In this final episode in a four part series, Amanda Werner talks with Adrian Martinca about the critical pivot period we are in because of AI technology. The conversation outlines three phases: the enchantment phase of initial technological magic, the pivot phase where AI threatens existing dreams, and the potential future of the “Purpose Economy” or “Dream Economy”. Adrian emphasizes the importance of encouraging adults, teachers and parents, to become champions for our children’s futures amid technological disruption. He discusses the need for meaningful conversations with children to safeguard their sense of purpose and shares various resources and tools to facilitate these conversations, including the “Dream Guide”. The episode underscores the importance of addressing the current mental health crisis among children and adults. We must reshape education to prioritize dreams, purpose, and wellbeing.
Timestamps
00:00 Introduction: The Technology Paradox
00:40 The Three Phases of Technological Impact
01:12 Adrian’s Commitment to Protecting Our Kids
01:26 The Current Crisis in Education
02:08 Adrian’s Vision for the Future
02:52 The Enchantment Phase: A Teacher’s Perspective
04:00 The Pivot Phase: The Threat of AI
04:13 The Purpose Economy: A New Vision
07:59 The Importance of Proactive Conversations
11:19 Starting the Movement: The Open Doors Movement
13:39 Empowering Kids Through the “Dream Guide”
24:25 The Role of Parents and Teachers in the Future of Education
32:15 Conclusion: Shaping the Future with Intention
Resources
Transcript
Amanda: [00:00:00] What happens when the very technology that handed us our dreams becomes the very thing that takes that future away? In this final part of my conversation with Adrian Za. We dive into what he calls the pivot, that critical moment we’re living through right now where AI isn’t just a tool anymore, but a force that’s fundamentally reshaping what’s possible for our children’s futures.
Adrian paints a picture of three phases, the enchantment phase where technology gave us access to our wildest creative dreams. The pivot where that same technology threatens to make those dreams obsolete and a future, he calls the purpose [00:01:00] economy, a world where we’re finally free from chasing material things and survival, and we can focus on what truly matters.
But here’s what’s really got me thinking. Adrian says he would literally die. To protect our kids from being the first victims of this transition and of their purpose being stolen by technology. When I look at the rising rates of school refusal, absenteeism, the mental health struggles, and kids who’ve just, and parents who’ve completely lost faith in our education system, I realize we’re.
Already here. We’re here in this moment. It’s a pivotal moment. This conversation with Adrian and the. The conversations in the previous episodes, they all challenge everything. We think we know about the future and the future of education, the [00:02:00] future of families and parenting, and just what it means and what it’s gonna take to protect our kids’ future.
In an age of ai, Adrian doesn’t just identify the problem. He’s built something. He’s built multiple things to help us navigate this time. And his vision for what comes next, it might surprise you. So let’s dive into this final episode and conversation with Adrian Marza. Welcome to the Empower Students Now podcast.
A podcast about equity, neurodiversity, mindfulness, and student engagement. There’s a lot that needs to change in our education system. The good news is teachers have the power to make these changes now.
Okay, so let me get this right. So you said there’s three phases and I keep thinking about Google.
Adrian: Okay.
Amanda: Because this has happened before. You know, like [00:03:00] and I, I know Google uses AI and you said that it’s existed for a long time. What’s changed? Mm-hmm Is these chat bots where you can have these private conversations.
But I’m just thinking about from a teacher’s perspective, when Google came on this scene, ’cause I was teaching before. Google. Mm-hmm. Like I, I’ve been teaching for 16 years and like Google apps for education, like code.org, like all these things that just came on the scene and, and, and like one-to-one and Chromebook carts and I, I mean all of this has happened before, you know?
Um. And so that was the phase one, the enchantment or the addictive
Adrian: mm-hmm.
Amanda: Phase. Yeah. And I still feel like teachers are still, I mean, they might even be pushing Google out of the classroom because of ai. They’re just like, get this Chromebook cart out of my classroom. Get these cell phones out of my classroom.
You know, there’s this like backlash. And so phase two, I’m not sure I have [00:04:00] this right. So phase two is sort of the pivot phase.
