Hot Take or Hard Truth with Amy Fast

In which Dan takes the temperature of education in 2026 with Amy Fast, a superintendent in Dayton School District, Oregon. Through the lens of the game, Hot Take or Hard Truth, Dan and Amy talk about AI, phones, testing, books, recess, and more.

As always, I welcome comments and questions on Instagram @_dankearney_

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Yeah. Um I'm Amy Fast. I currently am a superintendent at uh Dayton School District in Oregon. What else do you want to know?

SPEAKER_00 0:12

I think we last time we spoke, you were were you a principal then?

SPEAKER_01 0:16

Yeah, I think I was a high school principal at the time, probably.

SPEAKER_00 0:19

Yeah. Yeah. Congratulations.

SPEAKER_01 0:22

Thanks. I always said the district office is where educators go to die. And then here I am. But uh there's there's a lot of uh there's a lot of plus sides to uh being able to set the vision of a district. So that's the nice part.

SPEAKER_00 0:40

What's been the the single biggest change moving from not being around kids? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 0:46

So like your biggest source of fulfillment and you're kind of the reason you are in the field in the first place is kind of not as in sight on the day-to-day basis as would be helpful, I think.

SPEAKER_00 1:00

Yeah. Well when we speak again in two years, you'll be the uh I don't know, Secretary of Education. For Oregon.

SPEAKER_01 1:09

It won't exist at the national level. I don't know. Yeah, good point. I don't know about that. But I I appreciate your faith in me.

SPEAKER_00 1:18

Well, last time we spoke, we uh played this little game uh over, under, or properly rated, and talking about trends in education. And I thought we could do something like that this time. Um I I I always chuckle at sort of the the hot take industry of the media, whether you're watching the news or whatever. You know, everyone needs to have like their strong opinion. So I thought we could kind of use that framework, not that we have to have hot takes. Sounds good.

SPEAKER_01 1:44

I'm such a gray area person, too. My answers are probably not gonna be as well.

SPEAKER_00 1:49

That's I don't imagine any of these will actually have absolutist you know statements, but let's just let's just go for it and see how it works. So I call this hot take or hard truth. All right. So is it sort of just this uh passing trend, or is it I is just some truth to this? So uh I'll jump right in with the first one. Let you go ahead and share your thoughts, and I and I can weigh in too. And and like like you said, you know, the answer is probably in the gray area, but let's have some fun with it. All right, cool. Let's just go with a big one to start, like coming off the top turnbuckle, as they say in wrestling, just going big. First one, hot take or hard truth. AI is forcing schools to finally admit that our old assignments don't work anymore.

SPEAKER_01 2:34

Um I mean, the phrasing of the statement makes me want to say it's a hot take. I think it's exposing that they never really did work in the first place. Um and so I mean, AI, uh, because it it's kind of like it reminds me of when Google was accessible to everyone, and there was that whole that whole statement of like, well, if kids can just Google it, you shouldn't be teaching it. I don't know if I would swing that far on the spectrum, but I do think it's here and it's a reality for our students, and we need to help them adapt to that world. And um, if our students should be thinking critically and practicing the skills that they will need in their real world, which is uh like deducing what sources are credible and unpacking information with um their peers and discussing and debating ideas and theories and um looking at the extent to which uh the information that they're looking at is factual, um then you know AI is just another tool in helping them do that, and it can't do that work for them. Um so we just probably it's exposing a little bit of where we never really were hitting the mark when it came to pushing our students to think critically in the first place. Um that's my take anyway.

SPEAKER_00 4:03

Yeah. But you when you talk about it in your your district office, do you find that there's more like what's the vibe? Is it like optimism? Is it fear? Is it what how do you describe the way people are thinking about it, feeling about it?

