New View EDU Episode 12: Full Transcript

Read the full transcript of Episode 12 of the NAIS New View EDU podcast, in which Ruth Wylie, assistant director for the Center for Science and the Imagination at Arizona State University, joins Tim Fish and Lisa Kay Solomon to share some of the innovative and creative ways in which she and her colleagues have made complex futures thinking accessible and meaningful to students of all ages.

Lisa Kay Solomon: Ruth Wiley is the assistant director of the Center for Science and the Imagination and an associate research professor in the Mary Lou Fulton teacher's college at Arizona State University. Ruth's work focuses on bringing knowledge and insights from theory and laboratory studies to answer real world problems in interdisciplinary ways.

Recent projects have included a reimagination of Frankenstein to explore modern day ethics questions, and a groundbreaking exhibit at the Smithsonian called Futures. We are so excited to have a conversation with Ruth about imagination and possibilities. Ruth, welcome to New View EDU.

Ruth Wylie: Thanks for having me.

Tim Fish: Ruth, you work in one of the coolest places, or at least it's got one of the coolest names, in what I think is one of the most exciting universities right now in higher ed, Arizona State. I hear the name all over the place and the exciting work that's taking place. So the Center for Science and Imagination, what stuff do you all work on at CSI? 

Ruth Wylie: Yes, I couldn't agree more. I love the work that we do. So at the Center for Science and the Imagination, our mission is about igniting the collective imagination for a better future. And we do this through a number of research and outreach projects. So at our core, what we're really about is bringing together interdisciplinary groups of people. So science fiction writers, graphic artists, researchers, experts, scholars, to think collaboratively and deeply and imaginatively about big global issues. 

Tim Fish: You know, it reminds me of, like, Frans Johansson's work in a book called The Medici Effect, where he talks about this idea of the intersections, right? Bringing people together with vast different areas of expertise, different ways of seeing the world, and smashing them together. Is that, do—is that a little bit of what you all do?

Ruth Wylie: In the pre-COVID times, what we would try to do is bring people together to collaborate in the same physical location. So they would put aside their regular day jobs and come to Arizona State University for a few days to engage in deep conversation with people from lots of different disciplines, lots of different areas, and then produce great stories and produce great reflections. In the current times, of course, we've had to pivot like everyone and we've been working on adopting our methodologies to align with a more asynchronous Zoom based space.

And it turns out that it's still possible. You can create these really great imaginative spaces when you set the tone, when you set the goals. And most importantly, when you bring the right people together. 

Lisa Kay Solomon: Ruth, I think it's really interesting to hear about the origin story of the Center for Science and Imagination. I mean, it really captured my attention when I heard it. And I wonder if you could just share that briefly. 

Ruth Wylie: I love this story. So thank you for asking this question. So the center started because of an essay that the science fiction writer Neal Stephenson wrote over a decade ago, titled Innovation Starvation. And in it, he argued that as a society, we're not doing big things. We're not doing enough big things.

When he was growing up, there were these big infrastructure projects. There was the space race. And he said, you know, it used to be that our greatest scientists and engineers and minds wanted to work for NASA. And now they want to work on optimizing advertising algorithms, and something was wrong. We needed to reignite the spark. And he was sharing these thoughts at a panel, and ASU president, Michael Crow was on the same panel, and he got up after Neil spoke and said, you know, you're definitely right. I 100 percent agree. But this is partly your fault too. He said, you know, part of the problem was that we didn't have great stories to inspire us. And like we like to say at the center, we can't have better futures without better dreams. And so it's about creating those better dreams. It's about creating those better stories. And so this conversation between Neal Stephenson and Dr. Crow led to several more conversations and thinking about what an academic response to this might be, what could a place like ASU do to reignite that spark? Ed Fenn, who's the founding director of the center, pitched an idea and also came up with, Tim, like you mentioned, the great title of the Center for Science and the Imagination, and thought of a place where people could come together, again from many different disciplines, different lived experiences, different backgrounds, and provide the space and the time and the resources to collaboratively imagine together. 

Lisa Kay Solomon: I love that story because it's really a call for the future. I mean, it's sort of saying not just, Hey, we're not thinking imaginatively enough, but they do something, let's do something about it. And Michael Crow really is a visionary. I wondered, Ruth, if we take that call of purpose, right. Of really bringing dreams and imagination at the forefront of education at the higher ed, and try to imagine it in the K-12 level.

What could you imagine that that might look like? So in essence, if we had a Center for Science and Imagination embedded within every school, what could you envision?

