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Continue reading →: The Courageous Minority Report 2: A Few Courageous Conversations in July
In July, the Courageous Minority group had our second synchronous meeting. Over the past month, the members shared their initial ideas in our community and provided feedback to each other. Due to the size and different time zones, the meetings occured on three days: July 1st, 2nd, and the 4th.…
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Continue reading →: Learning in the School of Tomorrow(3): The School Where Everyone Felt Appropriate
At 8:12 each morning, District 14 held Feelings. The bell rang once for attendance and twice for emotional compliance. “Good morning, learners,” said the classroom wall. “Before we begin mathematics, please select your current inner weather.” A menu appeared: No one selected “fine.” The word had been banned under the…
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Continue reading →: Learning in the School of Tomorrow(2): The National Creativity Drill
At 10:17 on Tuesday morning, the creativity alarm sounded at District 14. It was not the fire alarm. The fire alarm used a traditional bell, which had been retained for historical reasons and would be removed once the district found a more innovative way to warn children about fire. The…
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Continue reading →: Learning in the School of Tomorrow (1): The Personal Learning Plan
At District 14, no two children learned in the same way. This was the district’s proudest achievement. At 8:00 each morning, every student opened the Personal Learning Plan, a small silver screen that had been designed to know them better than they knew themselves. It knew which colors improved their…
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Continue reading →: Welcome to the AI School of Tomorrow
I am trying to imagine what could happen in schools in the age of AI so I began to work with ChatGPT to produce a series of blog posts. Please don’t take them too seriously. The future school has finally arrived. It knows every child before the child has had…
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Continue reading →: The Courageous Minority Has Begun: The First Meeting
Educational transformation often begins with a grand plan, a new policy, or a major reform initiative. Our work begins differently. It begins with a small group of educators and school leaders willing to ask a difficult question: What if schools no longer need to be organized around teaching the same…
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Continue reading →: The Courageous Minority Information Sessions: What We Heard
AI is exposing the weakness of old schooling. A courageous minority is ready to respond. On April 6, I posted an invitation to join The Courageous Minority: A One-Year Global Teacher Community to Reimagine Learning With AI. The response was heartening: more than 80 educators and leaders from about 20…
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Continue reading →: The Courageous Minority: Invitation to the HIP+AI 2026 Global Teacher Inquiry Community
I have written much about AI in schools, including a few blog posts (1. Recent Reports about AI in Schools: What’s Happening and What Should Be Happening? 2. “Screens are hurting learning.” But what is worth learning? 3. Peace Treaty: Why Schools Don’t Change (Even When Everyone Knows They Should) 4. How to…
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Continue reading →: How to Change Schools Without Changing Schools
This is part of a series of posts. The previous is Peace Treaty: Why Schools Don’t Change (Even When Everyone Knows They Should) School reform has a bad habit: it wants everything changed and everyone to change at once. New policies. New curriculum. New pedagogy. New assessments. New teacher training. New…
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Continue reading →: Peace Treaty: Why Schools Don’t Change (Even When Everyone Knows They Should)
This is part of a series of posts. Next one is How to Change Schools Without Changing Schools. The previous is “Screens are hurting learning.” But what is worth learning? People love to say “schools resist change.” It sounds like a personality flaw—lazy, stubborn, old-fashioned. But schools aren’t hard to change because…
More about Yong Zhao
Dr. Yong Zhao is a Foundation Distinguished Professor in the School of Education at the University of Kansas. He previously served as the Presidential Chair, Associate Dean, and Director of the Institute for Global and Online Education in the College of Education, University of Oregon, where he was also a Professor in the Department of Educational Measurement, Policy, and Leadership. Prior to Oregon, Yong Zhao was University Distinguished Professor at the College of Education, Michigan State University, where he also served as the founding director of the Center for Teaching and Technology, executive director of the Confucius Institute, as well as the US-China Center for Research on Educational Excellence. Additionally, he worked as a professor of educational leadership in the Faculty of Education at University of Melbourne and senior researcher at the Mitchell Institute of Victoria University in Australia. He was a visiting Global Professor at University of Bath and a visiting scholar at Warwick University in the UK.
Selection of Books
Home: Learning in the Age of AI 