Latest / Exceptional Educators Podcast by FrenalyticsEDU / From Struggle to Self-Advocacy: Arden Phillips on Destigmatizing Disability and Embracing AI in Education

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From Struggle to Self-Advocacy: Arden Phillips on Destigmatizing Disability and Embracing AI in Education · Exceptional Educators Podcast by FrenalyticsEDU

• 0:00
  Nisha Srinivasa: Welcome to the Exceptional Educators Podcast by Frenylytics edu, where innovation meets inclusion in education. I'm your cohost, Nisha Srinivasa.
• 0:10
  Matt Giovanniello: And I'm Matt Giovanello, the CEO and co founder of Frenylytics. Frenalytics, we put special education and English language learners front and center. Our award winning Frenalytics edu platform helps streamline progress monitoring, improve communication and compliance, and offer truly personalized learning to your students of all abilities.
• 0:28
  Nisha Srinivasa: Each episode of our podcast features candid conversations with district and school leaders, classroom change makers, ed tech founders, and industry executives, all dedicated to transforming learning for each student, especially our learners with unique abilities. With a focus on extraordinary educators and the exceptional students they serve, we explore the latest in special education, accessible technology, and inclusive leadership. In this episode, Exceptional Educators is exceptionally thrilled to welcome Arden Phillips. Arden is a recent high school graduate and current consultant for EdTech companies relentlessly advocating for students with disabilities and their inclusion within product design. By connecting to his own experience, Arden's passion, mission, and vision for supporting students of all abilities carries through all he does.
• 1:15
  Welcome, Arden. We are so grateful to have you here today to talk to you.
• 1:19
  Arden Phillips: Well, hello, and thank you for having me. I appreciate you guys reaching out to me.
• 1:24
  Nisha Srinivasa: Really grateful to have this conversation. And just to kick us off today, something that we've been asking all of our guests is what is your why? So thinking about what's continuing to bring you to the work that you do in supporting students' special education.
• 1:37
  Arden Phillips: So since middle school and even before, I've noticed that there's a disconnect between the teachers who think typically and the students that don't just the words choice and the fact that it's always talking to instead of talking with, and it's the engagement thing, just always notice that. And so I started my company back in middle school. It definitely wasn't for money. I'd call my fellow classmates I'd fallen behind, so I'd ask for my homework, and I would study. I would come in, help them stay after class, and that's really where I got all this started off, and I just kept going.
• 2:08
  Matt Giovanniello: Arden, I love hearing how your personal experiences are directly fueling what you're doing now as a consultant and as an advocate for students with disabilities. And as you shared with me before the episode started, even when we first met down at the FATC conference, you spoke directly about how your own background as a student with disability is influencing and changing the way that you look at the world around you. So a question for you, going back to your school days, what did you want your teachers, your principals, maybe coaches or mentors to know about you versus what do they maybe assume, or how did they fill in the blanks in a way that maybe wasn't so helpful?
• 2:41
  Arden Phillips: So a lot of the time, they have this idea in their head that if I'm autistic, but I'm able to talk and act normal, then I don't need the accommodations you would for a normal well, I guess, more severe autistic person. I said normal because I'm from their point of view. Or I'm dyslexic, but I can read on a college level and I could since middle school. So I didn't need the extra time to be able to read. So there's a whole bunch of stigma behind it because I'm able to do things, but I'm only able to do things with my accommodations.
• 3:08
  And so they kept trying to take away my accommodations that allowed me to do the thing because I could do the thing with the accommodations. So that's the main thing. Another thing is they didn't quite understand that it was against the law to not let me do it. And so it was constant fighting for my calculator on tests or being able to have stuff read to me or teacher's notes. So I I wish they actually paid more attention and had more time to do so.
• 3:31
  Nisha Srinivasa: Thank you for sharing that. I know that that's a really frustrating experience that students across the country share as well, ensuring they're getting access to accommodations. Is there a teacher or a mentor or a coach or someone that you encountered in your experience during your time in school that did provide that support to you? And if so, what did that look like? How did it look like for those teachers to make sure that you and all other students were being included and valued in conversations?
