Why the “Conveyor Belt” Career Model Is Failing Kids with Corey Kossack

00:00
Speaker 1
Foreign.

00:03
Speaker 2
If you're using the conveyor belt method at your school to prepare kids for the future, you are failing your students. Here's how the conveyor belt method works. Next grade, next test. Here you go. Now you're in college and hopefully you fall into a career. Maybe you get married, have kids. You know, the perfect Disney like future life. That conveyor belt method was built to produce a stable workforce. A workforce that's now gone. If you are paying attention to the news right, AI is already displacing skilled, experienced professionals. Today, K12 needs to update the playbook. Your students don't need to take a personality test telling them what they will one day be. You'll be a teacher. You're an engineer. It doesn't work like that. They need a real system. Exploring the world of work, building a plan and climbing toward it.

01:01
Speaker 2
Corey Kossack from Orchard Careers joins me today. He's built exactly what our students need and addresses the gap between what most students offer their kids and what the platform actually does and how that will change how you think about career readiness entirely. Looking to create the kind of campus experience students never forget, ODP Business Solutions transforms ordinary spaces into extraordinary learning environments. Visit ODP business.com education and let's do school different. That's ODP business.com education school district challenges don't look the same everywhere right now. Some are seeing hiring improve. Others are still navigating staffing gaps and increasing demand. Frontline Education's 2026 K12 lens report helps connect those dots with insights from more than 1,000 school leaders nationwide.

02:11
Speaker 2
You can get the full [email protected] Lens leaders get the full [email protected] Leaders if you could differentiate instruction in 20 minutes or less, would you do it for all your students? Well, you can with IXL. Over 1 million teachers use IXL because it empowers them to use effective data informed instruction. And you can get started [email protected] leadership. That's ixl.com leaders this episode is brought to you by Kids First Education. Founded by career educators, Kids first partners with Pre K through 12 schools and districts to deliver instructional coaching, leadership development and curriculum support that puts students first. Real educators, real results. Learn more Kids First LLC. That's Kids First LLC. All right. And Corey, welcome to the show.

03:24
Speaker 1
Thanks for having me, Danny. Appreciate it.

03:26
Speaker 2
For sure. Let's start with. You know, you told me that your dad hated his job. What's that story?

03:33
Speaker 1
Oh man. Well, I mean, it's funny. I Didn't really appreciate the connection to this until a conversation with someone somewhat recently about just how much this drove my direction. But when I was growing up, my dad really hated his job, and he hated it so much that what he would do is he would work long enough to make enough money that he felt was sufficient to provide for the family for a limited period of time. Call it six months. I don't know what the calculus was. And basically, once he would get to that point, he would stop. And when I say he would stop, I mean he would stop. Like, I would see him every day just, you know, in the living room. He wouldn't go to his office. You know, he worked for himself, you know, solo practitioner doing finance stuff.

04:25
Speaker 1
And he just kind of fell into it, you know, like a lot of people do after school and whatnot. It wasn't his passion, but he felt like he needed to make money for the family and so on. And we would go through these cycles where he just didn't keep working until the point when things got so urgent financially that he was very concerned that, you know, weren't gonna. Gonna make it, like, we're gonna stay in the house and, like, stuff like that. And he would just go back and forth through these cycles. And this was persistent across my whole childhood. Really had an impact on kind of the environment in the house, the perspective of all the family members and stuff like that. Everybody handled it differently.

05:09
Speaker 1
And to me, this really just kind of opened my eyes to, number one, the idea that I didn't want my life to be like that. You know, I wanted to be more financially secure was one of the things. But also, like, I just wanted to have passion around what I did. I didn't want to feel stuck and forced to get up and go do something I didn't want to do every day. And that experience really led me to this concept of helping people who want to help themselves, which turned out to be theme of pretty much every venture I started throughout my lifetime. And now comes full circle with Orchard, where we're helping students in K12 figure out what they want to do with their lives and actually have a plan and go.

05:55
Speaker 1
Go climb to those goals instead of just falling into a job after school.

05:59
Speaker 2
Yeah. So important. That's a such a big question to answer too, right? Like, what's next and what do I want to do? Why? Like, you're obviously passionate about this problem to be solved, but why is it so critical today for K12 to help kids figure out what's next for them?

