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How to Accelerate Learning & Improve Education | Joe Liemandt — Transcript

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0:00We don't do the basics. We need to nail
0:02the basics. Just like in sports, my
0:04famous example I always use is if you
0:06lose the ball 20% of the time going down
0:09the court. The coach is not saying,
0:11"Let's work on the dunks and the
0:13alleyoops or the even the layups."
0:15They're like, "Ball handling. We're
0:16going to get ball handling. 20% isn't
0:18acceptable. 15% isn't acceptable. You
0:21can't be 85 80% accurate."
0:24>> In America, we're like, "You getting a
0:26B, man. Move on. We're moving on to
0:28dunks. You just finished fourth grade at
0:3180%, let's get you into that fifth grade
0:33stuff. And the answer is no. No, because
0:36then all those problems compound.
0:38Welcome to the Hubberman Lab podcast
0:40where we discuss science and
0:42science-based tools for everyday life.
0:47I'm Andrew Huberman and I'm a professor
0:49of neurobiology and opthalmology at
0:52Stanford School of Medicine. My guest
0:54today is Joe Limont, the principal of
0:56Alpha School, which is a novel approach
0:58to education that strives to ensure that
1:00every child reaches the frontier of
1:03their knowledge and skill potential.
1:04Kids in alpha school spend just two
1:06hours a day, two hours a day, learning
1:09what they need to in order to ensure no
1:11gaps in their cognitive knowledge. Then
1:13they spend the rest of their day
1:15learning to and actually starting their
1:17own businesses, learning financial
1:18skills as well as communication and
1:20interpersonal skills. The goal of Alpha
1:23School is to tailor learning to the
1:24unique needs of the child. But unlike so
1:27many other non-traditional forms of
1:28learning in schools, they don't let the
1:30child pick what is easiest for them, nor
1:33force all kids to learn at the same rate
1:34across all subjects. So, it's a truly
1:36unique approach. The data on alpha
1:38school kids are astounding. K- through2
1:41students from alpha school test in the
1:43top 1% of students in the US and their
1:45average SAT scores graduating from high
1:48school is a nearly perfect 1530. In
1:51addition, while still in school, many of
1:53the alpha students start their own
1:55businesses that are highly successful,
1:56meaning they generate hundreds of
1:58thousands or even millions of dollars.
2:00During today's conversation, you're not
2:02just going to hear about how alpha
2:03students do all this incredible stuff.
2:05It's really about how the ways in which
2:07they learn will allow you, adult or
2:09young, to learn better and why filling
2:11in gaps in our basic knowledge that we
2:13all have at every age is both possible
2:16and can be done quickly with the correct
2:18lesson plans and understanding of
2:20neuroplasticity, the brain's ability to
2:22rewire itself. So, some of today's
2:24discussion focuses on that as well.
2:26You'll also learn that no, Alpha School
2:28is not just for wealthy kids. They are
2:29changing education for students of all
2:31backgrounds and income levels. and Joe
2:33Lemont and his colleagues are striving
2:34to teach educators the real data on how
2:37kids and adults learn best in ways that
2:39serve the student both in and after they
2:41leave school. I have to say as a
2:43university professor who lives in the
2:45land of education, our conversation
2:47today completely changed how I think
2:49about learning in and out of the
2:50classroom and it also provides tools
2:52that I now use to learn more
2:54effectively. And I'm confident that it
2:56will do the same for you. Before we
2:58begin, I'd like to emphasize that this
2:59podcast is separate from my teaching and
3:01research roles at Stanford. It is
3:03however part of my desire and effort to
3:05bring zero cost to consumer information
3:06about science and science related tools
3:08to the general public. In keeping with
3:10that theme, today's episode does include
3:12sponsors. And now for my discussion with
3:15Joe Limont. Joe Leemont, welcome.
3:18>> Thank you very much. Great to be here.
3:20tell us about learning and education a
3:23100 years ago because that sounds like a
3:25long time ago but it wasn't that long
3:27ago and then we'll use that as a
3:29contrast point to where you're trying to
3:31take learning and education and
3:33schooling for young people now. So 100
3:36years ago we were trying to say how are
3:38we going to educate everybody universal
3:40access to education 200 years ago was
3:43not a thing. Every person on the planet
3:46did not have access to education. 100
3:48plus years ago, people said, "Let's
3:50start educating everybody." And we're
3:51talking K through 12. So they started
3:53the industrialized model started over in
3:56Prussia, right? And then was was
3:57imported. And it was very controversial
4:00actually if you look back of you have a
4:03rural society and you're saying get off
4:06the farms and get into schools. And the
4:10best way to educate people back then was
4:12let's put them in a room, let's teach
4:14them how to read and write, let's have a
4:16teacher in front of the classroom. And
4:18that became the model. And that today is
4:21actually one of the things that's the
4:23most universal in the world is the the
4:26education model. You can go to the
4:27richest school district, you know, down
4:29the street here or the richest private
4:31school and there's a teacher in front of
4:32a classroom of kids. And you can go to
4:34the poorest school district, you know,
4:36in India and there's the building's not
4:39as nice, but there's a teacher in front
4:40of a classroom. We have universal
4:41access. What we are trying to do is
4:44bring universal learning. So there's a
4:47vast disparity in how much kids learn
4:50during that 12 years that while they may
4:52have access to it, learning is very
4:54different. And so what we think is
4:57because of new things that have become
5:00available and things like AI and
5:02technology for the first time in 50 and
5:04100 years you can revisit and change
5:08education. How we educate kids is going
5:11to be radically different in 5 years and
5:1510 years than the last 50 and 100 years.
5:18And that's what we're out doing.
5:20building that model, building the set of
5:21schools around it and then figuring out
5:24how we scale it and get it out to a
5:26billion kids so that everybody can have
5:27access to it.
5:28>> It seems to me that we think in terms of
5:31milestones. I mean, even before a child
5:33is born, if they can have an ultrasound,
5:36the parents are looking, are they
5:38meeting milestones? Yeah.
5:39>> And then we think of biological
5:41milestones and cognitive milestones. How
5:43much of the current schooling system is
5:45based on milestones that make really
5:47good sense? like by time you finish a
5:50certain grade, you're supposed to be
5:51able to read, you're supposed to be able
5:52to write. What we decide is a critical
5:55milestone can easily change, but I'm
5:57guessing there are still some milestones
6:00that are cemented in that don't make any
6:02sense any longer.
6:03>> Yeah, there's a whole set of milestones
6:05that people have, especially the ones
6:07parents understand and grandparents, is
6:09whatever you went through are the
6:11milestones that you understand. Kids
6:13should read by third grade. It used to
6:15be you memorized your multiplication
6:17tables by third grade. You'd learn
6:19cursive before that. And the standard
6:21the books, right? You would read books.
6:23There was a book list in in high school
6:25and and you would read it and you'd
6:27understand the content that was in that
6:29books. And what has happened, you know,
6:32and I think where a lot of the
6:33unhappiness in education is is those
6:35standards have gone down. They've pulled
6:37those standards away around the
6:39academics for a lot of different
6:40reasons. And so when you think about
6:42development, there's behavioral
6:44standards. How should I behave? How much
6:46should I know? And then what are the
6:48nonacademic skills, whether it's
6:50vocational or life skills that you need
6:53to have, financial literacy, that have
6:55changed from what were true 30 years ago
6:59or 50 years ago to where they are are
7:02today. And there's generally a view that
7:04there's broad unhappiness that whether
7:07it's the standard or the students
7:09achievement of that standard and are
7:11they actually even hitting the standards
7:13that's causing this big demand for we
7:16need to change our education system. And
7:18that's sort of half of it. The other
7:20half is people are looking at things
7:21like AI and saying the world is really
7:25different. The world that's coming is
7:27really different. And it it does put in
7:31parents heads
7:33the educational system I went through
7:35isn't going to get my kids ready for the
7:38future one. We're building schools
7:39everywhere and doing education. So I I
7:41talked to lots of parents. When I have
7:42like a 12th grade parent talking to me,
7:45they're at the finish line. They're just
7:46trying to get the kid into, you know,
7:48get them out. And so they they're just
7:50like whatever. Just I'm done. But when
7:53you talk to the kindergarten parents,
7:55they are forecasting forward 12 years.
7:58and they sit there and say, "There's no
8:00way the current system is going to get
8:02my kid ready." They have the high
8:04demands to say, "We need to do something
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10:26I hear some very polarized views out
10:28there. Uh, one that you can get all the
10:30education you need off YouTube. I don't
10:32believe that's true. I think how one
10:34forges through technology, especially
10:37publicly available technology, is
10:39critical, right? Because you can ruin
10:40your life or you can potentially build
10:42some of your life out by watching
10:44YouTube videos. But that's a wide
10:46divergence and and so I don't believe
10:47that statement. The other thing that I
10:49I'd like to just set as a as a context
10:52for our discussion is I think there are
10:55very divergent views on the notion of
10:58doing what you love versus doing things
11:00that are painful to learn. So in terms
11:02of milestones and standards, the idea is
11:05when I was growing up was that you have
11:06to have at least a certain level of
11:08aptitude in something if you want to
11:10progress forward. But you might be much
11:12more musical than you are whatever or
11:14much more oriented towards the
11:16engineering, science and math fields or
11:18towards something else. And that's okay.
11:19But everyone had to be above the bar in
11:21order to move forward. I think nowadays
11:24because of this battle basically between
11:27whether we're coddling kids too much or
11:30whether we're pushing them too much,
11:32>> I feel like this the whole landscape is
11:34a bit of a mess. So what is Alpha
11:37School's philosophy with respect to what
11:39kids like to do
11:40>> versus what they absolutely should do
11:42independent of whether or not they like
11:44it. And I I came from the latter
11:46category like you do you have to learn
11:47stuff because you have to learn it and
11:49then you find the things you love
11:50>> and then you eventually try and create a
11:52life right
11:53>> you know
11:53>> these are great so both of them we have
11:55strong views on all of these the first
11:57one of everything's available on YouTube
11:58or you can get MIT online why doesn't
12:01>> Khan Academy why doesn't everybody have
12:03an MIT degree the open courseware is
12:05available libraries have been here
12:06forever every textbook you can just go
12:08to a library and read school is much
12:12more than just that and I believe and
12:13just to be really
12:1510 years from now, 20 years from now,
12:1790% of parents are going to drop their
12:20kids off at a building and in that
12:22building are going to be other kids and
12:24adults. That the way school that part of
12:28school, school's socialization, right?
12:30It's much more than I sat and watched a
12:33YouTube video. It's motivation. The
12:35materials available, the motivation
12:37isn't, right? Or the structure isn't.
12:40And schools provide a lot of that. And
12:42so that's when we look at it. But we
12:43believe motivation is 90% of learning
12:46these days. Now our view back to the day
12:48if we do our job right the six or seven
12:50hours your kids in that uh building is
12:53going to be radically different and 10
12:55times better than what we went through.
12:56Then the second part around standards
12:58and love school do what you love wait
13:02it's a grind. So this is a personal
13:04story for me. So I didn't start alpha
13:06I'm the principal going in my fifth
13:08year. Uh, it was started by Brian and
13:11McKenzie 12 years ago. And parents want
13:16the to educate their kids the way they
13:17were, even if they didn't like it that
13:20much. I went to Catholic school. My I
13:22have two daughters. They were in
13:23Catholic school. Mackenzie starts this
13:25school and she's like, "You got to come
13:27to my new school." And I looked at it
13:29and I'm like, "This is a totally weird,
13:31janky school." Like, no way.
13:32>> What did you see that led you to
13:34>> There's no teacher in front of a
13:35classroom. I'm like, "This is totally
13:36crazy, right?" and oh, they're going to
13:38learn on some apps the girls reciting
13:40their vocabulary words while they were
13:42doing handstands. And I'm like, you
13:44know, I I grew up a standard standard
13:46school system. It was weird. And it took
13:49her 2 years actually of trying to
13:51convince me. I actually saw, you know,
13:53one of mine struggling in standard
13:55school. And then what happened was St.
13:57Gabriel got out at the end of May and
14:00Alpha was still in session and my kids
14:01were going to go to summer camp. And
14:03McKenzie convinced my daughter. She's
14:05like, "Well, why don't you come to Alpha
14:07for a week before you go to summer camp?
14:08You know, my daughters are there. It'll
14:10be really fun." I'm like, "You want to
14:11go to school in the middle of the
14:12summer?" "Sure." So, they went for a
14:14week and they came back at the end of
14:15the week and they're like, "Dad, we
14:17don't want to go to summer camp. We want
14:18to go back to Alpha." And I thought that
14:22was the craziest thing I'd ever heard of
14:23the world that someone wanted to go to
14:25school instead of camp. That was an
14:28indicator to me where I'm like, they
14:30have something here. And the kids are in
14:31second, fourth grade. I'm like, let's
14:33try it out. And that was, you know, 10
14:35years ago. And it really worked out for
14:37us. We can get to that later. But when I
14:40put my daughters in, I talked to Brian
14:41and I was like, "What do I not
14:42understand as a parent?" He said,
14:43"There's two things. First, your kids
14:46must love school." And I was like, "Oh,
14:49that's not true at all. It's like
14:50spinach. You just grind it, right?
14:53That's what it's like. It's spinach. You
14:55grind it. I mean, sometimes it's okay,
14:57but you just you grind your way through
14:58it." He's like, "Nope. and someday
15:00you'll figure this out and you'll see
15:02with your daughters that kids must love
15:05school. I was like, "Annything else?"
15:06He's like, "Yes, your kids have so much
15:10more potential than you expect than what
15:12you think." And I was like, "Oh, that's
15:15not true." I'm like, I'm sort of like a
15:17tiger dad. Like, I think my kids are
15:19going to do a ton of stuff. And, you
15:21know, I have really high expectations.
15:22And he's like, "They're going to blow
15:24you away." And that's sort of the
15:25dichotomy I think around alpha that
15:27really confuses people is kids love
15:30school like we make three commitments to
15:31the kids and the first one is you will
15:33love school and 90ome% of our students
15:36we survey them right say I love school
15:39we actually in the last year or so have
15:41started asking a follow-up question
15:42which is would you rather go to school
15:44or go on vacation and depending on the
15:46vacation the session and how good our
15:48workshops were between 40 and 60% of
15:51kids said I'd rather go to school than
15:54vacation.
15:55>> Wow.
15:55>> As a standard, like loving school. And
15:58when you engage kids and you think, I'm
16:01going to put them in this system for 12
16:02years.
16:03>> As a parent, you want them to love it.
