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EDDA COLLINS COLEMAN: Good evening. Thank you all for being here. We're going to start tonight's program with a short video. Please take your seats and enjoy.
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- In a Facing History classroom, you're going to see students interacting with each other, having dialogue around primary source materials and step into somebody else's shoes, who actually lived in a historical event.
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- It empowers students and people in the world with knowledge. It lets me be more observant about things or a bit more critical about things when I first come across it.
- History is never just left in the classroom. History is never just left in the past. But students are always asked to think about the legacies of today and what it means for how they want to live their lives.
- And kids go from understanding themselves to looking at history, to saying, what would I do if I was in that situation-- and then the important question, what will I do now?
[MUSIC CONTINUES]
- Individual people can have this outsized effect on history. Facing History definitely gave me the confidence to stand up for what was right and what I believed in.
- When I see students feeling empowered, when I see them feel like they have a voice, that's where you get civic engagement and participation.
- Facing History needs to be in every classroom because it changes mindsets and it shows that everyone can be an upstander, empathetic, and passionate. That is why investing in Facing History is so important and it's so critical.
- Facing History gives me hope because Facing History students are learning what it means to be responsible. They're learning what it means to pay attention. And they're learning what it means to make a difference.
[END PLAYBACK]
EDDA COLLINS COLEMAN: Hello, again. I am Edda Collins Coleman, Chair of Facing History's Northern California Advisory Board. I'm a member of the National Board of Directors. I'm also a co-chair for tonight's event, and I am Vice President of Communications at Common Sense Media.
As a parent, as a citizen of this community, an advocate for the safety of our young people online, and a staunch believer in our democracy, I'm delighted to welcome you for a conversation about education and artificial intelligence or AI is I will refer to it tonight.
We'll explore how AI is impacting our young people, how it's impacting classrooms and schools, and how it's impacting our democracy. We must teach our kids the skills they need to be critical thinkers and ethical change makers in our constantly evolving world.
Our democracy depends on it. With the growing ubiquity of AI, we must model critical thinking for our young people. As a parent, I can attest that despite my vigilance, it's really challenging. It's hard to ensure my kids don't experience the negative sides of AI.
Also, as a parent, I know the constant challenge of keeping them safe online. It will take a team of caregivers, educators, elected officials, and tech and community leaders working together to ensure there are guardrails in place.
We're here tonight to understand how Facing History's focus on critical thinking and ethical reflection and Common Sense Media's advocacy work can help us build a more humane world. For me, this is personal.
I joined the Facing History board eight years ago to ensure my children and many other children would have access to the kind of education that would empower them to be active, empathetic, and informed participants in our democracy. And I joined the common sense staff just a few months ago to help work toward a world in which the well-being of our young people and the digital world is a priority.
This is a room of changemakers. You've chosen to be here because you believe in moral courage, truth telling, and investing in our youth. Thank you for being with us tonight. And a special thank you to the elected officials who are here with us this evening-- Former Congresswoman Anna Eshoo.
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State Senator Josh Becker.
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Ruby Mayne, representing State Assemblymember Marc Berman.
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Palo Alto city council members, Greer Stone and Julie Lythcott-Haims.
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Palo Alto Board of Ed member, Josh Salcman.
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Menlo Park City School District board member, Francesca Segre.
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Thank you for your service and for recognizing the importance of Facing History's work. And thank you to the many people who have helped this event come together-- my fellow event co-chairs, Susie Richardson and Mansi Shah.
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And the members of our Facing History & Ourselves Advisory Board. Those of you who have generously donated to this event, in particular, our leadership circle supporters. Thank you to the Facing History Board of Directors. Jill Garling, our chair, is here tonight.
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And of course, the Facing History team, Desmond and Steve, whom you'll meet soon-- and the local team, Deborah D. And Emily, thank you so much.
[APPLAUSE]
Now, please help me welcome Joshua Reynolds to the stage. Josh served on the Facing History & Ourselves Advisory Board for more than 10 years. He was raised in a family with deep Facing History roots. His father, Eddie, was chair of our advisory board here in the Bay Area, in our early days. And his mother, Joyce, has been a member of our board for more than 20 years.
Josh attended Palo Alto High School and had the privilege of being Esther Wojcicki's student for 2 and 1/2 years. He was in her intro to journalism class and was also on staff of The Campanile newspaper and the Verde Magazine. Josh will share a bit about Esther's impact as an educator. Please, let's welcome Josh.
[APPLAUSE]
JOSHUA REYNOLDS: Good evening. It is with profound admiration and respect that we gather to honor Esther Wojcicki as a recipient of Facing History's Upstander Award. Esther, known affectionately as Woj by her students, is a trailblazer in education, a fearless advocate for ethical leadership, a renowned author, and a tireless champion of young voices.
I was lucky enough to be one of those young voices that had Woj as a teacher. Woj's best characteristic as a teacher was giving each student agency. For two years on the staff of both the schools newspaper and magazine, I remember either being taught by or teaching other students.
Woj was always there for advice and guidance, but let the students run the show. To be an upstander means more than simply witnessing the world as it is. Being an upstander means choosing to act when it is easy to stay silent. Unlike a bystander, an upstander takes responsibility, challenges injustice, and speaks out on behalf of others.
By giving students agency, Woj empowered us to find our own voices. When students are trusted to lead, make decisions and take ownership of their work, they begin to see themselves as active participants in shaping the world around them. Helping build that kind of confidence in students and giving them that responsibility is foundational to nurturing an upstander.
Woj's classroom wasn't just a place to learn. It was a place to practice courage, accountability, and action. And in doing so, she prepared generations of students to stand up for what is right, both in school and far beyond it. Please join me in honoring Esther Wojcicki with the Facing History & Ourselves 2025 Northern California Upstander Award.
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ESTHER WOJCICKI: Thank you.
JOSHUA REYNOLDS: [INAUDIBLE]
ESTHER WOJCICKI: Oh, pictures?
[LAUGHTER]
Yes, that's great. So now I go to me? So thank you very much, Josh. Of course, I remember lots of exciting things that happened in the classroom and also outside the classroom. I'm honored to be here with all of you. Thank you for this wonderful honor and for all of you coming tonight. I think it's really important that you're here.