• 4:01
  Arden Phillips: So there's actually two people. Number one, my dad. You know, he worked for the school district, which definitely helped. And so he actually actively talked to me about what accommodations we could use, what accommodations can we buy or get for the district. But we also had a very personal relationship with our teachers.
• 4:19
  The thing that helped most was the fact I could sit in on my IEP meetings, and I could actually talk to them. So pretty much any teacher after, like, fifth grade, you know, became a lot better. But there was actually one person that stand out the most, and that was around elementary school. His name is Bobby Duke. He worked at Central Office where my dad worked, and he had dyslexia.
• 4:37
  And so every Monday, I think, I would go over and I would talk to him, and I'd see how he does IT with dyslexia. I would see how he accommodates for himself, how his advocacy to just get anything done. And it's a lot of reading in IT. I don't know how he had the stamina to do it, but he's still doing it. He's very happy with it.
• 4:57
  And and just proved to me that it's not everything if I struggle with reading, or it's not everything if I struggle in school.
• 5:03
  Matt Giovanniello: It's not the end of the world. You're 100% right. And I imagine those external validators must be very reassuring for you, especially when you're down on yourself. I know I am all the time. And to have people from the outside see you not only for who you are, but also by your potential.
• 5:18
  It that's gotta be incredibly motivating for you. On a related note, you have, since fifth grade, as you mentioned, been advocating for yourself in these IEP meetings. Can you tell us a little bit more about other ways you found yourself advocating for yourself through those forums or others that you think helped with your success, keeping your accommodations and setting yourself up for success after high school?
• 5:39
  Arden Phillips: Yeah. So I kept moving around throughout high school, and so I didn't actually spend more than a year at the same school. So senior year, especially, I made my own GPT and my own Gemini's, I guess, gyms. And I gave them my textbooks. I gave them my assignments, and I was like, hey.
• 5:55
  Can you help tutor me? So I made my own tools. I wish I didn't have to, but I did. In freshman year, I tried to take AP chemistry. That didn't go well.
• 6:04
  And so I talked to them and found out there was a CWC class that they just didn't tell me about. And so I became a part of that CWC. It's a class within a class. Pretty much it's just another teacher there to help with the kids who are struggling in the class. That was the main thing.
• 6:20
  And then orchestra and all that, I used a tuner throughout the entire thing so I can make sure I'm playing the right notes because notes move around on the page and, you know, I had to train my ear. So it's
• 6:31
  Matt Giovanniello: a whole bunch of adaptation and just resilience, and that really just comes down to confidence. Your ability to overcome those things, Arden, is fascinating. Your dyslexia, as we spoke about, comorbid with your ADHD and your autism diagnosis, in many situations, would be a complete deterrence to students embracing advanced subjects in science and math, and especially in music, but you overcame it. And I love that you're using things like custom ChatGPT bots, Gemini, and related AI tools to help you get there. And no matter what it takes, we're all reaching the same or similar outcome.
• 7:04
  Right? So the fact that you're able to use these new tools to your advantage is, really inspiring in in my pipe. I would love for you to tell us a little bit more about some of the specific ways that AI has helped you become a better student and a better adult, especially in lieu of some of the disabilities and challenges you faced from them that maybe even, like, five years ago, if you could think back that far, you were struggling without them. What are some of the ways that AI has helped you?
• 7:28
  Arden Phillips: So with my autism, it helps me to prepare for new situations like this podcast. Never done a podcast before. So for the last two hours, I sat down with ChatGPT, you know, the voice feature. I gave it all the interview questions you're asking me currently, and I gave it my business plan. And I was like, hey.
• 7:44
  Can you help me come up with some some scripts so I can talk about this more fluently and all that? And so for, like, two hours straight, I would have it ask me a question. I would answer the question. I would have it critique me. I would fix it.
• 7:55
  I and that that repetitive action is what made me better at being an adult, made me be able to have my own company, and so on. But during school, it definitely helped because I would give it a text. I'd be like, okay. Need to read Macbeth. So I'd give it Macbeth, which is very very royalty free right now.
• 8:13
  And so it was able to ask me questions about my comprehension. If I struggled on a chapter, it could even read it to me, and it could even lower the reading comprehension so that I can understand more of it. So it would use smaller words or, you know, string together other sentences that make more sense with the context. It wouldn't have been a thing even two years ago because the voice teacher is brand new. And three years ago, ChatGPT was a baby.
