Fadia Rostom will tell you there have been three moments in her life that broke her heart. The first was losing her grandmother. The second was the death of her father. The third was being told she could not teach anymore.
She had moved to the United States from Syria twenty-three years ago. She had been an assistant professor of computer science at Damascus University. She had built relationships with her students over years, and when the war started, she watched them scatter across the world: to Canada, Britain, Saudi Arabia. She kept those connections. What she could not keep, at least not immediately, was her classroom.
Arriving in the United States meant starting over. Transferring credits. Going back to college. Getting licensed. The system that governs foreign credentials is not designed for speed or compassion, and Rostom waited. She eventually returned to education, became a school principal for seven or eight years, and then, when AI arrived in earnest, saw something she had not anticipated: a chance to help in a way she had never been able to before.
“If AI existed when I moved here,” she says, “my journey into my happy place, which is teaching, would have been much different and more doable.”
She is now the founder of Vision Scholar, where she works with school districts and nonprofits across the Berkshires, designing and delivering workshops on AI literacy, ethics, classroom integration, and digital wellness. She is also coordinating an upcoming summit called We in AI at Berkshire Community College, bringing together educators, administrators, parents, tech directors, board members, and community members to figure out what this moment in education requires, together.
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The Name Is Already the Problem
When Rostom sits down with educators who are resistant to AI, she does not start with the tools. She starts earlier.
“It’s in the name,” she says. “We call it artificial intelligence, and people get stuck on that. You look around and most of the visuals are robots and machine brains.”
The word artificial triggers a particular kind of anxiety: something cold, manufactured, inhuman. Something that does not belong in a classroom built on relationship and care. Rostom’s work begins with dismantling that association before anything else can happen.
And it is not a small lift. The fear teachers carry into these conversations is layered. There is the fear of the unknown. There is the fear of things they do know but do not like: the ethical concerns, the bias embedded in models, the questions about student data and privacy and academic integrity. There is the fear of becoming redundant. And underneath all of it, often, is something more personal: the fear of not being good enough at something new, of looking incompetent in front of students who pick things up faster.
Rostom knows something about that kind of fear. She moved to a country where she did not know how to find her way home. She learned a new language. She rebuilt a career from scratch in a system that did not recognize what she had already built.
“Change is really hard,” she says. “I understand it in my heart. But we can’t act out of that.”
Modeling What We Preach
One of the sharpest observations in the conversation comes when Rostom turns the mirror on the profession itself.
Educators, she points out, spend a great deal of time telling students to take risks. To experiment. To ask questions. To make mistakes and learn from them. They design rubrics and classroom cultures intended to lower the stakes of being wrong.
And then many of those same educators refuse to try AI because they are not sure what will happen.
“Are we really modeling that for them?” she asks. “If we want students to be brave and take risk and learn before making judgment, are we actually doing that ourselves?”
It is not a rhetorical attack. It is a genuine question, asked with the warmth of someone who has watched this contradiction play out in hundreds of conversations with educators she deeply respects.
Her answer is that teachers need the same thing they give their best students: permission. Not a sweeping district-wide AI policy delivered from above, not a mandatory training program consuming time nobody has, but the low-stakes permission to try something in one unit, in one class, and see what happens.
“Give your teacher permission to add a little bit of AI into something,” she says. “It doesn’t have to be everything or nothing.”
What Joy Actually Looks Like
Rostom talks about joy the way most conversations about AI in education never get around to. Not joy as an abstract aspiration, but as something specific and observable: the moment a student raises their hand to ask a question.
She noticed during her years as a principal that this was happening less. Students were disengaged. Teachers were overwhelmed. The administrative load, the compliance requirements, the testing regimes, the sheer volume of non-teaching work, had crowded out the thing most educators signed up for.
“People know we don’t sign up for this job because we’re going to be sipping piña coladas on the beach,” she says. “We do it because we really believe in what we do.”
Her vision for AI in classrooms is not primarily about efficiency. It is about restoration. Giving teachers back the time and energy to do the work that made them choose this field. Giving students access to tools that can meet them where they are, especially students with learning differences who have historically been underserved by one-size-fits-all approaches.
She describes a math teacher at her school who designed a Thanksgiving dinner unit: students planned the event, calculated costs, raised the money, created the marketing materials, set up the cafeteria, and hosted the dinner. Every subject, every skill, woven together into something real. That, she says, is the kind of learning AI should be making more possible, not replacing the teacher, but freeing the teacher to design experiences worth having.
No Policy Will Save You
Rostom reserves her most direct language for the question of AI policy in schools. When administrators ask her for a ready-made roadmap, she pushes back.
“I call that ignorance,” she says, without apology. “You need to look at who you are, who you serve, your community, your resources, your team. Build from there.”
What works in one district will not work fifteen minutes down the road. The students are different, the staff is different, the culture is different. Dropping a standardized AI policy into a school and considering the work done is not a solution. It is a way of avoiding the harder and more important conversation about what this particular community actually needs.