16:05And so, there's that part. But now,
16:07let's talk about doing hard things. Kids
16:11want to do hard things. Kids have to do
16:13hard things, which is, you know, when
16:16I'm talking to parents who are worried
16:18because we have such high achievement.
16:20We're the number one academic school in
16:21the country. Every grade level is top 1%
16:23in every subject, right? My freshman
16:25honors SAT score. You know, freshmen are
16:28like at 1400, which is better than
16:29almost every senior class in the
16:31country.
16:31>> Your freshman are at 1400 on the SAT
16:34>> honors class. My honors track in
16:36freshman is 1400 SAT. And so we have
16:38great academics and parents are like,
16:39"Wait, is this like this high stress,
16:41high standard?" And we explained to
16:44them, which is the key to your child's
16:48happiness is high standards. And I can't
16:52run a school that they love more than
16:54vacation if I have low standards.
16:58And it is that paradox, right? That
17:00tension that is the magic of Alpha
17:03School. And it's the magic that parents
17:04need to understand because that's what
17:07engages them is they want to do things.
17:11Kids think they're awesome and they are
17:13awesome, but they need to be put in an
17:15environment where they get to go do hard
17:17things with their friends and with that
17:20they do the grind. They do hard things.
17:22In America, we have a very different
17:24view. We have sort of how you treat
17:26academics and how you treat sports. And
17:28if we took the sports ethos and the
17:30athletic ethos in America and we applied
17:33it to academics, we would fix every
17:35academic problem in this country. For
17:37example, Westlake High School football
17:39team in Austin where I am going to win
17:41the state championship, right? They're
17:43great. Every parent's like, I want my
17:45kid to be on that team because it's
17:47going to be the hardest thing they've
17:48ever done because they're going to have
17:50to work harder. It's going to be crazy,
17:52but it's going to be the most fun thing
17:53they ever do and they're going to
17:54remember it the rest of their life. And
17:55we believe that about sports. You can
17:57make education the same way. And that's
17:59what we're building to do that. So we
18:01believe on both which is high standards
18:05right is what leads to loving school and
18:07and happiness. I know you had Dr.
18:09Joerger on. So Dr. Joerger was actually
18:12you know his book 10 to2 the science of
18:15motivating kids is all about high
18:17standards and high support and it is
18:21that combination that you want from a
18:23school and that's what we built. like he
18:25created our guide training. Like all the
18:26adults in our buildings follow that high
18:29standards, high support, his mentor
18:30mindset program. And most parents are
18:34one of two things. They're either high
18:37standards, low support. I'm just going
18:39to throw my kid in and expect them to do
18:41great, and that's not good. Or they're
18:44low standards, high support. I never
18:46want my kid to have stress. That's bad,
18:49too. And the real answer is you do both.
18:53And you, schools should do this. Schools
18:56should have high standards and high
18:57support. And back to my athletic
18:59analogies, great coaches do that.
19:03There's thousands of movies in America
19:05of our sports team is in last place. And
19:08a coach comes in and he's like, I know
19:10we're in last place, but we're going to
19:12win the state championship next year.
19:14The whole movie is about how he turns
19:16around the team by having high standards
19:18and teamwork and hard work, and they do
19:21it, and then they win.
19:23Where are those on academics? I think
19:25there's three. We know that's how you
19:26develop kids. Child development experts
19:28will sit and explain. The key to
19:31developing a child is that they struggle
19:34and fail on their road to success
19:38supported by a caring adult. And you
19:40just want to run that loop. If you talk
19:42to most parents, they're like, "My kid
19:44learns the valuable life skills in
19:46afterchool sports." Parents are like,
19:48"Yes, they're going to struggle. They're
19:50going to fail. They're going to lose the
19:51game. whatever is going to happen, but
19:52it's going to be on the road to success.
19:54And that coach, I picked the coach cuz I
19:56know he cares about my kid achieving it
19:59and he's going to be there to support
20:00them. And that's what you should just do
20:02in school for the other seven hours is
20:04have those same loops. I will add one
20:06thing uh that happens especially when
20:08you start with kindergarten. Kids
20:10struggle and fail
20:13sometimes cry on their road to success
20:16supported by a caring adult. And it's
20:18really hard for parents as soon as the
20:20kid cries obviously and that struggle
20:23part and that's the lynch pin for
20:25parents being like I don't want the
20:27struggle cuz you hear this you're like
20:29well why don't you just okay that sounds
20:30all logical why don't you do it and
20:32you're like well when you're a parent
20:33your kids crying you want to go protect
20:36them you want to make sure they're safe
20:37and that's why you have to make sure
20:38they're in an environment where you
20:40think they're safe where the adult in
20:41charge is making sure they're it's not
20:43low standards and they're leaving them
20:45hanging out. At Alpha, we have great
20:47workshops where 85% of Alpha parents in
20:51the last year said, "I saw my kid do
20:54something that I literally thought was
20:57impossible for their age." Back to high
20:59standards. And one of them is our
21:01kindergarteners
21:03climb a 40ft rock wall. You know, at our
21:06San Francisco campus, they rode their
21:07bikes 5 miles, learned how to ride a
21:09bike, rode it 5 miles across the Golden
21:11Gate Bridge without stopping. And then
21:12we have a we call them alpha tests for
21:14these life skills. 10 weeks into school,
21:16there's the kindergarteners and they're
21:18climbing up and you know, sometimes they
21:20do get halfway and they are stuck and
21:23they sit there and they're worried and
21:25the parents want to go rescue them and
21:27we always tell them just watch cuz this
21:30is what the school's about and their
21:32guide is down at the bottom of the wall
21:34and coaching them up. And then
21:36eventually and maybe they have to wait
21:37there and maybe they even whimper a
21:39little you know the the while they're
21:41struggling they then I can do it and
21:44they climb to the end supported by their
21:47alpha guide at the bottom and when they
21:49come down after achieving it right they
21:51ring the bell they come down I mean that
21:54kid is beaming and their parents are
21:56beaming and that's why we have such like
21:59fanatical love of school and why we have
22:01such evangelism and everybody talks
22:03about alpha is because the parents go
22:05through that experience and they see
22:07their kids thrive and they see them
22:09thrive via these things that are hard
22:11and that's the environment we need to
22:12build for kids because that is how you
22:14develop kids. When you think of old
22:16societies, right, every society had
22:18rights of passage.
22:20>> They were hard and it's what is the
22:23struggle and fail on your road to
22:24success supported by an adult. That's
22:26what the educational system needs to be
22:29and should be. And we do it a lot in
22:31sports and not a lot on on education.
22:34what you said is so rich with ideas. Let
22:36me organize them the following way. I've
22:39heard you say before and you sort of
22:40touched on a bit a moment ago that most
22:44of the way that we uh teach kids how to
22:47navigate life in the United States
22:49>> is in sports not in academics.
22:51>> And I completely agree. And when I first
22:53heard you say that in a prior
22:54conversation with Patrick Oonessy, I
22:56thought yes, absolutely. And the
23:00contrast with academics is is really
23:02striking because I think there's this
23:04idea that kids are, you know, by the
23:08time they're in high school, they're
23:09going to be good at certain things and
23:10other things not so much. And and the
23:12words do the best you can
23:15>> sounds like support, sounds like high
23:18standards, but it kind of avoids both.
23:21So maybe we could just drill a little
23:22more specifically into what support
23:26really looks like at the level of
23:28parenting and maybe peers as well. So I
23:31can imagine high standards could let's
23:33take a like a 0 to 10 uh scale arbitrary
23:37units and say zero is like you'll never
23:39be anything. Everyone agrees that it's
23:41not a good model. 10 would be you can do
23:44and become anything you want. We believe
23:46this in America and there are examples
23:48to support the 10 model.
23:51It's not totally true, right? It's not
23:54totally true. I went to a very
23:57competitive public high school and there
23:58were some phenoms in my class at sports,
24:01pair of twins, Joe and John Cannon.
24:03People can look them up. One became a
24:04goalie for the San Jose Quakes. The
24:06other one had a 100 mile plus fastball
24:08in high school. I forget who he played
24:10for. Maybe it was the Mariners or
24:11whoever. But anyway, he was a he was a
24:13pro pitcher. Their younger brother, Colt
24:14Cannon, picked up a skateboard. Eight
24:16months later, he had a pro model or he
24:18was on a team, then he had a pro model.
24:20maybe wasn't 8 months to that, but
24:22there's something going on in that
24:23family. Okay. And they were good at
24:25academics.
24:26>> Yeah.
24:26>> But none of them became, dare I say,
24:29professors at Stanford, but they
24:30probably could have, but we don't know.
24:32So, we have this model that like in
24:33sports, some genetics plays a role.
24:36>> Yeah.
24:36>> Family lines play a role. We're kind of
24:38okay with that conversation now.
24:40>> Yeah.
24:40>> But you can become anything. That's
24:43that's the highest standard. Somewhere
24:45in between is probably what you'll tell
24:47me is most effective because we have to
24:49put reality into the picture sometimes.
24:52>> But the support thing is the one that's
24:53completely opaque to me because we know
24:56what the zeros are, right? Figure it out
24:59on your own. Make yourself breakfast.
25:01Get yourself. That's not support, right?
25:04And then the other one is I'm going to
25:05try and get in there and do everything
25:07for you. I'm going to climb the rock for
25:08you. I'm going to do your homework for
25:10you. We know that's not good. We haven't
25:12really defined clearly what real truly
25:16useful support is.
25:17>> Yeah.
25:18>> And standardized that.
25:20>> So maybe you could enrich our thinking
25:21about what it might look like or what
25:23you think it looks like.
25:24>> Great. And I I I think that's a great
25:25framework. Let's let's do the athletic
25:27side is and then we'll we'll throw it
25:29over because that's one of the things
25:30that's changed. How we provide support
25:33or actually the training
25:36i.e. educating the instruction is what's
25:39dramatically changed which lets us get
25:41athletic level in academics. So in
25:44athletics, right, we do know we know
25:45there are physical constraints. You have
25:47your story. My my daughter in middle
25:49school was like I'm going to be the
25:52world's best volleyball player. I'm
25:53going to start for Stanford and be
25:55there. And it motivated her. It drove
25:58her every afternoon she's practicing.
26:00When she became a freshman in high
26:01school, she's like, "I'm not tall
26:02enough. I'm just physically not tall
26:04enough. I can't play my position four
26:06years from now. There's no way
26:07Stanford's going to let me in on that
26:08dimension. And so, while she had gotten
26:11very good sort of the limit of her
26:13frontier and so we believe there are
26:15there are, you know, physical
26:17limitations that map your frontier. But
26:21in athletics, we actually know how to
26:23get you to the frontier. That's the
26:25delta. And that's why we do so much via
26:29athletics in America because we have a
26:31training system that gets kids there. We
26:34don't say, "Hey, do your best. I hope
26:38you become a good basketball player or
26:41golfer." You don't watch YouTube videos
26:42to be like, "Oh, I guess I'm the world's
26:44best golfer now." You have coaches and
26:45we have training that is going to get
26:47you there and we know how to deliver it,
26:50right? We know how to instruct it,
26:51right? You wouldn't have your kid go on
26:54a sports team where they're like, "Yeah,
26:56we we do inquiry training here where we
26:59don't teach you. We just let you
27:01productively struggle and figure it out
27:02yourself." Which is something we do a
27:04lot in schools. That's not an effective
27:06way to teach somebody, right? A sport.
27:08You're like, "Show me how to block. Give
27:10me the step by step. Give me the
27:13instruction you need so that I can do
27:16this better." So, I play this position
27:18perfectly. Nick Saven is like, "Do what
27:21I say. Play your position." On
27:24academics, the difference was we have a
27:27teacher in front of a classroom and the
27:30teacher in front of the classroom has to
27:32just give the median instruction to
27:34everybody. Imagine all the different
27:36players on your football team are all
27:38getting exactly the same instruction.
27:39You're like, "Well, the quarterback
27:40needs something different than the wide
27:41receiver." But the teacher just sits
27:43there and has to give everybody 25, 30,
27:46however many it is the exact same
27:47instruction. And that's what's
27:50different. Now, if you look at at why do
27:52we have access to education but not
27:55universal learning. We have universal
27:56access but not universal learning. It's
27:59because kids need individualized
28:01instruction right down to the true
28:03individual because at least in my high
28:05school, we had honors track for certain
28:07things. So it was tiered a little bit
28:09that if people were really really
28:11>> proficient at something, you'd you'd get
28:13into honors English or honors math and
28:15you would just kind of be among kids
28:17that were better performing. So the you
28:19know the mean shifted basically.
28:21>> So individualized tutoring, think back
28:23Plato and Socrates, Aristotle, Alexander
28:25the Great. Individualized tutoring is
28:27the best model. A one-on-one model is
28:30the best model. A mentorship model, an
28:32apprentice mentor, that is the best
28:34model. It's not cost-effective. Which is
28:37why a [clears throat] 100 years ago when
28:39I have to get it to everybody, you're
28:40like, why you can't give everybody an
28:41individualized one [snorts] and so 30 to
28:43one was like what societies could
28:45afford. The number one thing parents
28:46measure schools on is class size and
28:49smaller is better because you're trying
28:51to get to one and so 20 20 to1 is better
28:54than 30 to1 10 to one is better than 20
28:56to1. 5 to one is better than 10 and
28:571:1's the best.
28:58>> In terms of homeschooling, because I
29:00know there's a lot of interest in that
29:01now, but not everyone can afford it.
29:03Yeah.
29:04>> What do the data say about the outcomes
29:05for homeschooling? Do those kids do
29:07well? And on I guess on what standards?
29:09>> Homeschooling is totally biodal, which
29:11is are they homeschooling them for high
29:13standards
29:14>> or not? And there's a lot of
29:16homeschoolers who are like, I don't like
29:18standardized tests. I don't like the
29:19standardized curriculum. I reject that
29:21whole system. And so those people do
29:24very poorly on anything like that. The
29:26level of academics that those students
29:28know is very low because the parents
29:29have basically abandoned that and said,
29:31"I care all about the life skills." For
29:33parents who really care about academics,
29:35those kids crush it. You have ex-teers
29:37homeschooling their kids in a one-on-one
29:39environment, and they can do it
29:40dramatically better. Now, there's still
29:42value even homeschooling, socialization,
29:44and because we have these high standards
29:46and the life skills at our schools, we
29:48actually have a bunch of homeschoolers
29:49who come who say, "Wow, this is the
29:51schooling system I was looking for
29:53because I I get both the high standards
29:55on the academic side, but then all the
29:56afternoons of these life skills that I
29:58thought I'd only get via homeschool."