• 8:39
  Can it do half the stuff I just said?
• 8:41
  Nisha Srinivasa: Definitely. It it really sounds like the way that you have used technology and determined the way that it works best for you has really supported you and and allowed you to have the access, right, have the access to the curriculum, to readings. And I'm wondering how you, in keeping in mind in your own experience with your use of technology, how does that inform the way that you give advice to companies when keeping students who have disabilities in mind?
• 9:12
  Arden Phillips: The the thing that I love doing is I stress test. So if I have a product that's given to me, I hate student portals. I hate all that stuff because it's just so convoluted. And by the time you get through it, you're just exhausted. And then you have to do your work on top of that.
• 9:27
  And so I'll go through and I'll make sure everything's clean. But when it comes down to AI, I need to make sure it's child friendly. I'll do whatever I can to try to break out of that little sandbox it gives you. A lot of the times, when teachers make their own chat GBTs, they do it based off of whatever they can find, and they just send it out. And so it's a whole bunch of learning models, a whole bunch of resources that they shouldn't have.
• 9:48
  Some of it is like 50 Shades of Grey because it's from, like, a a library where it gets all this research from. And so you don't want 50 Shades of Grey in your elementary topic. And so it's a lot of that type of stuff. I had a friend who's developing an AI chat box cyclist for his students. He's over in Athens, Greece, but his name is Poe.
• 10:06
  And I actually made it break out because I thought it was Santa for a bit and went totally off topic. So these are the main things. Another thing is you need to make sure it can lower its comprehension, and it can remember it lowered its comprehension. Because a lot of times, these things have very limited amount of memory. And so once you get 15 messages in, it just forgets it.
• 10:24
  But there is a company that's actually doing really good at it. It's called School AI, which is basically a CWC class, but it's on a computer and it's AI, so you can
• 10:32
  Matt Giovanniello: have multiple students all at once. That is awesome to hear how you're making use of tools like School AI and your own lived experiences to say, open your eyes. This is not accessible. This is not working for these very specific reasons that probably to you seem so obvious. But to flip the script around where things maybe in other context don't seem obvious to you at all, now you're kind of on the other side of the equation, and you're telling, hey, companies, how aren't you realizing this this like, again, open your eyes.
• 10:57
  It's so so easy to fix, so easy to to determine. When you realize that not every company is like School AI, and it's really cool and really helpful, but rather there are those deficits in the technology, especially as it relates to accessibility for people like you. In your mind, what do you think comes next? Do you try and share that feedback with those companies? Does that turn into a consulting opportunity?
• 11:18
  Is it something you just realize you can use again for those reasons? What's the positive of that experience? What's the
• 11:24
  Arden Phillips: out negative? A lot of it is gonna be dead on arrival because we have way better technology that's coming out. And so you're gonna you're gonna see it happen. Companies like School AI that are already implementing all this and that are already stress testing is really good. I only sat in on a meeting with School AI, so I can't take credit.
• 11:43
  But I'm really happy about the way it turns out. And for the future of AI with these other ones, I feel like the field's gonna be a lot more competitive once they see what companies like School AI are doing, which actually makes me excited because it's kinda like a a cold war, but each step gets better and better for the students along the way. So it's like a a warm war. It's just better.
• 12:02
  Nisha Srinivasa: On that note, I'm wondering what your thoughts are on any hopes you have for the ways that technology can continue to evolve to support students with disabilities and support students that have multiple different types of learning needs. What do you see is the potential sort of upcoming opportunities in education based on your experience?
• 12:21
  Arden Phillips: So when I think about the future of it, it's actually, to me, less about students and more about people with disabilities. Because once you're able to teach somebody how to learn, and that's what you should be doing as a teacher, you teach people how to get information and how to decide what's real and what's fake, things like that. Right? Which is something that AI is failing on right now. But it's making sure that the student can understand it.
• 12:43
  So if we can have AI that helps a dyslexic person write paper, we just need to make sure that it's still the guy's ideas. We have AI forms that we can do, like Google Spreadsheets, I think, has an AI feature now that's getting built in. And that helps people who are doing accounting for dyslexic. You know, they love numbers, they just can't keep track of all of them. And things like that are great.