SPEAKER_01 4:17

I think it's it it's people are fearful right now. There's you know, these more uh philosophical stances of just the impact that AI has uh currently on society and um resources and all that, you know, and the economy and all those pieces. So then there's people up here that are kind of philosophizing about AI in general and its presence in our uh society, and then there's the extent to which it's used or um or forbidden in classrooms. Um and that conversation is preceding, unfortunately, the conversation about um what is it we're trying to accomplish with students, and then we can fit in and where to me AI belongs and doesn't belong in the context of that conversation. But part of that conversation is what we want students to learn. It kind of needs to be ever-changing with society as well, because it is a tool that they're gonna use, and we can't just pretend like it doesn't exist until they get out in the real world and now it's something they're expected to know how to do in their role in employment.

SPEAKER_00 5:29

Yeah, I I was late to this call because we were in a planning meeting for next year, and one of the things we just were talking about was are we gonna offer coding as a class, which we've been doing for years? And it's like, but is that even relevant now? It's like Right.

SPEAKER_01 5:44

Right.

SPEAKER_00 5:45

So, but it also makes us say, well, what is the class instead? What is the AI class? And how do we make sure that we're not so much teaching it, but how are we helping kids understand this is the new reality?

SPEAKER_01 6:01

Right.

SPEAKER_00 6:01

But there's things you can do with it, whether it's problem solving or helping develop ideas you have, but it really is kind of makes you stare a lot of what you already have right in the face and say, is this what we still want to do?

SPEAKER_01 6:13

Right. And it could be kind of tricky when we compartmentalize it like that too, like coding as a separate class or AI as a separate class, because that's just not the way that people think and work, right? Like I'm gonna be writing right now and then I'm gonna go to my AI portion of the day. It's like, how is it all interwoven?

SPEAKER_00 6:30

No, and that's a great point, too, right? Because it it's it's like we say, we're all language teachers, there's AI in everything. So even putting it to the side. Okay. Yeah, great. Let's go to our next statement. Hot take or hard truth. Recess is treated like a break from learning instead of a part of learning.

SPEAKER_01 6:50

Am I saying hot take or hard truth on that it is treated as that or that it is that?

SPEAKER_00 6:56

It's not treated like that.

SPEAKER_01 6:59

It is a hard truth that recess is treated as such. I would disagree that recess is a break from learning. And in fact, I think some of the behaviors that we're seeing, or I would say lagging social skills we're seeing in a lot of our youth are due to the lack of unstructured play that they experience early on in their lives, whether that was due to the pandemic or cracking down on academic skills at the expense of play and not weaving that into the learning. Um, because we see that uh, and I I'm gonna probably take some heat for saying this, but um, oftentimes we read every conflict as bullying. Um, there is legit bullying that happens in schools, but that is different from just conflict that's a part of childhood development, that's a very important part of it for students to learn how to advocate for themselves, how to navigate relationships, um, how to choose friends, how to you know stand up for others, all those pieces of the puzzle. We we, if they're not getting that on you know, their neighborhood street like we did when we were kids, because they've you know are plugged into a device or there was a pandemic or what have you, then they're not gonna get that at school if we don't have those unstructured opportunities for play either. But I do think it's very much treated as that in the school system for the most part.

SPEAKER_00 8:28

Yeah, I I I completely agree. Um, I hard truth for sure. And recess is always the thing that can get chopped, nibbled around the edges when you need to make time for something else. But the unstructured part's really important too, because sometimes recess turns into it's outside, it's not class, but it's highly structured, it's highly controlled, it's highly monitored. There's just adults just kind of watching. Yeah, that's not really good for anyone either.

SPEAKER_01 8:58

Yeah, exactly. What what's the is there a like a recess policy in your district, or is there a way that you sort of No, you know, but I do think it's one of those things that um when the Department of Education, the State Department, is saying uh creating all these um operating standards for school, and you have to have this much time for this and this much time for this, and like just by virtue of meeting all those requirements, other things are chipped away at that maybe are also important, but not necessarily seen as an academic lever. And so I do think that recess time has diminished over the years uh in education and like you said, almost become overly structured because children are presenting with these behaviors, so we need to create a more controlled environment, but then they don't get to practice those skills, and so it perpetuates itself.

SPEAKER_00 9:49

For sure. And for some kids, it's probably just the same thing they get when they're not at school and highly structured play time, and we need to give them that freedom. Okay. Hot take or hard truth. Kids still like to read, they just don't like to read books.

