed to do over a century ago. It was built for the factory age to standardize, sort, and prepare young people for predictable jobs. It worked for the time. Literacy rose, the middle class grew. ([Time 0:06:14](https://share.snipd.com/snip/5a94583f-ec43-44c9-91a6-cef1c436e778)) - **Use Community-Based Design** - Use community-based design to blend local wisdom with research-backed practices when redesigning schools. - Aylon Samouha recommends engaging students, families, educators, and employers to create human, enduring change. Transcript: Aylon Samouha But realizing this vision has never been easy. For decades, we've been trapped between two extremes, top-down reforms that can ignore local realities or bottom-up efforts that often depend on heroic and exhausted educators. But there's a third way. Community-based design. Community-based design takes the best of both approaches. It brings together the wisdom of lived experience with the wisdom of research. The assets of communities with the assets of proven tools and practices to make change that's both human and enduring. It's the best of design thinking, R&D, and community participation applied to the life of a school. ([Time 0:08:21](https://share.snipd.com/snip/aad13477-dd3e-4d56-b92d-93232cc00b49)) - **Van Ness Elementary Transformation** - Van Ness Elementary replaced roll call with morning circles and added mindfulness and belonging measures. - The redesigned model reduced suspensions to zero while exceeding district reading and math averages. Transcript: Aylon Samouha It's also how Van Ness Elementary in Washington, D.C. Redesigned school around a simple idea. Kids learn best when they feel seen. We brought together families, educators, district leaders to imagine school that truly centered the whole child, nurturing mind, body, and relationships while confronting the Real trauma that many students carried into school. So we integrated effective practices from other settings. Morning circles replaced roll call. Mindfulness breaks alongside rigorous lessons. Measures on student belonging that matter as much as test scores do. After months of piloting and iterating, these pieces came together into a coherent model where every student feels safe, connected, and ready to learn. When I visited, I saw a seven-year named Jalisa who had an emotional outburst in the classroom. Her friend Amara gently guided her to a calming space where they practiced breathing together. Within minutes, Jalisa was back on track. No tension, no punishment, just learning for both of them. That's why even as other D.C. Schools issued dozens or more suspensions each year, Van Ness issued none and exceeded district averages in reading and math. ([Time 0:09:11](https://share.snipd.com/snip/f9f0f78c-f3f5-4d66-92f3-740bf103199f)) - **Matthew's Blacksmithing Breakthrough** - In rural North Dakota, a student named Matthew discovered blacksmithing and turned curiosity into a small business. - The redesigned school let him apply math, science, and design while forging a career path. Transcript: Aylon Samouha And community-based design works in places that couldn't be more different. It's how Matthew, a high school senior in rural North Dakota, went from dozing through class to forging his own path, in every sense of the word, after discovering blacksmithing. His school was ready. Because it had been redesigned around real-world learning, he had the structure and freedom to turn his curiosity into craft, applying math, science, and design to building a small Business of his own. ([Time 0:11:01](https://share.snipd.com/snip/1a592906-5bfa-46be-8ade-b32180287f66)) - **AI Can Amplify Purposeful Learning** - Pairing community design with AI can scale personalized, immersive learning experiences. - Aylon Samouha sees technology as a tool to accelerate passion-driven education for many students. Transcript: Aylon Samouha Now imagine pairing community-based design with today's technology. AI can help us accelerate learning and facilitate immersive experiences that sparked every student's passion so that thousands more Matthews can find their purpose if we design On purpose. From Brooklyn to D.C. To North Dakota, in 500 schools across the country, we've seen what happens when communities design learning around how young people actually learn and live. ([Time 0:11:31](https://share.snipd.com/snip/1a8e4f24-cec4-4aef-be10-249c759e0c61)) - **Make Design A Continuous Practice** - Build community-based design as an ongoing muscle, not a one-off program. - Aylon Samouha urges that redesign be continuous so schools evolve with society and student needs. Transcript: Aylon Samouha School cannot be something we redesign once a century. We need community-based design as a muscle, not a program or an initiative, something built in, not bolted on. A continuous way of evolving how we do school together. So when we ask, and how are the children? Let's make sure the answer isn't fine. ([Time 0:12:48](https://share.snipd.com/snip/c68b5807-a159-4e76-967e-ceb152537083))