Ruth Wylie: Oh, so much. I think that even, you know, at maybe the most basic, but also perhaps some of the most profound, is to start to think about how to get futures thinking and foresight anticipation into our K-12 curriculum. So starting to encourage our young people to think about what are possible futures for themselves, but also getting away from the individual level and looking about what are possible futures for our communities, for our countries, for our world.

And so if we can start to introduce these ideas and these methods into our young people, then that will have a great impact on whatever future discipline that they go into. 

Tim Fish: When I think of a lot of schools, I think if we said we're going to create a Center for Science and Imagination, I think actually one of the things I would notice is that many places, a center for science and then a different place for a center for imagination. That often the two aren't necessarily co-mingled in there, in the way we think about them.

Right? And then the second piece for me is the part that you talked about with the essential nature of story being woven into that. And I wonder about story being an on-ramp to futures thinking for students, because I think often when we think about how can we help students think about their future, I think we miss the opportunity to think about story and science fiction and other ways for them to put themselves in that context. 

And one of my questions is what's the way to do that, right? What are some methods by which we can actually introduce that for students? 

Ruth Wylie: Yes. If we're going to start to think about how to bring futures thinking into education, I think one thing that's really important is that we don't see it as something new that's coming into the classroom, but we see it as taking what we've already done and putting a futures thinking perspective to it.

So it's not about necessarily adding a class on futures, because one, which school has time to do that, there's already so much in the curriculum. When we're thinking about how to bring futures thinking into current educational systems, it's not about thinking about how to replace something, but it's about how to integrate into our existing structures. 

So for example, in an English class, it might be about critically reading science fiction, or it might be about producing science fiction. And in this way, we can help young people imagine possible futures, and particularly we can help them imagine their roles in them. But it also goes beyond just an English class. So we could look at how to bring futures in a history class, or a social studies class, because when we're talking about futures, we're not just imagining what could be, but we're telling a continuous story.

So when we're talking about futures, it's also about reflecting on our histories, our past, the indigenous knowledge. It's reflecting on what's happening today. And then it's about thinking about futures. So again, it's not about just creating a brand new course and hiring brand new teachers, but it's about creating a culture of futures thinking and embedding that into our everyday classroom practice. 

Lisa Kay Solomon: Ruth, I love that so much. And I think you've, you're already doing that. And I want to use that as a segue to the Frankenstein project that you did. So a couple of years ago, CSI led some incredible integrated work about, as you said, taking something that's already embedded in a lot of classrooms and a lot of literature examination of Frankenstein, and celebrating the 200 year anniversary in a way of bringing it to a modern context.

And I wonder if you could just talk a little bit about that project. I mean, really Mary Shelley here, she was a 19-year-old science fiction writer from 200 years ago, that imagined a future that we're kind of grappling with today. So I wonder if you could talk about that project a little bit and how you brought it to existing learning environments. 

Ruth Wylie: So our National Science Foundation project used Mary Shelley's Frankenstein as a way to engage young people in conversations about science, ethics, and responsibility. So this is a 200 year old novel, but the themes from that story really resonate today. When we think about what are the unintended consequences of technology, who should be responsible, and scientific ethics.

So what we did was we took those themes and we created a set of tabletop activities that were deployed over 50 children's museums and science museums around the country. And what they did was they encouraged young people to do a making activity or a building activity, or watch a demonstration, and then reflect on the implications.

And again, we did this with a great group of collaborators. I was part of the research team, but we had a, a large group led by Rae Ostman in terms of building these projects and thinking about what the questions could be to get at this deeper level of thinking. And my favorite example to share is using a scribble bot. And a scribble bot is, for folks that don't know, is a pool noodle that's been cut into about one foot, in one foot segments. And then to that pool noodle, you use rubber bands to attach markers. You can decorate it, give it a face, give it a personality, whatever you want. And then we take a electric toothbrush that we buy at the dollar store, put that in the middle of the pool noodle, turn it on, and the vibration starts to make the whole thing shake. You put that on a piece of paper, pop off the marker caps. And all of a sudden you have this entity that's starting to shake around and create art. And hopefully I can send some images so that we can show people what we're talking about. 

So this activity is really fun in its own right. Right? Kids are creating, they're often creating with their parents or caregivers that are with them, and they're building this. But then this is where I think the really interesting questions come in, because then a facilitator can ask a question, like, is this art? And then we can start to say like, well, does art require intentionality?