SPEAKER_01 10:05

Um I uh I don't know. I that's a hard one for me. I almost want to say it's a hard. I don't know, I don't know if they I don't know if they like to read. I I'm not I am unsure about that, but it could be a hard truth in that I there has been a decline in stamina of reading and the platforms for reading have changed, and that might be um, you know, what part of that stamina is due to, but also we have lost a lot of reading for pleasure in schools, and a lot of it has become drill and kill. And um, so I I do think students have lost their love for reading, but I don't think that's on students. You know, I don't think we have just some inherently different generation, other than the fact that they grew up with, you know, devices and the ability to look things up online and you know, checking out a book at the library is not necessarily the world that they live in. And so we do have an obligation. It's kind of like AI in that I think there's a lot of value to physical reading or writing, reading books that you can hold in your hand, novels, but we also have an obligation to make reading feel relevant to them and enjoyable to them, and also help them build stamina. So help them practice what that endurance feels like when they're doing hard things.

SPEAKER_00 11:30

Yeah, stamina is such an important part of the equation, just being able to endure. I endure sounds terrible, but just like keep going, keep going through it. You know, when it's not maybe the most um pleasurable reading, or maybe the you and I read things every day.

SPEAKER_01 11:47

Like for the majority of our day, there's not things we would choose to read if we were home on a Saturday afternoon, right? And so that is a reality, is this the stamina piece of it, and you know, deciphering things that maybe you wouldn't otherwise choose to read on your own. That being said, there's also such a value in reading because you're just loving it and you're growing as a person through all these stories that you're unpacking over the years in your mind while you're reading for that enjoyment. So it's a both and situation for me. But I do think that students in general uh have lost their love and stamina for reading for the most part.

SPEAKER_00 12:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:28

I don't think it's on it.

SPEAKER_00 12:31

Yeah. I was just doing some um ELA program review with some teachers looking to adopt something new, and I was just surprised at how many of them don't include whole books.

SPEAKER_01 12:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:44

Full books. And it's you know, I just don't see how you foster like real love of reading if if you don't say like this is the book, we're going to read this book.

SPEAKER_01 12:53

Right, right.

SPEAKER_00 12:55

And I and I really don't think where did I just see this recently about you know, somebody proselytizing about AI in schools, and it was sort of like about oh, maybe it was alpha schools and like one of the ways they do literature. It was sort of like AI creating texts based on student interest.

SPEAKER_01 13:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:15

But then it's like, well, I I understand the student interest part, but there's something human about reading a book that a lot of other people have read.

SPEAKER_01 13:24

Yeah, yeah. Shared experience, sure.

SPEAKER_00 13:26

Yeah. Okay. All right. Um hot take or hard truth. Teacher retainment has a simple fix. Just pay them more. I actually read that, I actually read that somewhere recently.

SPEAKER_01 13:41

Yeah. I mean, I'm gonna say it's a hot take, but I in the same breath, I'm gonna say the teaching profession needs to be respected more and compensate compensated accordingly. But I just don't, I mean, the it's even according to most research, people feel burnt out when they don't feel their work matters or they don't feel valued in it. It's not really, I mean, uh the compensation actually can contribute to that sense of value or not being valued. Um but I think that teachers burn out because um because there's a lot of places the world where we ask what we ask them to do is insurmountable. It's just like be the kid's therapist and be their educator and be their parent and be their, you know, like their doctor, all the things, and it it it it is not enjoyable when you come to work every day and don't feel successful. And then they're evaluated by society by these metrics that aren't aligned to what matters most in their jobs. And so there's this disconnect between how they're um how they're valued by society and what they know the real work is, and that can be really demoralizing too. So I think, you know, the the work doesn't feel good because we get paid a lot or because it's easy. The work feels good when it matters. And I think we've lost a big sense of that um in education. Uh and especially I mean, just look at our country right now and how valued public education is. So I mean, how can teachers not consider leaving the profession when um, you know, the whole profession can feel in jeopardy right now?