30:00you want to get to one-on-one and that's
30:02the magic and so let's let's go on this
30:04because we we haven't talked about like
30:05the academic side and what is the
30:08breakthrough that allows us to change
30:10education from 50 and 100 years ago. So
30:13learning science there's a whole field
30:14of learning science right you can
30:16cognitive load theory cognitive science
30:18there's a famous paper from the 80s
30:20Bloom's two sigma program where he's
30:22he's like if you give an individual
30:25tutor to mastery level kids can learn at
30:28two sigma right two sigma it is top 2%
30:32we could get everybody so when you talk
30:34about the frontier
30:36he's basically claiming you can get
30:38everybody to the top 2% performance
30:41today assume having high levels of
30:43motivation.
30:44>> Correct. Mastery is actually the part
30:45everybody forgets about on that. If you
30:47have a tutor that's not mastery based,
30:48you won't get the top 2%. One sigma came
30:50from the tutor. One sigma comes from
30:52mastery, which once again we'll talk
30:54about we all accept mastery in in
30:56athletics, but we reject it explicitly
30:59reject it in education. And you actually
31:01need both. You need individualized
31:03instruction at a mastery level to get
31:05that performance. And now with AI tutors
31:07at cost-effectively,
31:09you can give every kid perfectly
31:12tailored lessons at their level for them
31:15at a mastery level. And that is the
31:18magic that then allows kids to learn 10
31:22times faster. In our schools, when we
31:24talk about we're the best academic
31:25performing school, we're top 1%. We do
31:29it in two hours a day. Our average
31:31student does not sit in class for six
31:33and do homework. They sit at an AI app
31:38and they spend two hours a day. The
31:40average kid spent 121 minutes last year
31:43in the apps and learned more than 2x
31:48they what they would have in sitting in
31:50class for six and doing homework. So
31:52when you just look at those standards,
31:54it's, you know, depending on the class
31:56and stuff between 5 and 10x
31:58normal speed because you have 6 hours a
32:00day in homework versus two and you're
32:03performing at a level that's exceeding
32:05them the how much the average student
32:08learns by 2x. Could you enrich the
32:10picture in our minds a bit of of this
32:12kid for 121 minutes? Just the the top
32:15contour of what sorts of things they're
32:16doing. Is it a is it a human face that's
32:18teaching them or is it text prompts?
32:20What does it look like? So the first,
32:22just to be really clear on this, when
32:23people think AI chatbots,
32:26>> it's not chat bots. If you take a
32:28chatbot and put it into a standard
32:29school, 90% of the kids use it to cheat.
32:32Doesn't matter what grade level you're
32:33at. I can't remember which Ivy League
32:35professor gave a final that he made in
32:37person, right? He made an inerson final
32:39and literally everybody like two people
32:41failed the exam. They're just chatbing
32:43their papers up. They're not reading
32:45books. They're getting chatbt summaries
32:47of them. And there's a whole push to ban
32:49them and things like this. And you know,
32:51while we're at AI school, used
32:53incorrectly, just like any technology,
32:55they can be bad. Here's how you want to
32:57think about it. Is what you know is the
33:01basis of what you can learn. And so
33:04being able to have a foundation and then
33:06building on that foundation is critical.
33:08And so if I am in material that's too
33:11hard and it's just too hard for me, you
33:14can give it to me all day long and I'm
33:16not going to learn it. Back in my world
33:18or your world, if you gave me an MCAT, I
33:22don't know the words on the page. You
33:24can tell me to have grit or growth
33:25mindset or you can tell me whatever you
33:27want. I'm not going to pass that test.
33:29And you need to roll me back to freshman
33:32bio and say that's where you are and
33:35then build me up from there to be able
33:37to do that. And that's the problem in
33:39our current education system today is we
33:42are taking eighth graders and we are
33:44delivering them eighth grade content
33:46because that's what an eighth grade
33:47teacher does by law. They need to stand
33:49up and deliver the eighth grade content.
33:52You know if you look at the stats we
33:54have people who need to be in seventh
33:56grade in that classroom, sixth grade,
33:59fifth grade because of COVID. You even
34:01have some who need to be in fourth and
34:02third grade because of all that learning
34:04loss that happened. They never learned
34:06it right. We have kids who didn't learn
34:07how to read in third and fourth grade.
34:09Oh my goodness.
34:09>> And so now we're wondering why all the
34:11the curves are going down. It's like,
34:13well, because they're in eighth grade
34:14and they're being told eighth grade
34:15content and no one ever taught them how
34:16to read or other things when you talk
34:18about lower standards. They took away
34:21memorizing your multiplication tables
34:22and science of reading, teaching
34:24phonics, taking they took away some of
34:26the basics [snorts] that as you get into
34:28higher level grades as a kid, it just
34:30kills you.
34:31>> What was the rationale behind doing
34:33that? that it gets into a lot of a lot
34:35of debate around why that happened.
34:38>> I don't think there's a clear answer. I
34:40believe at the end of it,
34:42>> they didn't realize how important it
34:44was. Like the science of learning, if
34:46you talk to your average, you know,
34:47teacher and you look at what's it taught
34:50in schools of education, cognitive load
34:52theory, right, and cognitive science and
34:54how all this works is not a main part of
34:57what the curriculum is. And so these
34:59teachers don't know like you know we
35:01just had our staff days before school
35:03starts. So I have hundreds of teachers.
35:04These are the best teachers in the
35:05world, right? We're the employer of
35:06choice for for teachers around the
35:08country. And I was like how many of you
35:10guys like learn direct instruction which
35:11is one of these concepts. You know 5%
35:15raised their hand. There's this project
35:16followth through a big project in the '
35:1770s that was like the largest
35:19educational study ever about effective
35:22ways to teach kids. I was like, "How
35:24many of you guys like read Project
35:25Follow Through Like when you're getting
35:26your masters?" And like none. And so
35:30there was uh she was she was a big
35:32teacher uh in Houston School District
35:35and she came and uh she's an alpha guide
35:37now and she I saw a Twitter post after
35:40the staff day. She's like, "I learned
35:42more in listening to Joe's 6-hour
35:44presentation, which I have the world's
35:46best learning science team who, you
35:48know, helps educate me as well. I
35:50learned more in six hours of listening
35:51to Joe about how kids learn than I did
35:54getting my masters or even my PhD. And
35:57just that curriculum, we don't have that
36:00knowledge and we need to we need to fix
36:02that. We it's not there. Is there an a
36:04textbook for for teachers? I mean like
36:06if somebody wants to become a
36:07neuroscientist or even just get a
36:09neuroscience degree, they read the book
36:12Principles of Neurobiology by Leechin
36:14Low or Principles of Neuroscience which
36:17used to be by Kandell Jesselyn Schwarz.
36:19I think there's someone else on there,
36:20but like everyone gets those books. You
36:22learn electrophysiology from Bird Hill,
36:24you get the biochemistry book from
36:26Strier. Like these are the books used
36:27everywhere. So that it doesn't matter if
36:30you're in a, you know, state university
36:32and wherever um or you're at Stanford,
36:36pretty much everyone is educated at the
36:37front end from the same textbooks.
36:39Correct.
36:39>> So you can go to a big international
36:41meeting and like everyone understands
36:42more or less the action potential.
36:44>> Education is not that. So, our
36:47educational system is not fact-based,
36:52>> which seems crazy, but uh there's
36:55there's a dean of a school of education
36:57for one of the best schools in the
36:58country who when was talking about the
37:00state the status of facts in education
37:03put up a picture of Galileo's trial
37:06where he's like, "This is a religious
37:08war. This isn't a fact-based trial about
37:10these things." There's a lot of evidence
37:12behind it. Like, take the UC system.
37:14There's a huge debate on whether the UC
37:17schools should use standardized tests or
37:18not and do standardized tests help and
37:22are they good things
37:23>> to get in or to progress through
37:25>> to get in? Like should you Well, there's
37:27whole things of should kids have a
37:29standardized test to get out of high
37:31school to graduate high school. Should
37:33you be able to pass a test or not? And
37:35that's a debate. That's not like a fact.
37:37Now, when you're letting someone into
37:39your university, there's a view of,
37:41"Should we require standardized tests?"
37:442,000 professors, I think, I don't know
37:46exactly what it was, but 2,000
37:48professors are like, "Yeah, we should
37:50use these." But the board of regents
37:53voted, "Yeah, no, we're not going to
37:54take them." Whatever decisions are being
37:56made around this stuff is not a
37:58fact-based decision. It's an opinion.
38:00It's I care about different goals. I'm
38:03trying to optimize on something besides
38:05academics. The goal of a school is not
38:07academics. When you look in education,
38:09it's a really complicated thing and
38:11right what is the purpose of a school?
38:13What is developing a child? Does
38:15academics matter? So when you think of
38:18these basic things like well the kid was
38:20struggling on his multiplication tables
38:22and I was worried about his mental
38:23health so I just told him don't worry
38:24about it you know and you're like well
38:26that's really going to hurt him to learn
38:27algebra. He's not going to do well at
38:29algebra. It's like the homeschoolers
38:30like I don't care about academics or
38:32there's parents at schools and one of
38:34the things I've learned in education
38:35especially in being uh principal of
38:38school is first of all I have massive
38:41empathy for everybody running these
38:42schools. So you know I I was watching in
38:45Austin we're like closing a bunch of
38:46schools right a lot of public schools
38:48are closing and and it's being closed
38:50because it's not hitting academic
38:51standards. Five years in a row it's
38:52failed. It just literally is not
38:54teaching these kids. These are eighth
38:55graders who can't read at a third grade
38:56level. And so the state and the school
38:59district's like, "We we need to close a
39:00school and put the kids in a school
39:01that's, you know, teaches them." And
39:04there's a mom who's just furious, right?
39:06And she's at the meeting and she's like,
39:07"I don't care about that. What I care
39:10about is my older daughter in seventh
39:13grade had teacher ABC, right? Had this
39:16great teacher who changed her life. And
39:20I want my younger child to have that
39:23same teacher. And if it means they're
39:26not good at math, whatever. And the
39:28rules of the government, right, the
39:30government school system is we are
39:32funding this to educate them on
39:34academics. Parents demands are very
39:37different. If you're the head of, you
39:38know, school, your parents are saying,
39:40well, I don't I don't care about that.
39:42Now, I believe you can do better and do
39:43it all and and those kind of things. But
39:46fundamentally, why is the regents at UC
39:49saying, "Yeah, I don't know. We're not
39:51going to we're not going to take
39:52standardized tests." 2,000 professors
39:54say it. There's also a bunch of
39:55professors say don't do it. In you get
39:57into all these debates on what the role
39:59of school is and then that's in the air
40:01and then the even the learning science
40:04inquiry learning versus direct
40:05instruction is a huge huge religious war
40:07around education on which is better. And
40:11so those kind of things are why it's not
40:14obvious. It's also part of being new
40:17into the space as coming in. Part of my
40:19magic is and part of why alpha is
40:21getting all this, you know, hype and
40:23talk is we're teaching kids five to 10
40:25times faster. There is a set of the
40:27learning science that the results are
40:29the results are there. And there's a set
40:31of learning science that we're proving
40:32that hasn't been able to be implemented
40:34before that people are like, "Wow, if
40:36that's really true." And so why we're
40:39all these great learning scientists are
40:41coming and working with us is they're
40:43looking at this data and they're like,
40:44"Holy cow, this data is breakthrough
40:47level that we couldn't do before."
40:51>> Mhm. Yeah. [clears throat]
40:52I'd like to take a quick break and
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43:40to get up to 27% off. When you think
43:43about science and the development of
43:46sciences, chemistry, biology, physics,
43:49they had times which I'd call like
43:51education where there's debates and
43:53it's, you know, it's the it's Galileo's
43:55trial, right? It's it's unsure. They're
43:57doctors are bloodletting, you know, and
44:00leeching people. This is really a good
44:01idea, right? And you're just like, oh,
44:04right. No, like that's the best guy and
44:06he's saying to do it the same way you're
44:08>> there's a little bit of that going on
44:09now. Still
44:09>> it's unsettled. Now in each of those
44:13there was the invention
44:15of an instrument and a technology or an
44:18instrument that radically changed and
44:21inlected those sciences. So the
44:23microscope, right, the light microscope,
44:25the telescope, chemistry, the analytical
44:27balance, you didn't blow yourself up.
44:28Those inlected those sciences.
44:31And now for the first time with
44:34education
44:36AI allows us to get it allows that finer
44:40measurements. What those allowed was
44:42finer grain measurements right the
44:43microscope it let me see cells right I'm
44:46like oh I'm starting to understand this
44:48of how this works
44:50AI because it's on a onetoone basis is
44:53giving us a data loop that nobody in
44:56learning science no one in education has
44:59ever had and we have it. It's a closed
45:02loop and that magical data loop is
45:06what's allowing us to get the five to 10
45:08times improvements in education because
45:10it's our microscope. It's our telescope.
45:12Now, it's not a chatbot that's not
45:14getting you that. But if you generate a
45:16personalized lesson for every kid, let's
45:19step back and say what what's a teacher
45:20in front of the classroom? The problem
45:21with teacher in front of classroom is
45:23it's so dirty, right? your data, your
45:26effect size is driven by random
45:28classroom elements, not the learning
45:30science. So if I come up with a learning
45:33science idea and I give it to a teacher
45:35in front of a classroom, first of all,
45:36do they even teach it the way right? Is
45:38the instruction done the right way? It's
45:40going to 30 people. Prere matters. If I
45:43don't know algebra, you don't give me a
45:45chemistry lesson. And do the students
45:47have the prerequisites needed. Second,
45:50are the students motivated? Are they
45:52spinning in their chair, not even paying
45:54attention? The effect size is dominated
45:56by all of that, not actually the
45:58learning science concept. And in our
46:01world, right, where we have kids super
46:03engaged for 2 hours in the app, I know
46:07when I give a lesson, I can measure
46:09their engagement. I can see if that
46:10lesson was good because I know how they
46:13did on the questions right afterward. I
46:15can then test them later because I'm
46:16getting space repetition. I'm getting
46:18recall later. I can say whether that
46:20really was transferred to long-term
46:21memory and I can say wow that really
46:25works. So there's different theories of
46:27of learning science. You have there's
46:28concepts of direct instruction like
46:31should you have the kids struggle or
46:33should you just teach them directly? How
46:35can you teach them directly without
46:36struggle? I mean my understanding of
46:39neuroplasticity which is an area I come
46:41from but not specifically in the in the
46:43context of education is that if a brain
46:46or a body can execute a particular thing
46:49a movement or a cognitive process a math
46:52problem there is no reason for it to
46:54change that the error signal is what
46:56actually drives the opportunity for
46:58change and so without errors there's no
47:02struggle and therefore without struggle
47:04there's no learning so I don't see a
47:06world where you can teach without a kid
47:08or an adult feeling some degree of like
47:11mild agitation. They might learn to
47:12think of that as excitement and
47:14curiosity, but there's got to be some
47:15level of arousal like I have to think,
47:17right? You know, got to be brought to
47:20Yes. Engagement and attention, right?