06:15
Speaker 1
Oh, you know, it's always been so important. I think if there weren't certain world events going on, I probably would still be doing this and beating the drum saying how important this is to sort of change the trajectory of our students. But right now, it is the most important time in certainly in my lifetime and probably in many lifetimes to do this, in part because AI is really transforming the workforce. This is not something that's overhyped. And I can say that because I'm really at the center of this in the world I'm surrounded with and software community and stuff like that. It is definitely not overhyped. And it is impacting the workforce today.

06:57
Speaker 1
Skilled, experienced people who are either losing their jobs or their jobs are declining in relevance, or they can't make the same money that they were making just a few years ago because they're just not as critical anymore when you have different dynamics in terms of how things can get done. And so as you think about that, we're at the very beginning of this. Right. So where does this go? It can go a lot of different ways. Whether it leads to widespread unemployment or it leads to just a shifting in how work gets done, who does what industries grow and what industries shrink, regardless of whatever those outcomes are.

07:43
Speaker 1
We can't rely on the old playbook of we're just going to push kids through school and have them have a predetermined path of going off to college and figuring it out in college and then getting into the workforce and climbing their way up or whatever. That model just doesn't work anymore. And it's not about college not working anymore. Like, there is a perfectly rational reason to go to college, but it is a step in the journey. It is not the destination. And there's just so much around this topic that needs to be addressed and needs. We need to be able to provide our students with frameworks to be able to figure this stuff out much sooner. And also I think just a mindset in education that this is not an extra thing. This is not a supplemental activity.

08:37
Speaker 1
This is like one of the biggest outcomes that will come out of education. And we can really bring. Bring this together with traditional school in a strong way, but we have to be bought into it.

08:51
Speaker 2
Right. I was talking with a friend who leads a, you know, was leading a marketing team.

08:58
Speaker 1
I won't name the.

08:59
Speaker 2
Name the company, but she had five direct reports. Right. A year ago, and now she has zero. Right?

09:07
Speaker 1
That's right.

09:08
Speaker 2
And it's. And it's her leveraging AI Getting stuff done. But it's wild, like how AI is impacting the workforce. Do you have any. I don't know that I want to put you on the spot and say, what are your predictions? Type of thing. But, you know, do you have any strong opinions about how it might be rewriting? You said some industries expanding, some shrinking. I mean, the one thing that I've seen out there that I think that I'll add from my point of view is certainly, I don't know what the role would be called, but almost like a AI conductor, right. So to speak.

09:42
Speaker 2
But if you have your team and you're making sure they're out there, the agents are doing the stuff that you want them to do, and then you're able to, I guess, manage them and so to speak, to get the work done. But, yeah, you're smarter than me. So what are you seeing that I don't know yet. And the listeners.

09:58
Speaker 1
I'm not, I am not smarter than you, but I have maybe more exposure to it. So I have a lot of thoughts. It depends on how long we want to talk about this. But I'll start with a few. Number one, yes, absolutely. There are, whether you call them GTM engineers, which stands for Go to Market engineers, is one of the industry terms now around doing AI work and implementing AI systems for the benefit of sales and marketing and stuff like that. There are different titles for it that kind of cut across operations. So there's no question that, that is a durable thing. And it's really just an evolution of other roles like revenue operations and some of these other internal roles that exist, especially in tech companies, to make things work more efficiently.

10:44
Speaker 1
But I think one thing that tends to happen, and this is maybe just like a human tendency or something, is that we love to say, what is the thing? Like, okay, it was tech and now it's trades. You know, like we do that pointing of like, this is the thing you need to go chase. And I really caution against that for a few reasons. But one piece of it is that. So trades right now is the hot thing. It's the hot thing because we live in a physical world and it demands physical things to be built. And robots not yet are filling all of that void. And also as an education system, we've historically kind of discouraged trades versus, you know, what they'd call white collar work or knowledge work. Right.

11:38
Speaker 1
We just don't have the student population or even the adult population that's like, I'm going to go do something in the trades.

11:45
Speaker 2
And.

