Episodes

  • Matt Beaudreau

    Show Notes:

    Matt Beaudreau is the Founder of Acton Academy Placer Schools. He is also the co-founder at Apogee Strong Mentorship Program. He helps driven entrepreneurs open student-led campuses for real education and Freedom.

    Key Takeaways:

    00:00:13 Favorite thing about working about young learners.

    00:05:28:17 Examples where you said “No, I can’t do this. I don’t like it.”

    00:13:32:21 If you’re a parent who is frustrated right now and cannot handle big changes right now but wants to do something different, what would be your advice?

    00:21:12:19 Tell us about your new program.

    00:28:31:12 What is your prediction of what will happen in K-12 with all the change happening in the world?

    00:32:27:04 If you could create a metaphor for comparing conventional schooling with what we're doing in Acton?

    Quotes:

    The  kids will make you fired up. That’s your “why” and that’s your reason.

    I would tell parents, “Listen to that inner voice that’s telling you ‘I went to conventional school, I turned out fine.’” I don’t want “fine” for my kids, I want them to be able to create a magical world for themselves and to live this amazing story.

    We get stuck into making decisions and parenting based on:

    If it’s going to be too hard or not. And What do other people think?

    Social Links:

    Website | https://www.actonplacer.com/

    LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-beaudreau-071a5b99

    Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/mattbeaudreau

    Twitter | https://twitter.com/mattbeaudreau

    Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/mattbeaudreau

  • Show Notes:

    Joseph Connor is a startup founder, attorney, and teacher.  He is the co-founder of SchoolHouse, a micro school company. Joseph is a teacher and lawyer who loves helping great educators start schools.  Joseph founded SchoolHouse, an at home micro school company, and helped them scale to over 50 schools in 9 states.

    He started his career as a teacher and school leader at KIPP and Rocketship Education.  He has also worked as legal counsel for school organizations and companies, including Match Education, AltSchool, the Notre Dame Ace Academies and Primer.  He has a passion for helping great teachers broaden their reach.

    Key Takeaways:

    00:04:18 What are some of the drivers for Families and Educators to do something different?

    00:08:55 Struggle between public and private school.

    00:18:37 What do you predict will happen with K-12 as the world changes?

    00:24:28 What will be the most successful model of school?

    00:28:44 What would you want to do next?

    00:33:54 If you could offer a metaphor comparing conventional school with Schoolhouse..?

    Quotes:

    Parents want a school that reflects their family’s values and their community’s values. And when there’s none in that school, that’s I think when they start looking for alternatives like microshool, homeschooling.

    Unless public schools are able to adapt to some of the innovations, you’ll see a decline in the traditional public schools here in America as parents increasingly reach out to those different options.

    Social Links:

    LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/in/joseph-connor-b6a96a16

    Twitter | https://twitter.com/josephjconnor and https://twitter.com/getschoolhouse

    Website | https://josephjconnor.com/ and https://www.getschoolhouse.com/

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  • Catherine Fraise is the  Founder and President of 100 Roads, the Founder of Workspace Education, and WorkspaceSKY Teens. She has worked in education for 30 years.

    WorkspaceSKY Teens is a brand new destination for learning just for teens. Teens choose academics from anywhere, join an advisory and enjoy incredible social networking opportunities.

    100 Roads is a research-based 501c3 organization supporting the development of co learning communities globally.

    Workspace is a 32,000 sq ft Maker and co-working space designed to help families implement education their way, in a vibrant learning community. Parents can teach, bring in teachers and experts, or choose from a database of tutors and teachers, online classes and curriculums as well as a smorgasbord of classes that appeal to all kinds of learners.

    Check out their website for more information: www.workspaceeducation.org

    Key Takeaways:

    00: 01:43 Life Story

    00:17:40 Drastic move from Connecticut to Montana

    00:25:30 Can it take the place of regular school?

    00:35:49 In-Person Experiences and Kids’ Personality

    00:41:48 Social Life of Kids

    00:44:28: Comparing Workspace Education and Workspace Sky Teens with Conventional School

    00:57:09 Cath’s Personal Creativity Process

    Quotes:

    I went into education because I wanted to reform it and change it.

    What we should be really looking for is engagement.

    Gen Z is the loneliest generation... if you want to conquer loneliness, you just really need one great friend.

    Any parent can actually teach.

    It’s not about the academic pathway, it’s about who they are, what they care about, and how they fully and authentically express themselves in the world.

    You have to trust yourself as a parent.

    Social Links:

    Websites

    https://www.100roads.org

    www.workspaceeducation.org

    https://workspacesky.org/

    LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/in/catherine-fraise-037361126/

    Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/catherine.fraise.1

  • Show Notes:

    Victoria Ransom is the founder and CEO of world's first co-learning network that fully replaces regular school. Prisma is an educational startup providing its own live learning platform for 4th-8th graders (approx. age 9-14). It is Learner-centric, self-paced, outcomes-driven, interdisciplinary, and hands-on. Beyond the reading write and arithmetic, learners also enjoy Clubs, service learning, family events, and more.