You know, what, what is the definition of art? And if this is art, who's the artist? Is it this piece of styrofoam and electric toothbrush? Or is it you, because you're the one that chose the colors and put it together? Again, we're asking these questions not to get to a right or wrong answer, but we're asking these questions to engage people in, in this type of thinking. And then we move on to say, okay. So if somebody came in and offered a million dollars for this drawing, who should get that money? Should it be you? Should it be this, again, piece of styrofoam and collection of markers? 

And here's where some of our experiences show some really interesting and creative responses. I had a group of fourth graders that developed a really intricate trust system. So they said I would get the money, but I would make sure that the scribble bot got all the markers that it needed.

But then we also ask okay, so, you know, a lot of people are like, well, when money's on the line, you know, I'm the one who did this and I should get that money, but we can also ask a question, what happens if your scribble bot accidentally turns itself on and draws all over your homework or your parents' couch? Now what happens? And this, you know, it's a fairly simple question. And what we try to do is we ask questions that are easy to understand, so even our youngest learners can understand them, but they're hard to answer. So when we ask this question to a five-year-old, they kind of step back for a minute. But we also see that their parents, older siblings, grandparents, pause for a minute as well, and start to think about the implications of this.

And often we get responses like that's not what I wanted it to do, I meant for it to create that million dollar art. But now you're telling me it accidentally destroyed something? And depending on the age of our learners, we can start to get into conversations like driverless cars. And what happens if they cause a fatality? Again, it's not what was intended to happen, but who should be responsible for that?

And so with these simple activities, by starting with fun and with playfulness, we can use that as leverage to engage in these deeper conversations. So we created a number of these activities, deployed them in science museums and children's museums around the country. And then we also worked with some local middle schools to use these activities within their science curriculum in order to understand the impacts, both on the way that students perceive science and scientists, but also how they perceive science ethics. 

Lisa Kay Solomon: Ruth, what I love about that is that you are really taking what's available already, and threading in these new ways of thinking about the future and the ethical questions and all of the practices embodied with futures thinking, but not in a way that is arduous or, or in another thing to do, taking existing materials of noodles and toothbrushes, and then using the environments of whether it's art or science or, you know, something in between that's already existing to start to explore this territory and making it available early. I mean, I always think like we can't expect to be masters at things we haven't practiced. So practicing those difficult conversations early, it's just such a powerful way of thinking about threading this in what's already available. What already exists within schools.

Ruth Wylie: Yeah, and I think to pick up on that a little bit, this idea about practice both as something that we need to try out and do many times, but also practice as something that doesn't have a right or wrong answer. And I think particularly when we're thinking about futures, it's more of a mindset and it's more about getting into a daily practice, an hourly practice, of thinking through how might this impact myself in the future, but then again, going beyond that, how might that impact my community? My neighbors? And starting to instill in everyone this idea of thinking through not just personal implications, but also broader societal implications.

Tim Fish: Yeah, Ruth, when I was doing some prep for this amazing conversation, I discovered that you have your PhD from Carnegie Mellon university in human computer interaction. So like, that was super cool. And I was like, what is a PhD in human computer interaction? And what do you think about where we are now in a world— I mean, I can't, the amount of human computer interaction is incredible. You know, yesterday I was walking through my living room and I noticed that the little echo we have had this orange light running around on the top of it. And I said, Alexa, read my notifications. And she said, I noticed that you may need some decaf coffee beans. Would you like me to reorder those? And I said, sure. And I thought to myself, like AI is here, right. This idea of like, what's the world going to be like when we have AI or what's the world gonna be like when we have a completely transparent human computer interaction. So what's your thoughts on the world we're in today, from your very expert opinion?

Ruth Wylie: Well, one of the things that I feel I've benefited most from doing my PhD in human computer interaction was learning different methodologies to work with people from all different fields and spaces. And so when you're trying to tackle these questions around what might future technologies be, how to design them to better integrate into the world we live in or the world we want to live in, this is not a question that can be answered by one person. It requires expertise from a number of different people. And so that to me is one of the threads and the work that I did as a PhD student. And also the work that I do now about integrating that, if we're going to come up with good solutions, we need to have lots of people at the table. And not just credentialed experts, not just people with degrees or letters after their name, but people also with differentiated lived experiences. And I think that we can also see that in the technologies that are around us today, that the ones that are successful are the ones that are integrating within lives. And that it doesn't seem like a major disruption. The dialogue you just described, Tim, seemed very natural, right? It was as if you were speaking to a person. And that is because of not just a single group's research or innovation, but it's about bringing together lots of experiences and building on one another.