Adrian: Yeah. Where you’re
Amanda: trying to become more, um, intentional. And then phase three is the, where we’ve We have the purpose economy. Yeah, the dream economy. Is that right? Like what, tell me about the three phases again.
Yeah, but
Adrian: the middle phase. So, so the, okay. So say, I’m gonna use my, so, so phase one, I’ll, we’ll use an example.
Amanda: Okay.
Adrian: Phase one, I’m gonna use my computer to create these 3D animations and make a story.
Yeah.
Phase two. Oh dang. AI can just do it by itself. I’m not even needed, like my, my now anyone can do it.
Which dilutes the value of my dream economically.
Mm. Okay. Right. It’s
like I like, I like using my wife’s wife’s example ’cause she’s a singer. When we met, which is kind of at the beginning of a lot of this like heightened evolution of ai, I was like, sweetheart, by the time you get your dream moving, you won’t be competing with other singers.
You’ll be [00:05:00] competing with AI artists. And at first she was very, and I’m like, I’m not saying that’s too to against your dream or anything. I’m just saying where AI and technology is going currently, you are unfortunately gonna literally have to compete with artists who aren’t even artists. And no one will know, like, no one’s gonna be able to regulate it.
Like you’re, you can’t, how do you regulate something? Like how do you know, oh, that’s ai. You see what I mean? Like, like, unless you literally re regulate the entire technology globally, like you, you would have to have global governance. Because, because we’re a free country, right? So if, if America blocks it, okay, in America, you can’t use an AI artist.
Well, what about in Europe? Like what about in China? What, like, you can, we still have an open internet? Right? So the pivot is, is is the thing that has driven me for an incredibly amount of long time. To the point where there was one point I was literally working 120 hour weeks. Because the pivot is when we [00:06:00] rip the dreams away from our kids, we’re the same technology that handed the dreams into our hands.
Negates them.
Yeah.
Right. Be because we’re in a material economy.
Yeah. You
know? But in a material economy, the, there are, you know, this, this other guy was TA talking about like, and he said, this was what I. He is like, he, I don’t know if I should bring this up or not, but, but just for context, like. When I talk about this stuff, I’m not talking about like, so socialism and communism.
I’m literally just talking about the freedom to dream.
Yeah. Right.
Like the transition into a purpose economy would be some version of something that is a form of a utopia. Technology has changed, you know, the things that have prevented society from having like a, a hat, like I’m from Slovakia. Slovakia used to when my parents grew up.
It was illegal for them to get married ’cause churches were banned. There were socialist country with, with a [00:07:00] communist party. But from growing up, most of the problems that existed in those society was people and corruption and all this other stuff. Right. But with the advent of technology, maybe where we’re heading currently, maybe everyone can, you know, like, like think about how many kids there are in schools that are on free and reduced lunch.
Like, like I don’t think there’s enough opportunity in the material economy for literally every single human to actually have everything they need and make and make enough money. Like I don’t think opportunity is abundant.
Yeah. You
know, and now in this pivot we’re essentially facing a reality where even a lot of the people who had in quote, like abundance.
Face getting replaced through, through efficiency, through ai, which is that second phase, right? And the new and, and the third one, which is this like purpose economy or dream economy or whatever, is on the other side is where we’re free from all of this suffering. The pivot comes. So [00:08:00] the, the, the reason the pivot is important because how we collectively relate to change.
Like, like imagine you’re changing jobs and you have to go back to college or whatever, and like, and I’m not saying that’s what’s gonna happen. I’m saying that there’s a burden of that journey and how we relate to that burden defines what the other side looks like. Like it, like we could get angry at each other and start fighting like we could get, you see what I mean?
That’s why I think the proactiveness is really important. But not even proactiveness from an economic standpoint, but really like no matter what’s happening economically and and with AI currently, I think the thing that is incredibly important that I would literally die for, and I don’t say that with like with lightness, is that I don’t want us to live through a world where we’ve lost touch so much with how our kids feel that our kids are the, are the ones [00:09:00] that fall victim to this first.