    Victoria is a homeschooling mother and lifelong entrepreneur. She was also the Founder & CEO of Wildfire, a social marketing software company, which she led to profitability in just one year and built to 400 employees. Wildfire was acquired by Google in 2012 for $450M. Victoria joined Google, leading Wildfire and later Google Express.

    Key Takeaways:

    00:25 What is Prisma all about?

    06:44 How are you able to bring the magic of in-person to online schooling?

    13:55 Three examples of amazing hand-on projects.

    18:46 What’s your prediction of where this is all going?

    26:44 How are your kids? What school are you choosing for them?

    28:02 Tell us about Synthesis.

    31:03 How do you find Coaches?

    34:31 If I’m a curious parent, how much is it and how many students?

    38:02 What’s your prediction on what learners will do from 9th to 12th graders?

    40:20 How are you making sure that your learners are getting enough exercise and physical movement and free play?

    42:35 Where are you geographically?

    45:10 What’s a metaphor to compare Prisma to Conventional School?

    Quotes:

    It’s about working together to solve real-world challenges, discussion, collaboration and sharing ideas.

    We literally design a custom schedule for each kid.

    Give kids, especially 4-8 graders, some amount of scaffolding and not “do whatever you want” because that’s overwhelming to many kids.

    Will this suit everybody? No. But could it suit a lot of people. You get to have a flexible model where you could still do your schooling no matter where you're living and you get to connect with and get to know kids from all over the United States and all over the world.

    This is about preparing kids to thrive in their adult lives and to contribute to the world. It's not to get good test scores.

    Work is changing so much and so now school has to change to meet that.

    We are looking for people that are really, really good at building relationships with kids, really good at giving rich feedback - because we don't have grades at Prisma.

    Social Links:

    Twitter- https://twitter.com/victoria_ransom

    LinkedIn- https://www.linkedin.com/in/victoriaransom

    Facebook- https://www.facebook.com/joinprisma/

    Website- https://www.joinprisma.com

  • Tiersa McQueen is a full time working mother of four and a proud unschooler. She is a graduate of Howard University and works full-time in corporate retail as a Location Planner. She’s an advocate of Unschooling and Conscious Parenting.

    Check out Tiersa’s Twitter and YouTube Channel for great content and more insight on unschooling and self-directed education.

    Key Takeaways:

    00:00:18 Evolution Into Unschooling

    00:09:47 Advice to Parents

    00:16:57 The mindset of respecting children

    00:29:01 Raising independent and free children

    00:32:42 Benefits and opportunities for people of color and Black Parents who do Unschooling.

    00:38:28 Debunking the Myth: “I can never Homeschool because I am Not A Teacher”

    00:43:27 Deepening relationships with children

    Quotes:

    “The unschooling philosophy was like learning by doing and having experiences.”

    “You have to figure out ways to live life and be in the world.”

    “Children understand why it would be necessary for them to know. And then they just do it on their own.”

    “Once children have the why, they learn so quickly.”

    “Children aren't as unreasonable as we think they are. They're more reasonable than we give them credit for.”

    “I didn't want to fall into the same trap that our boomer parents fell into, which was advising us for a future that didn't come, that didn't happen. A place that doesn't exist anymore.”

    “Children are going to evolve. I don't want to always focus on the future.”

    “Parents are the first teachers.”

    “Parenting is hard. You need people and there’s no way you’ll know everything.”

    Social Links:

    Twitter - https://twitter.com/tiersaj

    Instagram- https://www.instagram.com/mother_bae_i

    YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCM9W1D9umDk05sMIO_gEFzw

    Books Mentioned:

    Untigering: Peaceful Parenting for the Deconstructing Tiger Parent by Iris Chen

    The Self-Driven Child: The Science and Sense of Giving Your Kids More Control Over Their Lives by William Stixrud

    Podcast Mentioned:

    Fare of the Free Child Podcast

  • Chrisman Frank is the co-founder and CEO of Synthesis, an enrichment club that teaches complex problem-solving and decision-making for kids 7 to 14 through online team games. His co-founder Josh Dahn developed the Synthesis concept while running Ad Astra, a small lab school he built for Elon Musk on the SpaceX campus.

    Before Synthesis, Chrisman was engineer #1 at ClassDojo, a K-12 network that reaches ~30 million teachers, students, and families every month.

    Key Takeaways:

    00:18 Why Children are the BEST

    03:21 Elevator Pitch for Synthesis School

    15:29 The Impact of Covid in Online Learning

    20:13 Learning Through a Game Design

    33:25 Synthesis and Jiu Jitsu

    Quotes:

    “Kids crave complexity.”