That harder conversation is what the We in AI summit is designed to start. Not to produce a policy. To produce understanding. To put K through 12 educators, higher education faculty, and workforce experts in the same room and begin connecting dots that are usually kept apart.
A Tree Can Have Roots and Branches Miles Away
Near the end of the conversation, Rostom says something that quietly clarifies everything that has come before.
She is responding to a question about borrowed ideas, insights from unexpected places. She talks about the pressure she has felt, as an immigrant, to choose: celebrate your roots or celebrate your integration. Embrace where you came from or embrace where you are.
She rejected the premise of that choice years ago.
“A tree can still have roots and branches miles away,” she says.
It is her metaphor for identity, but it is also her metaphor for learning, and perhaps for the whole project of AI in education. You do not have to abandon what worked in order to embrace what is new. You do not have to choose between the human and the technological. You do not have to choose between the individual and the community.
What Rostom keeps returning to, in every conversation, every workshop, every summit she coordinates, is the thing she believes we have lost sight of most: what we have in common. The shared passion for igniting curiosity in a student. The shared fear of getting it wrong. The shared responsibility for the generations of children sitting in classrooms right now, waiting to see what the adults decide to do.
“Whatever we do,” she says, “it matters only because we reflect, we receive, and we reflect.”
That is the job. Not the tools, not the policy, not the roadmap. The reflection, done together.
Listen to the full conversation with Fadia Rostom on The LX Ops Show or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Podcast Transcript– Jason Gorman with Fadia Rostom
Jason Gorman (00:00)
Welcome to the Learning Experience Ops Show, where we talk about making learning better that’s future ready. I’m Jason Gorman, the founder and CEO of Jackrabbit Learning Experience. We spend a ridiculous amount of time trying to figure out what’s in the heads of people in Silicon Valley as they create these unbelievably powerful AI systems. And we also see and hear conversations happening at the government level. And very often, there’s nothing we can do
but sit back and listen passively. And it can be easy to feel that our ability to make an impact is limited. But when I met my guest today, I became so excited about the work she’s doing at the community level. She doesn’t just talk about the importance of AI for teachers and others in her community, but thinks deeply about the very real human aspects of fear and joy in using these technologies now and into the future.
Fadia Rostom is the founder of Vision Scholar, where she helps teachers harness AI in their daily work. With over 30 years of experience in education and technology, she has worked with hundreds of teachers to help them rediscover the joy of teaching and the reasons they entered this field in the first place. As a Syrian immigrant and mother of three, she brings a multicultural perspective on how technology and education can support rather than overwhelm.
Welcome to the show, Faria.
Fadia Rostom (01:23)
Thank you, Jason. And you made me look much better than who I am. So I appreciate the introduction.
Jason Gorman (01:30)
That’s not true at all. And also, I wouldn’t be doing my job if I’m flattering at least a little bit. You have made the time to come and talk with me on this show, so thank you for that. We can jump right into the lightning round questions if you’re up for it. All right, so the first one is just really quick. is a 30-second elevator pitch about what you do?
Fadia Rostom (01:44)
Let’s do it.
You said it, Jason. really, it’s the whole idea about bringing joy into the field of education. And if you ask teachers around the country or around the world, you will get that concept. You will get that they are overwhelmed and they started to lose the joy of teaching. You know, people know that we don’t sign up for this job because we’re going to be sipping Pina Colada on the beach every day. It’s a very hard job.
⁓ But we do it because we really believe in what we do and we want to help students in every way we can. So that’s what guides me through this. I really want them to help. AI is here, AI is happening and will keep happening. So we need to do it together.
Jason Gorman (02:38)
And you may have already pointed to this in your answer and possibly even in my introduction, but what is the thing you love the most about the work you do now?
Fadia Rostom (02:47)
It’s actually the best part of what I do that I enjoy the most is the connections I make between people. It’s like making a match. If you know a struggling student and you match them with the best teacher or you have a struggling teacher and you match them with the best learning partners, that is really the beauty of it.
Jason Gorman (03:12)
And when you are doing your work and you feel like you are really locked in, you’re in the zone, ⁓ what’s the thing you’re most likely to be doing?
Fadia Rostom (03:23)
In what way exactly?
Jason Gorman (03:25)
Well, if there’s some activity that when you do, you just feel like your sense of time goes away, it could be anything. It could be with another person or something you do on your own, just something where you feel just that sense of focus and calm.
Fadia Rostom (03:38)
Yeah. You know what, I actually, feel that when I am designing a learning material or a workshop, workshop for educators, I really get into it. And like, I feel my whole heart and my whole brain is so engaged because I really care so much. You know, when you have passion and you care about what you do and who you are doing it for, you find yourself losing the concept of time, right?
Jason Gorman (03:44)
Hmm.
Fadia Rostom (04:03)
Like the time can be so slow, but it can be so rushed. And I just feel like I’m in the zone when I am working on a learning material for educators.