11:45
Speaker 1
And so there's this big shortage. So I think in the near term, that is a very clear path to sustainable work. A lot of money, stuff like that's a bit different than it's been in the past. But I say near term. And I think when you start to think about it from an educator's perspective or even a parent's perspective, and you have students that are going to be going off into the world at varying points in time, even 10 years from now, which is a pretty long horizon for this stuff, that may not be the case anymore, right? It absolutely may not be the case anymore. And so what does that mean? How do we sort of figure this out?

12:27
Speaker 1
I think part of it is that the majority of people, and I don't just mean students, I mean adults, and I include myself in this, do not fully understand the breadth and depth of occupations that are being done today. We just don't. Like, we know of some things, like if somebody brings it up to you might say, oh, yeah, clinical. Clinical operations, like running clinical trials for pharma companies. Oh, yeah, that makes sense. Like that's a thing because they need to have people. But like, if I didn't bring it up, you know, probably no kid's gonna think about that. And so just as one random example, but there is so much out there today that kind of goes beneath the surface and is not thought of as a desirable job.

13:21
Speaker 1
And instead, we've kind of pointed everyone to a small subset of careers that are the, quote, unquote, good jobs. And even within them, we don't know what's beneath. Like, you ask a student about being an engineer and they're like, yeah, I'm going to be an engineer. You're like, which type? Like, there are different types of. Yeah, there's. I don't know, 17, maybe. Maybe more. Probably a lot more. And they're all different, Right. They're different careers and they're different pathways and different experiences. So I think that is one thing just to consider about how the future evolves, but to try and answer it a little bit more directly, number one thing that I think of is that there are going to be fewer mega companies and a lot more small companies.

14:11
Speaker 2
Yeah.

14:11
Speaker 1
And that could actually be a really good thing. And I think you have a perspective on it right. As the. As a capitalist and, you know, thinking about things in a different way. But. And so really having people with a variety of skills and kind of thinking less about this model of we have all These worker bees that are going to go to work and sit in their cubicles and do the stuff, I think there's going to be a lot less of that and a lot less hundred thousand person companies and a lot more small businesses with 10 employees that are going to do some pretty miraculous things.

14:56
Speaker 2
Yeah. Excited for that future you brought. Keep creator capitalist. I'll just show everybody here. This came out Tuesday, March 17, and I know this is releasing in the summer, but I do encourage Ruckus makers to pick it up. 1. I'm featured in there so you could hear a bit about my story. But also it's sort of helping, I think Ruckus makers think through how to prepare kids for the future too. And exactly what Corey was just talking about. You know, many more smaller sort of companies being launched by really interesting people. So to that point, you know, how do you think schools could help prepare kids for this ambiguous future?

15:35
Speaker 1
Yeah, so I think there's a bunch of things. Number one, the most important thing from my perspective is looking at this as an integral part of how education gets done. And I think this is a pretty big point of contention. There's people that believe in this and people that don't. And it's really not about tearing down the system that exists or throwing out all the academics or piling on a whole new wave of work and expertise for teachers. It's just connecting the dots and really bringing it to the forefront and not have it be an extra activity. So we think about this whole concept of career readiness and everything we're doing with ORCHARD around that and beyond, it comes to a few things one is exploring right now.

16:30
Speaker 1
You'll see a lot of personality assessments, interest inventory, these sorts of concepts to help with some of the important work that matters like getting to know yourself and some of these things. But it's effectively designed in many cases to be deterministic. Meaning that if you, Danny, fill out this survey that analyzes how you think and what you're interested in and stuff like that, it's going to say you are best suited for these careers.

17:02
Speaker 2
Right.

17:02
Speaker 1
And not only are those things largely inaccurate as evidenced by the real workforce of today, who is. Who are rapidly switching careers. And I know a lot about this topic and how painful it can be for people to pivot later in life, but not only is it largely inaccurate, but it misses so much of the point of we're not here to tell kids this is what you need to be. We're here to help them Understand how the world works, what the opportunities are that are out there for them, and figuring out what kind of life they want to have and how work and career and professional focus ties into that life and help them plan and go execute to climb to those goals that they have.

18:01
Speaker 1
And not just, hey, you're cruising along this conveyor belt and we're going to drop you off at the destination because it just doesn't work anymore.