    “Complex problems don't have right or wrong answers.”

    “Continue innovating. Give kids these unbounded complex problems, let them practice solving that and you learn the kind of meta skill of solving problems.”

    “The motto at Synthesis is Embrace the Chaos.”

    “I don't think the world is going to change less for our kids, when they grow up. I think it's going to change faster. The future will belong to people who are most rapidly able to adapt to change.”

    Social Links:

    Website - https://chrismanfrank.com/

    Twitter - https://twitter.com/chrismanfrank

    LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-frank-41b0743a/

    Synthesis School:

    Website - https://www.synthesis.is/

  • Angela J. Hanscom is a pediatric occupational therapist and founder of TimberNook—an award-winning developmental and nature-based program that has gained international popularity. She is the author of Balanced and Barefoot: How Unrestricted Outdoor Play Makes for Strong, Confident, and Capable Children. Hanscom is also a frequent contributor to The Washington Post and in 2019 won a Small Business of the year award for the State of New Hampshire.

    Key Takeaways:

    00:29 What is Timbernook?

    03:52 What tips do you have for people who don’t have forests nearby?

    07:23 Benefits of Play

    11:46 What would a School Schedule look like to get maximum play opportunity?

    23:07 What can you do with a smaller urban setting?

    24:47 Timbernook Training and Outdoor Classes.

    32:36 Forest School versus Timbernook versus Anji Play

    35:25 Iconic Timbernook Experience

    37:41 Metaphor to describe Timbernook versus Conventional School

    Quotes:

    “The occupation of a child is play and outdoor play has been incredibly at risk in the past 30 years to the point that's affecting development in ways we never anticipated.”

    “I still think it's really important for kids to have outdoor play time, no matter what their environment looks like.”

    “I would say after the pandemic, this work has moved from important to critical.”

    “So I think for me, it's critical to development. Like it's affecting their senses and muscles and when we overly restrict their ability to play and move, that's when we're starting to see some issues. “

    “The number one issue that we have to treat as therapists right now is balance. We're seeing more and more kids uncoordinated and becoming clumsy.”

    “It's ideal to find a place where you can create an outdoor classroom and leave things out there.”

    “Our mission is to get them playing in more advanced ways and to enrich that experience. “

    Social Links:

    Website- www.timbernook.com

    Facebook- https://www.facebook.com/TimberNook.Camps

    LinkedIn- https://www.linkedin.com/in/angela-hanscom-ab75147b/

    Twitter- https://twitter.com/timbernook

  • Peter Gray is the author of Psychology, an introductory textbook now in its sixth edition, and, most recently, Free to Learn: Why Unleashing the Instinct to Play Will Make Our Children Happier, More Self-Reliant, and Better Students for Life. It discusses how to bring more play into kids’ lives, the catalyst that led him to explore play’s benefits, his theories on play as a primal mode of education, and advice to inspire play.

    His past research had to do with basic mammalian motivational mechanisms, and his present research has to do with children's play and its educative value.

    Key Takeaways:

    00:42 The origin story of Dr. Gray’s Career

    15:13 Free Play

    20:39 Fear on letting kids to play outside

    39:14 Founding the Alliance for Self-Directed Education

    49:36 Montessori - Work VS Play

    53:04 Online Play

    Quotes:

    “I've always felt like I wanted to do things that would help make the world better.”

    “With every 10 years, kids have less time to play than they did the previous 10 years.”

    “Unfortunately, we set the pattern and it spreads and it starts maybe upper-class and it seeps down to affect everybody. I used to be able to say that working class people, and even people in some poverty, that the kids had more freedom to play in the United States than wealthier kids did, but I don't think that's true anymore.”

    “The other that played a role in why children aren't outdoors playing is the fact that we developed a set of irrational fears about how dangerous it is outdoors.”

    “When children are playing on their own, they're making their own decisions about what to do. They're solving their own problems.”

    Social Links:

    Free to Learn: Why Unleashing the Instinct to Play Will Make Our Children Happier, More Self-Reliant, and Better Students for Life Book

    Blog: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/freedom-learn

    https://thegeniusofplay.org/genius/expert-advice/articles/the-evolutionary-importance-of-self-directed-play.aspx#.YJQq7GYzaEs

  • Lenore is the Founder of Free-Range Kids and President at Let Grow, the national nonprofit promoting childhood independence.

    After her newspaper column “Why I Let My 9-Year-Old Ride the Subway Alone” created a media firestorm, Lenore got the nickname “America’s Worst Mom.” She went on to write Free-Range Kids, the book-turned-movement. Second Edition coming in June! She has been profiled in The New Yorker, and lectured everywhere from DreamWorks to Microsoft to schools across America -- and let’s not forget the Bulgarian Happiness Festival. On TV, you may have seen her on The Today Show, The Daily Show or her own reality show, World’s Worst Mom (cancelled after one season, but suddenly available on YouTube!).