Jason Gorman (04:14)
Well, you’re singing from my hymnal there. It’s great. What is a skill that you are trying to learn right now? It could be work-related or not.
Fadia Rostom (04:27)
A skill, I really need to learn how to say no to things. Especially with this era of AI, the things that happening really quickly and new materials are introduced every day. If you are passionate about what you do and who you’re doing it for, and if you really have high standards for what you deliver,
Jason Gorman (04:34)
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
Mm-hmm.
Fadia Rostom (04:53)
You just feel that you need to be on top of lots of things. So you know that what you’re delivering is really high quality. And the problem with this now that it’s just too much and so fast. So, you know, I find myself jumping into like, you know, a new concept come or a new tool come or a new conversation come and I like, I really want to, you know, engage. I wish I had like 100 % of me who can engage, but it just can’t happen.
Jason Gorman (04:57)
Mm-hmm.
Learning to say no, I love that. That’s a nice way to say it. All right, last lightning round question. What is a book or a movie or a piece of art or a podcast that is meaningful to you but has nothing at all to do with work? It’s not a work-related thing, but it does shape how you think.
Fadia Rostom (05:41)
I think about that a lot and there isn’t really like one specific book or piece of art, but it’s actually music and specifically music from back home. There’s a specific singer who is Lebanese, her name is Fayrouz, and she had this beautiful, soft voice that I grew up listening to.
Jason Gorman (05:50)
Hmm.
Mm.
Fadia Rostom (06:09)
And I think it does so many things to me when I’m working or not even working. ⁓ It connects me back to my roots and bring me back to who I am and what I want to be and what I want to do. And it brings me back to moments in my life that I cannot physically be there anymore. But it’s a reminder of who I am and my roots. And it just keeps me grounded.
And it’s beautiful music. It’s my own original language. So it’s also remind me of, you know, that I am always trying to adapt and learn and you can be somewhere physically, but your heart can actually be somewhere else and your mind can be somewhere else. So ⁓ it has to be music from back home.
Jason Gorman (06:40)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
I appreciate that. That actually feels like it sums up a theme that we’ve already started to develop already on this conversation. I think we’re going to have more of, which is that the topic of AI, when we think about our jobs and what we do, can be so cognitive, right? It can just be so wrapped up in the tasks and how do we learn it, how do we apply it, what does it mean, and what is this new feature?
Fadia Rostom (07:06)
Thank
Jason Gorman (07:22)
And I love that you put your finger on something else that is not cognitive, right? That it is, it’s an emotional experience. It’s a psychological experience. It’s a whole kind of body, mind, and if you believe in its soul experience. And I love that this is going to be our conversation. So we’re gonna pivot into the other questions, but I just wanna tease out that theme, because it’s so easy to get caught up just in the ball that stuff in your head.
Fadia Rostom (07:50)
Absolutely,
absolutely. we all really need to, now more than ever, we really need to focus on the well-being of us and the people around us, the human being. Now more than ever, actually.
Jason Gorman (08:04)
So we did talk about your work a little bit, but I would love for you to say a bit more about what your work is now. What do you do on a day-to-day basis?
Fadia Rostom (08:13)
I do work with ⁓ the districts around here and nonprofit organizations. I design and deliver workshops around AI, ⁓ literacy, ethic, how to integrate in your classroom, a specific subject, and digital well-being as well, digital wellness. ⁓ That’s what I’m working on right now. ⁓
You know, I’ve been doing this for a while, not that long, but for a good amount of time. And right now I’m actually, my focus is on a couple of projects. The one coming up is that, ⁓ it’s called the We in AI. It’s Summit in Education for the Berkshires.
Jason Gorman (08:57)
Mm.
And so who will be there and what is your role in that?
Fadia Rostom (09:05)
So I am coordinating the summit. It’s BCC Berkshire Community College reached out to me. They’re doing something really, really nice. And they’re doing miniseries about AI. They started that last year. And they did the first one was AI for All. And everyone was invited. And it was just the basics. And I did a workshop about ⁓ Brahms engineering.
Jason Gorman (09:07)
Yeah.
Fadia Rostom (09:31)
And they reached out to me because I have a background and experience in education. And they asked me if I’m willing to do a summit about education. And I absolutely said yes. I didn’t think. Sometimes you just say, see, I have to learn how to say no sometimes, but not for this one. This one, I’m glad I said yes. ⁓ And they are wonderful people I’m working with from the BCC Workforce Department.
Jason Gorman (09:45)
That’s right. Good.
Fadia Rostom (09:56)
And for this one, just want this to be ⁓ delivered ⁓ for diverse audience. So it’s not specifically targeting only educators or only leaders or administrators or tech directors. ⁓ But it will be, there’s going to be lots of workshops around that.
So the audience, a combination of educators, administrators, curriculum leaders, tech directors, parents, guardians, community members, board members, ⁓ it’s open for everyone to attend. And ⁓ I think it will be a really good start for us as a community to build on it moving forward.
