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Small Schools: A More Human Future for Education with Dr. Stuart Grauer, Clint Davis, and Baran Yosef
Artificial intelligence is transforming how we teach and learn–and create and lead. But its best contribution to education at the moment may not be what it can do, but the questions it is driving all of us to ask: If knowledge and expertise are accessible to all, what become education’s next, deeper purposes? What experiences must never be outsourced? How can technology strengthen rather than diminish learner agency, authentic relationships, meaningful work, engagement with the natural world, and (most important) our drive toward human freedom?
Rather than debating whether schools should embrace or resist AI, this conversation explores how we can protect, and even expand, the experiences that make us more fully human on campuses. We’ll examine the remarkable emergence of entrepreneurial, intentionally small schools around the world. Often working outside traditional systems and across diverse cultural and political contexts, these schools are demonstrating that human-scale learning communities, super-efficient self-directed learning, Socratic dialogue (AI and human driven), expeditions, and deep engagement with “real” places and “real” communities are not alternatives to technological innovation: they may become its greatest dividend, as AI frees educators to devote more time to the deeply human work that small schools have long practiced.
References and resources for listeners
Stuart Grauer. (2026). The Way to Pancho’s Kitchen: A Trail Guide for Small School Leaders. The Worthy Educator Press.
- Oxford University Department of Education. Climate and Nature Collaborative: A Reflection (July 2026). https://www.education.ox.ac.uk/news/climate-and-nature-collaborative-a-reflection/
Episode Guests
Stuart Grauer is founder and Head of School Emeritus of The Grauer School in Encinitas, California, has spent more than thirty years asking what happens when schools are designed around human relationships instead of systems, around places instead of programs, and around freedom instead of compliance. He is also founder of the Small Schools Coalition, through which he advises and researches schools around the world, and the author of The Way to Pancho’s Kitchen: A Trail Guide for Small School Leaders (2026). His work explores a simple but urgent question: as education races toward larger systems, artificial intelligence, and immersive digital worlds, what distinctly human experiences become more—not less—essential?…less artificial, more real?
Grauer writes and speaks widely about place-based learning, learner agency, leadership, and the role of the natural world in human development. He argues that AI’s greatest promise may not be replacing human learning but helping us reclaim it—freeing teachers and students to spend more time in authentic relationships, meaningful work, and direct encounters with the living world. His current work challenges educators to think beyond debates over technology itself and instead ask how schools can cultivate the curiosity, wisdom, peace, and sense of place that no machine can experience on our behalf.
Clint Davis is the founder (2015) of Discovery Prep Academy, an intentionally small, independent school in Newport Beach, California. He is a passionate and dynamic educator who has served as a classroom teacher, mentor, coach, director of college counseling, director of middle school, educational consultant and head of school for more than twenty-five years. Clint’s educational philosophy is centered on relationships, rigor and risk-taking inAu a compassionate and student-centered environment. As a graduate of Columbia University’s esteemed Teachers College and a member of the Klingenstein Institute for Independent School Leadership, Clint was exposed to the very best progressive, independent school educators in the world.
Through his ability to connect with the heart of each child, Clint unfolds within them confidence and an ability to believe in themselves to pursue their passions and interests creating for themselves a joyful, fulfilling life.
Baran Yousefi is pursuing a Master’s degree in Educational Leadership and Policy at the University of Toronto, specializing in Comparative, International and Development Education (CIDEC), after earning her B.A. from York University’s School of Health Policy and Management. Her academic work has included sustainable development, research ethics, Indigenous healthcare, and democratic and humanistic approaches to education. She is also a graduate of the Participatory School in Tehran, Iran—the country’s first and only school founded on a humanistic, alternative educational philosophy. Although never officially recognized by the Iranian government, the school’s emphasis on curiosity, empathy, responsibility, and whole-person development profoundly shaped her vision of education.
Inspired by that experience, Baran co-founded The Peace School in Toronto in 2023, a humanistic elementary school accredited by the Ontario Ministry of Education that extends the educational vision first developed in Iran. Through her leadership, graduate studies, and educational work, she is committed to advancing humanistic education in Canada and internationally by helping schools cultivate compassionate, critically engaged, and socially responsible learners.
Join the conversation at silverliningforlearning.org