This is a critical time in our country, more critical than ever before. Kids today are stressed out and anxious. They're not learning to think. They're learning to memorize. 50% of college freshmen are clinically depressed. 40% of kids two years old have their own iPads or phones. This was found out by Common Sense Media, by the way. I'm citing their study, pretty scary.
Attention span is decreasing like never before. People are not reading books anymore. They're just reading little things on TikTok. The new generation is not learning history. Schools are focused on using AI in education to support memorizing, not thinking.
Who wants to be friends with an electronic device? Like, what are we doing? It's crazy. We need Facing History more than ever, with compelling classroom stories and support for teachers. The teachers really need a lot of support at this time. Not knowing our history is one of the reasons we repeat mistakes, and we are doing it today. Let's make learning history as compelling as social media. Yes!
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And Facing History can do it. Thank you very much.
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[STEVEN LAUGHS SOFTLY]
STEVEN BECTON: Hello, everybody. Good evening. I'm Steve Becton, Facing History & Ourselves Chief Officer for Regional Operations and Organizational Equity. I'm so happy to be out here to see people I've known for a while. And I've already met some new people that I'm looking forward to being in community with even more. I've been honored to serve educators at Facing History & Ourselves for 24 years now. I know I don't look like it, but yeah.
[LAUGHTER]
But I was a Facing History educator myself. And as an educator, I found in Facing History the tenacious desire and the resources and the support I needed to create the transformative education experience that all students needed, regardless of their identities or their zip codes or their lived experiences.
As a human being, I found in Facing History a match for my moral compass, a place that shared my desire to approach everyone with dignity and respect. A bonus of being in the Facing History community is that it puts you in rooms with people like Esther. Congratulations, Esther. I've known your work for some time, and I'm honored to be in your presence. Congratulations.
To the rest of you, thanks for being here tonight, at a time when frankly, it's easy to be cynical. It's easy to just stay home and choose not to get involved. But your being here says something about your civic engagement and your spirit of participation. So thank you for being here.
I want to double down on the thanks to our chairs. Thank you, Susie. Thank you, Edda. Thank you, Mansi. This doesn't happen without dedicated people who make things like this happen with their time, their resources, their talent. Thank you so very much. And to our Northern California Advisory Board, thank you for not just tonight, but for always being here for us. So thank you again.
For over 50 years, Facing History & Ourselves has been doing this work of using the tools of inquiry and historic understanding to help students make connections between troubling moments in history and the present. And what I love about Facing History is it's beyond the rote memorization of facts and dates.
Facing History asks students to think about questions like, why did these things happen? What choices were people facing? And more importantly, what choices that people make. Facing History is an exercise in moral reasoning, an exercise in critical self-reflection and intellectual curiosity.
We neither indoctrinate students nor do we tell them what to think. But we do what we all-- what we want for all our children. Facing History helps them to develop critical thinking, to make meaning of the world around them, to see their own agency and the power of their individual choices.
At a time where politics and culture forces us into simple we and they narratives, simple, simple answers to complex questions-- you will find in the Facing History classrooms, students are challenged to find what I call the third way.
The third way breaks down barriers that are created by this we and they. It enables students to find commonality, to widen what we call their universe of obligation, to see that a difference of opinion doesn't end a conversation, but a difference of opinion can actually be the start of a new and a better conversation.
Our students learned that it's the small steps. It's the daily choices. It's how students treat students. It's how neighbor treats neighbor. They're reverberating to big changes in the democracy. And as we say at Facing History, people make choices and choices make history.
Now, some of you might be thinking, what about the learning? Yes, there is learning. We are committed to academic preparation of the highest importance. To educators, Facing History is synonymous with rigor and deep learning. We teach our students that the first step to becoming a responsibly, civically engaged person is rigorous examination of the facts grounded in historical context.
How do we do it? We first designed curriculum from our tools on fostering civil discourse and media literacy to our units about reconstruction and Japanese-American incarceration, to the Holocaust and contemporary antisemitism. Our resources have examined our most difficult histories and teach students to navigate crucial conversations with knowledge and compassion, with empathy and care for their fellow students.
And the demand for our work is great. For example, dismantling democracy or dismantling democracy lesson and our explainer on political polarization have seen more than 500% growth in visitors this year compared to last year. Thank you.
And secondly, we work with whole schools, entire school districts to bring our content to teachers and students to scale. Currently, over 300,000 educators are accessing our training. And that's not enough. We want to reach more.
And more than 31,000 are here in the Northern California region. Educators, not us, report through our evaluation studies that our profession and development transforms them, their classrooms, and ultimately their students.
Now, I've been anxiously awaiting tonight. I've been intrigued by the conversation of this evening, the intersection of education and artificial intelligence. I'm curious about how this esteemed panel would help us to grapple with the impact of AI on our students, teachers, and even our democracy.
For Facing History, whether it be an old fashioned pen and paper journal or an advanced AI tool, Facing History classrooms will always be committed to facilitating deep learning and courageous civil dialogue.
As we embrace the power of technology to connect us almost instantaneously, we also will continue to watch the rise in hate and all forms of bigotry, with rampant misinformation and with the goal of sowing fear and creating the senseless divisions that we now are growing so tired of.
And it can spread dangerously, fastly through social media. We read the reports that youth, in fact, all of us, are on our devices too often. There are few to no guardrails to protect from potentially harmful content. That's why we do media literacy work with our students, so they can make meaning of what they're seeing and what they're reading, and more importantly, what they're responding to.
Young people need that guidance to help them navigate a complex world, to make decisions and to think critically and act ethically as they have been being bombarded with information. Facing History is uniquely situated to address this moment, to partner with teachers and to partner with parents.
If you are feeling a little overwhelmed and even saddened right now with the extreme polarization that feels so prevalent, I invite you to visit a Facing History classroom led by an educator who's trained by Facing History staff person. I invite you to witness what I call tonight, the third way. You will be inspired. You will be full of hope. And I dare to say you will even be transformed.