Jason Gorman (10:31)
Great.
Hmm.
Fadia Rostom (10:46)
⁓ I know that we have 12 school districts in the Berkshires. We have BCC and we have MCLA and Williams College. And we have many private schools around. And I think the hope from this summit is to just bring everyone together. ⁓ So, you know, we all try to build that bridges and figure this AI thing together if we can.
Jason Gorman (10:51)
Mm-hmm.
Fadia Rostom (11:12)
⁓ There’s going to be colleagues from K through 12, higher education and workforce experts at the end, toward the panel, to try to connect those dots together. I am a big picture person. I like to focus on the details and I love to put my heart into it. But I also think that we really need to look at the big picture. And I think any discussion about AI
Jason Gorman (11:37)
Yeah.
Fadia Rostom (11:40)
in education without looking into K through 12 higher education and the workforce is we’re missing an opportunity for a very important conversation. So I’m glad that we’re doing it this way.
Jason Gorman (11:53)
That’s terrific. ⁓ You mentioned you have background in education, but I’m curious about the events or circumstances that really ignited your interest and passion in doing this work now.
Fadia Rostom (12:10)
Yeah. I, you know, when I moved to the country here, to the United States, about 23 years ago, I was assistant professor in Damascus University. I had a degree in computer science and that’s what I was teaching. I was teaching computer science classes. So, you know, to start with this step was an easy, you know, transition for me. I have the background and I have the knowledge and I’m not afraid of technology or AI.
Jason Gorman (12:26)
Yeah.
Fadia Rostom (12:39)
So that helped a little bit. But I remember, you know, when I came here and I don’t know if your audience know about that, but for anyone coming from a different country, you really cannot just jump in and start working. The minute you arrive into JFK, you have to go through loops of, you know, transferring credits and going back to college and, you know, getting licensed and all of that. So.
Jason Gorman (12:56)
Mm-hmm.
Hmm.
Fadia Rostom (13:07)
I remember that it really broke my heart that I couldn’t teach. I’ve always focused on the human connection piece of anything I do. I build relationships with my students. when the war started in Syria and it lasted for about 10, 11 years, my students scattered all over the world. And I still have connection with some of them, whether they are in Canada or Britain or…
Saudi Arabia or whatever they are. know, and feeling that I cannot teach anymore broke my heart. I tell people three events in my life broke my heart so far. When I lost my grandmother, when my dad passed away, and when I was told that I cannot teach anymore. So that moment in my life kind of define a lot of what I do and the decisions that I make. ⁓
I got back into the field and I was a school principal. I was involved in education in different capacities. I was a school principal for the last seven, eight years. And then with AI, felt that this is an opportunity for me to go back and try to help in any way I can with the background that I had. ⁓
And, you know, being a principal for the last seven, eight years taught me that we have so many different learning styles and learning challenges. And, you know, the, the potentials that AI bring for, you know, individual learning and supporting the students. It’s just unbelievable. So, you know, I look at my own experience. If AI exists when I moved here.
my journey into my happy place, which is teaching and higher education, my journey would have been much different and more doable. And I also think about AI. If AI exists seven years or 10 years, like the way it is right now, when I started as a principal, can you imagine, Jason, how many students I could have helped? Students with dyslexia, students with learning difficulties.
Jason Gorman (14:57)
Hmm.
Fadia Rostom (15:22)
It’s the potential is amazing. And that’s actually what drives me every day. How many people you can actually help with AI and how much joy you can bring, not just to the teachers. Teachers are overwhelmed with so many tasks that has nothing to do with education, but not just the teachers, the students themselves. Take a look at any students who struggling with learning.
Jason Gorman (15:40)
Yeah.
students. Sure.
Fadia Rostom (15:50)
introduce them to the right tools for what they actually need and do it in the right way. And just look at the smiles, look at the happiness. It’s amazing. I think it’s amazing.
Jason Gorman (16:01)
It sounds like you’re doing a lot of work in the classroom with teachers, and you want to be around students. And I’m curious, in your interactions, in those interactions, what do you see as the most important challenge that you are focused on right now in your work, and how are you addressing it?
Fadia Rostom (16:21)
You know, I think, I do think about that too. ⁓ Cause you really need to know the problem to be able to get it out. And I think maybe one of the first problems are like, it’s in the name. Like we call it artificial intelligence. then people are stuck with the idea that this thing is, and then, you you look around and most of the visuals are like a robot or like a machine brain.
Jason Gorman (16:37)
Hmm.
Fadia Rostom (16:49)
I think that is really one of the biggest challenge to change the concept, change people attitude and idea about AI. AI is not a robot that’s going to take your place. AI is not going to replace you. AI, if looked at the right way, it’s a very powerful tool to help and support all of us. So I think that the…
Most of the time when I’m with educators or community members, the first challenge is to change the attitude of the concept of artificial intelligence. I wish we named it open loss, maybe we would have opened up more to it.