47:22You have to have engagement and
47:23attention. Exactly what you're talking
47:25about. And errors definitely do matter
47:26and we we can talk about that side, but
47:28let's just take take an example which is
47:31>> I'll give you a math problem.
47:34no instruction, figure it out. That's
47:37one way to try to learn. The better way
47:39to learn, the faster way to learn is to
47:41give you them a worked example where you
47:42show them and then you progressively
47:44remove the parts of the example where
47:47they're having to progressively go up
47:48and then by the end they can solve the
47:50problem with no scaffolding. It's a
47:52question of scaffolding and
47:55>> that's a faster way to teach kids than
47:58just saying good luck. So it's in in
48:00some sense incremental learning with an
48:02example at the front end
48:03>> and and so that's that would be a worked
48:05example is a good example. Then you have
48:06space repetition which is everybody has
48:08a forgetting curve and they're different
48:10by person back to that frontier curve.
48:12Uh and so how often and right before
48:14you're going to forget it you want to
48:15remind them and if you do that over a
48:17few times then it gets your recall
48:20>> from long-term memory. It will be there
48:22when you need it in the future. And so I
48:24have worked examples and then spaced
48:26repetition. Now there's a debate and
48:29there has been a debate about do you
48:32need some drill and kill known as
48:36initial mastery that you have to hit it
48:38with initial mastery the first time
48:41you're learning it or can you
48:45not learn it to mastery but because of
48:47spaced repetition over time by the third
48:50or fourth time you'll get the equivalent
48:52of mastery right
48:53>> and you're defining mastery as like 95%
48:55or better
48:56>> correct And so that's been a debate
48:59>> around it.
49:01>> You you can't measure that in a school.
49:03That that's too fine grained. We
49:05actually measured it over the last year
49:07and our learning scientists actually
49:08because of the papers that's published
49:10is very much you don't need initial
49:12mastery. You can do it with space
49:14repetition. And what's what's
49:16interesting is at the end of the year,
49:17we were looking at our scores and
49:19basically in 8th through 12th, we
49:22crushed it with just worked examples and
49:26spaced repetition because once you get
49:28into algebra, the multi-line problems,
49:31worked examples really matter. But in
49:33fourth through 7th, it wasn't as
49:34effective because the problems are
49:36easier. And so what you lose is you want
49:39more initial mastery because the worked
49:41examples aren't as important. And so
49:44like this year when we saw the scores go
49:46down, we then just added initial mastery
49:48back to it. So you get the worked
49:50example, you get the initial mastery and
49:51then space repetition. And that data set
49:55between those two things, that's a data
49:57set that doesn't exist out there. And it
49:59seems to me that data set would be very
50:01valuable for schools outside of alpha
50:03school just to understand that for
50:04whatever it is that kids are generally
50:06taught in the curriculum of you said
50:07fourth to 7th that they need to get to
50:1095% or better proficiency. English
50:12literature, calculus, things like that.
50:14If they're learning those things, you're
50:16saying if they don't need to get to
50:17mastery, where do they need to get to?
50:19>> They need to get to mastery all the
50:20time. Initial mastery always matters.
50:22Just it always does. And so whether it's
50:24learning your vocabulary words to, you
50:26know, to that example, reading
50:27comprehension is a is a function of
50:29vocabulary. Like we can measure now, you
50:31know, today the best way to do well on
50:33SAT English or, you know, to know
50:35English is just read lots of books and
50:37look up the words you don't understand
50:39and you'll kill the verbal. You'll just
50:41like with a verbal GRE, it's always a
50:43little tricky with people in the
50:44sciences. You're like, I'm worried about
50:46the verbal GRE and you just go
50:48>> read a book
50:50>> under a good book and underline every
50:52word you don't understand. Look it up
50:53and then have a vocabulary. I still have
50:55those vocabulary list and you and
50:57everyone ends up in like the 90th plus
50:59percentile if they actually do that.
51:01>> Correct.
51:01>> That's why good schools, right, who do
51:04well on the SAT have a great lit
51:06program, right? They have a great great
51:08books program. And here look at our book
51:10list. This is what all the kids read
51:12because that's what's going to drive
51:13vocabulary which which drives those
51:15scores. It drives knowledge acquisition
51:16as well. You know we're in our apps. We
51:20can literally determine okay well we can
51:22we can teach you the vocabulary words.
51:24We've actually learned the problem that
51:26you have is when you take a vocabulary
51:28word and it's just like a flashc card
51:30like vocabulary word. You don't know its
51:33limits. Like what's the difference
51:35between happy and ecstatic? And if you
51:37just are flashc carding, you really
51:39can't tell the range. That's what you
51:41get from reading books. When you read
51:4310,000 pages, you then are like, "Ah, I
51:46now understand the difference between a
51:48static and happy, right? Where are the
51:50boundaries of the vocabulary words and
51:52that's how you build a rich vocabulary,
51:54right? And a rich reading comprehension
51:56and capability." That's one of the
51:58things like in our apps now we can just
51:59be like oh we can give you vocabulary
52:01words and show you the limits and help
52:02educate you directly where it's it's a
52:06more effective way than read the book
52:08and go look it up when you don't know
52:10it. And so back to all these different
52:12things initial mastery matters just on
52:15everything. Let's even go further.
52:16There's sort of concepts which is have
52:18you solved it once? Have you done it
52:21enough to mastery? Which is, you know, I
52:24can do three easy problems or I can do
52:2710 hard ones. The 10 hard ones is
52:29mastery. And then even if I can do the
52:3110 hard ones, can I do it a month later?
52:33Right? Did I cram the night before?
52:35Because cramming is bad. Can I do it
52:37month one month before, two months
52:38before? Spaced repetition covers that.
52:41There's a third dimension that really
52:43matters and this is back to cognitive
52:45science which is you know the way the
52:48brain works is you have a certain number
52:49of working memory slots and then you
52:52have long-term memory and your working
52:54memory slots are limited you have
52:56limited attention and you're that's
52:58right that's computing right that's
52:59where you're thinking and the concept is
53:02though of fluency
53:05is this magical concept about brain
53:07science right it's magical which is if
53:10you memorize something to fluency when
53:13you use it. It doesn't take a working
53:16memory slot. And working memory slots
53:17are function of IQ. It's like the best
53:20way to be farther on your frontier curve
53:23independent of you know whatever your
53:25brain chemistry is which is if I have
53:29memorized something to fluency and
53:30here's the example to think about it.
53:32Let's take multiplication tables and why
53:34is algebra hard if I haven't memorized
53:36my math facts. If I know 7 * 8 is 56,
53:39that takes nothing, right? I you just
53:41know it. I have it to fluency. If I have
53:43to calculate 7 * 8, I'm actually using
53:46my working memory slots. The problem is
53:48I only have a few of them. So, when I'm
53:50in algebra, I'm in a multi-step word
53:52problem and I'm using my slots up for
53:56something that I can't because I need it
53:59for other things. And that's why when
54:01kids get to algebra and they start to
54:02struggle, the issue is not the algebra.
54:06The issue is the third grade math facts
54:08they didn't learn. And the way to fix
54:10the problem is not pound them with more
54:11algebra. It's to go fix the third grade
54:14problem. If you want the most crazy
54:16example we have is we had a girl who's
54:17low 700 math SAT. She kept taking the
54:20test and kept getting careless errors.
54:23Like focus, focus. You need to focus.
54:26And then we figured out you don't know
54:28your math facts. So we had her go back
54:30and learn right memorize your
54:32multiplication tables. And first of all,
54:35back to like changing education. You
54:38can't convince
54:40someone with a 710 that the problem is a
54:41third grade lesson. You definitely can't
54:43convince their parents. Right? That took
54:44a lot of motivational pushing on our
54:46guides to do that.
54:47>> What about the student? What was her
54:49attitude toward
54:49>> her attitude's like, I can't I don't
54:52need to do that. Look, I'm good in math.
54:54I'm in advanced math. 710 is not a bad
54:56score. It's not 800, but it's it's But
54:58she's like, it can't be that I need my
55:00multiplication tables. And she's like,
55:03and you know, everybody's telling her,
55:04"It's careless. You're being careless."
55:06She was just running out of working
55:07memory slots. And so she went back,
55:09memorized her multiplication tables, and
55:10she got a 790 SAT, which speaks
55:13beautifully to what we know about
55:15neuroplasticity of learning. I mean,
55:17like, like you're saying, I mean,
55:18memories, people always go, "Oh, it's
55:19like the hippocampus passed to the
55:21cortex." The fluency piece. I think that
55:23this notion of freeing up working memory
55:24slots. Maybe we just double click on
55:26that for a second. I think people assume
55:29well you even if it would take this this
55:32young woman a little bit longer to do
55:34the multiplication then she could then
55:36move to the next step of the problem.
55:37There are two issues there right as I
55:39understand and you'll you'll you'll tell
55:40me that there's probably more. One is
55:42that there's a a time pressure
55:44>> on the test and
55:46>> the other piece is that we know that
55:48ability to focus is also constrained by
55:51the things that you're not consciously
55:54thinking about like we know this from
55:55the phone for example. I'm curious how
55:57Alpha School treats phones. We know that
55:59if the phone is upside down on a table
56:01based on a good study in a bag under the
56:03chair,
56:04>> performance drops. But if it's out of
56:05the room, performance is rescued. It
56:08doesn't get better. And we know that in
56:09every case, the student can focus or the
56:12person can focus. I believe this was
56:13done in adults. But the issue is they
56:16don't have enough cognitive space to be
56:18able to elaborate on ideas, come up with
56:20novel solutions and things like that.
56:22So, it's not really a focus issue. It's
56:24that the brain is computing consciously
56:26and unconsciously. So my guess is that
56:27she could iterate but that there's some
56:29higher order concept is not coming
56:31becoming clear.
56:32>> Yeah, correct. The number of working
56:33beverage spots slots is the number of
56:35unique you know chunks that you can
56:38think about and I'll give a different
56:40example and maybe this this also helps.
56:42you just have a limit and you run out
56:43and if you're using them for something
56:45you can't use it for something else and
56:47a certain math problem takes a certain
56:49number of slots like so I can predict
56:52are you going to struggle with this math
56:54problem and is it too hard for you based
56:56on whether you have fluency or not even
56:59if I know you know the problem even if
57:01you've taught the material and you know
57:03how to do it I can tell whether you're
57:05going to struggle you can take gifted
57:06kids as an example they have the most
57:08working memory slots but every gifted
57:10kid goes through this in math which is
57:12they do everything in their head. They
57:15never write down their work. And
57:17everybody's always like, "You're going
57:18to have to write down and show your
57:19work." And they're like, "Whatever. I
57:21just do everything in my head." And then
57:23every gifted kid at some point in their
57:25education hit their wall because there's
57:28some math that you just can't do in your
57:30head and you have to start writing down.
57:32And they haven't learned it. They've
57:33learned all the bad habits. They haven't
57:36learned the good habits, the good traits
57:38of actually how do I do a multi-step
57:40problem where I'm working it down and
57:42they hit a wall and for the first time
57:43they're like I can't do a math problem.
57:45Is that one of the reasons why child
57:47prodigies don't continue on a linear
57:49trajectory to hyper performance? I mean
57:52I was once told by a child prodigy
57:54because he was referred to as a child
57:55prodigy and and had performed done
57:57something incredible. I don't want to
57:58reveal who this was and he corrected me
58:00immediately. He said former child
58:01prodigy. I was like okay get it. Yeah,
58:04>> but he said you should look up the data
58:05on child prodigies. The outcomes are not
58:08super impressive.
58:09>> I mean sometimes, yes, within a very
58:10narrow domain, but the outcomes are
58:13usually not that impressive as adults.
58:15>> We should go into that on that on that
58:16whole thing. So, we have a school that
58:18we're building for gifted kids.
58:20>> A lot of the problems that we have in
58:22our current school system is we're not
58:25challenging and we're boring these child
58:28prodigies
58:29>> and we're teaching them the worst habits
58:31in the world. And so we're giving them
58:3412 years of the worst habits and then
58:36even their capability can't overcome
58:39that. That it's the super gifted athlete
58:41who literally has every bad habit in the
58:43book and then you're like, "Oh, now in
58:45the MLB you're doomed." And that is what
58:48we do with most of our gifted kids. And
58:50we're not teaching. We're not they're
58:51not challenged, right? they sit there in
58:53their board and they can answer every
58:54question like this, you know, through
58:56the program versus giving them the
58:58challenging problem when they're in
58:59third grade and fourth grade and then
59:00they're having to learn all the right
59:02skills so that they can progress
59:04through. And we also in our culture, we
59:07highlight gifted athletes, you know, a
59:09hundred times more. It's it's better to
59:11be the quarterback on the Westlake
59:13football team than it is to be the the
59:15number one academic kid at that school
59:17>> in the US. In the US, yeah, we were in
59:19foreign very different for sure, but in
59:21the US that so one of the things we're
59:23going to do with that program and we can
59:24talk about later is just find the
59:26100,000 smartest kids in this country
59:28and turn them up to 11.
59:29>> Like if these kids can learn 10 times
59:31faster,
59:32>> let's get it to everybody. We started
59:33this program, Texas has a voucher
59:35program. We have, you know, rural Texas
59:36kids who their school, they just don't
59:38have access to it. They're joining up
59:40this program and they are crushing
59:42through it. And so we're going to get
59:43that out broadly across America. There's
59:46this always been the dream like like
59:47where's the next Einstein like maybe
59:49this Einstein kid she or he is like I
59:52don't know they don't even know that
59:53they have this capability.
59:55>> Exactly. Our goal is to get these
59:57100,000 kids academically MIT eligible
1:00:02by middle school. That's 1580 SATs fives
1:00:05on you know calc BC physics C AP Langlet
1:00:08those kind of things where we're like
1:00:09these kids have all this potential we
1:00:11are wasting it. we're boring them and we
1:00:14should just turn them up. But we think
1:00:16it's every kid is like that. I, you
1:00:17know, I don't think every kid back to
1:00:19the frontier, every kid can't get to MIT
1:00:21eligible by middle school, but the ones
1:00:23who can, we should. But we can get every
1:00:25kid in America dramatically better than
1:00:28where they are today in academics.