• 13:06
  My dream job growing up was a journalist, you know. I told myself I couldn't do it because I'm dyslexia. That's one thing I couldn't get over. But now I can. I just tell AI, hey.
• 13:16
  I need this and this, and I just critique it until it gets what I want. And it makes the workload so much less so I can get so much more quality work done. So I imagine that with people with disabilities, people without disabilities, and especially students, because students are the ones getting more work than any job out there. So it's it's funny
• 13:36
  Matt Giovanniello: you bring some of those pieces up, Arden, because I think to quote what you just said, AI is failing in a lot of capacities. And if I had to guess what you were referring to, it's AI being inclusive enough, AI understanding contextually enough, and AI having enough background on the nature of the activity or the assignment deliverable to actually be helpful to students to discourage cheating, but to get them to think a little critically. If we're thinking about it in those ways first off, is that more or less the ways in which
• 14:04
  Arden Phillips: you were referring to AI maybe not being quite there yet? Yeah. No. Because, basically, I want AI to be like when I was in middle school. You know, I want something that can be personable, understand the way the brain works, understands the pitfalls of somebody and the strengths so that they can help balance it between their strengths and their pitfalls, but also understand the class.
• 14:23
  You know, I want AI to be the one going home late because they are studying and teaching just to do more homework so they can teach again. So I want them to have that personable aspect. So what you said was pretty accurate. I love that. I think I think we're not
• 14:37
  Matt Giovanniello: too far away, although there is a a bit more growth that I think as a an industry we need to achieve. I have a related question for you, and it is about how much of a proponent you are of every student having an IEP and how big of a believer you are in the potential of AI in the future. I think more specifically, what I'd be interested in knowing is if you think that AI could help teachers deliver on a promise of every student having an IEP, what would be the benefits if we end up achieving that, and what do we need to do first in order for every student to have an IEP? Because right now, teachers aren't necessarily delivering on everyone with an IEP of the ones they're mandated to. We can't just add more.
• 15:16
  What needs to
• 15:16
  Arden Phillips: happen first? So first of all, we need better AI, obviously. And the better the AI, the more schools adopt it, which means the less budget they have to spend to make sure that the just baseline kids that need the IEP initially need the IEP. And so they can afford more teachers to do the same job, and they can actually cover more because they have less work and everything. Also, AI is actually gonna end up sitting with the student throughout all their class.
• 15:43
  So it's like a teacher, but the teacher knows the student from kindergarten all the way to senior year and, you know, sometimes even after. And so it's always gonna pick up on, oh, the student struggles with reading. So maybe if it's not even a IEP, you know, it's just, oh, the student struggles with reading, so let's lower the comprehension or have it read to them as he grades. It would be a hell of a lot more helpful. And that's the main thing.
• 16:04
  It doesn't have to be a IEP to say because that's a legal term. It just needs to be accommodating towards that student's modality because everyone learns different. It's not just a person who's atypical because we're all a bit different if you're trying to be real sensitive about it. But it's true. Everyone learns differently.
• 16:21
  Everyone has different standards for what education is. So it would just be nice to have everyone on a level playing field where we all get taught the way that we need to be taught.
• 16:30
  Nisha Srinivasa: Yeah. I definitely agree with that. And something that I'm hearing come out from what you're saying is this idea of making sure that it's accessible and available within all classrooms. And that sort of contributes to the way that a teacher would be able to more successfully implement it. Right?
• 16:49
  Like, it's available, it's readily available, taught, accessible, then students would be able to have that. Do you think, in your opinion, is there anything else that schools, classrooms can continue to do to better improve the experience of students who are receiving special education services? And even for students who aren't necessarily receiving special education services that might be neurodivergent in other ways.
• 17:11
  Arden Phillips: Throughout all my school, any test I ever took, right, after my IEP course, I had headphones. I never used them until high school. The reason is I made fun of myself because I had to use headphones and no one else did. Having headphones actually does not allow a student to test, you know, better or worse if they can read. What it does, though, if you give a student that can read headphones, it destigmatizes it, which is the same reason why I want every student to have an IEP because then no one feels left out, and no one feels dumb because they learn different.