18:10
Speaker 2
Yeah, you mentioned conveyor belts. I know you got an opinion on conveyor belt mode versus mentor mode and venture mode. What's that all about?

18:18
Speaker 1
Yeah, so, you know, as I mentioned in the beginning, as I sort of started pull the pieces together around how my own upbringing and everything that I did led me to deciding to dedicate my life to this. One of the things the exercises we did is really think about if a school was going to transform from the world of today, which we would call conveyor belt mode. And that's just traditional education, conveyor belt mode being all about that. We're helping students go to the next predetermined step. So that's the next grade, the next test, college, so on and so forth. Right. That we know the path and that these are the things you need to do. And so we just gotta get you through. And that's our job in education, is to get them through.

19:14
Speaker 1
And then at the end when they're dropped off conveyor belt, they're going to figure it out. They're going to have all the skills, they're going to have all the, you know, academic subjects mastered, they're going to have some good think ways to think and stuff like that, and they're just going to be fine and they're going to be great out there. The, the truth is just really far from that. And so when we think about if a school were school or the overall school system were to transform from that to a new way that really brings it together, that would be venture mode. And the steps in the middle are simulation mode and venture mode. And so I'll talk about those just briefly.

19:53
Speaker 1
So simulation mode is really the point at which it becomes standard practice at a school or a district or whatever to help students explore all of these opportunities that will exist to them, including things they've never heard of and things that they have heard of but they don't understand. And so simulation mode really means, like we're stimulating what it would be like to do those things. And that's as simple as having them have a window into what it's like to be that person, not just the one doing the job of like running the clinical trial, but like what is my life like, right? Like do I get to go home and see my family? Am I like in a lab all day?

20:37
Speaker 1
Am I like what are, what are all these things that come with this life of doing this work and the path that I'm on and so on at like a really deep like human level, right? Because the, though there's a world of information at our fingertips, but it's hard to really like get a sense of what it's like to do these things. And so in simulation mode, like this is deep into the fabric of what school does. And, and it's not just a one off activity, but like students are really exploring and really understanding, you know, sort of what's out there. And Mentor Mode goes a step further in that, you know, I think most people would agree that finding a mentor is like a really important and impactful thing. And so we love to give that advice, right? Like go find a mentor.

21:28
Speaker 1
It's really hard to find a mentor, especially a mentor that is well suited to your ambitions, to your needs, that can give you enough of what it is that you're seeking and so on. And so there are a lot of school systems that do really great work with what they're dealing with to pair students up with mentors and mentorship opportunities. But it's just really hard to execute. And even the best out there, it just falls pretty far short. And so part of what we've done with Orchard to fill that gap is filming people across an incredible array of occupations so that people can really understand what it's like behind the curtain and they can get some guidance as to how to connect what they're doing to where they want to go.

22:20
Speaker 1
Today, the last one, Venture Mode, I know it sounds like everyone's going to start a startup. No, it's not that. That is definitely a path, something, a path that I know about. I know all the great things about it and I know all the brutal things about it, but this is really about getting out there and doing stuff. So I think in current terms it might be something like work based learning or internships or whatever. This is really about doing something, whether it's starting a business, joining as an intern, doing a project, any of that kind of work, that would be stuff that you'd actually do out the world. That's what Venture Mode's about.

23:02
Speaker 1
And again, it's not like a lot of times people that do this stuff, they're the kids that are just after school, they're like, hey, I gotta go, I gotta do some stuff. I'm gonna go just create this project and create this thing and do my side and whatever. It's really not that it's about school actively encouraging this and seeing this as part of the learning that takes place. How to succeed, how to fail, how to transform, come up with new ideas, how to put skill and academic subjects in practice to build something valuable and deliver something valuable. These are the things that are going to set the students truly apart. And so that is the future. I think that is the transformation that K12 is going on slowly but surely to really bring this into how we teach, right.