And then I think the other thing that when we think about futures and we think about technologies is of course it's not equally distributed. So what might be very easy for, for me or others, to talk to our Amazon device, that type of technology is not globally available. Right? And so we need to also be thinking about how we're building technologies to address equity, to address people across different lifespans, different spectrums. And I think it's really important again, that if we're going to be making decisions that have larger community, global, national impacts, we need to make sure that people from all of those different spheres are at the table when designing those technologies and thinking about the implications. 

Lisa Kay Solomon: Ruth, I think another great example of bringing people together from different perspectives is embodied in the work that CSI and you recently did for the futures exhibit at the Smithsonian. So this is a groundbreaking exhibit that took over the arts and industries building, one of the oldest of the Smithsonian. And I wonder if you could talk a little bit about your contribution to that exhibit and really the process of imagining a future 50 years ahead of where we are right now. 

Ruth Wylie: Thank you. Yes. That project has been tremendously fun and just a place where I've learned so much. So we were thrilled to begin conversations with folk from the futures exhibit a couple of years ago, and they asked us if there, we could think through what might be a contribution using CSI methodologies and our network of experts. And so we proposed to do a fairly small piece of this very large exhibit, but where we would work with Smithsonian researchers and curators to, like you said, Lisa, to imagine the future of their discipline or the Future of their museum in 50 years. And we used the methodologies that we've been developing at CSI for over a decade.

And we did this through a series of convenings that were all on Zoom, because this was all during the pandemic, where we brought together experts from the museums, as well as a science fiction writer. So this work was split between science fiction writers, Madeline Ashby and Toshi Anya Bucci, as well as graphic artist Brian Miller.

And what we did in each of these workshops was to explore the next 50 years of the different disciplines. And we did this through an activity that we created at the center that's a timeline activity, that's called futures by chance and futures by choice. And it's recognizing that when we're thinking about futures, there are of course going to be things that we don't get to choose and are just going to be thrown at us and we're going to have to react to them.

But it's also saying that it's not all just something that we have to react to. That there's also some things that we can make deliberate choices and try to influence in certain ways. So we combine both of these types of activities and we start to imagine a future unfolding over the next 50 years. And of course this imagined futures is itself a story. It's telling a story about how these events might connect. We're starting to think through who might be the quote, unquote, winners of this future, who might be the losers of this future, starting again, to reflect on that with all innovation, there are differences, how it impacts people. And then after the workshops, Madeline and Toshi created a short science fiction story that was inspired by the conversations that we had and artist Brian Miller created a museum poster from the future. And it is that collection of eight posters that are on display in the futures exhibit. And then the short stories are available on Slate's Future Tense Channel.

Lisa Kay Solomon: Well, we're definitely going to link that in the show notes, Ruth, because one of the things that Smithsonian did so generously is make a lot of their exhibits available, knowing that not everyone can get there. And I have this fantasy, I have this future fantasy, of this becoming actually a mainstream assignment or a learning experience that all schools can incorporate.

I just think, like, what an incredible opportunity to integrate different disciplines and to really flex the agency of learners and leaders of all ages to say, well, how can, how might we imagine our future? And to your point, get ahead of the implications. I always think we have the ability to prototype the future. We can't predict it. And I just think this is such an imaginative way of doing it. And it was really fun to see the fruits of that.

Ruth Wylie: One of the things that I really like about this as a process— and again, when we're thinking about how to apply this in a K-12 space—is that it teaches and it practices, as you said, Lisa, this integration of many different disciplines. And it also can be a way for young people to practice collaborating together, and to think about their own perspectives, but also then to integrate their perspectives of others as they're doing these future thinking activities. 

Tim Fish: Yeah, Ruth, it's making me think about, a lot of schools now are teaching a course called Big History, where you kind of look back to the big bang and you kind of move all the way through history from multiple different disciplines. And I know when my son took the course when he was in high school, it was actually taught by three different teachers. It was co-taught, there was a historian, there was a science teacher and a, and a, who was really expert in physics, and then a geologist. And it was through the lens of those three teachers, that interdisciplinary approach, those intersections that we talked about, that really created that context. 

And I just wonder about this. I think, I'm thinking in my head, like what if there was a course called Big Futures? You know, and what do you think it could look like? Like what could, what could a course like that be like, what would we maybe do? How might it work in a history course, let's invent it now, let's create a new course that people could pick up called Big Futures and see where it goes because the big history course kind of ends at today in some ways, right? And then how do we move forward? Is something I'm wondering about. 