Now, it's my great honor to welcome tonight's moderator to the stage, Felicia Mayo. Felicia is a member of our advisory board and HR executive, who has helped lead some groundbreaking companies, including Block and Nike.
She'll be joined by Jim Steyer, Founder and CEO of Common Sense Media. I'm so excited about this conversation. It's the most influential nonprofit in the kids media and technology space. Joined by our own, Desmond Blackburn, President and CEO of Facing History, a lifelong educator and school superintendent. Please, welcome them to the stage.
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DESMOND BLACKBURN: Thanks a lot, my friend.
JIM STEYER: Thank you.
FELICIA MAYO: Thank you.
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Good evening, everyone. Can you hear me?
AUDIENCE: Yes.
FELICIA MAYO: There you go. Good evening, everyone. So I am honored. I'm honored to be here this evening. And let's just make sure we have our mics together here, yes? OK, great. So I'm honored to be here this evening.
And I got a little bit of a prepared statement because it is so important that we ensure that we nail the message. Because we have so much going on today, I want to ensure that I get everything out that you all are thinking.
So I am really honored, as I stated, to be here with you, all of you-- supporters, educators, parents, technologists, and champions of truth, as you just heard from Steve. Tonight's conversation sits at a powerful crossroads between ethics and innovation, between artificial intelligence and education, and most importantly between history and our future.
At a time when the pace of technology is outstripping our ability to make sense of it all, especially in our schools, we're asking-- whose stories are being told, whose are being left out, and who decides?
That's why this moment matters more now than ever and why the work of Facing History & Ourselves is more urgent than ever. Because teaching young people to think critically about the past isn't just about memory, as you just heard earlier.
It's about moral courage. It's about recognizing our shared humanity. And it's also about shaping the world they will lead in the future. We find ourselves at a profound inflection point in our national journey, one marked by deepening polarization, eroding trust in institutions, and increasingly separate information ecosystems that make it nearly impossible to agree on basic facts, let alone solutions.
The digital transformation has accelerated these divisions with algorithms-- I'm sure you've heard about all of those-- rewarding outrage over understanding and AI technologies blurring the boundaries between truth and fiction, all while young people navigate this landscape with tools designed to capture their attention rather than nurture their development.
What makes this moment particularly challenging is that these fractures arrive precisely when collective action is most needed to address pressing challenges, like preserving democracy, addressing climate change-- I'm sure all of us, that's top of our minds right now-- and economic inequities, and determining how to manage power with new technologies.
Yet within this crisis lies the opportunity to recommit to cultivating the critical thinking, empathy and civic engagement that democracy requires, especially among the young people who will inherit these challenges.
Tonight, we're going to talk all about this-- about AI, artificial intelligence. People talk about AI right now, the way they talked about the emergence of the internet, which I remember that-- I'm sure many of you do-- a few decades ago, but let's not age me.
People are excited and some are very nervous and everything in between. So most of us are looking for guidance because artificial intelligence is here. It's here to stay. It's everywhere. And it will impact just about every aspect of our lives.
Before we move into the conversation now, let's set the stage here because everybody has a different definition. So let's set the stage with the definition-- AI or artificial intelligence. Now, I used AI to get this definition. So there you go.
It's a field of computer science that focuses on simulating human intelligence and creating machines capable of performing tasks that humans can do, such as learning, problem solving, and decision making.
Now, another term you've heard about is generative AI. So what is that? It's a type of artificial intelligence that can create new content such as text, images, audio, or video based on patterns learned from existing data. Generative AI models are trained on massive data sets. And once trained, these models can then generate new content.
We won't even talk about the new challenges with the-- you can do your doll set now. I'm sure some people are shaking their heads-- is based off of-- that's generative AI. It's taking information patterns, and it's actually creating something.
This is a multi-billion dollar industry. Much of it's located here in our backyard, dedicated to advancing AI, which brings-- which is important, and there's so many opportunities here for us. And there are enormous concerns and risk. So I am thrilled to be joined-- that's my whole speech here today. Now, we set the stage.
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Thank you. I am thrilled to be joined by two leaders who are uniquely positioned to speak about all of that, plus more. So we have Jim Steyer here, CEO of Common Sense Media. And then we have Doctor Desmond Blackburn, CEO of Facing History & Ourselves. So together, we're going to explore all things AI, education, ethics, maybe a little bit of democracy-- all threaded together. So are we ready?
JIM STEYER: Awesome, yeah.
FELICIA MAYO: We're ready. Let's go. So both of you lead organizations that center young people, jammed through digital being and media literacy. And, Desmond, you do it through nurturing, empathy, critical thinking, civic responsibility, and young people as well.
So as we dive into this conversation on artificial intelligence, I like to start by giving our audience a sense of you and your why. What personally drives each of you to protect and empower the next generation in this moment of rapid technological and societal change? So we're going to start with you, Desmond.
DESMOND BLACKBURN: Thank you so much. And thank you, everyone, for being here this evening. I wake up every morning, look in the mirror and think I'm the luckiest person in the world because I get to be an educator. And I started feeling that in 1996, when I first became a high school math teacher. And that feeling has been with me ever since.
I get to work with young people. They're exciting. They're thrilling. And they're eager to learn and apply their learning. And I can think of no better time, at least in my lived history, as the moment-- this moment to empower students with education and to believe in them, believe in their future.
The next generation, they're here. They're with us. They're eager to learn. They're eager to exercise their agency. They feel empowered. They want to know that we feel they are empowered, that their voices matter. The little people, as I call them, want to know that the big people-- that's what I call us. We believe in their voice and their agency.
And we need to help them shape their voices and their thoughts for the good of themselves and for the greater good of society. To further that democracy-- that D word that I've heard mentioned already so much this evening-- it's really, really important that we do that.
It's really important that we teach them how to exercise their new knowledge in extremely responsible, ethical ways. And again, I just wake up every day with the good fortune I get a chance to do that.
FELICIA MAYO: That's amazing. Jim, what personally drives you to protect and empower the next generation?
JIM STEYER: I was going to say-- it's interesting, Desmond. I was going to say pretty much the same thing. I'm a teacher. I mean, look, I started out as a school teacher in Harlem, in the Bronx. I was talking to Esther. I love having Esther up here, watch wherever she is. I'm very respectful and always call her Esther.