24:00
Speaker 2
ODP Business Solutions, formerly Office Depot Business Solutions Division, has been a trusted partner for schools for 30 years. At ODP Business Solutions, we're by your side to meet your evolving education needs. Picture this A learning environment so engaging students forget to check their phones. Sounds impossible. That's exactly what we helped Belago Academy create. Their secret working with ODP Business Solutions to build collaborative spaces that actually work. We didn't just deliver furniture, we delivered a completely new way of learning. From tech integration that makes lessons come alive, to flexible spaces that adapt to any teaching style, to sustainable solutions that reduce your carbon footprint. We're here to help you do school different. And the best part? You get it all from a single supplier. All to help you simplify ordering and streamline budgeting while staying compliant with easy access to cooperative contracts.

25:04
Speaker 2
However you want to advance. ODP Business Solutions has 30 years of experience helping districts like yours get ahead. Visit ODPbusiness.comeducation to learn more. That's ODPbusiness.com education staffing, student support Operations Technology these challenges are often discussed separately, but they're deeply connected. Frontline Education's 2026 K12 lens report helps bring those connections into focus, showing how districts are navigating multiple pressures at once. With insights from over 1,000 school leaders, Frontline Education's K12 Lens report offers a clearer view of what's changing and how leaders are adapting their strategies. Explore these insights by visiting FrontlineEducation.com leaders Get the insights of over 1,000 school leaders at FrontlineEducation.com leaders as a school leader, time is your greatest resource, and there is a real sense of urgency when it comes to getting students what they need right now. That's why I love IXL's universal screener.

26:28
Speaker 2
In 20 minutes or less, you can identify students in need of intervention. And IXL's Learning Adaptive Platform makes differentiating instruction easy. As students learn, IXL adjusts to the right level of difficulty for each individual student. Get started [email protected] leaders that's ixl.com leaders. Better leaders build better schools. And the best leaders don't do it alone. This episode is supported by Kids First Education. Founded by career educators, Kids first partners with Pre K through 12 districts and schools to strengthen teaching and leadership from the inside out. Through personalized instructional coaching, leadership development and curriculum support, they help teams make data driven decisions that improve student outcomes. Their approach is built on collaboration, reflective planning, shared problem solving and a relentless focus on what's best for kids. Whether you lead a single building or an entire district, Kids first meet your team where they are.

27:45
Speaker 2
See how they can support your school or your system. Kids First LLC. That's Kids First LLC. Well, I know you mentioned prior to the question about here conveyor belt mode and mentor mode, simulation and venture on how like the traditional path is. Oh, take this survey. It's going to kind of determine a path for you based on your personality and like you're the perfect fit for being a teacher or whatever. Obviously you take a different approach at Orchard. And by the way, Ruckus maker, you go to Orchard Careers to just see what Corey and the team's all up to. But I'd love to invite you to show us. Right.

28:32
Speaker 2
And for folks that are listening to the audio version of this pod, you know, maybe hop over to YouTube and check out this as well because I'm sure we'll talk about what we're seeing as you demo Corey. But you know, visually I think it'd be very interesting to see how Orchard operates. So. Yeah, why don't you pull that up. Yeah. And show us under the hood.

28:54
Speaker 1
Yeah, sure. Happy, happy to do it. I'll do my best to keep it brief but and to narrate a bit for those that can't see. So what I'm showing now on Orchard, this is kind of like the place where students will land. So the idea behind Orchard is that it is a AI career counselor paired with original content like deep stories and like personal stories and overviews of how they've gotten to where they are, what it is like to do their occupation and so on and so forth. And so we've blended a couple of different things to help students explore the world of work and focus in on what matters to them and then create plans with the help of Porci Their AI career counselor. So basically what most students will do is start to explore. So on the left here you're seeing Orchi.

29:59
Speaker 1
One of the things that's great about this is that you can start with anything like a predetermined prompt, like what kind of careers will help me feel like I'm building a legacy? Or can you show me careers that are going to be in demand in 10 to 20 years? And so things that just start to get students juices flowing or they can type anything they want and it can be as simple as I like art or something really nuanced, like I'm interested in the medical field but I don't want to be a doctor. What high earning and fulfilling careers exist for people without a medical degree? All right, so like this could be anything, right?

