Designing Schools

Directions Website Contact the school

Designing Schools Helping you design your future with technology & AI
Courses | Consulting | Keynotes

10/12/2026

When Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky looked at how his top engineers use AI, he noticed something surprising: they’re using the exact same tools available to everyone else at home🧠

The differentiator isn’t access to secret tech.

It’s agency.

It’s the deep-seated belief that you have the power to step up, build a solution, and execute.

You don’t need a computer science degree to lead in the age of AI. Having even a basic understanding puts you ahead and using that knowledge to uplift others builds collective agency across your entire team.

In our up coming book Whitespace, I map out the 3 P’s to practice agency and build with AI every day:

1️⃣ Problem: Where is friction slowing down human capability?

2️⃣ Possibility: How can an AI teammate unlock a new way forward?

3️⃣ People: How does this empower the human beings behind the work?

Stop waiting for permission or a perfect policy. agency is a practice.

10/08/2026

If you want to move from basic prompting to actual AI leverage, you only need to master two words: Skills and Plugins🧠⚡️

Think of it like this…

Plugins give AI agents hands to interact with the real world (connecting to your apps, calendar, and files), while Skills give them the brain (custom instructions, frameworks, and expertise).

When you pair the right skill with the right plugin, you stop giving simple commands and start delegating full multi-step workflows.

10/06/2026

When you stop managing AI through fear and start designing human-centered teams, everything changes.

👇 Are you treating AI like an search engine or a teammate? Drop your thoughts below, or comment FUTURE to get our Executive Framework on leading human-AI teams!

Students are deliberately making their writing worse just to avoid being falsely accused of using AI by an unreliable al...
10/03/2026

Students are deliberately making their writing worse just to avoid being falsely accused of using AI by an unreliable algorithm.

Read that again.

When schools rely on “AI detectors” and panic-driven bans, they create a culture of Two-Way Suspicion:

🚨Teachers suspect every raw draft is automated slop.

🚨Students suspect every assignment is a trap.

Harvard’s Center for Digital Thriving just confirmed what we’ve been saying: Fear is destroying the student-teacher relationship.

If an AI policy turns educators into cops and students into suspects, the policy has failed.

We don’t need longer lists of “don’ts” or better surveillance software. We need open dialogue, process-based assessments, and human-centered design.

👇 Be honest: Have you seen “two-way suspicion” showing up in your school or home this year? Drop your reality below!

You don’t need a tech degree to raise a kid who’s ready for the future. You just need to build what AI can’t replicate.
...
10/02/2026

You don’t need a tech degree to raise a kid who’s ready for the future.

You just need to build what AI can’t replicate.

White Space: Raising Thinkers in the Age of AI launches, available now. 🔗 link in profile to grab your copy!

Fifteen years from today, the software apps we teach our students to click on will be long obsolete.The algorithms will ...
10/01/2026

Fifteen years from today, the software apps we teach our students to click on will be long obsolete.

The algorithms will have evolved ten times over. The specific platforms will be forgotten.

So when we strip away the unit plans, the standardized test prep, and the daily compliance tasks, we have to ask ourselves the most important question in education:

What are we actually leaving them with?

In an AI-driven world, the facts can be retrieved in a millisecond. What remains irreplaceable are the human capabilities:

✨ How to cultivate self-awareness and trust their own voice

✨ How to use design thinking to solve complex, messy human problems

✨ How to ask critical questions rather than blindly accepting automated answers

✨ How to build social capital and navigate an uncertain future with agency

We aren’t just teaching subjects. We are designing the human foundation for 2041🧠

💬 To every educator and leader reading this: I want to hear from you. What is the one thing you’re passing onto your students this week that you hope stays with them 15 years from now?

Drop your answer in the comments!

10/01/2026

Did ChatGPT kill Google Drive 🔪 🔪 🔪

OpenAI released so many exciting updates and one of them is Spaces. Sam Altman shared how there are no productivity apps for human + AI collaboration.

Um SO true.

in this video I share what it can look like and the power of Spaces + Plugins.

My favorite part was the end of DevDay where he shared we are the Momentum generation. We are builders and creators.

What are you excited to create?

09/30/2026

I think Oprah is making the case for AI better than the people selling AI ex the “Super Intelligence” club

Oprah talks about purpose, agency, possibility, and believing your life can be bigger than it looks today.

Trump, Elon Musk, Jensen Huang and other powerful voices talking about AI keep coming back to a different language: abundance, capability, ambition, what becomes possible when technology removes old limits.

Musk has explicitly framed AI and robotics as a path to abundance, while Trump has recently been promoting a pro-AI growth agenda alongside major tech leaders, including Huang.

The difference is where they start.

Oprah starts with the human.
Trump, Elon and Jensen start with the technology.

We need more people connecting those dots — helping people see that AI can give them more agency, raise their ambition, and help them act on ideas that used to feel out of reach.

Because when the conversation starts with the technology, a lot of people hear hype. When it starts with the human, they hear possibility.

Comment SPARK and I’ll send you the framework I use to take one idea, frustration, or “there has to be a better way” moment and turn it into something you can actually act on with AI.

It’s time to move past the screen-time battles and start building real-world purpose.
White Space: Raising Thinkers in t...
09/30/2026

It’s time to move past the screen-time battles and start building real-world purpose.

White Space: Raising Thinkers in the Age of AI is coming October 1st!

👉 Link in bio to join the movement.

09/28/2026

Building physical habits requires a checklist. Building digital habits requires a playbook.

📚 The wait is almost over, Tara Menghini and my new book, White Space, is officially available October 1st! It’s time to clean out the mental and digital clutter so real learning and creative focus can happen.

👇 Ready for something now? Build these habits alongside your kids or students today. Comment ‘TOGETHER’ below to join our free 7-Day Challenge now.

Address

Laguna Woods, CA

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Designing Schools posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The School

Send a message to Designing Schools:

Shortcuts

Share