But I've known her forever. And I'm a teacher. I mean, it's the same thing. I love teaching kids. And I had a mom who taught for 40 years as a teacher. I started out as a school teacher in Harlem, South Bronx, like my mom, and then became a civil rights lawyer. And I teach civil rights and civil liberties for a long time. So that was the other thing, when I was listening to Facing History.
This is a great audience. That's the other thing that made me want to come here. I'm such a huge fan of this organization, but history is so important for young people. By the way, this is really true for my Stanford students too.
When you teach them civil rights, you got to teach them the whole history. They can't understand the law unless you tell them the history of slavery and you explain the country. Actually, this is going to be a really interesting year to be talking to them about the rule of law and a number of other things.
But fundamentally, because I'm an educator. And then second, because over 22 years, I've had this great team of people at Common Sense. Ellen, who's the president and co-CEO really runs the place. Some of my colleagues are here today. Because we've had the great good fortune, just like Facing History does, of reaching millions and millions of kids through schools, teachers, parents about the impact of media and technology on their lives.
And I would just say this because we're going to talk about it tonight. AI is a potentially defining opportunity and struggle of this generation. And so we have really gone big time at Common Sense on this issue. We'll talk about it tonight.
But I do think-- look, in many ways, I think we blew social media as a society, and we didn't put the guardrails in and the right regulations. And that's a big part of what we do at Common Sense. But we didn't even educate young people and their parents about what the implications of social media would and couldn't be.
So I would tell you, we have the chance to do that now with AI, and it's more powerful. It's also way more important educationally. So bottom line, this is a great discussion. And we're all teachers. And I'm a parent of four kids. So we're parents and grandparents. So that's why we're here. And that's why I'm here.
FELICIA MAYO: I love it. I love to hear your why and just how that is manifesting through what you're doing in society today. That's amazing for both of you. So, Jim, since we're on you, let's talk about the young people today.
So young people today were born in the digital world, as you stated, using social media and having their digital skills and habits. They are evolving. But as we know and as research confirms, young people need safe spaces and guardrails, as you just highlighted, when operating in these digital spaces. And we know very well that the companies creating the AI technologies are not making business decisions in our kids' best interests, as you somewhat alluded to as well.
So if we think about the new report you just put out, teens trust in technology in the age of AI. What have you learned from this research? What are some of the larger implications on our community? So expand upon what you were just speaking about. And then also layer on that about our democracy. How do you connect all these pieces as these teens grow into adults and become voters and civic participants?
JIM STEYER: All in 20 words or less?
FELICIA MAYO: All in 20 words or less.
JIM STEYER: So that's a great question. That's a great question we'll cut into, but also, Desmond will make this collaborative and just back and forth. So I think that what we've really seen-- I mean, Esther brought up-- I love you brought up the fact that 40% of two-year-olds have their own iPad or phone. I mean, what are we thinking, parents and grandparents. Are you kidding me?
But here's what it shows. Look, our research, we spend a couple million bucks a year doing research on all tech's impact on kids and families and society. We're really doing it on AI in the last couple of years.
And what you see is, first of all, the teens and even pre-teens are more sophisticated about AI than you guys are, for sure-- and then their teachers are and their parents are. That's totally true. My kids are all in their 20s up to 30, so I have four kids. And it really impacts how old the kids are. You all understand that. So the younger the kids are in my-- the more purely digital native they are.
So what we see, though, is they don't really trust the big companies to do best by them. It's one of the reasons why I think Facing History is such an important organization, by the way. But it's also why Common Sense has been so successful in the last 20 years is because we're an honest, third party, independent nonprofit. And you can trust us, what we do-- teachers do, parents do, everybody else does, even legislators and politicians do.
And I would say, for the most part, the tech companies do too. So we take them on. We are not afraid of them at all and have the scale, between 150 million to 200 million users. That's a lot of people and a lot of teachers. That's why when you talk about the scale you guys have with schools, that matter.
But I think at the end of the day, I don't totally agree that the companies aren't good. So we could get into that. But we work-- in addition to writing laws and regulations, California guys is the center of regulation and legislation in the United States.
Anna knows that very well. All the major laws have been passed here because no matter-- despite the great efforts of Anna Eshoo and some other friends of ours, Congress has not passed major regulation of the tech industry at all. So the big regulation is California and New York in the United States, and then over in Brussels and London. And it's really important, putting those guardrails on.
But just the last thing I'd say, because you asked me a long question, was that the tech, like Anthropic-- there are really four or five really big players right now. There're going to be a lot of other players, but you've got Anthropic, Google, OpenAI, Microsoft, and then several other players at the next level.
I actually don't think you should-- look, I think there's a chance to work with them now. And we are working with the first three a lot. Even though we're criticizing them and regulating them, we're also working with them because I think there's a chance to get AI right when it comes to education. That's number 1.
And second, the other topic tonight we'll have plenty of time is they could really mess up our democracy. I mean, our democracy is-- I completely agree with Esther. This is the scariest time in my lifetime. And I'm over 40 by a lot. And so are most of you people that I can see out there.
[LAUGHTER]
So this is a really scary time, and AI has the ability to either help protect our democracy or help destroy our democracy. So for all those reasons, it has a huge impact on education, clearly, and could be really positive. And it's going to affect democracy. So I think we all have to be really engaged in this conversation and trying to get it right and in some cases, working with the companies to make sure they do the right thing. Long answer, but that's what I [INAUDIBLE].
FELICIA MAYO: I love it. Do you have anything--
DESMOND BLACKBURN: I'll just add some points there. I think about my father-in-law. I mentioned, I started teaching high school math in 1996. My father-in-law started teaching middle school math exactly 40 years earlier, right, 1956. And he tells me, Desmond, we never should have allowed slide rules in classrooms.
[LAUGHTER]
FELICIA MAYO: Oh.
DESMOND BLACKBURN: And that was controversial back in 1956, according to my father-in-law, as controversial as AI is. And they learned then, we've learned now. These are tools that you simply can't avoid because every generation is ahead of the preceding generation, big time.