30:48
Speaker 1
And so the very first thing that Orci is going to do is prepare an exploration and an exploration for those that can see the screen in a moment or right now you can see there's one already saved there. Innovative tech careers for creative minds. You'll see more of these as they pop up. But effectively an exploration is a custom tailored group of careers that fit some kind of theme. And these are all on the fly. So this one is high earning medical careers without an md and you see physician's assistant, nurse practitioner, physical therapist, occupational therapists, speech language pathologist. And effectively students can go in and see deep info about specific careers or in conjunction they can actually go and start checking out content that we film. So we have this short form TikTok style content that we have here.

31:47
Speaker 1
For example, this is the clinical operations thing I talked about. You know, this guy runs clinical labs for, you know, pharma companies testing out drugs and stuff like that. And basically you get to learn about that role and everything behind it. They can go from here, something catches their interest and go pop in to learn more about the career. Or they can scroll, right? And so you can scroll different types of roles that might be interesting to them, that are all along these lines. Now let's say that, you know, isn't necessarily the thing they wanted to do. They always go back to Orchi, refine, add stuff. This is not intended to be deterministic. It is a starting point to, you know, really get them in and get them going.

32:35
Speaker 1
And so if you were to look at say these explorations that get saved, it's cool because you end up in a situation where you're not necessarily as a student thinking I'm going to go into Health care. I'm going to go into tech and I need to figure out which ones or I'm going to be a doctor or I'm going to be an engineer instead. You start thinking about, I want an innovative tech career for people that are creative, right? And so that becomes my criteria instead of just something really narrow. And part of doing that means that you get to look at things like, oh, like robotics engineer, okay. And so we have up to date and this is really important, like up to date information that continues to update over time as trends in the workforce changes and whatnot about specific careers.

33:24
Speaker 1
And this sort of like encyclopedia style stuff, right, where you can get through everything related to what are the different industries that like use, utilize this occupation. What are different career paths. You look at something like a robotics engineer, you could be a lot of things, right? What is a mechatronics engineer, controls engineer. All of those things actually roll up into being a robotics engineer components. And you can specialize in AI and computer vision and medical robotics, like. And so this very simple example shows you just how little we are all understand about many of the occupations out there. And we go into pros and cons, the skills you need, you know, the money you can make, all that kind of stuff that you would expect to see in something like this now where it starts to get even more interesting.

34:21
Speaker 1
And by the way, Danny, if I go too long on this stuff, I'm finding this fascinating.

34:26
Speaker 2
So, you know, and I think I represent somebody who's engaging with this content too. And I think also if they want to explore options for how to best prepare kids for a rapidly changing world with a very ambiguous future, like this is this shows one way to do school different, right? And yeah, I just, I think it's really cool what you're doing here. And to be clear too, right, like we met on LinkedIn and we've had a couple calls and I was like, come on the show. This seems interesting what you're doing. And here we are. So yeah, very cool.

35:03
Speaker 1
Thank you. So back to the explorations. I think it's just incredibly awesome is you can take this. So an exploration, right? It's this whole like cluster of careers, right? So we have 12 careers in this specific one around innovative tech careers for creative minds. What if you wanted to compare compensation across these careers? Not just two, but 12, right? You do this and boom. Orchi's gone boom, boom, boom. Here's a ranking of these things around compensation amongst this group of occupations and you can do this across literally anything that you want to do. But think about the depth and speed of information here is just unbelievable. I mean I just geek out on it and so just wanted to show that as one quick example from here we sort of look into focusing, right?

35:58
Speaker 1
And so in this demo I'm showing you like there's only one career saved at the moment, but you can easily save lots of careers and kind of have this here. It's like this is my space where I'm going to go and check this out. But the newest thing here is the action plan. So the way this works is that if I am, and I have this here in this demo, that I am an 8th grader and in the state of Wisconsin and that's sort of my state of being. And I, I've identified not necessarily that I'm going to be a robotics engineer, but that it is one of a number of careers that I might consider actually pursuing. And I want to understand what would be required to actually do that. And so the action plan is the thing that helps me do that.