    She lives in New York with her husband and beloved computer. Her kids are gainfully employed.

    Key Takeaways:

    20:18 Mad Magazine and World’s Worst Mom

    25:00 Free-range Kids Blog

    36:37 Exposure Therapy

    38:52 Working with Dr. Peter Gray, Daniel Shuchman and Jon Haidt

    53:02 The Free Range Parenting Bill

    57:45 Advise to Scared Parents

    01:01:21 Metaphor to compare Overprotection and Free-Range Parenting

    Quotes:

    “That's like my giant psychological insight that I wish everybody shared because it holds the possibility of changing everybody really fast, making everybody much more lighthearted, much more calm, much more confident kids, more mature and grateful and parents more free time. And all it requires is letting go.”

    “It's almost like a part of the game. What's the worst, the very worst thing that could happen?”

    “Punishment was restricting your freedom and to preserve your freedom, you persevered, you discovered your own resilience, you held it in, you hid the scars in every which way. And, I think that's what is missing from childhood that is hurting kids.”

    “Overprotection is not an unalloyed good. It's not like it keeps getting better, better, better, better, better. The more we protect, the more bumpers we put on everything.”

    “Rather than changing minds, change behavior.”

    “The Let Grow project is a revelation.”

    Social Links:

    Lenore Skenazy

    Twitter - https://twitter.com/FreeRangeKids

    LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/lenoreskenazy/

    Let Grow

    https://letgrow.org

    Free Range Kids

    https://www.freerangekids.com/

    I let my 9-year-old ride the subway alone. I got labeled the ‘world’s worst mom.’ Article

  • Jeff Sandefer lives a dual life as an entrepreneur and a Socratic Guide.

    As an entrepreneur, he founded his first company at age 16 and went on to found or co-found seven successful businesses.

    As a Socratic teacher at the University of Texas, Jeff’s students five times voted him the school’s Outstanding Teacher and Businessweek named him one of the top Entrepreneurship professors in America. Jeff went on to co-found the Acton School of Business, an MBA program perennially ranked by the Princeton Review among the best in the nation. In 2012 The Economist honored him as one of the top fifteen Business School professors in the world.

    Jeff is a graduate of the Harvard Business School, where he served for over twenty years on the school’s governing committees. He was a longtime director of the Philanthropy Roundtable and National Review magazine and one of the youngest members ever elected to the Texas Business Hall of Fame.

    Sandefer has worked with entrepreneur-teachers to build a nationally acclaimed entrepreneurship program, winning numerous teaching honors in the process. But ask him about success, and he makes it clear that money and awards aren’t what matter.

    Key Takeaways:

    00:09 What is your favorite thing about working with young learners?

    00:47 What is Acton Academy?

    02:23 Acton's Origin Story

    07:15 How prescriptive is Acton in terms of methodology and rules?

    08:38 What makes a successful Acton Academy affiliate?

    16:02 What do Acton Learners do after graduation?

    20:05 Acton and Montessori

    36:05 Metaphor on comparing Conventional School with Acton

    Quotes:

    "We want them (young learners) to be game-makers in their own lives, and we hope that they find that hero's journey in life, that they find a calling that will change the world."

    "We are parents who wanted something better for our children."

    "You just can't imagine what young people can do. And adults often underestimate that."

    "It's whether our graduates need college at all. They can get into high-end colleges, but the question is, do they need to go?"

    "It's the growth mindset. Heroes never give up."

    Social Links:

    Website - https://www.acton.org/about/author/jeff-sandefer

    Acton Academy - https://www.launchactonacademy.com/about

    Courage to Grow by Laura Sandefer 

  • Garrett Smiley is the Co-Founder of Sora Schools, an education startup based in Atlanta. Sora is a virtual, project-based high school where students explore their interests, learn however is best for them, and gain exposure to future careers and fields of work

    Prior to Sora, Garrett co-founded a charity which built wells in developing nations called Drops of Love. Garret also directed a university startup incubator called Core Founders at Georgia Tech, and started an education non-profit that worked with foster children to develop financial literacy called Flip. Garrett studied Computer Science at Georgia Tech. Garrett also worked as a Venture Partner at Contrary Capital where he scouted, invested in, and mentored startups in the Atlanta area

    Key Takeaways:

    00:21 What’s your Elevator Pitch?

    00:58 What’s your Origin Story?

    07:54 All About Sora Schools

    14:15 What are your typical students there?

    15:42 What’s the application and first day like in Sora?

    19:32 Requirements in order to graduate from Sora

    22:00 Roles of the Adults in Sora

    25:34 Getting into College

    27:01 Is Internship part of your high school experience?

    32:49 Metaphor comparing Sora School and Conventional Education

    Quotes:

    "How do you solve a system issue, you create another system, right?"

    "We take a really different approach to education, but we don't instead make people sit and, you know, control their seat time, if you will."