SPEAKER_00 15:25

When you talk with teachers in your district, what's what's the number one pressure point do you think on them? The the kind the kind of pressure point that could erode their willingness to stay in the profession?

SPEAKER_01 15:38

Not feeling like they're treated as experts in their craft, whether that be by parents or by us as administrators. Um and so you know, not being heard and not being valued for the experience and ideas they bring to the table. I think is usually the the reason.

SPEAKER_00 16:06

Yeah, I think I I think I'd agree with that. Because you you can it building a teacher up can take a while, but bringing a teacher down is like that.

SPEAKER_01 16:19

Yeah, one moment. Yep. Same with students, right?

SPEAKER_00 16:22

Yeah, absolutely. It and teaching is such a vulnerable profession. And so for that reason, it really can be um your confidence can be shaken so quickly.

SPEAKER_01 16:32

When you say it that way too, like um sometimes, at least in my experience, it was a sprint, not a marathon, in that I'm like all in hardcore, you know, parents in my class have my cell phone number and I'm staying late and making sure that the kids um get it. And if they're struggling socially or emotionally, it's weighing on me and I'm losing sleep at night. And so I was taxed by the sheer responsibility of owning like human growth. And I couldn't pace myself in a way that I could do it for 30 years. And I don't know if that makes any sense. It wasn't about not thinking the work was important or not, or wanting to like move up the chain or be in a be an administrator to make more money. It was just like I I couldn't even be healthy with the, you know, it's it parent parenting's hard. Um, and it's not I I don't think I could do that for 30 years. Like you would need to parent toddlers, you know what I mean, or whatever age it is, staying in that phase for 30 years is just and doing it that well, that's a grind. So for me, it was like I was 10 years in the classroom, five years as an instructional coach, and those 10 years in the classroom, um, I wasn't feeling burnt out on the profession or jaded or cynical. I was just tired, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 18:07

Uh it makes total sense.

SPEAKER_01 18:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:13

You invest so much emotionally. You know, there's there's there's the work, there's the intellectual, there's the mental work, and then there's all the emotional work.

SPEAKER_01 18:21

Yeah. It's a lot.

SPEAKER_00 18:24

Hot take or hard truth. Schools need to get off screens and back to pencil and paper.

SPEAKER_01 18:32

Uh you know, I'm gonna, this is another one of those great areas. I'm gonna say hot take, but with the caveat that I do think we have kids on screens too much in general in schools and outside of schools. And I think um, you know, Oregon passed a law that there are no cell phones. Kids cannot have cell phones in schools. So from the time they're on the bus till they're off the bus, it's just not allowed. Um and that I do think is has helped with students' social skills, it's helped with their attention spans, it's helped with their engagement. And yet they're going to also have like my daughter's a senior in high school, and there was a rule for a long time in our house that you couldn't uh have your cell phone in your room when you went to bed, um, just because it's healthy not to. And um, you know, as a parent, you need to police some things. But there's also my responsibility to make sure that once my kids are my own like children are off to college or off to the workforce or whatever they're going to do, that they can regulate themselves and um, you know, know how to use whatever tools are at their disposal responsibly. So for me, we also have the responsibility of teaching students that responsibility. So if they are juniors or seniors in high school, maybe those parameters are loosened. I think the same with AI. You get to this certain point of proficiency and you earn this ability to use this tool now. And this, these are the parameters you can use it with. And if you go outside of those parameters, we ratchet it back again. But I I think it's kind of it's hard to say that juniors and seniors in high school can't, you know, will get a referral if they pull their cell phone out. But then the second they walk across that stage, they're gonna be expected to know when it's appropriate, when it's not appropriate, put it away when they're on the job, take it out when they need to schedule a meeting. You know what I mean? So we we need to work with that as they get older, I think.

SPEAKER_00 20:33

I agree. It it it feels like the tide has really shifted on phones. It happened fast.

SPEAKER_01 20:42

Yeah, it really did.

