Julia de la Torre Completes Klingenstein Fellowship for Heads of School
Head of School Julia de la Torre was in New York City for a two-week fellowship (January 21 – February 3) for heads of school at the Klingenstein Center, which is a part of Teachers College, Columbia University. As part of a cohort of 15 heads of school, she explored a creative and wide-ranging curriculum that prompted deep reflection about leadership and the future of schools. She responded to questions about her experience.
How did you interact with the other school leaders and how did they inform your experience? I was fortunate to be a part of a very diverse cohort from around the world, which included ten heads of American schools and five heads of school from Norway, India, Egypt, South Korea, and South Africa. Our fellowship was collaborative in every way. We worked on case studies, participated in experiential learning throughout NYC, and dug into projects together. I was humbled to know that regardless of cultural context, our schools have strikingly similar missions and aim to support students in similar ways. We grew extremely close in a short period of time, and I continue to rely on these exceptional educators, now months after the conclusion of our time together.
How did you develop personally or professionally during the Fellowship? Creativity was a prominent thread throughout the program. We were asked to keep a daily creativity journal, and many of our hands-on activities in the city were intended to hone our creative thinking skills. One of my final projects was to develop a creativity strategic plan for myself as a leader and for the school. It was a challenging and inspiring exercise to explore ways to infuse more creativity into school leadership, with the idea that opening up new pathways can inspire innovation.
This was your second Klingenstein experience…can you reflect on the similarities and differences of the experiences and how they impacted you? The last time I participated in the Klingentstein Fellowship was as a new teacher, just three years into my career. That program was a month-long residential program at an area boarding school and was aimed at helping novice teachers develop their philosophy of education, explore pedagogical strategies, and understand how brain science impacts student learning. Now nearly 25 years later, I see many similarities between the two programs. They are both cohort-based, with a core belief that learning in community exposes us to diverse perspectives that make us better educators. They are immersive experiences that pull you o
ut of your daily routine, in order to see your home school from a fresh perspective. They are highly selective experiences that expose students to content-area experts and leaders in the field of education. And both programs recognize that educators are, at their core, learners and that in order to continue to help young people grow, we must be committed to a growth mindset ourselves. The key difference is that the Heads of School program comes at educational challenges from a leadership lens and allows us to learn from seasoned school leaders who share a commitment to independent school education. It has been a gift to participate in the well-respected Klingenstein program at two very different stages of my
professional development.
What are the top learnings/takeaways from the Fellowship that will directly apply to your work here at MFS? The most impactful learning was around understanding my leadership style and presence in a school setting. We completed an extensive leadership profile analysis that lifted up our strengths and opportunities for growth. Stepping back from my own identity as a leader and person was a humbling experience and one that inspires me to lean into my strengths to better serve Moorestown Friends. On a more topical level, the sessions on artificial intelligence, climate education, and brain science were all fascinating and timely as I lead the school in the best way possible going forward.
What is one learning experience you had during the Fellowship that sticks with you, and why? One day we were asked to pick any location in New York City to explore with fresh eyes and open senses. I went to the Museum of Natural History, a place I had visited before, and explored the halls as a newcomer. We were encouraged to wander this location with a sense of wonder and curiosity, as a child would seeing it for the first time. We learned deep listening skills with the understanding that creating a culture of true listening in our schools helps us solve problems with greater empathy, care, and understanding. I am continually amazed by how stepping out of a classroom, one can tap into a different part of the brain to inspire new ways of thinking.
Fellowship Reflection:
How might we cultivate our students’ ability to think outside the brain?
While returning to a graduate school setting immediately sent me back into student mode – think three hours of homework a night, papers, and projects – the Klingenstein Institute was far from a traditional school setting. One of the first readings we explored was Annie Murphy Paul’s The Extended Mind, which asserts that our brains are somewhat limited in their ability to persist in the face of challenging tasks or abstract concepts. Schools and the business world have been traditionally grounded in “brain-
bound thinking” – the idea that if you focus more, sit still, work harder, and are self-disciplined, your cognitive abilities will expand in turn. Murphy argues that in order to extend beyond the capacity of our brain’s limitations, we must move our bodies, situate ourselves in new environments, and integrate the thoughts and feelings of others into our own cognitive processes. By engaging these “extra-neural resources,” we are able to think more creatively and deeply and extend our brain’s capacity. In addition to plenty of traditional brain-bound learning, the Klingenstein Institute created endless opportunities for us to engage these resources. We visited museums, discussed case studies, and explored the city without necessarily having a destination or goal in mind. The purpose was to activate our senses, develop a spirit of wonder and curiosity, and freely participate in dialogue with other cohort members in order to tap our unrealized cognitive potential. It reinforced for me how important it is to learn in community, as we do at MFS, and to extend learning beyond the classroom in hands-on ways.
Fellowship Reflection:
How might we continue to invite students to demonstrate their learning in a way that prioritizes process over product?
One of the benefits of participating in a program like Klingenstein is that we gain access to previous Fellows or master’s students and are able to learn from their experiences and research. We participated in a session on Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) led by former teacher and current AI integration specialist, Evan Harris. Since leaving Columbia and attending Stanford’s Human-Centered AI program, Evan has dedicated his career to helping schools navigate the AI era. We focused our time together on what we can do today to lead and support change in schools for a future that is almost certain to be intertwined with AI. Instead of spending time thinking about how to keep students from using AI, we were encouraged to focus on ethics, safety, and authentic assessments for students as a starting point. Up until today, AI has been less able to replicate process than it has product. If assessments are simply products, AI can navigate that quite well. What it hasn’t mastered is the messy, collaborative, real-world application of learning that authentic assessments call on students to do. It makes me think quite a bit about the Seventh Grade Quest program and other courses at MFS and how the greatest learning comes from the process, feedback, and revision that takes place throughout the year. While AI may be good for certain automated tasks, what it can’t do is replicate authentic learning in a real-world setting.