    "They should have in-person interaction, but why are we shipping kids off at school just that they can receive a human YouTube video lecture?"

    "We're hoping to create a lot more paths out of high school. So families have more options."

    "Before COVID happened, we were having to do meet ups. So we're hosting meetups every once in a while they are going to museums together, and this is something we want to continue to do."

    "It's so funny. People don't realize, like this is a fairly recent invention, like in the grand scheme of things of what we consider schooling is still novel and, and it worked. But unfortunately, the whole world has changed."

    Social Links:

    LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/gwsmiley/

    Twitter - https://twitter.com/gw_smiles

    Sora Schools - https://www.linkedin.com/company/soraschools/

    Website - https://soraschools.com/

  • Charles Wheelan is the Founder and Co-Chair of Unite America. He is a senior lecturer and policy fellow at the Rockefeller Center at Dartmouth College, a former correspondent for The Economist. He has been selected as one of Dartmouth’s ten best professors by three different graduating classes. He teaches courses on education policy, health care, tax policy, income inequality, and related topics.

    Wheelan teaches the Practicum in Global Policy Leadership in which he travels with students to examine an international policy topic. In years past, the class has visited India, Israel, Jordan, Liberia, Turkey, Rwanda, Madagascar, Northern Ireland, Brazil, Liberia, and Colombia.

    From 2004 to 2012, Wheelan was a senior lecturer in public policy at the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago.

    Unite America is a political organization dedicated to bridging the growing partisan divide and fostering a more representative and functional government. From debt ceiling standoffs to single-digit Congress approval ratings, America’s political system has never been more polarized—or paralyzed—than it is today. Unite America grew out of Wheelan’s 2013 book The Centrist Manifesto

    In 2013, Wheelan published Naked Statistics: Stripping the Dread from the Data (W.W. Norton). Shortly after publication, the book reached the New York Times bestseller list for hardcover nonfiction. The New York Times called the book “sparkling and intensely readable.” The same year, he published The Centrist Manifesto, which calls for a new political party “of the middle.

    Key Takeaways:

    01:23 Nine Months. Six Continents. Three Teenagers.

    07:00 How was the planning of your trip?

    14:17  What were your biggest challenges on the road?

    20:54 What does this do for your family?

    24:08 Taking economics students traveling and learn by experience

    27:13 Advice to families who want to try the same learning journey

    33:30 Alternative schooling and college

    38:58 Learning is all about the journey

    Quotes:

    “Find your comfort zone to bite off as much as you think you can chew.”

    “Plan far in advance and don't let the planning overwhelm you. Just take one challenge at a time.”

    “You have to be completely mobile while carrying all of your stuff.”

    “I think people can choose their own path, but I would urge as many people as possible to take a gap year. Just just one form of being unconventional because too many of the students I see are burned out or they just feel like they've been running on this education treadmill for too long.”

    “I'm a big believer in the journey, not the destination.”

    Social Links:

    LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/charles-wheelan-a6220911/

    Website https://charleswheelan.com/

    Twitter https://twitter.com/charleswheelan

    Amazon

    The New York Times: Meet a Family Who Spent 9 Months Traveling the Globe, Pre-Plague

  • Matt Barnes is the  Co-Founder and Parent Coach at The Education Game. Over 25 years, he has led hospital departments, distributed $500m in philanthropy, run an education reform nonprofit, served on nine educational boards from university to pre-K, and now coaches parents on navigating the education system. His aim is to help every parent grow kids who are curious, competent, life-long learners.

    Matt did quit his job to become a stay-at-home father. After three years as a full-time-dad, he had a new appreciation of the traditional role of mothers and also understood the pressures behind the women’s liberation movement -- as he often wanted to burn his “manzier.”

    It was in 2014, when Matt launched The Educational Makeover, a learning lab that studied parent decision-making, mindsets, and capacities. Then he launched “The Education Game” in 2020,  a speaking, coaching, blogging, and podcast platform that inspires parents to embrace a 21st-century learning model that shamelessly deemphasizes grades and academic compliance while radically emphasizing learning, problem solving, and student-engagement

    He served as Houston’s representative on a national research initiative exploring the challenges facing Boys and Young Men of Color which later became President Obama’s “My Brother’s Keeper” initiative.

    Key Takeaways:

    00:30 What is Education Game?

    02:26 Actionable Advice to a Frustrated Parent

    16:21 What’s your Origin Story?

    23:20 What about College?

    47:34 Baby Steps to Starting in Alternative School

    58:55 Screen Time during COVID

    01:07:13 Metaphor Comparing Conventional School to Alternative

    Quotes:

    “Learning happens all the time. You can't stop your child from learning.”

    “Standardization doesn't fly in the 21st century.”

    “Starting a business teaches you so much.”

    “The people that were hardest to manage were the people who were just average.”