Jason Gorman (17:27)
Hmm.
⁓
It actually leads perfectly into my next question here, which is, I mentioned at the top, fear and joy. And beyond the maybe the intimidating nature of the term artificial intelligence, what are other dimensions of fear that you see that could be real blockers or challenges for teachers and other people using this technology effectively?
into their own benefit.
Fadia Rostom (17:57)
Well, know, Jason, it’s like change. People say that all the time. It’s a cliche. Like change is hard. You know, I know that because I moved to a country where I had to change like everything. You know, I have to learn a new language. I got lost when I moved. We lived in Pennsylvania for a couple of years. I remember Jonestown. It’s called the flood city. And I remember being lost. I didn’t know how to get my own home for God’s sake.
Jason Gorman (18:19)
Gosh. ⁓ man.
Fadia Rostom (18:24)
I think change is really hard and I really understand it. really, in my heart, I understand how this can be hard and challenging. But we can’t act out of that. And there is fear. There is all the fear that comes with AI. The ethic, which is, those are like real subjects that we need to be talking about as a community. ⁓
Jason Gorman (18:41)
you
Fadia Rostom (18:52)
you know, the bias, you know, everything that comes with the package. So there is that fear of the unknown and the fear of the known that we don’t like. So it’s many layers of fear right there in education with AI. But we can’t do that. You know, I come from a country where fear controlled so much of our life. The things that you can say or not say, you know, even your dreams or what you can do.
You say the wrong thing in the wrong place and you don’t know where you will end up next morning. So, you know, we are here, like this is the United States. We have the privilege of being free, not just physically, but in our brain, you know, to challenge ourselves before we challenge anyone else. Like learn about it and then decide for yourself if this is something that I can adapt to or not. We owe it to our children.
You know, in the classroom, see, you know, I had hundreds of conversations with educators and curriculum leaders and, you know, administrators about like, we want the students to take risk. We want them to learn and, you know, experience and experiment and make mistakes and learn from those mistakes. But are we really modeling that, you know?
Jason Gorman (19:58)
Yeah.
Fadia Rostom (20:09)
If we have that potential for a tool that can enhance how we teach and how students learn two different concepts, as you know, if we have this opportunity, are we really breaching, you know, acting on what we breach? You know, if we want students to be brave and take risk and learn before making judgment, are we really modeling that for them? I don’t know.
Jason Gorman (20:18)
Mm-hmm.
And what about the other side of that coin? And perhaps this is only possible when that fear hurdle has been ⁓ leapt over. But what is the role of joy? Where do you see joy in this equation? And how do we need to think about joy when it comes to teachers and their use of AI, students and their use of AI?
Fadia Rostom (20:56)
You know, from my experience being in schools, hallways, and in the classrooms, I remember that many teachers had their awesome happy moments when the students raised their hand and asked a question. And it’s not happening. it’s just, know, students are not asking questions. So, you know, I think about what you just said and why do a teacher
Why does a teacher really like it when a student raise their hand to ask a question? Because they are engaged or maybe because the actual learning, the deep learning is happening. So our educators in general, whether they are scared of AI, whether they are spectacular about it, trust it, not trust it, they all share, in my opinion, the same passion.
to ignite students’ learning and passion for learning and curiosity. So I think probably that is one of the things that I look at often when I look into AI.
Jason Gorman (21:52)
Yeah.
And for teachers to do To do this. Well, I mean they work in a system every teacher works inside ⁓ They have a lot of autonomy, but they also do have to work with the system there are standards there’s leadership There are IT restrictions ⁓ What did teachers need in order to just be set up for success what kind of permission
do they need?
Fadia Rostom (22:27)
You know, I think the teachers need the same permission that teachers are giving the students. know, the teachers are giving permission to students to make mistakes and try something and ask questions. And, you know, I think the teachers need the same permission. doesn’t need to be, AI doesn’t need to be a whole new policy where we spend millions of dollars that we don’t have and the training time that we don’t have.
Jason Gorman (22:32)
Hmm.
Fadia Rostom (22:55)
a capacity that we don’t have. It can start with a unit. Give your teacher a permission to try to add something, ⁓ a little bit of freedom in that area. know it’s, and some people will argue or say, like, hey, Fadia, it’s easier said than done. This is very complicated. Okay, well, it is very complicated. Then we only have two options.
do nothing about it and generations and generations of children will grow up not knowing what to do with their life, not just learning what to do with their whole life. Because AI is not about like classroom walls. They’re just going to, you know, after that they have another life. ⁓ Or we can, you know, do everything we can as a community to figure out what is missing here. So I always recommend this to schools. say, you know, anyone who asks about an AI ⁓ policy,
Jason Gorman (23:24)
you
Fadia Rostom (23:51)
or a roadmap, like ready to go. said, this is actually ignorance because you need to look at who you are, who do you serve, your community, your resources, your team, and build from there. No one should deliver an AI policy to a school and be proud of themselves for that, in my opinion. I don’t know, this is a little bit strong.