So kids are already using AI. They're already proficient in AI. We have not provided, one, the support in helping them use AI in a very ethical way. We have not provided the guardrails. Because in many classrooms, I'll say, not some, we're still combating technology.
We did that with the laptop. We did that with the internet. We did that with different tools. We combat it as educators before living into it and embracing it. And that's going to be really, really, really important to help students make ethical decisions.
In teaching students how to leverage the lessons from history so that we don't repeat history, AI can absolutely be a tool with that. Never fear. AI tools will not replace the human educator.
Education has been-- I think, will always be an exchange of humanity between teacher and student. And within that exchange is not only the knowledge, but the ability to use knowledge to create self-agency and things of that nature-- so really, really looking forward to how this all progresses.
And then just the last thing I'll just double down on, the need for all of us not to shy away from, but to again establish the norms and the contracts around how the appropriate use of alternative intelligence is to be used.
JIM STEYER: So let me just-- I would agree totally with what you said, Desmond. I would say a couple of things. One, that if you take a look at what we're doing, this is really-- [INAUDIBLE] I was talking earlier about how we can work. We're huge fans of Facing History.
So we're talking about-- and, Edda, thank you, Lord. Edda got training for eight years on the board here and now is at Common Sense Media. Bless you all for giving us the great Edda Collins Coleman to work on Common Sense. Seriously.
FELICIA MAYO: That's amazing.
JIM STEYER: Come on.
FELICIA MAYO: Congratulations.
JIM STEYER: I'm so happy.
FELICIA MAYO: Congratulations to you.
JIM STEYER: We are. Thank you. Thank you, guys. Look, this is really interesting because we're doing three things. You guys understand Common Sense, basically as an organization, we rate, educate, and advocate. So we rate everything-- movies, TV, video games.
Now we're rating the platforms. We've been doing this for two years. And they're like risk assessments. So this is what-- it's very interesting, by the way, because you actually have to get all the information from the big platforms in the LLMs. That's the OpenAIs and Anthropics and the Googles et cetera-- and to rate them.
But it's really interesting because you then have to be-- we also-- our big investment in schools now is what AI literacy-- we at the field of digital literacy, that's what we have and all these classrooms all around the country and increasingly around the world. But what we're really doing is AI literacy. And it's very interesting because we have [INAUDIBLE] to what you were saying, Desmond. So the big thing to me-- can you guys hear?
AUDIENCE: Yeah, but don't move your mic.
JIM STEYER: Thank you, Anna.
[LAUGHTER]
By the way, you don't think I don't listen to Anna Eshoo then think again-- the only person in the audience who could have said that, Anna Eshoo. Bless you, Anna. I'm just getting excited because it's an interesting topic, you know, anyway.
It's a critical time to do the digital literacy stuff. But it's really now AI literacy. And we actually have staff. This is interesting. We're educators. We're like, we're worried that AI will replace the human factor. This is what you were saying, Des.
I do not believe that. I just think it's a tool. It's a more powerful tool than social media was, certainly in the classroom context. But the key is, are we going to be able to harness it well? Because I totally agree with you.
I have two of our four kids who're educators. I'm so proud-- teachers. And I hope more and more of you, all your kids and grandkids will be too. Because it's such a noble, important profession. Thank you, Esther Wojcicki, for showing us all that.
But I do think it's not going to replace it, but it could be really good or really bad. And that's the critical thing here now--
FELICIA MAYO: Let's talk about it.
JIM STEYER: --is that we train the teachers, that we educate the parents as well as the students. And I think all of us working together on that and then making sure we put the right laws and regulations in place to rein in the big companies, that's the future.
FELICIA MAYO: Let's talk about the good and the bad. So if we talk about-- and let's go to Desmond. You talked about AI in the classroom and the role of the educator. And you've kind of hit on that. But let's talk about, how do you make sure that kids, I mean, our educators are teaching the kids the good part and don't leave out the bad part and embrace it-- embrace the AI that Jim is talking about?
DESMOND BLACKBURN: Well, I'll lift up what we do as an organization at Facing History & Ourselves, because it's going to be and it is supportive in this effort. So for just about 50 years now, we've been helping youngsters lift up the lessons-- not just dates and places, times, names, et cetera in history, but lifting up the lessons from a historical perspective in certain moments in history.
And we don't shy away from the difficult parts of history and the lessons learned, the human behavior and the human decisions that contributed to those moments of history-- really, very important for us.
AI can support in that. AI will not do that for students. AI won't do the thinking. AI won't do the appreciating of each other across lines of differences. AI won't care for another human. We need humans to do that. And we need teachers to empower students and help them to do that-- really, really important.
AI provides answers based on information. It's fed. That's not the key component to our pedagogy. Asking questions as opposed to delivering answers is the key part to our pedagogy. And that is something that AI can't do to the extent that a human being could do.
So it's destined to be a perfect complement of each other and not a replacement of one or the other. And again, I'll reiterate. Our students are using it now without the guardrails, without the supports. And so for it to reach its optimal place, we got to jump in and support and partner with our youngsters.
FELICIA MAYO: And they actually have to critically think in order to put the right prompt in, to even get the response or the outcome that maybe they're looking for, the information they're looking for in AI. I guess, I'll take a poll here in the audience just to get our audience engaged in AI. I mean, Jim, I'm not going to say anything about ages or generations out in our audience or anything.
JIM STEYER: I'm the only person under 40 here, so that's totally cool.
FELICIA MAYO: Exactly. But raise your hand if you have prompted an AI. You have used ChatGPT. And everyone's kind of-- the majority of our audience has actually used it. And if you have kids or grandkids, are they showing you how to use AI? Hands, please. Yep, we got some hands up.
And our kids are using it and trying to use it responsibly, but it also does take many of us to guide them through. It's helpful. You need to still critically think. You need to be able to maneuver through the system for sure.
So I think that these are all pieces of-- like, information that you're hearing here, you're actually living in real life right now with your kids, with all of you. And you're probably doing legal documents and everything. Nancy, sorry. Because I know Nancy's a lawyer here, but people are using it to get legal documents, trying to better understand what their documents should look like. Do I even need a lawyer for this?