36:45
Speaker 1
So the very first piece of this is we think about post secondary education right now in traditional school we're thinking a lot about this and like this is the way is the four year degree and for a lot of people it will be. But this very specifically says if I want to be a robotics engineer, what are my options for education? And we break this down here. Cost, pros and cons, duration. You'll notice that one of the first two that pops up is military, right? That is not something that will pop up in most situations, but it pops up here because robotics plays a huge role in the military. Going, doing dangerous operations, helping soldiers that have been injured and need robotic limbs and things like that.

37:31
Speaker 1
And so it pops up kind of to the forefront of like this is an actual pathway to being in this like really in demand technology career. And then you know, you can go look through all the pathways, but let's just say they're like, yeah, I'm, you know, I'm going to, I want to go to four year school, I'm going to go to college, I'll go and pick that. Which they don't have to do. They can remain undecided, but they can pick it. And the first thing Orgy is going to do is start to ask a few personalized questions to tailor the action plan. Like everything we do, this is not about being deterministic. This is not. Here is every little step you're going to Take this is. This is one way you might go about it.

38:13
Speaker 1
And you can have a starting point and sort of tailor. So first question, how many, how much experience you have with robotics or building things? Like, I'm totally new to this. I just, I just thought it was cool. How much time can you dedicate to building robotics skills each week? Well, I don't know, let's say three to five hours. How do you think you would learn best? I'd like to work with others in clubs or build an experiment with my own projects, let's say. And then what's your biggest concern? And you know, it could be about paying for college and the education required.

38:46
Speaker 2
It could be say you don't have access because. Right. Let's say I'm a student that is coming from a background that just lacks access to a lot of stuff like this. So I'd be interested in what it says.

39:01
Speaker 1
Yeah. So basically just like that, in about 20 seconds, orgy is going to create an initial action plan. And this is tailored, right? I mean, depending on where they are both in their learning journey, their experience with the topic or the career kind of at hand and you know, their grade and all of that stuff. What are things they can do today? Right. Not just what schools can you go to, what things can do today. So the very first thing of course is explore free online robotics resources and start a beginning robotics project using household materials. And so this basically starts to point to specific resources they can use to accomplish this. Before I go deeper into that specific one, I'll just scroll a little bit and you'll see like about researching school robotics clubs and other like after school things.

39:58
Speaker 1
Strong math and science foundation. So we're connecting academic subjects to a goal which is the best way to motivate kids and learning more from people who are doing this today. Taking advanced stuff. Basically there's a bunch of different things here that are in this action plan that students will work through here. So this is like their command center. This is their. It's not the checklist. This is like, this is your guide to kind of go through here. So let's say I'm the eighth grader and I'm going to start. The very first thing I can do here is I can click this little button and ORCI is going to zero in on that milestone and help me. So I could say something as simple as what are the first steps I should take? I don't know the first thing about doing this.

40:47
Speaker 1
And Orchi goes boom. Here we go. Let's get Started.

40:53
Speaker 2
So I think the milestone was explore free online robotic resources. And then Corey clicked that button and now it's given a. A very precise plan that a student could follow to. Yeah. Deliver on that milestone.

41:09
Speaker 1
Yeah. And so I'll kind of stop here with regards to demo. We can get back to the rest of the conversation. But what I'll say is you can start to see, and maybe by the time this airs, this will be completely transformed already, but you can start to see how this becomes a jumping off point to the community around them and the opportunities available to them today to help them get on that path. And then they can discover those things, curate those things, work through it. And potentially as part of this, they figure out that this is not what they want to do.

41:46
Speaker 2
Right.

41:46
Speaker 1
And they still have plenty of time to go course correct and do something else. And so. So, yeah, so that's just kind of a quick preview on Orchard. Thanks for indulging me.

41:59
Speaker 2
No, it was great. I think very thorough. You know, Orchard careers. Check it out. Ruckus makers. And the thing that I'm interested too, like, it's more personalized, right. To. To where the students are, like you said, it does. It's not trying to filter you this one path. Kids can pivot. And then I also think too, you know, counselors are overworked. Right. Let's. That's a sad fact. They want to get into it, help kids, that kind of thing. But every school I was a part of, they did their best to see kids and be available and did absolutely heroic work. Right. And they're asked to do a lot of other stuff that doesn't seem very related to counseling. And it's just hard. Right. And then what do you do, you know, what do you do with that challenge?