Jason Gorman (23:58)
Mm.
Fadia Rostom (24:13)
But we are different, you know, we serve different population. have different teams. What is doable in my home district, Pittsfield is different from what is delivered in Linux, which is like 15 minutes from here. So I really think that we need, we need to look at, you know, our settings. What are our challenges? How can AI support us in one of those challenges? It doesn’t have to be everything or nothing.
Jason Gorman (24:24)
Hmm.
Yeah.
and that a teacher should, it sounds like what you’re saying is that a teacher should be able to…
Get interested in an application. Not feel constrained to just try it, give it a shot, see what happens. Give themselves the kind of low stakes opportunity to go and just do it and then see what the outcome is.
Fadia Rostom (24:58)
Yeah,
absolutely. I think that, you know, it’s, heartbreaking that, you know, I think Massachusetts just announced maybe yesterday or the day before, like free learning. think they, ⁓ operated with the AI hub, which is amazing. I’m, huh? You know, better late than never, ⁓ you know, offer free, ⁓ training and free resources. This is important. You know, this is important stuff.
Jason Gorman (25:15)
Yes. Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Fadia Rostom (25:26)
Everyone, whether they like to use AI or not, need to be educated about it. So imagine our educators, you we put our children in their hands since they’re like three years old. So I think it’s really important that everyone get a proper training. And, you know, on top of that, it’s very important that every educator have a little bit space to try something.
Jason Gorman (25:32)
Mm-hmm.
Fadia Rostom (25:54)
And the best way actually to try AI in my opinion in classroom is across subjects like interdisciplinary, because that’s where it works the best. I remember when I was a few years ago, I had, ⁓ it was not my idea. I wish it was. It was my math teacher idea. So she’s my math teacher. She was teaching ⁓ sixth, seventh and eighth grade. And she said, Fadia, I want to do a unit.
Jason Gorman (26:02)
Hmm. ⁓
Fadia Rostom (26:21)
where ⁓ I work with other teachers. So what she wanted to do is to host a Thanksgiving dinner. That’s my math teacher. And she said, I want to host a Thanksgiving dinner where the students ⁓ do everything. So they plan the Thanksgiving dinner. They buy the stuff. They calculate how many people are coming and how much they need to spend on this. They need to raise the money for it. And they need to create the ⁓
you know, the marketing materials and the invitations and on all of that. And then they actually have to set up the cafeteria for it and host. It’s amazing. So, you know, this is, this is kind of what AI can actually do in education. AI is not like one thing I like. It’s not like one thing like to teach in, in, like one subject. It’s actually, if, we look at it and the potential, it’s a way.
Jason Gorman (26:57)
great. Yeah.
Fadia Rostom (27:17)
to work across subjects and content and teach ⁓ our students what we stopped teaching a long time ago. And that’s critical thinking, connecting their knowledge, ⁓ retaining information when it’s needed, team leadership and team build and communication, collaboration and all of that. So that’s one way of doing it.
Jason Gorman (27:42)
And if, when you do this work, as you’re doing your work, how are you thinking about the conditions for success? And if things go well, ⁓ how will you know that your effort is kind of pushing things in the right direction for your community?
Fadia Rostom (28:02)
It’s funny that you asked that, Jason, because I was reading a book about AI in education. I should send that to you. Maybe you know it. But it’s a really wonderful book. And they were talking specifically about that, like measuring success. Like, how do we measure that what we’re doing is actually working? And I didn’t finish that part. That’s where I kind of stopped for the day.
Jason Gorman (28:25)
Mm-hmm.
Fadia Rostom (28:28)
You know, I thought about it a little bit and I think it’s, it’s hard, you know, we’re all talking about, okay, we’re going to adapt an AI tool or whatever, but like everyone is asking in the educational field, asking like, show me the data, like show me that this is going to work. Well, I’m sorry. You know, it might not work. It might not happen. This, this whole thing is new. There are good research, you know, other countries or another other states, even in the United States are ahead of ⁓ others, but there isn’t much.
Jason Gorman (28:32)
Yeah, it is.
Mm-hmm.
Fadia Rostom (28:56)
to depend on. And measuring success, I think this whole concept of measuring success, we really need to rethink it. Teaching to the test, which we’ve been doing for so long, is not working. It’s just absolutely not working. And we usually, but there’s the argument about if you cannot measure it, you can’t fix it. So we got a bit stuck with that as educator. But I think we really need to focus now on
Jason Gorman (29:03)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Fadia Rostom (29:24)
changing the way we look at success, because the whole world is changing and being, you know, interacted more together with the idea of success. You know, when my father was around in this world, his idea of success was like, I’m stuck with this work. I’m going to stay there until I retire. I’ll raise seven children, put them to college. And then, you know, that’s the best. And that’s my
Jason Gorman (29:48)
.