SPEAKER_00 20:43

One of my statements here was about phones, but we just talk about it now. It's like, and I don't know if it was Jonathan Heid's book, maybe that just accelerated things, but something shifted very quickly. And and for a while there was that sort of what you're describing, people saying, Yeah, but this is their life, this is the real world. Right. But you're also you're you're putting that up against brain development. Right. I think you're I think your junior senior point is a really good one where you, you know, there's there's uh there's stages of development where there maybe is a loosening of that. Yeah. The originally I this particular statement was because I've seen it's so interesting. I've been feeling this for maybe the last couple years, but now I'm really starting to see it. Um a pushback against Chromebooks.

SPEAKER_01 21:31

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:32

That you know, Chromebooks, I guess they were pretty prevalent before COVID. I I mean I can't even remember. Life before COVID is like, I don't know, it's like in black and white in my head. But the yeah, but but then suddenly they just were like everywhere, right? Yeah. And it feels like the pendulum is starting to come back where people are saying, Well, hold on, just just because we have these doesn't mean every single uh how what's the situation in your district?

SPEAKER_01 21:57

Yeah, I think that there's um definitely. A push toward not using them exclusively and using them again when it's an appropriate tool. But there is a lot of, especially at the elementary school level, leaning into writing by hand because of the difference in what's happening in your brain and your ability to retain things in your long-term memory and thinking through the end of your pencil or whatever it's called. It is a different process that's happening in your brain than when you're on a Chromebook. So I think there's again a time and a place for those things. And there are times where I would rather have a student on a Chromebook, maybe even engaged in some kind of app for learning that would save the teacher all these all this planning time otherwise to develop these practice tools. You know, so I again it's uh be strategic about what students are learning and when, and then what's the most appropriate tool for that learning? It's not a this is bad, this is good, but what is it we're trying to accomplish? And is this the right platform to accomplish that? You know?

SPEAKER_00 23:06

Totally. It's when is it additive and not just replacing with yeah, yes, it's kind of what the point you made about AI. Yeah. Um how about this one? This one we're talking a lot about in our middle school right now. Hot take or hard truth. Grades motivate students in the short term, but undermine learning in the long term.

SPEAKER_01 23:28

You know, I'm gonna have to say hard truth with that one. I mean, I think it's it's tricky, right? Because there is an element, the argument is super valid that uh kids need to turn turn in things on time. They need to have consequences for not. Um, I also agree theoretically, the consequence for not doing the learning should be doing the learning. Um, but I think that what you measure is what typically the system um acclimates to. And so because we measure completion of work for the most part, um, then that's what our system acclimates to. Um and I do uh struggle with the education researchers and gurus who say basically all grades should just be based on what a student knows and is able to do. Because I'll tell you, when I'm as an employer, I have never, when I've struggled with an employee, it's never been because like, oh, their their math proficiency just isn't up to par. It's like time management is a problem or like like teamwork or whatever it is. And so for me, those things that matter in the real world, quote unquote, for employability skills or just functioning in the world in a way that is productive are not the things that we measure in schools. And so for me, grades are very much measuring are you doing what the teacher has asked you to do, um, and whether that is you know turning in work on time or what have you. Um, I can't say that a student who has a B in their chemistry class, I can't tell you what they know in chemistry, but I could guess as to how much work they've turned in and what their grade has been on test, maybe, which could correlate to that. But um I think we need to do a better job. Again, it comes back to what exactly are we trying to accomplish and then what's the best measure for that? And there needs to be a way to measure those foundational or employability skills, you know, of collaboration and and communication and leadership and all that, but also a way within that is compliance, because are you gonna do what your boss tells you to do and you're gonna do it on time? Like time management can be one of those. And then separate from that is the proficiency grade. It and also in this subject, how much do you know and are you able to do? And the combination of those two metrics should you give you a pretty holistic image of a student, I would think.

SPEAKER_00 26:11

Yeah. We we've tried sort of pulling out those, you know, almost immeasurables in a way, like when you're talking about the time management and the collaboration. You know, it's like a almost like a separate grade. Um to your point, where we we want we want the grade to sort of be what the person can do and what they know. But then when you do that, you end up having all the attentions on that grade.