1:00:30>> Well, we can get them to their frontier.
1:00:31>> Correct.
1:00:32>> We can get them to their frontier. And
1:00:33so, and that's what this system does
1:00:35where you're like, well, get them to the
1:00:36frontier, which is reading is just
1:00:38fluency, right? If you're when you're
1:00:39learning how to read, you're struggling
1:00:40because you don't know the words. And
1:00:42then eventually it becomes fluency and
1:00:43then you don't have to think about it
1:00:45and you can crush through it and then
1:00:47reading becomes much more fun, much more
1:00:48enjoyable. And so a lot of this is just
1:00:51we don't do the basics. We need to nail
1:00:53the basics. Just like in sports, my
1:00:55famous example I always use is if you
1:00:57lose the ball 20% of the time going down
1:01:00the court, the coach is not saying let's
1:01:03work on the dunks and the alley oops or
1:01:05the even the layups. They're like ball
1:01:07handling. We're going to get ball
1:01:08handling. 20% isn't acceptable. 15%
1:01:11isn't acceptable. You can't be 85 80%
1:01:15accurate.
1:01:15>> In America, we're like, "You getting a
1:01:17B, man. Move on. We're moving on to
1:01:19dunks. You just finished fourth grade at
1:01:2280%. Let's get you into that fifth grade
1:01:24stuff." And the answer is no. No. Cuz
1:01:27then all those problems compound. And
1:01:30let's go the other way. If you're
1:01:31struggling in chemistry, I can give you
1:01:34an algebra test and tell you how you're
1:01:35going to do in chemistry. Because
1:01:37chemistry is basically algebra with cool
1:01:39word problems. And if you don't know
1:01:41algebra, the time to try to learn
1:01:43algebra is not in the middle of a
1:01:44chemistry problem. You need to know it.
1:01:46And so algebra, I can give you a
1:01:48fraction test. Algebra is basically, can
1:01:51you do fast manipulation of fractions?
1:01:53And so what's your fluency on fractions?
1:01:55Fractions are just, have you memorized
1:01:57your multiplication and division tables?
1:01:59You know, math more than anything, but
1:02:00even reading on stuff with vocabulary
1:02:02words, it's all just a layer. And if you
1:02:04don't have the foundation and you just
1:02:06keep pushing kids higher, that's the
1:02:09learning curves in this country slow
1:02:10down. If you take our learning curves
1:02:13relatively,
1:02:15you know, kindergarten by the time you
1:02:17get to middle school and high school,
1:02:18high school, the median student in
1:02:21America doesn't learn anything. There's
1:02:23a test, there's a bunch of them, but you
1:02:25can use this one, which is NWA MAP test.
1:02:29It's a 300point scale. The average
1:02:31eighth grader to 12th grader goes up one
1:02:34point from a you know it depends on the
1:02:36subject but 233
1:02:40to 234 four years later they don't learn
1:02:43anything. And the reason is because if
1:02:47I'm in the advanced math I'm like I
1:02:50don't know my multiplication tables and
1:02:51if I don't know it and I don't know it
1:02:53to mastery I'm not going to able to
1:02:55progress and it's going to eventually
1:02:57catch up with me. The same way in
1:02:58basketball, if you said, "I have a
1:03:00player who's a B player 80% across every
1:03:04function," they're not going to score
1:03:06one point in a basketball game
1:03:08>> cuz they're going to miss the pass.
1:03:10They're going to lose a dribble. It's
1:03:11just there's too many things you have to
1:03:12put in sequence. And you put all those
1:03:15things in sequence, right, around
1:03:16education, and that's it. And before we
1:03:19just didn't have the system. Now an an
1:03:21AI tutor can sit there and be like, I
1:03:24know exactly what you know, right? I can
1:03:26give you an assessment. I I can know
1:03:28exactly what you know, what you don't
1:03:29know. I can give you a lesson
1:03:31personalized to you that says you need
1:03:34this lesson and then I give it to you
1:03:35and then I'm going to hit you to
1:03:36mastery. I'm going to keep you in that
1:03:38loop
1:03:39>> to mastery and then your mastery. Now
1:03:41I'm like I'm going to let you go on to
1:03:42the next one. Last year, right, we
1:03:44starting open lots of campuses and you
1:03:45know, we're high-end private school. So
1:03:47we had, you know, these are kids coming
1:03:48from $50,000 private school. These are
1:03:50our best schools in the country. They're
1:03:51coming from the average student when
1:03:54they transferred into alpha and took our
1:03:56assessment test were 2.2 grade levels
1:03:58behind. And what does that mean? I got
1:04:01in front of all the parents, you know,
1:04:02and I'm like, look, two, this means two
1:04:03things. First, don't freak out. You are
1:04:05going to freak out cuz we're about to
1:04:06send you the scores. And it's going to
1:04:09show that your eighth grader can't
1:04:11answer some sixth grade questions, some
1:04:14fifth grade questions even. And when it
1:04:16got to writing, like it was even lower
1:04:18because everybody's been using chatbt to
1:04:20write their papers. And so you're going
1:04:22to freak out because you're like, "Oh my
1:04:23god, my kids two grade levels behind or
1:04:25three grade levels behind." But you're
1:04:28thinking that takes like 200 hours, 180
1:04:30school days, right? And all this. Our
1:04:33average student can do an entire grade
1:04:35level, one subject between 20 and 30
1:04:38hours in K through 8. 20 to 30 hours.
1:04:41Back to the 10 times.
1:04:41>> So they can catch up.
1:04:42>> Do an hour a day of homework to catch
1:04:44up. and you're 3 years behind. That's 90
1:04:47days. The most positive use case if you
1:04:49said, you know, what's the number one
1:04:50thing we could use AI for? It's not
1:04:52giving kids chatbots that's going to
1:04:54work. It's giving them an individualized
1:04:57lesson plan based on their level to
1:04:59catch them up to grade level. And that
1:05:01would be the single best thing we could
1:05:03do to fix education in America. Let's
1:05:05talk about motivation and why it
1:05:07matters. And if you take an eighth
1:05:09grader, you can't go put them in third
1:05:11grade classes,
1:05:12>> right? And if you leave him in an eighth
1:05:14grade class, he can't learn. She can't
1:05:17learn.
1:05:17>> And so we have this system where it's
1:05:19it's not the teacher's fault. Like I I
1:05:22have to teach eighth grade material. I I
1:05:24I'm not teaching the third and fourth
1:05:25grade stuff and the fifth grade stuff.
1:05:26And so this is where if we gave these
1:05:29person individualized lessons, right? AI
1:05:31could generate individualized lessons
1:05:32for everybody in America. And we could
1:05:34then go catch them up because it's not
1:05:36that hard. It doesn't take that many
1:05:38hours. It takes lots of hours when
1:05:40you're teaching years ahead of their
1:05:42capability. It it's 20 to 30 hours per
1:05:46grade level if they're motivated. And
1:05:48that's the problem with edtech when we
1:05:49talk about that of when we talk about
1:05:51motivation's 90%.
1:05:53>> When [snorts] we design our schools, we
1:05:56are like we need to design a school that
1:05:57they love so that even when it's hard
1:06:01and they don't like the subject, look
1:06:02when you love a subject it's all easy,
1:06:04right? Like we don't have to worry about
1:06:05those problems, right? They solve
1:06:06themselves. You're like, "What about the
1:06:08STEM kid who doesn't want to read the
1:06:10book, right, and doesn't like it?" Or
1:06:12vice versa, I have the arts theater
1:06:13middle schooler who's like, "I can't do
1:06:15math." How do we get them to do that?
1:06:17And that's why we say motivation is 90%
1:06:20of the problem or the solution because
1:06:22you have to be able to motivate the
1:06:24person to engage with these personalized
1:06:26lessons to learn it. And the first step
1:06:29that we do on that is we show them it's
1:06:32tractable. When you're like, I'm three
1:06:35years behind, you're like, I'm out. It's
1:06:36too far. I'm a year behind. I'm too It's
1:06:38too much work. When you're like, you're
1:06:4222 hours behind. It's 22 hours a day.
1:06:46Totally different message.
1:06:46>> It's just a completely different
1:06:47message.
1:06:48>> We are taking kids who are years behind
1:06:51>> and catching them up because they see it
1:06:53and say, "I can do an hour of homework a
1:06:55day to go to go fix that problem."
1:06:57>> I'd like to take a quick break and
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1:08:16to claim a free sample pack. It seems to
1:08:18me that one of the really wonderful
1:08:20features of what you're describing is
1:08:22also the removal of the the shame
1:08:25component, right? Like like here we're
1:08:26we're thinking about and talking about
1:08:27students not as robots because we intend
1:08:29to, but but sort of as like these the
1:08:32generic young woman, young man who like
1:08:34gap in in algebra, they're going to
1:08:35learn algebra. But there's a whole
1:08:38social psychological context here. I'd
1:08:40like to touch on that just a little bit
1:08:41because as you're explaining alpha
1:08:43school, I'm I'm seeing and to some
1:08:46extent remembering the many times I or
1:08:48others were either not in keeping or
1:08:51were ahead or bored. I mean, I think
1:08:52we've all experienced being in the
1:08:53different positions.
1:08:54>> Exactly. Like if every kid is behind in
1:08:57something and and or most every kid is
1:08:59behind in something, the idea that
1:09:00you're 22 hours behind in something that
1:09:02that that can be that gap can be made up
1:09:04not in total isolation
1:09:06>> but not with peers observing,
1:09:09>> right?
1:09:09>> I have a friend, he's he's a brilliant
1:09:11and very successful musician. Yeah. and
1:09:13he describes an experience in the sixth
1:09:16grade where he got called to the board
1:09:17to do math and he's dyslexic and he
1:09:21wrote his seven backwards and the whole
1:09:23class laughed and he told another friend
1:09:25of mine they went to elementary school
1:09:27together maybe that was middle school
1:09:29but this was in the East Bay California
1:09:31and he said what happened and this older
1:09:32kid said well if you think sixth grade
1:09:35is hard seventh grade is like way harder
1:09:38and you know he told himself at that
1:09:39moment he was terrible at math turns out
1:09:42he's brilliant in music and he's
1:09:43actually exceptional in math because
1:09:45music and math
1:09:46>> very much
1:09:47>> certain music is very mathematical. So
1:09:49these key moments in people's childhood
1:09:51getting picked last for the kickball
1:09:53team or what like you hear these I'm not
1:09:54trying to diminish those examples but
1:09:56the psychological component is something
1:09:58that really gets embedded in people
1:10:00>> and it can set their trajectory it you
1:10:03know off from from finding their
1:10:05frontier in a major way. So what you're
1:10:08describing is really wonderful because
1:10:10assuming the digital tutor
1:10:12>> is not shaming the student,
1:10:14>> right?
1:10:15>> That's a wonderful thing. They can go,
1:10:17"Oh god, I don't know this thing. I need
1:10:19to go learn this thing." And can do it,
1:10:20make up the the gap, and you're done.
1:10:22>> You are 100% right. And let's let's talk
1:10:24about motivation is 90% of the solution.
1:10:26And so let's talk, you had talked before
1:10:28of like what are bad standards that we
1:10:29have
1:10:30>> when we talk about things. We talk about
1:10:32you learn twice as much in two hours a
1:10:36day because that's independent of your
1:10:38starting position which is a critical
1:10:40part of our motivation which is to this
1:10:42no shaming which is when when we're
1:10:46sitting there saying you're learning
1:10:47twice as much. It's that eighth grader
1:10:49who needs to be in third grade material.
1:10:51First off he's getting lessons nobody
1:10:53knows he's in third grade material. It's
1:10:55he's learning twice as much. It's
1:10:57showing his rate of lesson learning. And
1:11:00so for them, all our students are like,
1:11:03I don't care where I am because I'm
1:11:05getting my points, right? My our
1:11:06motivational model based on wherever I
1:11:09started from and back to if I'm learning
1:11:112x, eventually I catch up to the norm.
1:11:12Now, that's something in our school
1:11:14system that's very bad, which is we
1:11:16measure our schools based on
1:11:17achievement. And I think this is like
1:11:19one of the big problems we have where
1:11:21this school is below level. There's two
1:11:23dimensions. Are kids at grade level and
1:11:27how fast are they learning? So, we
1:11:28should be looking at the slope of the
1:11:29line.
1:11:30>> You got to look at You got to look at
1:11:31both obviously, but but yes, if the
1:11:33slope's enough, they're eventually going
1:11:35to get there. And you should measure a
1:11:37school based on the rate of learning and
1:11:39the slope of the line, the growth rate,
1:11:41not its achievement. This is why
1:11:43everybody talks about selection effects.
1:11:44And if you want to go into that, which
1:11:45is, oh, good schools are just selection
1:11:47effects. If I just go get all the best
1:11:49kids, then duh, they're the best. And
1:11:51so, my my scores are the highest. What
1:11:53we should be measuring schools on is
1:11:55development. Schools are supposed to
1:11:56develop kids,
1:11:57>> right? not just select them. And that's
1:11:59why we use growth rate 2x in two hours
1:12:02because it doesn't matter where you are.
1:12:04We believe a school's job is to
1:12:05accelerate their growth on lots of
1:12:07dimensions, whether it's academic or
1:12:09life skills as much as you can and to
1:12:12measure that. And that's what parents
1:12:13should look at, which is put your kid in
1:12:16an environment where they're going to
1:12:17grow and where they're going to grow at
1:12:19a rate that is independent of their
1:12:21starting location. Because to your
1:12:23point, everybody has strengths and
1:12:25weaknesses. and I'm the great academic
1:12:27who's not good on the life skills or the
1:12:28social skills or vice versa. I'm the
1:12:31theater kid and kids frontier is great
1:12:34across all of them. We have to untap it.
1:12:36And when you talk about motivation, one
1:12:38of the elements that we always talk
1:12:39about is you know what our guides do
1:12:41like what do our adults do? Kids have
1:12:44blocks. I can't do that. I'm not that
1:12:48kind of person.
1:12:48>> I'm not good at that.
1:12:49>> I'm not good at that. And a job of a
1:12:52school and the job of an educator is to
1:12:55break that block. It's to crush that
1:12:57block and show the kid that's not a true
1:12:59statement. You're awesome at that. And
1:13:02when you think about teachers, like
1:13:03let's talk about teachers cuz our
1:13:05schools are going to are full of
1:13:06teachers. They're always going to be
1:13:07full of teachers. AI is not going to
1:13:09replace the role of the human because
1:13:11the human is the one who does sit there.