    “Once your child actually starts to adopt a mindset that they are learners, there's far less work to do.”

    Social Links:

    Website - www.theEducationGame.com   ; http://www.barnesstrategies.com

    LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewcbarnes/

  • Travis Adams is the Chief Executive Officer of MyFirstSale and lives in Tyler, Texas. Travis has a passion for igniting the creativity and uniqueness inside of kids.

    He owns a summer camp called Camp Huawni and has started and grown multiple companies, including Apex Fun Run (with Scott Donell), Affair Recovery, and Grow My Camp.

    Travis and his best bud, Scott Donnell, met at the Acton School of Business where they discovered their shared passion of inspiring kids. Travis is most passionate about his wife Mandi and their three sons. He also loves to surf.

    Key Takeaways:

    00:10 Favorite Thing Working with Young Learners

    00:09 Why did you and your wife decide on Acton for your kids?

    00:23 Why do you see ADHD as a positive thing?

    00:31:54 Metaphor for Acton versus Conventional School

    Quotes:

    “Every kid is unique. Each kid is literally one of a kind throughout history. And as you get to be around them, you get to see that come out.”

    “Loving to learn because if they love to learn, we know, and there's plenty of scientific evidence behind this that they'll take off.”

    “Our kind of big goal is we want to launch a million kid businesses. And we also, what we do is we empower kids to take on the real world, because we all know that not every kid is going to be an entrepreneur, but every kid can learn to be entrepreneurial. “

    “My hope is there'll be way more confidence about their (children’s) trajectory based on their journey and way more plugged into their own wiring that they're going to make every step count.”

    Social Links:

    Travis Adams

    LinkedIn- https://www.linkedin.com/in/travis-adams-56b02615/

    Website- myfirstsale.com/events

    YouTube - MyFirstSale Virtual Business Fair

  • Jesse McCarthy, founder of MontessoriEducation.com and host of The Montessori Education Podcast, has worked with thousands of children, parents, and teachers over the past 15+ years — as a principal for infants to 8th graders, an executive with a nationwide group of private schools, an elementary & junior-high teacher, and a parent-and-teacher mentor.

    Jesse received his B.A. in psychology from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and his Montessori teacher's diploma for 3- to 6-year-olds from Association Montessori Internationale (AMI), the organization founded by Dr. Maria Montessori.

    Key Takeaways:

    00:01:38 What is the Montessori Discipline course?

    00:08:33 Effectivity of Self-directed Education and of Montessori.

    00:17:51 Most Important Innovation in Montessori

    00:22:58 Do you think it is true that Montessori gives you an advantage in terms of success, innovation, confidence, creativity?

    00:30:34 What does it mean to help parents achieve inevitable success?

    00:35:06 Different Certifying Approaches

    00:48:00  How did you decide to become a Montessorian?

    00:52:39 For the Kids, after a year of not being in their Montessori environment, what do you predict is going to happen to them?

    Quotes:

    “Montessori is very structured in the sense that, there are choices you can have. And within those choices, you're free. But outside of that, there's a real wall and you cannot go pass that and it might sound kind of dictatorial, but that wall gets bigger and bigger as the children grow up and get more freedom.”

    “Improvement means that something wasn't going that well before we needed to change it.”

    “Most of us had crappy education. So with Montessori, the idea is to spend a lot more time on the foundational elements.”

    “When I fail, it's awesome because I know I'm going to learn something.”

    Social Links:

    Jesse McCarthy

    LinkedIn- https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessemccarthy/

    Website- https://www.montessorieducation.com/

    How Do I Become A Montessori Teacher? Podcast

  • Clark Aldrich has been called a 'guru' by Fortune Magazine and a 'maverick' by CNN.  He and his work in educational media have been featured in hundreds of sources, including CBS, ABC, The New York Times, USA Today, ESPN, AP, Wall Street Journal, NPR, CNET, Business 2.0, BusinessWeek, and U.S. News and World Report. He has been quoted by President Obama and invited to speak at the Koch brothers' annual education summit.

    Aldrich is the creator of Short Sims, a revolutionary pedagogy that combines the best practices of gamification, microlearning, and traditional conanchtent.  Aldrich develops custom Short Sims through, including for Visa, Department of State, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and Center for Army Leadership.

    He has degree from Brown University is in cognitive science. Hetrains designers based on his newest book, Short Sims: A Game Changer (April 2020). Clark Aldrich Designs is a boutique education company, founded by Clark Aldrich, which works with corporate, military, and academic clients

    He published research, beginning in 1999, outlined the failure of formal education approaches to teach leadership, innovation, and other strategic skills, and then advocated interactive experiences borrowing techniques from current computer games as media to fill these gaps.

    Key Takeaways:

    02:19 Clark and how he got connected with the Sandefers and Acton.

    06:08 Do schools Overcontrol Learners instead of Allowing and Trusting them to go with things?