Fadia Rostom (29:51)
have worked for my father, good for him. He was a wonderful man and he raised all of us with hard work and good ethics. being in the same job until you retire might not be the case right now. So the challenge is measuring success. We can’t have the same measurement of success as in the best. And that’s one layer. And another layer to it is the whole
Jason Gorman (29:53)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Fadia Rostom (30:15)
The whole curriculum and what we teach and how we teach in schools need to be looked at like very deeply. And maybe we’ll figure out a way to, you know, to success. you know, I think that, you know, to answer your question, one simple way of measuring success is really the deep learning. You know, when we are educating students, the ultimate goal is for them to be able to have
meaning of what they learn. So if we can create, ⁓ you know, a curricula or a toolbox or a process to teach our students where they are actually able to make meanings of what they learn, then I think that would be a really good scale to measure.
Jason Gorman (31:05)
That’s fantastic. Well, I know things are going to keep changing in our field. ⁓ And I’m curious to hear your predictions about where things go next and what that might mean for teachers. This could be short term, could be longer term, your choice. But what do you think might happen?
Fadia Rostom (31:24)
You want to know what I think will happen or what I think should happen?
Jason Gorman (31:30)
⁓ Hmm. Well, I don’t know, maybe
both. What do you think will happen? What do you think should happen? I’d love to hear both.
Fadia Rostom (31:40)
Let’s
stick with the first question. I think is going to happen is, unfortunately, if we take the experience of the many, many years in education and how things have been progressing, in education, change takes a very long time.
Jason Gorman (31:42)
Okay.
Fadia Rostom (32:00)
And I think that the brave people who will ⁓ take that step and say, you know what, as leaders, we have this responsibility. ⁓ Unless they do that and make a big change on the curriculum and what we teach and how we teach and being close attention to individual.
⁓ learning and ⁓ all the skills that our children absolutely need to have to be successful and happy and productive. Unless we have those leaders, it’s just going to be taking a very, very, very long time. ⁓ And, you know, I hope that it doesn’t happen. I hope that more leaders will come to recognize that, you know, this is happening really quickly. really, this needs to be priority.
You know, it’s not something that we can wait until like we’ll see everyone like how did everyone else did with this? Those are our children, you know, we’re talking about and generations and generations of students, you know, might struggle because of the decisions that we make now. So ⁓ I think it will be probably slower in in many educational institute than others. But I am hopeful that it’s you know, it wouldn’t be bad.
And it would be faster and more people will take that responsibility and just be brave enough to do it. ⁓ So we’ll see.
Jason Gorman (33:30)
Let’s hope so. ⁓
Well, just a couple questions left. ⁓ This last one’s a little bit different. ⁓ I’m kind of curious about how sometimes people will take something from another field and understand how it
has an insight into in a place where maybe it was never meant to be. And I’m curious if there is some surprising place where you have borrowed an idea or a way of doing things that you find is important in your work.
Fadia Rostom (34:11)
I don’t know, I really didn’t think about that.
So can you elaborate a little bit, Jason? Maybe that will ignite something from my experience.
Jason Gorman (34:20)
Sure. Yeah, for me, maybe an example,
yeah, so maybe an example for me could be, ⁓
I was thinking ⁓ about choices, the sort of choices we make individually at work, and we have this notion that we have that one direction could be measurably better than the other direction, or that this is perhaps a very American thing that we think if we are very, very individual in our way of working, that if we kind of strike out on our own, this ⁓ is the path of greatest reward.
right when we are the most individual. And the thing that I think is a point of inspiration that serves as kind of a counterweight to that is the great and often misunderstood Robert Frost poem, The Road Less Traveled. So in that poem, people tend to think that poem is about taking the unworn path, but actually what the poem says when you look at the text of the poem, the paths are roughly the same in that whichever direction you take,
it’s you’re gonna there will be another fork just up the road again and we might like to think that we are taking some unique direction but very often these decisions that feel so important ⁓ very often are not as important as we as we think they are not as distinct as we think they are and I think this is a nice a nice way for me as I’m thinking about the future the kind of
dial back the importance in the moment that I feel about making a business decision or a personal decision in my life. So that would be an example that I have.
Fadia Rostom (35:57)
I love what you said, and it reminds me of a time where I had, ⁓ I think I was presenting for, I think it might be virtual, but a couple years ago. And the conversation about celebrating, ⁓ I think it was a presentation about ⁓ my journey as an immigrant. And ⁓ the concept of,
you know, celebrating your roots and where you are from. And, you know, as much as I really appreciate that, you know, I think everyone comes from somewhere. know, everyone has culture. You don’t have to have an accent to have a culture. You don’t have to have, you know, ⁓ different DNA to have a culture. Everyone have a culture.
Jason Gorman (36:33)
Sure. Yeah.
Ha ha.
Fadia Rostom (36:45)
And I remember thinking about it and I actually delivered keynotes about that with Neyask in Boston a few years ago. And the idea of celebrating who you are and where you come from and who you are as an individual, I often feel that you have to pick. So you either celebrate your roots or…
Jason Gorman (36:53)
Mm-hmm.