SPEAKER_01 26:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:40

And then the thing that you set up, this this measures all the other things. They're like, well, I don't care about that. I mean, but then to your point, if you lump it all together, suddenly it just becomes like a compliance indicator, and it's like, well, how's that? But I do love your analogy to you know, your employees. It's like, yeah, you're you're not really ever saying like this teacher just doesn't really know anything about science, so I need some.

SPEAKER_01 27:03

Right.

SPEAKER_00 27:04

It's not really how it works. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:07

No one cares about that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:09

Do you have any like trends or I think that kind of floating through your your office through your mind about education that you kind of feel like people are always kind of having a strong opinion on?

SPEAKER_01 27:19

I mean, the the ones that are most prevalent you definitely have um covered here for sure.

SPEAKER_00 27:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:27

Um, yeah, I I don't know. I'd have to think on that.

SPEAKER_00 27:30

Yeah, that's cool. I just had one last one. Um and it's you know, some semi-related to the grades one, but I'll just go for it.

SPEAKER_01 27:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:39

High stakes testing has improved accountability but destroyed curiosity.

SPEAKER_01 27:46

I would say hard truth. Yeah. Um, I do think you know, there's a level of needing some standardization to know where you're at in comparison, you know, to a constant benchmark, you know, as a as a superintendent, where's my school district at in comparison? There's some value to that. Um but also uh like I said before, when um when your metrics are lopsided or leaning heavily um in one direction in terms of what's valued, you end up losing all the other things that that doesn't test or cover. And so I do think they're like you were talking about not reading full texts anymore, full novels. And I think that's a product of standardized testing, not just student endurance um in or stamina in reading. And so imagine going 13 years kindergarten through twelfth grade, and all you're reading is like sh passages, short passages with passages, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:48

I would stop reading entirely if that was my if that was my experience with reading. Um and and so I think that we have replicated the vibe of standardized tests in school to prepare students for standardized tests, and it's just not deep thinking or learning. And I, you know, I love that Mike Schmoker, who can be a controversial educational author, but uh when he talks about like nobody reads in in the way that we teach, like, oh, that was just dramatic irony, and here's a metaphor coming up. And like, I'm not thinking those things when I'm reading. Um, I'm thinking about the deeper meaning of the text and the implications of that. And then those other pieces can be woven in, like in terms of, well, this is this is why it felt so profound when you read it, because that was a metaphor, or what you know, whatever. But the way we teach is just is this a metaphor, a simile, or you know, and like no one's reading like that in real life.

SPEAKER_00 29:44

So kids we have relationships with books, yeah, exactly. And and we strip that out when we sort of kind of codify, yeah. Use this symbol to indicate this in the text.

SPEAKER_01 29:55

Like, yeah, yeah. It's exhausting for kids, I'm sure.

SPEAKER_00 29:59

Actually, I'm really curious. Um, in in your setting there in the superintendent's office, how much conversation is there actually about your test scores versus everything else going on in the district?

SPEAKER_01 30:12

Um there is not a lot about scores. I would say that you know the the board is very much interested in that because we haven't been academically successful. There's a long history of like success in athletics, but not academics in Dayton. So we're wanting to change that branding and that experience for students. So, in that it's what they have to go by to measure our district, I think there's conversation that happens there. I try really, really hard as a superintendent to basically start that conversation from scratch with our administrative team and our leadership team, which is what are we trying to accomplish with kids? How do we best measure that? How do we know if we're successful? Because I still think there's a measurement for that. And some of that might be pulled from standardized tests, but we try to develop that internally as much as possible because it is too easy to play the game of school, play the system to get the scores versus giving kids an authentic learning experience in one that matters.

SPEAKER_00 31:17

So yeah. Of all the education buzzwords, I do think authentic still has some power left to it.

SPEAKER_01 31:25

Yeah. I hope I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_00 31:27

Most of them are just sort of floating away. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Well, Amy, it's uh it's a Thursday afternoon. Both of us have had, you know, the days, the long day, and uh and I appreciate you jumping on the car and uh and talking this with me. It's it's always fun chatting with you.

SPEAKER_01 31:42

Thanks for having me. I appreciate it, Dan.