• 17:42
  But if you give every student parahedrons, it does not affect their test. Contrary to popular belief, it's not cheating to listen to a thing you can already read, But it makes the people who are testing, who actually do need that, feel way more comfortable. Not like they're getting made fun of, and not like the teachers playing along with the whole, you know, you're stupid.
• 17:59
  Nisha Srinivasa: I think that you bring up a really great point of this idea around making sure that there are systems in place for students to not feel stigmatized and for students to feel heard, valued, seen in their experiences throughout the day. And thank you for sharing that because I know in my own experience as a special education teacher, there have been many times where students have voiced that exact opinion to me that in their mainstream classes, they're feeling really stressed and anxious about using the accommodations that they have because they don't wanna feel stigmatized. And so what do you see are, like, future opportunities for schools to really work on that idea of destigmatizing what it means to be a student with different learning needs?
• 18:44
  Arden Phillips: So a very effective part to destigmatize somebody is to stop segregating them. So I personally had this. There was teams in my middle school. One of the teams was the Thunderbirds, a team I was a part of. And the Thunderbirds and the Incredibles were the only two teams that had any special ed whatsoever.
• 19:03
  Which means the other two teams thought all of us are the idiots of the group. So if we could stop separating people just based off whether or not they can learn the same, that'd be great. And if we can also have students do things outside of just the regular curriculum. Like, I did orchestra because even on dyslexic, I actually wasn't put all that far behind anyone else. And so it made my self worth a hell of a lot higher because I actually felt like I could belong somewhere.
• 19:30
  And so my worth ethic, my resiliency, my adaptability, all of that just went way higher. I was actually on honor roll the first year I picked up an instrument. After that, it slowly slipped down. But the main point is once you make a kid feel like they're a kid again and not, you know, some freak kid makes it a hell of lot easier to learn because you're not worrying about what you look like.
• 19:52
  Matt Giovanniello: I bet. And I think it not only breeds inclusivity, belonging, but also it makes you feel proud of what you're able to accomplish, how far you've come, and helps you recognize potential too, I imagine. So those are those are really heartening stories to hear, Arden, of positive change that happened in school while you were there. And even though I think there's a long way to come for a lot of school systems, you just saw those levels of impact that it had on you, and imagine if we did even more than that. I think that's that can only make it better for students.
• 20:20
  For students who maybe are just a few years younger than you right now, they find themselves in the same or similar shoes as what you're describing when you were in high school or even in middle school. They're now going through those high school grades. They feel a little bit on the outside, or they're struggling to know what life after high school might look like. Do you have any advice those students who are about to graduate, maybe for those who want to go into college or have a career in mind? Based on where you are right now, do have any advice for what's
• 20:46
  Arden Phillips: to come? Well, my first part of advice is not everyone needs to go to college. And if you are going to college, I do recommend maybe community college first get your gen eds out the way and working on the side because college is important, and everyone wants to graduate fast so they can get an actual career. But that doesn't help them unless they have work experience. That doesn't help them unless they actually understand what they're doing and things like that.
• 21:07
  So certifications are great because you can work and you can study. You take a test and you have a college credit, basically. I mean, do your research before trying to enroll in a new school and all that. That way, you know if it will transfer. Another thing is you need to read a couple books, and that's going from a dyslexic.
• 21:22
  I there's a one about the Starbucks owner, pour your heart into it, which is really good. It's about passion and building your own company and being project orientated. And there's Rich Dad Poor Dad, which is about budgeting, which is really good for anyone, especially if you're trying to afford college. There's five layers or levels, I forgot which one it is, of leadership, which is important because everyone should be a leader. Not just if you're a boss, but everyone needs to take charters.
• 21:47
  Everyone needs to be your role model. And just those simple ideas that you bring with you are good. Also, don't be afraid to, pivot from things. If something's not working out, switch it. I mean, especially when you're young because you have the opportunity.
• 21:59
  You have the time, and you have a safety net. So you need to take advantage of what you have.
