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What If School Made You Love Yourself? Sonn Sam Rethinks Learning from the Ground Up
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This week on AmpED to 11, Brett shares the mic with Sonn Sam, keynote speaker, equity champion, and national director at Big Picture Learning—for a raw, reflective, and radically human conversation about what happens when we stop asking, “Are you smart?” and start asking, “What are you passionate about?”
Sonn’s journey begins as a square peg in a round-hole system, a track that nearly derailed his sense of self-worth until a breakdancing crew (yes, breakdancing!) in a community theater changed everything. That real-world learning experience taught him the power of passion, purpose, and self-love, and fuels his mission today to co-create transformative, learner-centered systems across the country.
From the scars of failed systems to the promise of AI as a lever for justice and personalization, Sonn gets real about the work Big Picture Learning is doing to help every young person feel brilliant. But don’t mistake his authenticity for naivety—he wrestles openly with AI’s ethical tensions while building tools like ImBlaze that actually rehumanize education by streamlining the noise to make space for deeper mentoring and learning.
What you’ll learn:
❤️ Bold vision: How Big Picture Learning rebuilds school around one student at a time—interests first, paperwork second.
❤️ Hard truths: Why “college and career readiness” is incomplete without personal purpose and self-worth.
❤️ Real-world learning: What happens when breakdancing becomes curriculum—and how to scale that experience.
❤️ AI with soul: How tools like ImBlaze use AI to repurpose educator time, not replace it, so students can go deeper.
❤️ Executive function decoded: How AI can help chunk big dreams into manageable milestones—for kids and adults alike.
❤️ Self-love as curriculum: Why Sonn tells every 11-year-old to start with this: “You are loved. You are brilliant. That matters.”
Hosted by Brett Roer (while Rebecca recovers, with love and seat-saving), this episode is a love letter to possibility, identity, and designing schools that don’t just work—but work for every learner.
🎧 Tune in, subscribe, and share if you’re ready to turn up the volume on what’s possible in education.
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