Ruth Wylie: I love that question. I'm going to, I'm going to give us an example. I don't think that this necessarily earns the title Big Futures right now, but we are in the process of piloting some curriculum that we've developed to take these future thinking, these methodologies that are typically used by big corporations like Intel and Lowe's and Ikea, and apply them to more personal futures. So I'm working on a project right now with my colleague, Bob Beard, that's called the veterans imagination project. And what we're doing is we're working, right now we're working with a group of ASU student veterans, and we're going through a six week curriculum where we're introducing them to futures thinking and ideas, and using that to imagine post-service success. And to take the skills that they learned in the military, and to maybe look at them through a different lens and to see how they might be applied through a number of different disciplines. And so using that as an example, some of the topics are to, again, reflect on personal values, to reflect on what's important for you today, not saying that those won't change in the future, but it's a good place to start and to think about what you might do to optimize, to maximize those values and what you're doing in everyday life. 

Also, as we're thinking about futures, again it's important, not just to be always in the prediction of what might happen tomorrow, but to do some reflection and see what has impacted you to, to get where you are today. So doing some exercises that reflect on key points in one's life, and then projecting about how those might impact future events. And then because it borrows the methods that we've worked on at the center, what we're doing with these folks is having them work with a concept artist to create an image that depicts their possible future and starting to think through what might their work environment be, how might technology be integrated, who might they be working with?

And so the idea is to create these artifacts, to create these images that can not only be used as a reminder for the students on what they want in their future, but they can also be shared with others. So the public can also start to imagine what veterans post service success might look like.

Tim Fish: What I love about that is, it's, it's about my future, not the future. Right? So I think often when I think about future, I often think about, like it's this thing and it's out there and it's going to be done to me. And I'm just, I'm just kind of floating down the river on my way to the future. And I have very little control. And this sort of word, Lisa, that keeps coming up, this notion of agency, right. That we have agency over our own future, I think is fascinating. And I love the way you're looking at that and how we can use futures thinking to also help students understand it's their future ahead of them.

Ruth Wylie: I'm so glad you brought that up, because agency is a construct that we talk a lot about at the center, and about how do we develop agency and shift that mindset away from "the future is going to be unveiled at the next press conference or it's being done by folks in white lab coats," and we really take and empower people to realize that they have agency over their future.

And so it's not about, again, prediction. What we're doing in this class is, we tell our students this every week, that we're teaching them a set of methods. But if at the end of the class, they don't like what they've landed on, it's just a piece of paper so they can crumple it up and do it again. And what we're creating is not, again, a, a strict set of dominoes that once one falls, the rest will, but what we're doing is creating a mindset. We're creating a process for people to reflect on what they want to see, what they care about, and then start to think of the pathways to realize that. And I also want to pick up on some of the thoughts about how to do this work, again, in the K-12 space and the importance of bringing in multiple perspectives. And something that, the work that's being done at the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers' college is really about trying to bring more team-based teaching into practice so that our young people are getting that experience, not just from a single teacher, but from a number of adults. So also thinking about how do we bring in community members to support our teachers? How do we bring in other experts to connect with young people and show those examples? And so I think, especially when we're talking about futures and we recognize that futures is cross-disciplinary, we need to also be thinking about how do we bring in those different voices and give those experiences to our young people? 

Lisa Kay Solomon: Ruth, I think that's such an important point, particularly as you look at what we see now unfolding for education, which is this huge teacher shortage. And we think about it in the traditional way of a teacher comes up in this pipeline. And that's, I think the old model thinking about it versus the work that you're pioneering, which is, there are opportunities to bring in perspectives everywhere.

And I love how your work and your projects are very much about the community, for the community, empowering our youngest learners and leaders. And how you think about applied imagination, even as a construct that, again, this isn't out there or just for the artist or just for art, but this is for all of us, and this is a practice and mindset of agency. 

So maybe we can shift a little bit around specifically the applied imagination work that you're doing right now and the effort you're going to, to really define it and to talk about how we might measure it, because I think it's one of those attributes that we all know is important, but doesn't necessarily show up in the SAT. Doesn't necessarily show up in the way that we quantify it in a grade. And I really love the work you're doing to change that.