    18:19 What is Short Sims?

    40:29 Why should you look for alternative schools?

    50:44 Metaphor on Conventional School versus Short SIM

    Quotes:

    "You want to trust kids as long as possible to pick them up on their own. But at some point do need to guide them towards it."

    "I hope we get to a point where you can take college classes more easily virtually and be on the same fund and only the ones that you want and not the ones that you don't want and put together your degree."

    "The other thing to recognize increasingly is that entrepreneurship is the new college degree."

    "And it turns out all these important skills that we're talking about, like leadership, stewardship, relationship, management, innovation, creativity, security- all these are not linear at all."

    "The goal of education is to find out what you're really good at, find out what you care a lot about, and then figure out how to connect the two."

    "One great way for anyone over 12 or 13 years old, to figure out where their passion is of whom are they envious. It's one of the great drivers."

    "Everyone needs to stand on the shoulders of giants that came before us. Learn from each other and then just start. It's an incredibly interesting way of changing ourselves and also changing the world."

    Social Links:

    Clark Aldrich

    Website - https://www.shortsims.com/

    LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/clarkaldrich

    Twitter - https://twitter.com/clarkaldrich

  • Jessica Lahey is a teacher, writer, and mom. Over twenty years, she’s  taught every grade from sixth to twelfth in both public and private  schools. She writes about education, parenting, and child welfare for The Atlantic, Vermont Public Radio, The Washington Post and the New York Times and is the author of the New York Times bestselling book, The Gift of Failure: How the Best Parents Learn to Let Go So Their Children Can Succeed. She is a member of the Amazon Studios Thought Leader Board and wrote the educational curriculum for Amazon Kids’ The Stinky and Dirty Show. Jessica  earned a B.A. in Comparative Literature from the University of  Massachusetts and a J.D. with a concentration in juvenile and education  law from the University of North Carolina School of Law. She lives in  Vermont with her husband and two sons. Her second book, The Addiction Inoculation: Raising Healthy Kids in a Culture of Dependence, will be released in April 2021.

    Key Takeaways:

    00:25 Her favorite age group of learners to teach and why

    07:24 How learning opportunities get lost when parents rescue their children

    00:09 The effect of helicopter parenting on motivation and learning

    11:01 The red flags about our parenting and teaching that we might need to take a look at

    12:50 The difference between directive and autonomy-supportive teaching

    17:52 Getting support in non-directive and free-range parenting styles

    31:35 What parents should look for in a school

    36:00 Her take on self-directed education

    42:12 Screentimes and how students are learning differently during COVID

    53:26 Building intrinsic motivation

    Quotes:

    “Kids who have had what's called autonomy-supportive parenting, teaching, coaching tend to have a little more comfort with frustration, tend to be the kind of kids who can take a breath, figure it out and push through without having to sort of go to someone else for the answer.”

    “What is great for learning is frequent formative assessments. It helps the kid exercise a little bit of metacognition, because they're on a constant basis having to reevaluate what they thought they knew and what they didn't know.”

    “The reason that so many colleges and universities are switching, moving away from lecture-based teaching and towards small group teaching is that we know it works better.”

    “There's all sorts of emotional engagement that has to happen. It's not just about interpersonal relationships, but engagement and relevance and all that stuff. That's where the secret sauce of teaching is.”

    “Being more controlling of kids has the opposite effect. It undermines their motivation to want to do the things that we're trying to get them to do. Giving control to kids will help them feel less out of control.”

    Social Links:

    Download Jessica’s Bibliography: Click Here

    Jessica Lahey

    Website - https://www.jessicalahey.com/

    LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessica-lahey-b815a366/

    Twitter - https://twitter.com/jesslahey

    Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/teacherlahey

  • Amir Nathoo is the CEO and Co-founder at Outschool. Outschool is a marketplace for live online classes for K-12 learners. He led the development of Square Payroll and also served as CEO and co-founder of Trigger.io.

    He holds an MEng in Electrical and Information Sciences from The University of Cambridge and he has a young son.

    Key Takeaways:

    00:17 Amir’s Elevator Pitch and Motivations Behind Founding Outschool

    03:05 Impactful Learning Outside Regular School

    05:28 Handling Screentime and Technology

    14:44 If you could re-engineer school for the 21st century, what would that look like?

    17:59 The Dramatic Impact of the Pandemic on Outschool

    32:35 Tips for Parents in Choosing Online Classes

    37:59 Amir's Education and Transportation System Analogy

    Quotes:

    "I have a strong belief that we can design our interactions with our kids and our family's lives to handle any challenges."

    "I recognize it's challenging and all kids are different. So I think we should resist the idea of overgeneralization that we can just come up with a recipe and that this is gonna work for all kids."

    "There's this word hybrid. And I would say it again and again. Hybrid- combine different modes of learning in order to achieve good balance."