Hmm.
Fadia Rostom (37:08)
You know, you have to celebrate being integrated and impartificated. And I always never thought why I have to choose, you know, a tree can still have roots and the branches, know, ⁓ miles and miles away. So I think to me, and I really love what you said about, you know, celebrating who we are as individual, but
Jason Gorman (37:26)
Yeah.
Fadia Rostom (37:36)
I really think that we kind of lost sight of the most important thing and that’s celebrating what brings us together. Human beings are built and meant to be together, to be challenged together and figure out things together and challenge fear together and bring the joy of things back together. I think as a human being, we are wired to be together.
Jason Gorman (37:43)
Hmm.
Hmm.
Fadia Rostom (38:04)
And I’ve always focused on like, you I hear it all the time, know, celebrate our individualism and it’s awesome and it’s wonderful. But like what happened to celebrating what we have in common, you know, what brings us together, what everyone brings to the table doesn’t matter if it’s not serving their community or the humanity, honestly. Someone can accomplish everything in life and the best thing in life and unless it’s a book.
Jason Gorman (38:18)
Yeah.
Fadia Rostom (38:31)
You know, take for example a poem like the one you just said. It’s so beautiful, but it’s just beautiful because it means something to you and it resonate with you some way, somehow. So I really think that whatever we do, ⁓ it matters only because we reflect, we receive and we reflect. you know, taking it back to AI and the educational field, I think part of what move me is the most is
Jason Gorman (38:39)
Hmm.
Fadia Rostom (39:00)
You know, doing this together, it’s an opportunity for all of us, educators and policy makers and politics and everyone in between and students and families, to take this opportunity to just like, let’s come together as a community, whatever we are, and see what is not going well. Is there anything we can fix? How can we add what we should take away and how we work together and teach our children to work together?
Jason Gorman (39:28)
Fabulous. Okay, it’s my last question. ⁓ This comes from Louis NeJame Louis is the co-founder and the CEO of a company called Bevel.
Fadia Rostom (39:38)
I know Luis,
he’s a fantastic person.
Jason Gorman (39:42)
Well, perfect, good, that’s great. Okay, ⁓
I never know who knows who when they come on to this show, but that’s great, I’m glad you know Louis So his question was, what’s something that you believe about learning design or the field that you work in that most people would disagree with? So something you agree that most other people disagree with.
Fadia Rostom (39:50)
Okay.
gosh, Louis, Louis, Louis. You know, Louis and I come from, like we share a, you know, we come from, he comes from Lebanon, I come from Syria and those two countries are very similar in so many ways. So, you know, in Arabic, I don’t know if you’re familiar with the Arabic language, but we actually write from right to left. It’s not left to right. So, and I, you know, I always had so much fun.
Jason Gorman (40:08)
You
Yeah. Yeah.
a bit. Yes.
Fadia Rostom (40:33)
doing this scared the hell out of some of my students when I start writing and I still do it. And they’re like, my God, what is she doing? But to go back to your question, something that might, many of my colleagues might not really agree with is I really think that unless we can flip our whole.
attitude and thoughts about education in general, reverse the whole thing. I don’t really think that we are going to be getting anywhere. You know, we’ve been doing things the same way for ever. And unless we challenge reversing all of it altogether, I’m not sure that we will succeed with this. I remember ⁓ when I was a principal,
Jason Gorman (41:08)
Mm-hmm.
Fadia Rostom (41:21)
I got there and they said they used to have a program about teaching finance for third graders. So third graders would learn how to write a check and expenses and money and things like that. And they stopped it because lack of resources. And I said, we’re bringing that back because every child needs to learn about money and how to manage it.
Jason Gorman (41:27)
Yeah.
Fadia Rostom (41:45)
And eventually we, know, schools across the country start cutting so many programs that teach life skills. And I think, you know, one thing that many people might not agree with, you know, with me on is, you know, reverse this whole concept. Bring back the things that we cut without understanding how important they are.
Jason Gorman (41:53)
Yeah.
Hmm.
Fadia Rostom (42:11)
across interdisciplinary studies, not just when you go to college. It should start really, really early. So reversing the whole education system. Good luck with that. ⁓
Jason Gorman (42:23)
Good luck with that.
That’s great. I should have you on again with Andrea Flores. She had a very interesting take on how to shake up completely, completely rework the entire kind of K to 12, but then college and workforce training systems. It’s somewhat in line with your ideas there.
Fadia Rostom (42:47)
I would love to.
That would be.
Jason Gorman (42:51)
It would be great. Well, thank you so much for coming on the show, Fadia. I really appreciate your time. It’s been an incredible conversation.
Fadia Rostom (42:59)
Jason, thank you. I really appreciate this time. I’m glad that we got to coordinate the blue color. ⁓ It was a fascinating conversation and I really, really appreciate you reaching out and hearing me out.
Jason Gorman (43:07)
you