1:13:13We had a 100,000 people teachers apply
1:13:15for our roles last year. Like people
1:13:17want to be alpha guides. And the reason,
1:13:20think of this, the best teacher you had,
1:13:23like everybody remembers the one or two
1:13:24teachers who changed their life. It
1:13:26wasn't because they marked up your paper
1:13:28really well. That wasn't what did it for
1:13:30them. It was because you had some block.
1:13:32They saw you and they convinced you you
1:13:34could do so much more. They removed that
1:13:36block. That's what our guides just do
1:13:38every day. They're like, "Where's the
1:13:40block on this kid and how do I remove
1:13:41it?" So part of it is how do you set a
1:13:44system up where just the learning system
1:13:46itself is not based on achievement. It's
1:13:48based on growth rate and so 2x in two
1:13:52hours as as a mechanism. The other is
1:13:54what motivations do you have to blow
1:13:57through the blocks? We have a set of
1:13:59three girls who when they were in middle
1:14:01school, they would have been considered
1:14:03well they were they are arts theater
1:14:05girls, you know, and there's an epidemic
1:14:06in America of middle school girls who
1:14:08are like, I'm not good at math and
1:14:09science and they just have this block
1:14:11and it's cultural and you read on TikTok
1:14:13that, right? And all these things and so
1:14:15they they just believe it's, you know,
1:14:16they can't do it. It's just not a true
1:14:18statement, right? The brain I make them
1:14:20go, you know, go find me the learning
1:14:21science paper that shows middle school
1:14:23girls can't learn math science. There
1:14:24are none of those. they can learn this
1:14:26math science and it's middle school
1:14:28level right back to their frontier. And
1:14:30so what we did is we figure out what's
1:14:33the motivation that will get them there.
1:14:36And my daughter was one of those girls
1:14:38when she was in middle school. And when
1:14:41she came in, she's like, I'm not a top
1:14:431%, you know, math science girl and I'm
1:14:46not going to, you know, that's just not
1:14:48who I am. And I was like, well, I do
1:14:51know you love to shop. I bet you a
1:14:52thousand bucks you can't get to top 1%.
1:14:55and she like filled her shopping cart
1:14:57with, you know, the $1,000 and every day
1:15:00she went and did the science problems
1:15:02and she got to top 1%. We use aggressive
1:15:05motivational
1:15:06>> to break through things like we will pay
1:15:08kids straight up and that's a
1:15:10controversial thing.
1:15:11>> Tell me more about that.
1:15:12>> Yeah, let's talk about So,
1:15:13>> nothing controversial on this podcast.
1:15:15>> So, we'll pay $1,000. So, we're like,
1:15:17"Yeah, we'll give you $1,000 to get to
1:15:18top 1%." When kids go to alpha, we will
1:15:21pay them $1,000 to get to top 1%.
1:15:24because we want to show them you can all
1:15:25get top 1%. There's a whole lot of
1:15:27things and you get into
1:15:27self-determination theory and does it
1:15:29kill motivation. It doesn't and we can
1:15:32that there's a whole another debate
1:15:33about that but just in our world it
1:15:35doesn't and we believe the research
1:15:38shows why and we can get into it but how
1:15:41I would term it is these kids have a
1:15:43block that they can't do it. You do
1:15:46whatever you can including paying them
1:15:47to break through the block. they then
1:15:50see themselves as a different person
1:15:53>> which then creates the intrinsic
1:15:54motivation going forward. So I'll take
1:15:56my daughter as that example. You know
1:15:58actually I my wife and I were arguing
1:16:01about this a you're setting a higher
1:16:03standard right to top 1% and two you're
1:16:05paying for it. You know my wife wasn't
1:16:07as excited about that after uh my
1:16:10daughter hit it. She went in she's like
1:16:12mom I know you didn't like this. You
1:16:14need to understand it's changed how I
1:16:17see myself. I didn't think I was as
1:16:18smart as my older sister, but now I
1:16:21realize I can do everything she can do
1:16:22if I just put the effort in. And I'm
1:16:25going to bod, but um it's a beautiful
1:16:27example.
1:16:28>> It's that when you putting things
1:16:30through the loop, try hard things. Get
1:16:32them through that motivation. Whatever
1:16:34it takes, have them see themselves
1:16:37because they experienced is as capable.
1:16:39Have a kindergartener climb a 40ft rock
1:16:41wall. Have a middle school girl say, "I
1:16:44can be top 1%."
1:16:45those three middle school arts theater
1:16:47girls all got 790 math SATs. Didn't have
1:16:50to pay them on that. They are like, "Oh,
1:16:52I guess I can do math and I'm able to to
1:16:55go there." And so this concept of
1:16:57showing kids they're capable and
1:16:59breaking through whatever their blocks
1:17:01are, whether it's the academic or the
1:17:03life skill side is is the unlock, right?
1:17:06Back to growth. That is what growth is.
1:17:08And kids will do hard things. They'll
1:17:10grind through it, right? And sometimes
1:17:11you have to decide what the what the
1:17:13motivation is. And even if they're not
1:17:15intrinsically motivated on it, they're
1:17:17not intrinsically motivated because they
1:17:18see it as too hard and that's not who
1:17:20they are. And so you are figuring out
1:17:23how do I get you through that? It's that
1:17:24same in athletics. I'm not a soccer
1:17:26player. How do I get you to do the
1:17:28drills? How do I get the reps? And so we
1:17:30we talk about money on two things on one
1:17:33when you're trying to get them to do
1:17:34something hard and break through and
1:17:37second to do the daily habits where if I
1:17:39can get the reps in then I'm going to
1:17:40build a good habit. And so here's
1:17:42another place where we pay. This was one
1:17:44of my hardest problems my first year. So
1:17:45four years ago, you know, I came in as
1:17:48principal and I'm like, okay, to these
1:17:50seventh graders, I'm like, you could all
1:17:51get a 100red on the Texas Star, our
1:17:53state test. And these kids are like,
1:17:55that's impossible, Mr. Leont. And I have
1:17:58to teach them to hole fill though to do
1:18:00it cuz it's correct. They can't today.
1:18:02There's no chance they can get one
1:18:03today. But I need them to go backward
1:18:05and do the third, fourth, fifth, sixth,
1:18:07seventh, right? whatever wherever they
1:18:08had holes in their knowledge to get them
1:18:10up to mastery cuz they they had mastery
1:18:12gaps. I then went to their parents. I'm
1:18:14like, you know, we need to go do hole
1:18:16filling with your kid. They don't know
1:18:17this material. Seventh graders don't
1:18:19want to go back in fourth grade. Parents
1:18:20want it even less. American parents have
1:18:22been told my kid always has to be at
1:18:24grade level as an educational philosophy
1:18:26and that's just the learning science
1:18:28does not support that. But I couldn't
1:18:30convince them. And it's a motivation
1:18:31problem now cuz I have the kid and the
1:18:32parents are like, "We're not doing it."
1:18:34And I'm like, I can't fix that then if I
1:18:37don't get if I don't get those holes
1:18:38filled. I can't fix this.
1:18:41>> So I went to the kids directly and I was
1:18:43like, you can get a 100red on the
1:18:46seventh grade. And they're like, no, you
1:18:47can't. And I'm like, well, I'll give you
1:18:49a hundred bucks if you get 100. 100 for
1:18:51100. So we created 100 for They're like,
1:18:53that's still impossible. I I still can't
1:18:55do that. I was like, no, no, we have a
1:18:57catch. Any grade level. And they're
1:19:00like, "I can take a kindergarten test
1:19:02and you're going to give me a hundred
1:19:03bucks." And I'm like, "Well, the Texas
1:19:05Star starts in the third grade." And
1:19:07they're like, "I'm in." And they take
1:19:09the third grade test and get 100 bucks
1:19:11cuz they got 100 on. And they take the
1:19:13fourth grade test and get another 100
1:19:14bucks. Then they take the fifth grade
1:19:16test and get an 85. And I'm like, "Do
1:19:18you want the AI to generate those
1:19:20lessons you missed so you can get a
1:19:22100?" And they're like, "Let me see how
1:19:24many that is." And they're like, "I can
1:19:26do that this week. Sure." Then they get
1:19:28100. and then sixth grade and then
1:19:30seventh grade and that's an example of
1:19:33we have to fulfill I [clears throat]
1:19:35have huge blocks society kids parents
1:19:37nobody wants to do what the learning
1:19:40science says you pay the kid 100 bucks
1:19:42per lesson per grade level
1:19:44>> and you know sure third and fourth grade
1:19:47that $200 was wasted but we could go fix
1:19:50our problems for 500 bucks for a,000
1:19:53bucks we spend $20,000 per kid in
1:19:56American education standard schools
1:19:58public schools Private schools. Yeah.
1:19:59Public The average public school spends
1:20:01$20,000 per kid per year.
1:20:03>> Per year.
1:20:04>> Yeah. Per year.
1:20:05>> So $240,000. We spend a4 million
1:20:08educating a kid. I'm like, let's take
1:20:10all those middle schoolers and pay them
1:20:12a,000 bucks to get to top 1% or let's
1:20:13take all those seventh graders and pay
1:20:15them 500 bucks to fill their holes. By
1:20:17law, actually, public schools can't give
1:20:19out cash to kids.
1:20:20>> How does that law get changed?
1:20:21>> Exactly. How do we change that law?
1:20:23>> And what's the proxy? What's the other
1:20:24proxy I can give them that they really
1:20:26want? Instead, they pay on the back end
1:20:28when they go out into society and hit a
1:20:30wall,
1:20:30>> right? It's the societal optimal thing
1:20:32is just to pay the kid. There's parents
1:20:34don't a lot of people don't like the
1:20:36whole pay cash stuff. I get a lot of
1:20:38flack from my own alpha parents about
1:20:39it, but it's super effective when that's
1:20:41needed. Now, if everybody wanted to
1:20:43fill, I wouldn't have to do this. And if
1:20:45everybody understood how important it
1:20:46was, you probably wouldn't. Whole
1:20:48filling is master the basics. Go back.
1:20:50You're not good at dribbling.
1:20:52>> Let's go back and work on your dribbling
1:20:53skills. That's the sign of a good coach.
1:20:55The shift in self-perception piece is is
1:20:57the most important, right? Because
1:20:59because we were talking about the
1:21:00importance of the slope of the line as
1:21:01well as meeting standards, but
1:21:02ultimately it's that recognition
1:21:05>> I can do hard things.
1:21:07>> Yes.
1:21:07>> Or maybe that that phrase should be
1:21:09changed. Maybe it should be I can do
1:21:12what I thought were hard things. If it's
1:21:14delivered to me in the correct context
1:21:16and the correct way, I can learn. I've
1:21:19spent a lot of time on this podcast over
1:21:20the last whatever six years trying to
1:21:22convince people to get morning sunlight
1:21:24and hydrate and like exercise and then I
1:21:26try and teach them neuroplasticity and I
1:21:27try and not go too deep but there's this
1:21:29great Max Delbrook saying I think it was
1:21:31Max Delbrook which was assume zero
1:21:33knowledge and infinite intelligence the
1:21:35dirty secret is there isn't infinite
1:21:37intelligence right but there's always
1:21:40some place where somebody has zero
1:21:42knowledge and what you're saying is the
1:21:44motivation piece is really the
1:21:45recognition that learning in one context
1:21:48>> has some similarity ities to learning in
1:21:49other contexts like it's going to hurt a
1:21:51little bit but we don't have to make it
1:21:52hurt a lot
1:21:53>> correct
1:21:54>> if it's delivered correctly and forgive
1:21:56me I want to seems like a tangent but
1:21:58like being the child of at least one
1:22:00parent who's a first generation
1:22:01immigrant I was told my entire life how
1:22:04lucky I was you were born at this time
1:22:06you're in the United States you went to
1:22:08the best public schools you know one of
1:22:10the best public schools in the country
1:22:11you know it's true I didn't make as much
1:22:13of it as I could have or should have but
1:22:14eventually I like to think I made up
1:22:16there's probably still a few gaps maybe
1:22:17I'll go back Point being, I was told by
1:22:20my European uh relatives, you know, in
1:22:24in many countries in Europe, it's just
1:22:26thought like you're good at something or
1:22:29you're not good at something and your
1:22:30life trajectory is kind of set. That
1:22:32might be changing now, but the United
1:22:34States has always had this idea that you
1:22:35can become anything, right? But I do
1:22:38think as beautiful as the Spud wet
1:22:40examples are, right, this quite shorter
1:22:43guy winning the Slend competition, the
1:22:45NBA, it sends a complicated message,
1:22:48which is how hard should we grind,
1:22:50right? Like I think at the root of
1:22:52almost everything we're talking about
1:22:53today is what should our attitude about
1:22:56suffering? Yeah.
1:22:57>> Because are what we talking about here
1:22:59learning to suffer to get fill in gaps
1:23:01and get better. everyone re meets a very
1:23:03high standard or what we talking about
1:23:05here is there's a different way where
1:23:07actually the suffering is minimal so
1:23:09maybe we could just talk for a moment
1:23:10about suffering sure and forget what we
1:23:13believe in the United States or in
1:23:14Europe or anywhere else and just think
1:23:15what is
1:23:16>> your
1:23:18framework to suffering because most
1:23:20successful people think yeah I did hard
1:23:22things I can do hard things you want to
1:23:24pass that on to everybody
1:23:26>> yes
1:23:26>> but I'm not sure that's the best message
1:23:29>> and as much as I love the David Gogggins
1:23:31examples He's sat right in this chair
1:23:33where you're at. It's one of our most
1:23:34viewed episodes and those are beautiful
1:23:36examples. Most people aren't willing to
1:23:38suffer, right?
1:23:39>> And maybe suffering isn't the best way
1:23:41to learn for most people. If I can teach
1:23:44you something and it doesn't require
1:23:46suffering,
1:23:48>> that's better than requiring suffering.
1:23:51If I can teach it to you and you just
1:23:52can learn it and it's easy, we should
1:23:55teach you as much that way as we can
1:23:57>> and get you through that. Now, back to
1:24:00suffering. When is suffering good? When
1:24:02do people want to suffer or when do they
1:24:04suffer? They suffer when they're doing
1:24:06things that they care about. And this
1:24:09goes back to motivation. When you talk
1:24:11to people who say, "I have the greatest
1:24:13job in the world." There's a lot of
1:24:15suffering in that job. And they are
1:24:18happy and they are fulfilled and they
1:24:20are excited. There are students who are
1:24:23very motivated academically who suffer
1:24:26and struggle through it because it's
1:24:28doing something. There's no athlete who
1:24:31said, "Yeah, I just I never had to
1:24:33struggle. I never had to suffer." That's
1:24:35not true. But I did it in purpose of
1:24:37something. I was able to do the struggle
1:24:39because I was trying to hit my goals.