Amanda: And that’s kind of what’s happening.
Adrian: Yeah. And it’s
Amanda: scary.
Adrian: It is.
Amanda: Can I read you this quote? I just finished this book, um, and it reminded me of you. Um, I finished this book. Do you know Alfie Cohn? Um. It’s, it’s his book he wrote in the nineties, but I just finished it this morning. It’s called The Schools Our Children Deserve.
It’s, he’s very anti grades, um, and competition and all of these things. But the last. Of this book. It, it just, it, I feel like meeting you was really important for me. I don’t know. I, and, and like just having you on this podcast and collaborating with you more, but he talks about, um, there’s this country music singer, Arlo Guthrie.
And this is from him. So a paraphrase from Arlo Gut, Guthrie, if just one person in a town comes forward to denounce the current approach to education, he or she [00:10:00] will probably be ignored. If two or three people speak out, they’ll be considered extremists. So right now we’re extremists, just you and I, right?
But if 50 people in a community, just 50 in a community, take a stand. And talk about how we need to have proactive conversations like what you’re talking about. The powers that be may be, may think it’s a movement. Oh wow. And that’s just what it is. A movement to demand the schools our children deserve.
Um, I just, and I think I wanna talk more about, like, these, like amazing ideas you have about how we can be proactive. Um, and so like, that’s, that’s my last question. I want to leave everyone with hope. Um, and, and with your ideas and tools and resources that you’ve made available for parents and teachers, uh, to navigate this time, um, so would you, would, would you.
Do you have anything else you wanna say about the doom and gloom part? Or do you wanna move into, into [00:11:00] the hopeful No, I don’t
Adrian: think, yeah, let’s the, I think the hopeful is the most important part.
Amanda: Yeah, let’s do that. Can you talk about that a little bit? Like how can we start to approach these conversations with kids and,
Adrian: um,
so. So the mo, so we are starting a movement. Yes. There, there’s several parts to this. So part number one is the open doors movement.org, which is essentially a coming together of champions, which is us as adults for our children to create accountability for big tech, to be responsible for their mental health.
No matter what, big tech has to behave as a parent, as a family, and take and be, just be responsible for, for this re this seven and a half hour relationship because you cannot expect us. To fight our children and even our loved ones for their screen time. Like, that’s not okay. [00:12:00] Right? So if they put this into our, if they put this fight into our world, it is their job to make sure that it is not a fight.
Like, you know, we shouldn’t be fighting our kids, or, or you know, who anybody at all about putting their phone down or being present in the world, especially if it’s causing problems, right? Because it’s not like it’s making everyone happy. It’s actually doing the opposite. So, so we’re actively inviting people to, to join us and sign a petition to create a voice for our kids.
The second part is, is that like during this pivot, really the, the, the purpose of anything that happens, ultimately, I believe because we do ultimately all want to get along. We don’t all want like, like I think at the heart of it, we all want the same thing for our kids. Yeah,
and
fundamentally this is our time because of [00:13:00] this alien to define the values on which we want it to assimilate.
But for us to do that effectively, what we need to do is the, is the very solution that we need to do anyways. Irrelevant of ai, which is give our. Children, whether you’re a parent or a caring adult or even a friend, give children a safe space to talk about the world they wish to live in. Like start the inheritance conversation.
’cause in a pivot, the inheritance is the other side. It’s the inheritance to them. They’re gonna inherit it. But to us, it’s what we need to be fighting for right now. So one of the tools I created. And all of these are physical books are available on Kids Dreams Matter, which is a foundation. We started to help guide these conversations, but they will also be available digitally at no cost because there, this really is a movement, so there isn’t an intention to just sell books or whatever.
We do have them physically, but [00:14:00] they will be available in the form of free online courses, or even if it, if it’s just an ebook. But one of the, one of the book. Books that I like, I, I wrote, and our co-founder, RO Robert Rero, helped me edit is called The Dream Guide. And the Dream Guide is a workbook that’s meant to be a guided conversation where you, the parent embody the purpose of a champion of your child’s dream and you allow them to envision their dream through.