Or do I need an HR professional? I'll use me as an example. Do I need an offer-- I can get an offer letter done in just like this, in AI. But, the human part in human resources-- I'll use myself as an example. You still need that piece. And so even in education and in schools, you need that piece. You need the educator to be able to connect all of that. And that is through working with the corporations, right, Jim?
JIM STEYER: Well, it is, but here I would say a few things. So one, I actually think building the systems is and I think what you're going to see happen over the next couple of years. Ellen and Mike, some of my colleagues here, know we're looking at this pretty seriously.
Look, if you look at social-- I'll just give you the example-- social media-- this is for YouTube Go, YouTube Kids-- I always say this. But they should have built it with us because it's hugely, incredibly important platform. They're the only guys who really tried to do a version of a big social media platform for kids. Nobody else did.
But I would still say in retrospect, I wish we'd gone to them 15 years ago and said, we should build this with you. Because we get kids, and we see what the guardrails should be. This is the way to do it. So here's what I'd say about AI, but I'm going to actually mention some of the risks.
So, one, the whole-- one of the key things-- you guys have said the words critical thinking like 500 times tonight. That, and upstanding, and empowerment-- that's the core of your philosophy. But I will tell you as an educator and as someone who helps run an organization where we have a lot of tech people, kids could use this in the wrong way.
And I mean this. You really have to be-- because the whole key to learning is being able to synthesize information, do it, and then have to learn it, and then not just regurgitate it, but think critically about it. So AI can do a lot of that for you. And I worry about that, not just with my students at Stanford, but I certainly would worry about that in a fourth or sixth or eighth grade classroom.
So that's one thing. It's overuse of it without moderation and without really good teaching professional development. A couple of other things that we should really think about are-- and the last one is about democracy is there is going to be-- there are AI companions out there that kids are using and they can have really unhealthy relationships.
You've started to see this. You guys, you did the definition at the beginning. But it's you have generative AI coming out. And its agents become smarter and smarter. They almost are sentient beings. There was a really interesting 60 minutes interview on Sunday with Demis Hassabis, the founder of DeepMind, who was talking about-- are they really becoming almost sentient human beings?
And you saw the suicide of the kid. When we do testimony right now up in Sacramento and elsewhere, we bring parents, unfortunately, who've had really, really terrible experiences. Because that's why we're trying to put regulations in place. So we bring parents who are willing to talk about some of the downsides of what's happened to their children, either on social media or even early stage AI.
So I would say you got to worry about that. And the other thing you really have to worry about is, which is a democracy issue, particularly in this day and age, where we have people who are absolutely, obviously lying on purpose and manipulating information in political contexts all far and wide is misinformation.
So AI allows you-- it's like social media on steroids in terms of amplifying messages and misinformation. So those are the-- I just want to at least put out there. Even though I think there's extraordinary promise, there's huge downside. And organizations like Facing History and Common Sense have got to educate not just the students, but also the teachers and the parents about this stuff too.
FELICIA MAYO: Yeah, absolutely. Desmond, would you like to add to that?
DESMOND BLACKBURN: The only things I would add there-- thank you so much for that, Jim-- is that, you know several things that AI can do for us in education. One, AI can expand significantly-- exponentially expand access to education by students everywhere, can support education in being translated across languages, can support education in being customized to each student's lived experience. So education becomes authentic and usable to solve real-world problems in the context of each student.
I mean, education can be used to help students solve conflict among each other, especially when I think about Facing History & Ourselves, how we study some of the most problematic parts of history where there conflict exists. There are lessons that can be learned, and students can use those lessons in order to solve the problems they're having right there in their classrooms with their students.
There's so many parts of teaching that are rote. AI can step in and tackle many of the rote pieces of education so that we can restore what I talked about earlier, that human-to-human relationship building and contact.
The numbers are staggering in students who do not have an adult in close proximity where they feel comfortable talking to. That's pretty scary. And believe it or not, AI, this particular technology, can free the hands of teachers to be able to go back and actually build authentic relationships with youngsters. And we're missing that component in education right now.
JIM STEYER: Desmond is absolutely right about that. Because he can take care of me. You were talking earlier, Felicia, about people worried about the human and [INAUDIBLE]-- now it's hilarious-- and your job. I get it. [INAUDIBLE] are worried about, hey, I just generate a will-- a lot of different tasks.
But for teachers, there are all those menial tasks, day to day. All of us who've been teachers, there's a lot of work and all that attendance and all the stuff that you have to do. I completely agree with what you said.
Look, in the big picture, AI in a positive way, can transform two huge aspects of our lives-- education, in a way, and healthcare. Those are the two places where, if done wisely, AI can be extraordinary. We ought to invest a ton on that and we ought to hold that-- these are not small billion-- these are trillion-dollar companies. So we ought to hold them accountable for what they do in a positive way in education and health.
I do think, though, that in addition to that, you have to regulate these people and put guardrails in place, even well-meaning corporate executives like you. Some of the people running these companies-- Dario and Daniela Amodei, who founded Anthropic, they spun out of OpenAI.
Dario went to Mission High School in San Francisco, which is, to me, great. And he went to Stanford and MI-- PhD and whatever, applied physics or whatever-- and his sister, who really runs the company. Of the leaders of the companies, Sam is a Stanford person. And, you guys can figure out who Sam Altman is because he's built several other companies too. And he's different than Daniela and Dario.
But what I will tell you is they have-- even if they're well-intentioned-- and I'm calling out Dario in particular as a person, I think, really has a vision of how this could be transformational in a positive way and often talking about the risks a lot. They've got to be regulated. I mean, I'm looking at Anna because-- and Josh Becker.
I don't know where Josh is, but he's a great legislator. I heard you guys mention him earlier. He's a great legislator. And the truth is we have to regulate these companies. In addition to all the potential, you've got to put the guidelines and the guardrails in place too.
FELICIA MAYO: For all of the companies that you're highlighting, the guardrails are very important, even well-intentioned, because we all need to know the rules of the road here. Hearing all of this, now, hopefully it hasn't scared you. You're getting so much information in here. We're talking about education. We're talking about healthcare. We're talking about AI-- all the things.