    "The reality is what's a great class for one kid is not necessarily the best class for another kid. And so the most important thing is to find the perfect class for your kid and find the right group."

    Social Links:

    Amir Nathoo

    LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/amirnathoo/

    Outschool

    Website - www.outschool.com

    Instagram -  https://www.instagram.com/outschool/

  • Vijay is currently the  co-founder, director, and a Socratic Guide at The Humanist Academy.  Has  two Master's degrees, one in from The University of Chicago (Divinity  School), and another in School Leadership and Administration from  National Louis University. His professional experience includes teaching high  school history and math teacher in inner-city Chicago, he's also been  an assistant principal, principal, an adjunct professor (at Loyola  University), and he worked briefly with National Geographic  leading  student expedition trips across the world. One of his most formative experiences was when he spent two years in India studying philosophy and literature at an  alternative residential institution near Mumbai. Most importantly  though, he's the loving father of 3 adorable kids, all 5 and under, has a  wonderful wife, amazing parents, and a very close knit extended family  that have been his backbone and support throughout his life.

    Key Takeaways:

    00:22 What’s your favorite thing about working with Young Learners?

    07:02 Vijay’s origin story on how he decided to do something different.

    17:14 Advice to Frustrated and Afraid Parents

    23:51 All About the Humanist Academy

    27:00 How do you deal with religion?

    31:15 How do you train guides?

    35:02 How has your school been affected by COVID?

    43:25 The Business Fair

    44:58 Metaphor that describes conventional schooling versus what you do.

    Quotes:

    “Let's take out two things. Industrialized education and behaviorism. This idea that children need adults to jam information into their incompetent, incapable  empty vessels. They are full of wisdom, knowledge, and genius, and we need to allow them to, to thrive.”

    "Every human being, I believe, is in this world to find their place and to learn about the world and themselves and make an impact - have some meaningful contribution."

    "We're all human beings. We're here for a higher purpose. There's a spiritual element to who we are as beings. And I think that brings out, personally, that's the greatest part of what we are."

    "Children are far more capable than we can ever imagine."

    "What's beautiful about the Acton model is that we don't have teachers  that give answers. We have guides who ask questions and nurture  curiosity.

    Social Links:

    Vijay Shah

    LinkedIn- https://www.linkedin.com/in/vijay-shah-a156ba27/

    Humanist Academy

    Website - https://www.thehumanistacademy.org

    Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/thehumanistacademy/

    Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/thehumanistacademy/

  • Aaron Eden’s mission is to re-humanize how we work, learn, live, and lead. Aaron is Executive Director at the Institute for Applied Tinkering, the parent organization of Brightworks which is consistently listed as one of the most innovative schools in the world. He is also a founding partner at Eliad Group, a transformation design firm, where he works with schools and businesses around the world to shift from command-and-control to co-creation as the basis for purposeful, innovative endeavor.

    He helps start new schools that are trying to re-humanize education, and help existing ones transform to new paradigms of learning. He also coaches parents and learning facilitators that are working to support Self-Directed Education in non-formal learning environments.

    Key Takeaways:

    1:30 Parents - Reconnect with your Why

    10:00 Aaron talks about Adult Power

    28:00 Advice to Frustrated Parents

    32:40 Two Things to Look for in a School

    41:30 Entrepreneurial Enterprise Program

    45:05 How do you help students without forcing yourself to be in the process?

    52:00 Screen Time, COVID and meeting Learners’ Social Needs Health

    1:05:02 How do you see College for your kids?

    Quotes:

    "I believe every human being should be allowed to do whatever it is they're choosing to do as long as it's not hurting somebody else or them in the very short term."

    "The most important thing is that we are consistent in our relating with our kids."

    "I would say the underlying philosophy of all of the work that I do, whether it's in corporate spaces and like high-performance teams and all of that, or kindergarten or graduate school, it's all the same, which is that when we shift from a language of blame and judgment to a language of need and appreciation, we all get more of what we want."

    "What I think is the beauty of all of this is that the recipe is the same for every challenge, which is to be honest about why we care."

    "Every kid, every human can choose, how they want to do things and enrich their life."

    Social Links:

    Aaron Eden

    LinkedIn- https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaronmeden/

    Twitter- https://twitter.com/edunautics

    Blog- https://edunautics.com/

    Talks

    Education Reimagined - Accelerating Innovation: Education Disrupted, Education Reimagined online conference, WISE and Salzburg Global Seminar

    Re-Humanizing Education: Keynote, Inspiration Fest, Goa, 2018

    HOMEBOUND PARENTING - Tools for Thriving (Video Playlist)

    RE-THINKING ADULTING / Self-Directed Education Short Topics (Video Playlist)

    Interviews

    Re-Humanizing Education - Off Trail Learning podcast with Blake Boles [audio]

    Educators Who Inspire Spotlight Series [video]