The Ima through the process of imagining a better world. So if your child was a hero and they could change one thing in the world, what would that future look like? So in the first sec, in the first section, which only takes about 45 minutes to complete with your child, you’re, you’re really imagining your gonna go through, you’re gonna create the safe space by.
Talking about what kind of darkness they see in the world, in their community, or even [00:15:00] in their family, and what is it that they want to change. You? Help them verbalize what that darkness looks like and help ’em transform it into a positive version of the future. Like what would the future look like if that darkness didn’t exist?
That’s your first step of learn, of creating a connection to how your child feels without it being directly about the kid, right? ’cause you don’t. You really to, to effect in my mind, to effectively create an actual safe space that can’t be about them. It has to be about something that we have to externalize it.
Amanda: The mistake a lot of parents and teachers make is making it that, that that child is the problem. You know that they’re addicted to their screens. And I just, I think that that’s, that’s a huge mistake to put all of this on kids like that. But I think it’s the easy kind of like conclusion about what’s happening.
But what you’re saying is, um, that they need a safe. Base to talk about the problems they see in their [00:16:00] world. But if you’re an adult who’s constantly pointing at the kids saying, you’re the problem, you’re the problem. And there are kids that are walking around in our schools, you know, and in our communities where that’s all they’ve, they’ve heard from adults.
Adrian: Yeah.
Amanda: I don’t know. It’s, uh, yeah. It’s hard.
Adrian: I’m a part of this group. It’s, it’s, um, it’s from an underserved community. Mm-hmm. But every time they get together and they talk about kids. Always end up fighting, fighting about it. ’cause they’ll be telling the kids about like how they’ll end up in prison and whatever.
I’m like, that’s literally how you, how you create a self-fulfilling prophecy. Like if you literally tell kids who already struggle with having hope or people believing in them that that’s what they’re gonna end up, you’re literally saying you’re championing that you’re, you’re literally telling them that’s their future.
Amanda: It’s manifesting it.
Adrian: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And. And you can’t like, and some kids will even just do that out of spite, you know, like, screw you, like screw you. You don’t believe [00:17:00] in me. Like I won’t either. And then good luck getting them back, you know?
Amanda: Yeah, yeah. Well, in saying they’re addicted, that word is so loaded and so scary.
Yeah. And I’ve actually said that about to myself and it hurts. Yeah. Like it really hurts to say that.
Adrian: Yeah.
Amanda: Um,
Adrian: and that goes back to why I think it’s unfair. For us to fight ourselves and our loved ones because of, you know what I mean? That’s like, like the people selling drugs are around and telling us, oh, just keep using it and we’re supposed to fight each other about it.
Like, how’s that at all? Okay. You know, like, I’d rather go to war with big tech, literally like one-on-one, you know? Yeah. Then, then, then watch us lose our children. Yeah. And like, you know, like it’s not. It’s not okay. Yeah, it’s literally not. Okay.
Amanda: So the, to, to open the, the, you have to open the communication pathways.
You have to, yeah. You have to [00:18:00] model as an adult. Like, I wanna hear you. I truly want to hear what your experience kid. Is, you know, in my classroom. Yeah, exactly. Or in our home or whatever. And that takes, I think that does, for a kid to believe that a, an adult who’s constantly criticizing them. Yeah. And I’m saying this from experience.
I have an 11-year-old. Right. They’re not gonna open up right away.
Adrian: Yeah. You
Amanda: know, and so it’s gonna take some time. Yeah. Um, but anyways, so like, um, yeah. Asking kids those inquiry questions like what. Like, what darkness do you see in the world and what, what would, what would you, what do you wanna see? Get better?
Yeah. And, and using this dream guide as a tool, uh, to help with like Yeah. Guiding that. And then what would be next after you sort of open that. Um,
Adrian: so up, um, just that as a, as a side [00:19:00] comment. Mm-hmm. You know, you know how like. Somebody that’s in, let’s say insurance sales, like life insurance.
Mm-hmm.
Right.