• 22:04
  Matt Giovanniello: I love those recommendations. Thank you for sharing them, and I hope for anybody listening to this that find themselves in a similar situation to how you were just a few years back as you described. May that serve as inspiration and to know that not only there's a light at the end of the tunnel, so to speak, but also there's just many opportunities when you frame it the right way in your mind. And, you know, these things that might seem otherwise impossible, college or a CTE program or related, is really within reach when you approach it the right way and have the right supports behind you. So thank you for sharing those examples.
• 22:31
  Speaking of, you took those pivots into your own hands and started an organization. You're now a consultant. You have p 20 education. Tell us a little bit more about this. What's the mission behind it, and what are
• 22:42
  Arden Phillips: you hoping to achieve with this organization? So currently, my goal is to get more consulting clients. I want to make sure that everything we have currently, you know, the Campus, the Clever, things like that, are just user friendly because especially for people who have learning disabilities, who just get fatigued so fast, especially on a computer where you gotta navigate everything. I said this earlier. Just to get to the same project everyone else is doing.
• 23:06
  Throughout high school, I prefer just to have paper, and that's a part of my mission is to make everything convenient for the student. I also need to make everything convenient for the teacher because the teacher already has so much grade and so much everything. So my dad's philosophy is bolt, build one less thing. If he can do that for teachers, that'd be way easier if everything was filtered through one student portal. And instead of five different things for attendance and grades and things like that, that'll also be super helpful.
• 23:31
  So everything basically is the convenience of the students and other teachers. And it's also to make sure everything is accountable. You know, if you are struggling on this one thing, you need to actually get feedback from your students. So it's just those basic things. It's trying to understand the what people need, not what your money needs or what the superintendent of this one school needs.
• 23:52
  It's what the teachers and what the students the people actually affect by this thing. And that's the basis of it. I'm trying to, in the future, roll on some certs, things like that, so I can certify companies, be like, oh, this company's actually really good with the student orientation or the teacher orientation, and trying to get some training out there. So I am currently writing books, lesson plans, and all that just to help get people. We were developing these things, the training they need to help get people in IT, the training they need, and education, training they need.
• 24:21
  Because, you know, you might know what autism is, but you don't actually know what it means for this student.
• 24:25
  Nisha Srinivasa: Something that I just love so much was when you shared it's about people, and it's incredible that you are thinking about folks who are at the center of the experiences when you're doing your work. I think that speaks volumes to your advocacy and to your support for students of all abilities, not even just students, of teachers who are working with students, of folks within the education system. And so I really just want to acknowledge and admire the work that you're doing that is people centric and putting people first. So thank you for that. I I actually didn't have a question.
• 24:58
  I just wanted to say thank you. It was really admirable.
• 25:01
  Matt Giovanniello: Arden, I have a follow-up question for you. It's a little unrelated, but it's how I first met you. And so just for a quick background, down in Orlando at the FETC conference back in January of twenty twenty five, I had the pleasure of meeting you and your dad, who you just alluded to not too long ago, who is the CIO of his school district down in Georgia where you both live. And you and your dad put on a panel that was titled something to the effect of how schools and districts are failing our students with disabilities. And not only was I drawn to it when I saw that title in the list of overall sessions and that it's directly related to the work that we do here, but also it felt like a little bit of a provocative title.
• 25:40
  It's how like, let's address the elephant in the room and say, here's what's wrong in order to get to here's how we can make it right. What was that experience like for you presenting with your dad, speaking candidly about the failures you saw as a mechanism for making things better in other school systems around the country.
• 25:56
  Arden Phillips: So just gonna mention, there was only three empty chairs, and the only people that left during it were vendors who went because they wanted to see what we had. So just gonna throw it out there. The title worked. People are interested. But also, it it feels good because the room was packed.
• 26:13
  That's people that want to know how they can be better. It's people who are eager to see the change. It was a lot of teachers. It was a lot of superintendents. It was a of people that just showed up to be better at their job.
