Pedagogically, The Future is Now at Cambridge Friends School

This has not been written by AI. This has been written by someone who’d recently listened to a fascinating talk given by Harvard professor Howard Gardner, psychologist, educator, and theorist, about “large language instruments,” as he likes to say, and the impact “an AI-augmented world” is already having—and will have—on education. This has been written by someone who’d perked up when Gardner, the world-famous pioneer of multiple intelligences, mentioned “Quaker-style gatherings” as a way forward.

Were AI to synthesize that September 17, 2025 Askwith Forum at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education, it would emphasize that Gardner, whom AI describes as a “global intellectual,” shared the stage with Anthea Roberts, whose Dragonfly Thinking creates AI tools to help strategic decision-making in business and policy-making; the conversation between Roberts and Gardner actually dominated the forum. Given his brevity on the subject of Quaker-style gatherings, AI’s synthesis might actually fail to take note of Gardner’s remarks. This will not.

Garner posited that in this AI-augmented world, in the future “educational vehicles” could and should offer what AI can’t. One such educational vehicle, already here and now and practiced daily and consistently at Cambridge Friends School: “Quaker-style gatherings,: i.e. spaces where students get together to talk about how they feel, to listen to and to value other points of view, learn how to ask questions, and to make decisions that are “supportive and peaceful, rather than violent or judgmental.” (Another present-day example of an educational vehicle Gardner mentioned: Interactive museums such as Boston’s Museum of Science where children explore, touch, play, experiment; these interactive learning opportunities also happen here and now and consistently at CFS.)

If you would like to know more, here is the link: Watch Howard Gardner on the Askwith Education Forum at Harvard. You’ll find “Quaker-style gathering” is at 28 minutes, 40 seconds. Conveniently, Gardner discusses “a meta-perspective on subjects and disciplines,” another hallmark of Cambridge Friends School instruction, follows just after.