Now, what gives both of you the most hope right now about our ability to shape a future where AI in history, education, they work together in service of justice, truth, and empathy? What gives you hope?
DESMOND BLACKBURN: Well, one, I think, based on the people who I've been listening to-- school district leaders, teachers, principals, and many people in the philanthropic community who are focused on education as a life-changing, world-altering mechanism-- are realizing that for far too long, we have prioritized other subject matter in school over history, civics, and things of that nature.
And so we're really, really behind. And we're watching the ramifications of how much we've ignored civics and history play out on the evening news just about every night. And so to advance technology, we need to-- it makes sense why we prioritize STEM education in school. It makes sense and how that leads to AI.
All forms of technology are going to need something fundamental in order to grow. They're going to need youngsters between the ages of maybe 18 and 25, or 18 and 28, in that time frame to sit, talk, discuss across their lines of differences-- not be hampered by differences, but turn into human beings who can celebrate each other, celebrate their differences in order to collaborate on this technology and find optimal uses for it.
Again, far too long, we've ignored civic education, history education. And in order to see AI really reach where we think it can reach in benefiting all of us as a nation, as a society, we have to do this.
FELICIA MAYO: Absolutely. Jim.
JIM STEYER: I totally agree with what Desmond just said. But, look, I would say to all of you, what gives me hope-- the basic question is I get to work with kids. That's what gives me hope. I get to work with young people. Young people are what give me hope. By the way, one of the saddest things-- Desmond knows we do this annual summit. It's a big child advocacy summit that we just held--
DESMOND BLACKBURN: It's a big summit. Period.
JIM STEYER: But it is. But we have great child advocacy leaders like Desmond and others from around the country speaking on it. And the truth is young people-- how can you work with young people and not be an optimist, is what I would say.
And how can it not give you hope to be an educator, to be a teacher, to be a parent, or a grandparent? I mean, I think you've got to go in with a hopeful attitude on all that. And young people give you that, their voices do.
But the one thing I would tell you that was a little interesting-- you know we do that study every year. Look, most young people are pretty worried about the future of this country. That's the one thing I would really tell you that I am very concerned about.
Look, I've got four kids. I used to give this speech all the time when Anna was in high school, which was this, that the fundamental nature of the American dream is that everyone leaves a better off society the next generation.
And, come on. I gave that speech so many times. And when I started Children Now, before I did Common Sense, and it's like-- and by the way, so do great leaders like Anna. The truth is young people don't believe that right now. That's a huge fundamental failure of the American dream. It's why organizations like Facing History are so important, you guys--
FELICIA MAYO: Absolutely.
JIM STEYER: --and what you do in your mission is so important, and all education organizations, and hopefully the work we do too. But the truth is young people don't feel that. The 18 to 28-year-old cohort, that's Gen Z basically. Right, Desmond? And they don't necessarily-- that data we just came out with in March, they don't. And their parents are worried about them too. It's why Trump got elected, guys. It's actually the underlying reason that Trump got elected this time.
So I think we have to really double down on all the stuff we're talking about in AI, but also just fundamentally investing in the next generation and believing in them and channeling energy, resources, and [INAUDIBLE] towards them. I mean, this is the traditional child advocacy message, but it's true. And I think we are at a crossroads as a country on this.
And the one thing about AI is it can be transformational in a positive way. And I think it gives us a chance to reinvent education significantly, but never removing the human factor, the teacher factor, et cetera. But it does. There is a moment of big opportunity and peril right now. So I think a lot of it's up to, how do we handle the next 5 or 10 years in this country?
FELICIA MAYO: Well, I have hope, I think. But I have hope only because we're all sitting here together, having this conversation. What a powerful conversation. And we have to go further than conversation. We have to have action with it. And we all know that.
And how do we have action? Many of us are sitting in front of our TVs. We're going through life every day, as Jim and Desmond are saying, and we're like, what's our next action? What can we do? There's so many things that you can do and you can start tonight. But we'll talk about that later. But you can start tonight. I think, right now, just hearing-- first and foremost, thank you to both Jim and Desmond for your vision, your conviction, and your clarity.
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We really appreciate you both taking your time and really highlighting about AI in education. And if there's one thing that we've heard tonight is this-- the ethical future of AI won't be written by any algorithms. It will be written by all of us and by educators who dare to continue to tell the truth, and by parents who demand truth and dignity for their children-- that's all of us-- by advocates and donors who refuse to let technology become a tool of erasure.
We will not be erased. The kids will not be erased. Our backgrounds, our history will not be erased. And democracy will not be erased. Facing History has always stood at the front lines of this work, not just preserving history, but empowering young people to understand their place in it.
Your support tonight isn't just a donation. It's an investment in a more honest, more just, and more hopeful future. So, thank you. Thank you for being here, for believing in this mission, and for ensuring that the next generation grows up with the tools to think critically, act compassionately, and lead courageously. Because, boy, do we need some leaders today. Let's give round of applause for our leaders here. And, come on. Thank you.
JIM STEYER: Thank you, guys.
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FELICIA MAYO: Again, thank you to our panel. And I'm going to introduce our alum speaker tonight. Now I'd like to introduce you to someone who does just all of what we just spoke about. Ethan Ferguson is a Facing History alum who carries with him lessons from his Facing History classes. He's passionate about education and technology, and even more importantly, finding ways to apply what he has learned through Facing History to help people use technology for good. Please welcome Ethan.
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ETHAN FERGUSON: Let's see this.
FELICIA MAYO: Great job. You did great. Thank you. Great job. Yes, great job, [INAUDIBLE].
ETHAN FERGUSON: Hello, everyone. My name is Ethan Ferguson, and I'm a proud native of Memphis, Tennessee. And yes, before you ask, I do have family who knew Elvis. I'm even wearing my blue suede shoes.
And I am a Gen Z. I'm a Facing History alum, educator, and now a technology partner. My journey with Facing History began in middle school and continued throughout high school and led me to join the Facing History student leadership group for the Memphis area. I made lifelong friends, led teach-ins, and even hosted the Polish-Czech cultural delegation for the MLK50 commemoration.