Isn’t in it because they like doing life insurance, but maybe they went through an experience of struggling because of somebody passed away and they didn’t have the money for, for whatever, right? Mm-hmm. Like normally when I talk to, to groups of champions about their children, I’m like, you figure you do the dream guide.
Like you figure out your dream first. Understanding the seed of where in your lifetime your dream was born. ’cause general, generally, I forget the, there’s an actual term for this. This lady taught me, but she said basically there, there’s a mo, everyone has a moment where they last remember being a kid, and usually that’s their first experience of like true suffering or dark, true darkness.
Mm.
And she
said generally dreams kind of mold themselves to that and [00:20:00] it ends up being your purpose. But when you know that seed and know that that reality, it leads in, which also leads into the ne next section of, of this book. What it allows you to do is understand that sometimes one simple, not, sometimes I would, I know speaking in absolutes is probably not ideal, but, but generally you can.
There is a question that you can come up with that helps you connect with what your dream is. So the two examples that I like using is one. Is so we did. So one is, um, so if I dream of a world where everyone is kind and gets along, because I believe that kindness is important for us to have lead a happy and healthy life.
Then, then, um, which is this second section where you learn to verbalize your dream in future present tense. [00:21:00] Right. Then what I can ask is I challenge you to ask people to be kind. So every time you see somebody not being kind or being mean or whatever, it’s a simple I challenge like, can you please be kind?
Which even goes back into school. We just did this exercise with 10 students. Most of them actually dreamed of a kind world because they weren’t getting treated correctly at home and in school in different places. And I was like, how many times have you guys asked a bully at school to be kind? And they’re like, oh, never.
I’m like, so imagine if you did this. You know, in this dream guide, the second section is where you write your open doors challenge, which is opening doors and entering a future that you wish to live in. So your dream was a world that’s kind, imagine you and your, you shared this dream with your friends, so, so a few of your friends already know, so they already know how to be your champions because you’re the hero.
So now you’re walking through a hallway and you see someone getting bullied and you’re like. Hey, can you please be kind? And because your friends are generally around and if enough [00:22:00] people heard your dream, they’ll support you and be like, yes, please be kind. Imagine how much power you’d have over changing the future in that moment.
Amanda: Yeah. I love that. And I love just, I think that’s such a great idea for adults to do it too. ’cause I’ve never actually written down, like as you’re talking, I’m thinking about like, well, what is my dream and like my purpose, and I know what it is. I mean, it’s to empower kids because I was disempowered as a kid.
Adrian: Mm-hmm. Yeah. See. Exactly. Um, so when you were little, and that’s your first experience where you probably felt true pain by yourself.
Amanda: Yeah. And, and I think, and I know that’s why I became a teacher, um, because of just really terrible things. That, and, and just being always told what to do by adults and feeling really frustrated by that.
And, and I wanted to be a different kind of adult. Adult, you know, like what you’re describing as a champion. A champion for, have you ever, ever heard of Rita Pearson? [00:23:00] She did a wonderful Ted Talk. Um, she’s passed, but she was a teacher. She taught for a long, long, long time. I don’t even know, decades and decades.
Um, but she, she has a wonderful Ted talk about being a champion for kids. Yeah, I think you would love her. Rita Pearson, uh, TED talk. So what other tools or resources do you have knowledge of or access to or have created that could help teachers and parents?
Adrian: Other than, than our books, um, which there’s 15 different ones that they all are focused on.
A, facilitating the conversation with your child, B, helping you participate in the dream. So kind of like what I was saying, if you turn it into a question, you can now participate. Even if your child dreams of a world where. That’s free of plastic pollution.
Mm-hmm.
Their challenge question would be like, I challenge you to ask some someone for a plastic alternative next time you’re handed a [00:24:00] non-renewable piece of plastic.
So now, now you get to give your child agency. So every time you go out to eat or go anywhere, you can help empower them to ask and to be the hero. I love that. Um. It’s actionable, which, which, yeah, which this kind of pivots into that like, purpose economy, right? So, so the dream guide itself, and this movement is really strategically designed for us to get a small glimpse of what the purpose economy looks like.