1:24:42And if you look at education, how we
1:24:44look at it, K through five fundamentally
1:24:46is kids are just trying to make their
1:24:48parents happy. So if their parents say
1:24:50this, they follow their parents lead in
1:24:52K through 5. As soon as they hit middle
1:24:53and high school, it changes, right? It's
1:24:55social. Dr. Joerger's whole book is
1:24:57middle and high school is about being
1:24:58accepted by the tribe, right? And
1:25:00socialization where and why there was
1:25:03always rights of passage and such where
1:25:05why a 10-year-old would never do
1:25:06anything to make their parent upset at
1:25:0815 they'll do something they know their
1:25:10parent hates if it gets them street
1:25:12credit or social acceptance. And so what
1:25:14you have to decide for parents is
1:25:17starting in middle school and there's a
1:25:18great book called um self-driven child
1:25:20that alpha parents read that you have
1:25:22basically six years right or seven years
1:25:25in middle and high school where you're
1:25:26trying to decide one of two things. Are
1:25:28you trying to unlock your kids potential
1:25:31or impose your value system on them? And
1:25:34parents are trying to do sort of both.
1:25:36They're like I think this is what
1:25:38matters. And a lot of the suffering that
1:25:40is ineffective in education is the
1:25:43kids's just like, I'm not into this and
1:25:46you can push me as far as you want and
1:25:48all I'm going to do is push back harder
1:25:49and you have that dynamic. If instead
1:25:52you lean into things the kid loves,
1:25:55right, or they're focused on, they'll do
1:25:57incredibly hard things. And then I
1:26:01believe it's the educational systems
1:26:02design of well how do you put those two
1:26:05things together so we can do both where
1:26:07they learn the hard things that are
1:26:09important but they also get to be doing
1:26:12the things they love. And so let's take
1:26:14an example back to motivation is my
1:26:15biggest issue and it's 90% of my
1:26:17solution. We have a sports academy where
1:26:19we have kids who are years and years
1:26:21behind academically bottom 25% in the
1:26:23country. We'll be the largest recipient
1:26:25of vouchers in Texas for families who
1:26:27make less than $65,000. And we have a
1:26:30set of kids, we have over a thousand of
1:26:32them, who aren't excited about
1:26:34academics, aren't excited about
1:26:36struggling in academics, haven't done
1:26:38academics basically for years, middle
1:26:40and high school age. And they're in our
1:26:42schools learning faster than the best
1:26:45private schools in the country. They're
1:26:47learning two hours, 2x in 2 hours. And
1:26:49you're like, how do you get them to do
1:26:51that hard thing? How are you getting
1:26:53them to do that? Well, first you make
1:26:56the learning as easy as possible for
1:26:58them in that don't take that eighth
1:27:00grader age- wise and put them in eighth
1:27:04grade material when he he his knowledge
1:27:06grade is third grade and fourth grade
1:27:08and fifth grade. Don't do that. That's
1:27:10that's impossible. That's not hard.
1:27:13That's not doable. So give him third,
1:27:14fourth or fifth grade lessons, which our
1:27:16individualized lesson gives it. So he's
1:27:18like, "Oh, this is now doable. It went
1:27:21from impossible to doable. Now I still
1:27:23have to spend the two hours. I have to
1:27:25grind through it. I have to learn my
1:27:26multiplication tables. I never did. And
1:27:28so we give them the ability to do that.
1:27:31And in our system for the first time,
1:27:33they're actually in a lesson that's not
1:27:34too hard or not too easy. It's right for
1:27:36them. But then ah I come I'm I'm not
1:27:39into education. I don't see what what's
1:27:41important about it. What drives it?
1:27:43Well, you know what drives motivation is
1:27:45at noon if they do the 2x in 2 hours. If
1:27:48the AI says, "You've learned enough
1:27:50today because you're on track for 2x of
1:27:51two hours. You get to play basketball."
1:27:54So, I have a school, high school in
1:27:56Dallas. Germaine O'Neal, the sixtime NBA
1:27:58All-Star is the is head of the school. I
1:28:02get to go practice. They're the number
1:28:03one basketball team in the country. And
1:28:05those kids are like, "Yeah, I guess I'm
1:28:07going to do the academics because I want
1:28:09to play basketball and I want to be on
1:28:11the best basketball team." We have the
1:28:12best baseball team in the country.
1:28:14>> So, that's the thousand bucks.
1:28:16>> And that's the thousand bucks. sports,
1:28:17you know, we're rolling this out broadly
1:28:19and it depends on access and how many
1:28:22vouchers are available and and things
1:28:23like this and how many they're granted,
1:28:25but you know, across the state of Texas,
1:28:28there's going to be kids who, you know,
1:28:31voucher are able to then say, I got this
1:28:34new advanced learning that's the best
1:28:36education you can get in America, right?
1:28:38The fastest, better than the best
1:28:39private schools. And at noon I'm going
1:28:42to my sports facility and I'm playing
1:28:44whatever sport I love and they're gated.
1:28:47Right? We used to do this a lot in
1:28:49education and back to lowering standards
1:28:51and change stuff. You used to have a
1:28:52have to have a GPA minimum to play on
1:28:54after school sports, right? And that
1:28:56drove a lot
1:28:56>> that doesn't exist anymore
1:28:58>> and it that has been way watered down
1:29:00for a lot of reasons. And in our schools
1:29:02we're like no they're gated where you
1:29:04have to do this. You know, and one of
1:29:05the things because of this, back to I
1:29:07can't run a school that delivers this
1:29:09without doing hard things. On this side,
1:29:11it's the academics. The kids are
1:29:13motivated with with the sports. But, you
1:29:16know, one of the things it allows us to
1:29:17say is that if you go to one of these
1:29:20schools, your odds of a D1 scholarship
1:29:23double
1:29:24because every college coach in the
1:29:26country will tell you if I have two
1:29:28equivalent athletes, the one who's the
1:29:30great academic, who's ground, who's done
1:29:31hard things, I want them on my team. And
1:29:35that's a differentiator, right? And
1:29:36you're going to double your odds of
1:29:37getting one. So when you look at things
1:29:40we wake up every day on this hard and
1:29:43struggle and say how do we build a
1:29:45school kids love right love it more than
1:29:48vacation because that's what's going to
1:29:50drive them to do hard things. Now we as
1:29:54the adults have to develop kids and say
1:29:56you can't just play and do all the
1:29:59things you want. There's requirements.
1:30:01You have behavioral standards. You can't
1:30:03act that way. No, you don't get your
1:30:05cell phone sitting next to you during
1:30:07the academic part of the day. No cell
1:30:10phones. That actually changes when we
1:30:12get up into the upper high school
1:30:13because we're trying to get them ready
1:30:14for the real world. So K through eight,
1:30:16no way. As you start to get into high
1:30:17school, you can earn your cell phone
1:30:19because we have to show you out in the
1:30:21real world. There's going to be no one
1:30:23hiding it. And so you should hide it
1:30:25yourself, but we're not going to force
1:30:27it cuz we have to get you ready. But
1:30:29back to all these rules, adults have to
1:30:31set the standards for the kids. this is
1:30:34it. This is what's great performance.
1:30:35Kids want to do it. They'll go live up
1:30:37to them. We're not having trouble on the
1:30:39two hours on the academic side in the
1:30:40sports academy because they're doing
1:30:42what they love and they see, okay, this
1:30:45all makes sense. This seems like a fair
1:30:46trade. And so that's what I I believe is
1:30:49that kids will do hard stuff. parents,
1:30:51guides, adults, we need to set these
1:30:53high standards for the kids and they can
1:30:55live up to them if we're helping them be
1:30:58who they want to be, not just pounding
1:31:00them into whatever square peg we think
1:31:03they should be. That's the dichotomy.
1:31:05You know, when you talk about mental
1:31:06health issues in high-end elite schools,
1:31:09a lot of it is the kids are being
1:31:10pounded into a a cell they don't want
1:31:14where if instead you're like, I'm going
1:31:16to help you achieve what you want, but
1:31:18here's the things you have to do to be
1:31:20part of it. I'll give you more examples,
1:31:21you know, on this that we do on
1:31:22motivation. So, we just announced um a
1:31:25high school our high school program. So,
1:31:27we didn't we do our three commitments.
1:31:30Love school more than vacation. 2x in
1:31:32two hours. And then third, learn all the
1:31:34life skills you want. And we have five
1:31:36stacks. Leadership and teamwork,
1:31:38entrepreneurship and financial literacy,
1:31:40socialization, relationship building,
1:31:42storytelling, public speaking, grit,
1:31:44hard work. We have a stack starting in
1:31:46kindergarten for each one. And so when
1:31:48you talk about hard things, right, our
1:31:50grit, hard work, our kindergarteners
1:31:51climb rock walls. Our second graders all
1:31:54run a 5K. By 8th grade, you have to do a
1:31:57tough mutter. It's a teamwork one combo
1:32:00and cross the finish line at the same
1:32:02time as everybody which is actually the
1:32:03hard part in eighth grade because
1:32:04someone always wants to finish first but
1:32:06it's a teamwork and tough and so you
1:32:08have these standards of of grit and hard
1:32:10work but here's one of driving it is on
1:32:13our financial literacy entrepreneurship
1:32:15stack. We just announced and it's
1:32:17opening this year for the first time a
1:32:19high school program called founder
1:32:21school. It's an entrepreneurial school
1:32:23and its promise is you'll earn a million
1:32:26dollars in profit. You'll start a
1:32:27business, earn a million dollars of
1:32:29profit, or you get all your tuition
1:32:30back, you know, across each kid. Each
1:32:32kid earns a million dollars. And just
1:32:35life skills are trainable just like
1:32:36other skills, right? And you can teach
1:32:38grit and hard work. You can teach
1:32:39financial literacy. All of our
1:32:41kindergarteners learn how to earn, save,
1:32:44spend, invest, and donate. And they just
1:32:46start that. Financial literacy is the
1:32:47number one thing parents request that
1:32:49schools don't teach. We just start it in
1:32:51kindergarten. And if you go up the
1:32:52stacks, we have, you know, middle school
1:32:54kids who are running Airbnbs and
1:32:56launching food trucks. We have vending
1:32:58machines. They learn gross margin trying
1:33:00to what products do I put in the vending
1:33:02machines and how do I get it placed
1:33:04somewhere where I can earn money.
1:33:05>> So cool.
1:33:06>> And so, but then a million dollars, but
1:33:08by high school, it's it's totally
1:33:10trainable. Alexi is helping like design
1:33:12the program.
1:33:13>> Yeah. He's perfect for this.
1:33:14>> And all the kids love him.
1:33:15>> All the kids wear the little nose thing.
1:33:17>> Yeah. And they all love him, right? He's
1:33:18like in influencer central and they they
1:33:20they are like he is the one who I want
1:33:22to learn from.
1:33:23>> Very cool.
1:33:23>> But for that if you go to that website
1:33:25go to founder school website and you
1:33:27look at the academic standards they are
1:33:30hard as hard as any school in this
1:33:32country. This isn't going to be creating
1:33:34crypto bros who are just hacking the
1:33:36world to make money. This school is
1:33:38building philosopher builders is their
1:33:40framework. Right? and the academics if
1:33:42you ask AI analyze this book list you're
1:33:44like it's different than a classics book
1:33:45list that you'd get at exit or the best
1:33:48schools but it's not less rigorous
1:33:51>> these kids are like I'll absolutely do
1:33:54all that coming in they were not
1:33:56thinking this is what I need you know
1:33:58this was my path was to crush academics
1:34:00but back to the standards they're like I
1:34:03will totally do it because I get to
1:34:04start a business and earn a million
1:34:05dollars right and I get to do what I
1:34:07love all the adults listening are like I
1:34:09want to go back to school Right. You
1:34:11probably hear this all the time.
1:34:12>> No, it is. We have an event uh this
1:34:15weekend uh uh for this founder school
1:34:17and you know, we thought there'd be like
1:34:1910 or 15 people who wanted it and
1:34:21there's 150 people who are showing up.
1:34:23>> Amazing.
1:34:23>> We literally have people moving to
1:34:24alphas in cities cuz they're like my
1:34:2610-year-old's going to go to alpha so
1:34:28they're ready for founder school and
1:34:30stuff. But focusing on designing a
1:34:32school, we have them for 12 years. Let's
1:34:34build schools where the kids are like, I
1:34:36wake up every day and I rush to school
1:34:40cuz it's so awesome. And you know, back
1:34:42to Sports Academy, you there's a great
1:34:44testimonial where a mom is basically
1:34:46like, look, he used to skip school 25%
1:34:49of the time. I could never get him to go
1:34:51to school. Today, he wakes me up and
1:34:53it's like, "Mom, we can't be late
1:34:55because I got to get my two hours in
1:34:57because I can't keep coach waiting." And
1:35:00that whole picture, that's when we look
1:35:02at the problem. It's not just make kids
1:35:05work harder. It's be aligned with what
1:35:08they want and they will willingly work
1:35:10harder. And as long as we as the adults
1:35:13set the high standards for what that is,
1:35:15they'll totally do it.
1:35:16>> So, it's suffering with a purpose and
1:35:18the purpose is internalized in them is
1:35:21what I'm hearing. I mean, because
1:35:22parents can try and ram stuff down kids
1:35:25throats all day long and and that just
1:35:26creates more resistance.
1:35:28>> It does. That's one of the beauties of
1:35:29youth is like the rebellion piece that
1:35:31kicks in around puberty is like it's an
1:35:33important part of our species
1:35:34>> evolution, right?
1:35:35>> And and but parents can help. Parents
1:35:37want their kids to excel and actually
1:35:40when kids are excelling, parents change
1:35:42their frame of what they expected. They
1:35:44just sort of have their frame of what
1:35:45they think excellence is. But when they
1:35:47see their kid in a different dimension
1:35:49excel, they're like, "That's really
1:35:50great, too." My example was with my dad,
1:35:53which was, you know, in academics, I was
1:35:56the total slacker and I didn't like
1:35:59school. Things worked out pretty well
1:36:00for you.
1:36:01>> They did, but I didn't like school. I
1:36:03tried to do the minimum possible.