• 26:23
  And so when I present like that, it actually makes me proud to see there is change happening. It does make me proud of myself. I'm hardly ever proud of what I do, because there's always so much more to do. But I really do enjoy seeing the odd people that are passionate about it, and talking to people like you afterwards just really hits the key that I'm trying
• 26:43
  Matt Giovanniello: to get. You should be so proud of yourself. That was a full room packed house. I think the content and the depth and breadth of the discussion that you had then, the real practical tools that you showed off, you showed you and your dad showed me the voice option within ChatGPT and how you use it on a daily basis, the camera, the back and forth for restructuring sentences, how you talk to people through your phone and get things read, I thought it was really eye opening. Even coming from a world where we try and place accessibility front and center within our own front analytics system, we always have room for improvement.
• 27:15
  Right? But I think for people where they're seeing this for the first time, I think you broach the topic in a civil yet necessary way to say we need change. So you should be really, really, really proud of yourself, you and your dad. It was it was a fantastic session. Nisha, I wish you were there to watch it with me.
• 27:28
  It was it was so do too. Recording next time.
• 27:31
  Nisha Srinivasa: Yeah. Do too. It sounds incredible, and it's definitely a session I would have been immediately drawn to. Because something that I personally also feel is that if we're designing and thinking about experiences for students, why aren't students voices at the center? Why aren't they the ones being uplifted?
• 27:46
  Why aren't our students the ones that whose advocacy we're listening to and taking into account? And Arden, as somebody who has had experience navigating disabilities and navigating the school system, it sounds incredible, the perspective that you were able to bring to so many different people. And I'm sure that so many folks came away with, like, some moments and some just, like, new deep learnings and reflections.
• 28:11
  Matt Giovanniello: Arden, did you receive any feedback from participants after the session that helped you better understand how the session was helpful to them?
• 28:19
  Arden Phillips: Definitely heard a lot about how the session was helpful for them. I think because I'm young, no one wanted to criticize me or cheer me out or anything. So I don't know the truth behind all of it, but there's a lot of how do you know if AI is actually doing the students' work and things like that, which my answer was just we need to really define what doing means. You know, if it's the student's idea, does the student's idea matter, or does the fact the student has a paper that matters and so on? So it's those type of questions that the future questions that we can't ask now because we don't have the tools to ask them.
• 28:50
  And so there's that. But also, me and my dad are both experts on our own individual field, so just click together. Most of that was improv. We just made a couple slides and I went out there.
• 29:00
  Matt Giovanniello: You wouldn't have known. It it it displayed perfectly. Kudos. And for anybody who does have complaints, tell them that your dad is holding the complaint box and you're holding the cobweb box. And so you'll you'll never know because you want him to deal with it.
• 29:12
  I'm just kidding. Arden, thank you for your time today. It is such an honor and privilege to be the host of your first ever podcast episode. I did not know that going in, and you have really handled this with such grace, and you lent so many wonderful insights for us today. As we wrap up, I have one final question for you.
• 29:29
  It's a question that we ask all of our guests, and it is, what does being an exceptional educator mean to you?
• 29:38
  Arden Phillips: Think it just means being a pioneer and only being afraid to make mistakes when it comes down to messing with your student's future. You know, anyone that is willing to sacrifice their student's future for maybe success, they're doing it wrong. To me, it's about just trying to make everything easier to a teacher who's actively out there. It might just be trying to make the day a little shorter for the students. That way, they don't have do as much homework.
• 30:01
  So rarely is just based off your field. But really, it is pioneering it just so everything's way more streamlined, and no one has to worry when they go.
• 30:13
  Nisha Srinivasa: That was an incredible answer. And really, I'm I'm personally reflecting on, like, the idea of feeling a little bit easier when when you go home at the end of the day. That's such a beautiful way to wrap up that feeling of sustainability, of feeling success, of feeling valued, and feeling included in education, which you are doing such incredible work towards. So Arden, thank you so much for sharing your experiences, your voice, your advocacy with us today. We are so grateful to have had this conversation with you.
• 30:44
  Matt Giovanniello: Thank you for being vulnerable, Arden. Thank you for showing up and telling us your your unfiltered opinions. It is so, so, so helpful for us and for all of our other listeners. We really appreciate it. Thank you for tuning in to today's episode of Exceptional Educators.
• 30:56
  Thank you, Arden. Thank you, Misha. And we will catch you at the next one. That was fantastic.
• 31:05
  Nisha Srinivasa: That was
• 31:05
  Matt Giovanniello: awesome. You killed it.