Ruth Wylie: Thanks. Yeah, so we've been doing a series of events in the past year or so that, like you said, are really about understanding this construct of imagination. So typically when people think about imagination, almost regardless of discipline, people are like, oh yeah, that's really important. But the way that it's defined can be quite varied or people don't even know how to apply it. In many senses, we've benefited from that at, being at the Center for Science and the Imagination. We've benefited from having imagination in our title and from folks recognizing that it's important, but not quite knowing how to define it. It's given us a lot of flexibility in the work that we've done, but as the center is about to turn 10 years old, we really think it's important that we start to examine this more critically.

So we have done a project where we brought together a number of folks, and Lisa was one of our hosts for these projects, to reflect on these questions of how do we define imagination, how do we measure imagination, and how might we teach or cultivate imagination? And what we did with this was bring together different groups, different communities, because again, it wasn't how is imagination defined, but it's how does this group of people choose to define imagination? And so again, it's getting at that personal experience and those personal values within that conversation. And one of the things that I think was most interesting was how polarizing the concept of measuring imagination was. And for folks, particularly educators, were very used to the idea that if we're going to take the time to teach something, you know, we should be able to measure it. We should be able to say if we're being successful at that, and this idea that the only way to improve on something is to have a benchmark and to try and measure it. And recognizing that that measurement might not be perfect, but we at least should try to develop a measurement. Whereas some of the folks in our artist communities were really appalled by this idea, and thought that there was a lot of weaponization that could occur with developing a measurement for imagination, because they also asked really good questions about what does this mean? If somebody deemed that they don't have high enough imagination, are they not going to be allowed into certain classes or certain spaces? And, and asking those really good questions about what are the implications of developing a measurement for imagination and whose imagination gets to be the gold standard? And again, it's these really important and deep and, and hard questions that can't be answered by a single person or a single discipline. And it's really important to bring in multiple perspectives.

Tim Fish: I love that. The way it's this notion that it's in that hard conversation, that also a lot of that learning is taking place that we're after, we're seeing, that we're questioning. And we start off with, let's figure out a way to measure imagination or to quantify it. Right. That seems good. And then we got this other perspective, like you talked about, those other voices in the room that offer this new way of thinking. 

You know, I'm going to ask you Ruth, as we, as we continue on— and this has just been such an incredible conversation. I'm going to ask you for one last one, which is to think about the future of education. To think about your personal, with all your experience, your personal hopes and dreams for K-12 education. And what are the things also, maybe, that worry you a little bit about education and where we're headed?

Ruth Wylie: Ah, I love this question. I'm going to pick up on some of the themes that we've already covered a little bit in terms of my hopes for the future of education. I hope that we start to integrate disciplines, not only with each other, but also bring in futures thinking to each of these disciplines. So starting to think about how can we integrate foresight and anticipation and other methodologies even to our youngest learners, and get them practicing and thinking about possible futures. 

And to build on that even a little more, to not just think about how it might impact their personal futures, but again, thinking about who else might be impacted on this, what are the unintended consequences? Playing that sort of, what if and hypothetical game, so that they get in the practice of critiquing and questioning future thought?

The other thing I would love to see, and I don't even know how to do this, but hopefully one of the listeners or you all can share some insight on this, is to think about how do we bring more empathy and empathy learning into our K-12 space? And I think that that actually ties really closely with futures. And again, thinking about futures as not just something that will happen to me as an individual, but how does this impact my neighbors and my community? And getting more empathy to not just create the future that I want, but the future that we want and to examine that from multiple perspectives. 

Tim Fish: It's not only the future, the abstract future, and it's not only my future, but it's our future. And how do we bring empathy to help us do that? That's pretty amazing. That's a pretty outstanding concept for me. And I just want to say, Ruth, on behalf of NAIS, thank you so much for spending some time with us today. Thanks for sharing your expertise and your ideas. This has been a true joy and I have learned a lot in this conversation.

Lisa Kay Solomon: And I just want to echo that Tim, when I, when we think about what New View EDU is about, it really is about this kind of conversation to say, how do we truly reimagine what's possible? And what I love, Ruth, about what you shared today is that there's so much available to us today, today. Right? If we just re-imagine how we teach to be thinking more broadly around teams, to be thinking more expansively about the integration between disciplines, and about bringing some of this work, in many ways, some of this innately human work, around imagination and empathy to all of our disciplines. Right? And I just want to really thank you for the work you're doing and really appreciate the time that you've spent today and sharing this with so many schools around the world. 

Ruth Wylie: Thank you both. This was so much fun.