42:46
Speaker 2
And I think here's a really great use case to bring in technology to support those heroes on campus and at the end of the day, you know, prepare kids for the future, setting them up for success. So, yeah, that was great. Appreciate it.

43:01
Speaker 1
Absolutely. I mean, it's for counselors, it's a partner in crime to, you know, even. Even for their own discussions with students. Right. So students can bring their action plans in to counselors, parents, collaborate with them on it. But even in the absence of that, how would you possibly expect a counselor to know all of these things? Right?

43:23
Speaker 2
Sure, sure.

43:24
Speaker 1
Even if, even if the workforce was static, industries were static, I don't know all the things. And I'm out here in the middle of so much of it. How is A counselor going to know all these things, it's impossible. Right, right. And so especially as the world keeps changing and AI keeps changing things, it's impossible to keep up with it. So now counselors have a resource to be able to tap into for all of this stuff and a much better way to support students in the journey. And the last thing I'll say on this that I think is really core to how I think about the transformation, at least, is why do we put it all on counselors? Why does it all have to be on counselors? Counselors can help, they can counsel.

44:09
Speaker 1
But, like, we can bring this into the classroom, and we're doing that right. In terms of how you connect a specific subject to certain types of careers and do it in a way that's just part of the fabric of how we educate. And so, yeah, so I'm excited about that future taking shape.

44:29
Speaker 2
Brilliant. Well, let's get to the questions that everybody answers here at the end of the show. And starting off with Corey. If you could put one message on all. All school marquees around the world for a single day, what would that message be?

44:42
Speaker 1
Don't fall into your future. Climb to it.

44:45
Speaker 2
And if you could build your dream campus, you weren't limited by any resources. Your only constraint was your ability to imagine what would be the three guiding principles creating your dream campus.

44:57
Speaker 1
So number one would be everything we teach directly connects to the outside world and in an overt way. Right. So it not only connects, but we are communicating how it connects, and we're helping students see those things together. So an academic subject no longer is just something that they're memorizing or they're trying to master. And then they say, I know how to read. Why am I doing this? Why am I reading more? I already know how to read. Right. It's like making those connections. So that's. That's one. Two is college is not the destination. It is a step in the journey for people who are looking for a specific outcome. The third one is that we spend more time applying concepts and less time testing.

45:50
Speaker 2
Well, we covered a lot of ground today. Corey, on the show, of everything we discussed, what's the one thing you want a ruckus maker to remember?

45:58
Speaker 1
For me, it's that you don't have to choose between preparing students for a rapidly changing world and instilling excellent academics and preparing them with that foundation. A lot of times these are thought of as disparate things that are disconnected. And there's so much contention I see, at least in the least part of the country. There's so much contention around, like sort of attacking the school systems and what's gone wrong and how it needs to change and all of that stuff. And that just leads to this combative thing that is not necessary. I think we can all agree we would like our students to be prepared for the future. We would like them to understand their options and make deliberate decisions and not have massive regrets and have to untangle these things and end up in a situation that is not what they anticipated.

46:58
Speaker 1
I think we could all agree with that. And so you don't have to choose between those things. You can combine them and you can really bring education into a new era of in public school, too, right? We're not just talking about private school, niche education stuff. Like private schools do this stuff too. Private, charter, public, any type of educational institution can do this. And it really comes to the leaders, to the Ruckus makers, to lead the rest of your staff, your teachers, and say, this matters and this is at the core. This has to be at the core of what we do. And we can do it in a really smart way and we can make a huge impact. So that is the one thing I want to leave you with.

47:53
Speaker 2
Hey Ruckus Maker, thanks again for pressing play. I hope you enjoyed this show as much as I enjoyed recording it. And before you go, if today's episode shifted something for you where you want to do school different or you have a new idea about education, then I want to invite you to subscribe to ruckusmakers News. That's our newsletter. And you get three new opportunities to do school different every week sent to your inbox. It's trusted by over 5,000 school leaders. And if you want to reimagine education within a traditional setting so that you could create a campus experience worth showing up for, subscribe for free at Ruckusmakers News.

48:55
Speaker 1
Sam.

49:21
Speaker 2
Sa.

  Transcribed by https://fireflies.ai/