So in a, in a world where you have like the dream economy or purpose economy, what you end up having is teachers become kind of like the. You know how, how in, um, Indian cultures you had the, the wise men and wise women.
Mm-hmm.
Right? So you’d, you’d essentially be empowering parents to be teachers, so you’d be training parents to be champions and parents would be the teachers of their children.
Like it would go back to the natural order. Right before technology. ’cause before technology, the parents were the wisdom bringers. Like they were [00:25:00] responsible for the passage of wisdom from parent to child. But that was broken by technology where we removed the parent out of the relationship, which also is what what caused us to remove dreams out of the relationship.
And we have actually lost touch with dreams because we’ve lost our position as parents and, and even educators. We’re constantly chasing. Right. Technology. We’re not ahead. Like we’re never ahead. What’s the last time we’ve been ahead of it? Never. I mean, like never. Which means we too actually don’t, which is why kids have lost their sense of like security and respect for education.
Mm-hmm.
Because we’re not ahead of it anymore, and we haven’t been for a while. Right. So this pivot is gonna result in. Both economically and educationally where the family is the primary education unit. I think in that reality, like schools will turn into like community hubs where families can come together around having teachers and, and guides and stuff like [00:26:00] that, but it’s going to.
Dramatically transformed because the, the knowledge that was a lot of the minutia around knowledge, like mathematics and, and like just general sciences, like it’ll be so readily available and globally validated through the mass knowledge of ai that it won’t be as heavily, like, it won’t require as much heavy education.
You know, ’cause you have this data source always there. Which, which is why I’m like saying is like, not only to protect the lives of our kids currently, but also to kind of like start pre preparing for where education is heading. We have to really push for these conversations. And as, as scary as it sounds, is it’s like, like while the pivot is dark is only as dark as our absence to these conversations.
You know, like, yeah,
Amanda: I do. I do. And what you’re describing, it’s really hard for me to imagine that it could happen, um, [00:27:00] that, you know, the education comes back home and that, but I mean, it happened during COVID, right? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. A lot of. Parents, they struggled because they had full-time jobs. Yeah.
But they also had to educate their kids at home. Yeah. And just balancing that and it just, I don’t know how that would work.
Adrian: There’s actually a con
Amanda: Yeah.
Adrian: Conspiracy theory about it, right? Mm-hmm. Which is, which was that, that a large part of COVID was essentially the pre preparation for. The pivot of what the world would look like if AI negated our codependence on having to work.
Yeah.
Right. Which economically is literally happening anyway, so, so conspiracy aside, like we are on that path and whether, and, and my, my argument is always that like economically, the path doesn’t matter because that path currently is reflected in our children’s mental [00:28:00] health and overall. The effectiveness of like them getting jobs and whatever.
So like that is greatly affected, you know, so that’s what actually matters, like how our kids feel is what matters. And if it happens to mirror this other reality, then that’s okay. But what we real, what really does matter is being there for our children. And the fact that even educators don’t have enough time and day to do that.
And ultimately like, like we don’t like the word addiction. I’ve been thinking a lot about, you know, because, because the Open Doors movement is not a rebellion or a, what’s it called when you’re anti ai? Um,
Amanda: I don’t know, anti ai, whatever.
Adrian: Like, we’re not anti it, right? Because it’s not AI’s fault. It’s about how we’re using it.
Like this is really just meant to be like an intervention. You know, for us to take back the dreams of our children and take back our relationships, because that’s the biggest thing we lost. And allow AI to assimilate in support [00:29:00] of us having those relationships rather than in support of us distracting ourselves.
Amanda: Yeah. Yeah. Well, and you mentioned the other day when we talked. Before this episode about money and like where that the parent parents, if they’re not working and they’re, they’re home, you’re basically talking about homeschooling. Um, and that, and that, where is the money coming from to educate children?
Yeah, it’s going to big corporations like Google, right? Yeah. Google apps for education or like curriculum companies that the curriculum doesn’t even really work. It’s so dull and boring, right? Yeah. And like. That like they’re getting billions of our dollars instead of
Adrian: Yeah.
Amanda: That money going to schools, it could be going directly into parents’ pockets.