Through Facing History, I met visionaries like Ambassador Ryszard Schnepf, civil rights leaders like Jesse Jackson, and XQ Founder Laurene Powell Jobs, with whom I helped launch Crosstown High School-- a nationally recognized, reimagined school that proudly partners with Facing History. While attending Rhodes College, I joined Crosstown's faculty and taught students how to build AI programs before it was mainstream.
Also, around that time, I worked here in the Bay Area with Velodyne Lidar, contributing to cutting-edge, autonomous vehicle technology. Most of my career has been focused on computer vision for self-driving cars and robotics. But recently, I've shifted towards large language models and how exploring-- how AI can promote justice.
After college, I partnered with Facing History to create digital twins or highly 3D-- highly realistic 3D models of digital and virtual spaces that can simulate a crime or a disaster of the history of Memphis. And this so far has been my most meaningful work, telling the stories about how choices change history.
I collaborated with the Memphis Lynching Sites Project to digitally reconstruct five lynching sites and the MLK assassination in Memphis. I also created a digital twin of the Glinno Wielkie concentration camp in Western Poland, where my family is from. And some of my family unfortunately died.
My motivation for partnering with Facing History comes from a story I first heard in high school, a powerful lesson in the limits of technology. In 1925, a steamboat-- an experimental steamboat, the latest of its time called the ME Norman, carrying members of the prestigious Memphis' society of engineers and other white socialites, hit a sandbar and capsized.
Tom Lee, a Black man in a small skiff who himself couldn't swim, rescued 32 lives that day. However, and this is really unfortunate, several very smart engineers drowned because they refused to take the hand of a Black man, out of racial prejudice.
That story stayed with me and refined how I view my work in technology. Dr. King once lamented that we have guided missiles and misguided guided men. Just as the engineers of 1925 placed blind faith in flawed boat technology, while rejecting the hand of their rescuer when it inevitably failed, today, we place our trust in AI technology like large language models. Yet all too often, we operate with small language models.
But Facing History taught me that no matter how advanced our technology becomes, we will always need people, upstanders to act with courage and conviction, and those like me to tell the important stories about what happened here. In order to operate the immense power of today's AI technology with intentionality and integrity, you need a Facing History education.
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I'll grab this.
SUSIE RICHARDSON: Thank you. Whoa.
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I'm Susie Richardson. I'm a member of the Board of Directors of Facing History and a fierce advocate for democracy, education, and Facing History. Thank you so much to all of you for being here tonight. Congratulations to Esther. And thank you to Jim, and Desmond, and Felicia, and to Ethan for sharing your Facing History journey. It's truly inspiring to see a student come out of the classroom and then meet us at this 9 moment.
These are daunting times. The threats to our democracy are real and chilling. And we must not look away. AI is big. AI is powerful. It is perhaps the most important player in our battle to save democracy and to tell the truth. It will inform our future.
I asked my 19-year-old granddaughter if she used AI in college. She looked at me with one of those looks like, of course, grandma. And then I asked her about her sister, who's a sophomore in high school. And the answer was, of course.
And as you've heard tonight, I can be wonderfully helpful, but it can also derail students' learning and misinform their future. So what must we do? First, we must pay attention. We must demand that our government and our corporations adopt and follow ethical standards.
We are Silicon Valley. We are California. This is where it must begin. As you've heard, Josh Becker and Marc Berman are leading the way on legislation for the ethical use of AI. Each one of us must raise our voices in this debate.
Second, we must engage with the tech community. How many of you are in tech C-suites? How many of you know people who are? We must engage. We must defend democracy. And third, we must add education to our list of priorities for our engagement and our support.
Many of our high school students will be voting in the midterms. Almost all of them will be voting for our next president. And yet, many of our teachers don't share their students' comfort with AI. And Facing History can help them.
Facing History has a track record. We have developed meaningful curriculum around the consumption of social media. We are the place to train teachers and their students in how to address AI ethically.
You can help Facing History become a beacon of hope and of information for teachers and students in understanding the importance of ethical reflection and media literacy amidst the rise of AI technology.
And you can help Facing History to do so much more. Oh, and as you help us, Facing History can do so much more. Our students must learn the lessons of history, which may have become all too relevant today.
Civics, as you've heard, must be returned to classrooms. Students must be challenged to develop their ethical compasses. Their social and emotional learning must be addressed, critical thinking, as you've heard in critical discernment. Facing History does all these things.
As Steve mentioned earlier, but I think it deserves repetition, our lessons on dismantling democracy and our explainer on political polarization have been visited by more teachers-- at 500% more teachers than they were last year. Teachers know what they need, and we are there to help.
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With attacks on everything we stand for, we must stand up now. Here are two immediate ways you can help. First, you can bring Facing History to your schools. We have these flyers that our staff can give you when you leave, that you can take to your schools, to your teachers, to your principals so that they can engage with us. So we can be helpful. We are many places, but we have so much more to do.
Second, make a meaningful donation to Facing History, so we can expand our outreach. As you've heard, and as I've said, people make choices and choices make history. Please, make the choice to stand with us tonight. Stand up for education. And as some of you have heard me say before, I believe that democracy runs through the classroom. So now, it's on us to see what that road is like.
OK, this is the end of hearing from us. And now it's your turn. So what I'm going to ask you to do is take out your cell phones. Yes, take them out. And some of you have already, I think-- I hope-- gone to our QR code, which is on your program.
And if I turn around, is it going to be on the screen? Uh-huh, our QR code. And if you can just snap a picture of your QR code-- you know, when those little yellow things come up around it? It will take you to our donation site. And we would ask that you make a donation. You can put your credit card right in there or you can make a pledge.
Of course, you could go to your DAF or any other way. You can go home and think about it, but really commit tonight. And we even have envelopes. And we take checks. And we take cash. And if you want an envelope, our staff will have one for you.
So I'm not going to sit down and tell you, take out your phones. I don't see too much too much action. Just see if you can get that little picture, and then you can decide what you're going to do with it.
I really appreciate your being here. I think this was a really important conversation. A special thank you to Anna for sitting in the front row and making Jim talk into his microphone. And for all that you have done for us for 32 years, we are so grateful. Thank you.
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