And this is something you said to me. Um, yeah, which is really interesting. I was like, oh, I don’t know if that’s
Adrian: like, but, but if you think about it, so, so if I looked at the world [00:30:00] for what is happening then because of technology, you’re really saying like. Uni ba basically a space for universal basic income for where the money would come from is the fact that we already spent an incredible amount of resources around our kids.
Yeah.
But in between it reaching our kids. Right. So, so in between like I. When it’s allocated to it, actually reaching the hands or the circumference or whatever of the kids, there’s a lot of money. There’s a lot of money there, and that money’s gonna end up having to get repurposed to be able to make sure that all families are fed, nurtured, and happy.
Like no matter what. Unless you know the country burns down like there, that there’s gonna have to be some form of like. Basic income that’s created and dismantling the education system isn’t, isn’t going to happen. ’cause we do need education no matter what it is. But I think the relationship of [00:31:00] education’s going to change where it’s gonna have to be like a collective support system, you know, for not only the family as a whole, but also, but also there being more of a like community-based, purpose-based field of support, right?
Because we have. Unfortunately in this pivot lost a very large foundation of what it means to be a family. And what it means to actually support your child. Like to be, I think, I think even the parents a lot of times struggle with this.
Amanda: Yeah, for sure. And there’s so many there, there’s a, you know, uh, absenteeism, uh, and, and kids are just dropping out of school that there’s a huge.
Huge problem. And parents are just like, they don’t know what to do. You know, kid in school refusal is so high and like kids, they feel it. And, and so do parents and I think everyone’s at a loss as to like, how do I, how do I navigate [00:32:00] this? Um, yeah. And I, I just love your vision, Adrian. Thank you. I really do.
I think it’s, it’s really. Wonderful. And I, I really, really appreciate you.
Adrian: I appreciate you as well. Thank you.
Amanda: What strikes me most about this conversation that I’ve had with Adrian is that. He’s not asking us to be anti-technology or to reject ai. He’s just asking for us to be intentional to remember that beneath all the economic disruption and technological change, that there are real kids who need us to show up as.
Empowering adults Champions is what Adrian calls us for their dreams. The pivot is happening right now, whether we’re ready or not, but how we move through it, how we hold our relationships with our [00:33:00] children, how we protect their sense of purpose, that’s still in our hands. Parents and teachers, and maybe that’s the most hopeful thing that.
Adrian has shared here in these conversations that the future isn’t predetermined. It’s being shaped right now by these conversations and our willingness to have them. It’s been a journey over these four conversations with Adrian. We’ve traveled from the foundations of what dreams really are and why they matter.
Through the the cultural economic forces that are stripping dreams and purpose away from our kids into the heart of the AI revolution. That’s changing everything we thought we knew about education and the workforce, and. In this final episode, we’ve come to a vision of what could come next if we’re brave enough to pivot with intention.
Adrian’s message throughout this series has been consistent and [00:34:00] urgent. Our children are in crisis. Not because they lack potential, not because they’re unmotivated or apathetic or can’t think, but because we’ve built a world that’s disconnected them from their purpose. And while technology has accelerated that disconnection, it’s also given us tools to rebuild it.
If we choose to use those tools wisely, what I hope you take away from these conversations is not just concern but agency. You and I have the power to become champions for the children in our lives, to ask better questions, to facilitate crucial conversations, to push back. On technology companies, this isn’t about being perfect parents or perfect teachers.
It’s about being present, about recognizing that the mental health crisis, school refusal, apathy, amotivation, these aren’t individual failures. They’re symptoms of a system that’s [00:35:00] lost sight of what matters most. And together we can change that. Thank you so much for listening and for investing time in learning alongside with me.
And thank you Adrian, for your passion, your vision, and your unwavering commitment to our kids. Thank you for caring enough about our children to listen. The future they deserve starts with the conversations we’re having today. All of Adrian’s resources are linked in the show notes, and I encourage you to check them out, share this series with other parents and educators, and most importantly, start having these conversations with your kids and students.
Until next time, keep championing their [00:36:00] dreams.
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