1:36:05>> This was high school.
1:36:06>> Well, and I dropped out of college, so
1:36:08sort of both.
1:36:09>> But, you know, but you left college in
1:36:11part to go create something.
1:36:12>> Great. But that's Well, I was busy doing
1:36:14other like in high school, it's the same
1:36:16thing. What am I'm doing other stuff?
1:36:17>> Yeah, you were driven.
1:36:18>> And I So in high school, I was not
1:36:20academically driven. You know, I did the
1:36:22minimum. I wanted to go to Stanford. I
1:36:23knew I wanted to go to Stanford. So I'm
1:36:24like, what's the minimum work I could
1:36:26do? You know, you'd round up an A was a
1:36:2990 or above. They only had one thing.
1:36:31And so I'd be like, well, I need an
1:36:32A9.5. And I would literally be like, I
1:36:35will do that much work and notision.
1:36:38>> I will not do one more question than I
1:36:39need to to, you know, to hit that grade,
1:36:42you know, to to get in the minimum
1:36:44possible. if I didn't need to go to
1:36:46school, you didn't see me there. Got in
1:36:47trouble for skipping too many times.
1:36:49Then I got to Stanford and academically
1:36:52I was sort of the same way. One of the
1:36:54things I was interested in since I've
1:36:55been I wrote a paper in high school 1985
1:36:57I wrote a paper on AI and it was old
1:37:00school AI not today's and neural nets
1:37:03>> it said neural nets I had a paragraph
1:37:05they're decades away and so expert
1:37:07systems and ontologies were the the
1:37:09thing back then and so I then went to
1:37:12Stanford Professor Father Gimbal was the
1:37:14father of expert systems back then and
1:37:16he was talking about all these great
1:37:18opportunities and I'm like I can't
1:37:20motivate to go to Spanish class I I just
1:37:22can't and all these other academic
1:37:24classes I'm just uninterested in. And I
1:37:27dropped out and the back to my dad and
1:37:30this whole thing about what parents my
1:37:32dad was so devastated for the whole my
1:37:35whole academic career cuz he's like
1:37:38you're a total slacker. You're not
1:37:39meeting your potential. You get in
1:37:41trouble at school. You do the bare
1:37:43minimum. You go to a great school and
1:37:46you freaking drop out. You're not even
1:37:48doing your academics. There's a famous
1:37:50quote in Forbes or whatever where he's
1:37:51like, "You're such a you know,
1:37:53for dropping out." It wasn't that was
1:37:55new back then. That wasn't his comment
1:37:57today. Yeah. In the 80s, there weren't a
1:37:59lot of people dropping out.
1:38:00>> And so he was just like devastated by
1:38:02this cuz he had his frame of what was
1:38:04success.
1:38:05>> 18 months later,
1:38:07>> he was like, "Thank God you dropped
1:38:10out." That was the best thing that ever
1:38:11happened because in that 18 months, he
1:38:14saw me go to work 100 hours a week. I'm
1:38:17sleeping under the desk. we're doing
1:38:19everything we can to make this startup
1:38:21successful and we're working like crazy.
1:38:25And he's like, you know, I was so
1:38:27worried that you are a lazy little
1:38:31And he's like, thank God you're not. He
1:38:33just needed to see the gears turn.
1:38:35>> Exactly. And that is what parents want.
1:38:37And so I was a total failure in his book
1:38:40on all the academic side and all those
1:38:42things because he was not seeing what
1:38:45par the life skill the grit the things
1:38:47that make you successful. I wasn't
1:38:49demonstrating them sort of through my
1:38:51academic career. And it was only when I
1:38:53dropped out and started my business
1:38:54where he's like ah my kid's not going to
1:38:56be a loser. This is going to be great.
1:38:57He's going to be fine. Everything's
1:38:58fine. And you know in our high school in
1:39:02the afternoons kids do these projects
1:39:04called Alpha X's which is their passion
1:39:07project for four years and they change a
1:39:08lot cuz kids change their things but
1:39:10it's what they want to do and these kids
1:39:13do amazing things.
1:39:14>> Could you give me some examples?
1:39:15>> So we had one student who uh is doing
1:39:18Broadway musical cuz she has four years
1:39:20where in Broadway venues all the music
1:39:23was sourced off Tik Tok. She can fill a
1:39:25thousand person venue with the songs.
1:39:28They were, you know, they streamed a
1:39:29million streams like the first day it
1:39:31was released. She's an arts theater
1:39:33girl, right? And she had to learn legal
1:39:35rights, music rights. She got in a big
1:39:37fight with one of the Tik Tok singers
1:39:39cuz, you know, in the audition, she
1:39:41picked somebody else first and this
1:39:43person with millions of views. It's
1:39:45like, I will ruin you. That's a life
1:39:47education,
1:39:47>> you know, and all these things. And
1:39:49she's, you know, 16 and 17. And the
1:39:51parents are like, this is the greatest
1:39:53thing ever. and she was one of the 790
1:39:55girls.
1:39:56>> Got into Northwestern and NYU and USC
1:39:58and UCLA and all that stuff, but she was
1:40:01doing what she loved and had to do hard
1:40:03things and that taught her what grit and
1:40:06hard work and hard things are, which
1:40:07made it easier when she has to do hard
1:40:09things in other domains. Other examples,
1:40:11we'll have the first high school student
1:40:13lead researcher published in nature.
1:40:15>> It's no small feat.
1:40:16>> And so peer-reviewed um for
1:40:18>> those I mean I think some people
1:40:19probably heard of this, but I mean there
1:40:20sort of like two apex journals is nature
1:40:22and science. These are international
1:40:23journals. The rejection rate for even
1:40:26reviewing a paper up front is about 90
1:40:29plus% and then the so the final
1:40:31acceptance rate is somewhere around 1%
1:40:34or less. Many scientists will go their
1:40:36entire career without ever publishing
1:40:38one and if they do you should ask them
1:40:39where they were on the author line. So a
1:40:41lead being first or last on the author
1:40:43line is like tr truly an accomplishment.
1:40:45>> Yeah. She trained an LLM in social
1:40:49emotional um advice because there's a
1:40:52view of AIs are terrible. AIS can be
1:40:54good or bad and obviously and if you use
1:40:56them as chatbots they're bad in
1:40:57education. If you get addicted to them
1:40:59it's bad on the social emotional side
1:41:01but they can be trained and done well
1:41:03the other side. The interesting part of
1:41:04the study was she trained an LLM to give
1:41:07teens uh social emotional advice but it
1:41:10won't be as good as parents. The
1:41:12surprising finding was it crushed the
1:41:14parents at giving social emotional
1:41:16advice to teens.
1:41:17>> So she designed specific prompts. Yes.
1:41:19That are better than the any sort of
1:41:22generic prompts of what a parent would
1:41:25say. And the domain was dating. And what
1:41:27advice would parents give? And a lot of
1:41:29it is, you know, if you look at the
1:41:30paper, it's just parents give really bad
1:41:32advice about dating today because
1:41:34they're using their context and they
1:41:36don't understand online and all these
1:41:38crazy things. It's a different
1:41:39environment than it was back then. And
1:41:41so she had to go on back to building
1:41:43things and things she love. You know,
1:41:45she has like 53 million likes on Tik Tok
1:41:47or whatever. She had this huge data
1:41:49source of I'm giving dating advice
1:41:52online and we're going to embed this
1:41:55into a chatbot tested and proven and
1:41:57then show with all my user base that
1:42:00it's super highly effective. And so
1:42:02these are the kind of things that kids
1:42:04can go do. If you had told that girl in
1:42:068th grade, hey, go be published in
1:42:09nature. They're like, "That's too hard."
1:42:11>> But you can scaffold them into it. Other
1:42:13big projects, we have one who's now
1:42:15marketing Martin Scorsesy's latest film,
1:42:18and so he's been learning all the things
1:42:19you need to do to do that. We have a set
1:42:22of our AI kids who Open Claw, you know,
1:42:27they presented at Southby and Claude
1:42:29Con. They built little businesses. They
1:42:31earned $50,000 in 10 days. And so these
1:42:34kids, it's not just academics that they
1:42:36can crush through. There's all these
1:42:38life skills if you teach them
1:42:39entrepreneurship right if you unlock
1:42:42their potential in the afternoon and
1:42:44let's step back a little sec when we sit
1:42:46and say we we think people should
1:42:48reimagine education right for the next
1:42:50decade over the next decade for the next
1:42:53hundred years versus the last hundred
1:42:55years it's development of the whole
1:42:56child McKenzie who's the founder right
1:42:58the co-founder her favorite line which
1:43:00we believe super strongly alpha is this
1:43:03is the best time in history to be a
1:43:055-year-old which is our ability to make
1:43:08that first 12 years awesome and unlock
1:43:11their potential on all dimensions. They
1:43:13get to love school for 12 years. Their
1:43:15academics, they're going to learn 10
1:43:16times faster. These kids are going to
1:43:19have a headful of knowledge that's more
1:43:21than what their parents had. We're going
1:43:23to be able to fill their head with
1:43:25knowledge. The learning science shows
1:43:26that the more you know, the faster you
1:43:28learn, right? And so it's like
1:43:29increasing. And then the third part is
1:43:32the life skills that we think are
1:43:34important. They're gonna have most of
1:43:36their day to work on this. They're going
1:43:38to be able to sit here and say, "This AI
1:43:40world's coming. Things are going to
1:43:41change. And I get to go live and
1:43:43experience in that. And I get to do
1:43:47things." That framing we use about
1:43:49philosopher builder like who are kids
1:43:51that are going to come out of school. On
1:43:53the philosophy side,
1:43:55one, it's a proxy for good academics.
1:43:57You can crush your academics and fill
1:43:59your head. The other part is philosophy
1:44:00which alternates over history between
1:44:03the most important thing and the least
1:44:04important major. I believe with AI is
1:44:07coming back into the four which is
1:44:09what's humans role when there's all
1:44:11these AIs around and what's the
1:44:13existential debates and what did all the
1:44:15great thinkers think about and so you're
1:44:18going to have things like that on the
1:44:19philosophy side but the second part and
1:44:21I believe schools really need to do this
1:44:23and this is what when we think about the
1:44:25life skills it's the builder side we
1:44:28need to create builders that is what
1:44:30kids need to be doing that's what adults
1:44:32need to be doing you can't just be
1:44:34thinking schools can't be just sitting
1:44:35in class all day. You have to build. And
1:44:37when kids get to build, whether it's
1:44:38physically and sports and I'm climbing
1:44:40or I'm building drones and robots or I'm
1:44:43building a business, I'm I'm writing
1:44:45books. I'm making videos. Whatever those
1:44:47programs are, that's what engages kids.
1:44:50That's what they love. And we need to
1:44:52bring that back. There's whole
1:44:53vocational programs now for high
1:44:55schoolers where it's like we're gonna
1:44:56have you learn how to do advanced
1:44:58manufacturing and build robots or things
1:45:00like that in you know 100 years ago or
1:45:0250 years ago shop class you know build
1:45:05things. We are very strong believers in
1:45:07the build philosophy which is and let's
1:45:10take middle school again right this time
1:45:11of transition we get a ton of transfers
1:45:14into alpha who are consumers they're on
1:45:17the dopamine loop they're caught on Tik
1:45:19Tok they're caught on fortnite right
1:45:21they're just caught in the loops causes
1:45:23mental health issues they're isolated
1:45:25right all these problems and what we do
1:45:29is we have a program called Dream
1:45:31Launcher where we're like we have to
1:45:32break these kids out of this loop right
1:45:34we have to develop But you can't develop
1:45:35a kid who's in that loop. And so dream
1:45:39launcher is do your vision board. Who do
1:45:41you want to be? And kids, even the ones
1:45:43in the dopamines have great ideas of
1:45:45what they want to do. Not only do they
1:45:47think they're awesome, they're like, I
1:45:48am awesome. I'm great. You know, do a
1:45:50Japanese guy, right? If you know, which
1:45:52is, and back to these, what do you love,
1:45:54but what are you good at? Back to you
1:45:56can't just follow the passion. You have
1:45:58to be good at stuff. And yet, if you can
1:46:00develop the skills, great. But you can't
1:46:02do things that you're terrible at
1:46:04because in your Japanese zika guy, the
1:46:06world won't pay you for that. What does
1:46:07the world value? What does the world pay
1:46:09you for? What are you good at? And what
1:46:11do you love? And you you help them
1:46:13understand and they can figure out how
1:46:14to find their sweet spot there. So they
1:46:16have these great visions of this is who
1:46:18I want to be. And they start thinking
1:46:19about it in middle school. These Alpha X
1:46:22projects, you know, sort of in high
1:46:23school they they they do it more.
1:46:26And then we hit them with reality. We
1:46:28were like, "Now you have to do the 168
1:46:30hour project. You got to track every
1:46:32hour of your week." And that's when they
1:46:35come back and they're like, "H, I guess
1:46:37I'm going to be the world's best."
1:46:38Because you are what you do.
1:46:40>> I guess I'm going to be the world's best
1:46:41Tik Tok scroller.
1:46:42>> Yeah. Their thumbs
1:46:43>> and the depression. No. And they're
1:46:45understand it. They're like, I just draw
1:46:47my vision of who I want to be. And now I
1:46:49realize my dayto-day habits aren't going
1:46:51to get me there.
1:46:52>> Yeah. That's a big delta to internalize
1:46:54which is just nerdy speak for like that
1:46:57hits hard but it's great to get the
1:46:59lesson at the time they're getting it. I
1:47:01mean actually in addition to this notion
1:47:03of motivation and suffering and the sort
1:47:05of concepts around that and I I think
1:47:07you illustrate beautifully how one can
1:47:09reconcile those and hold high standards
1:47:11still feel supported still come at
1:47:13things from an intrinsic place of I can
1:47:15do hard things um even if there's a lure
1:47:18of cash or a D1 or scholarship whatever
1:47:20it is I feel like this is the piece that
1:47:22I want to you know double click on
1:47:24because most of the world are consumers
1:47:29and you know it only occurred to me like
1:47:315 years ago that even though I wasn't a
1:47:35particularly good high school student,
1:47:37the friends I was skateboarding with,
1:47:38even though I wasn't good enough to turn
1:47:39pro, they either turned pro or started
1:47:41companies or were dead or in jail. And
1:47:42the ones who started companies started
1:47:44big companies.
1:47:45>> And the ones
1:47:46>> who, you know, made it through the shoot
1:47:48cuz, you know, varying levels of support
1:47:50at home and elsewhere, like
1:47:52>> they built really big things, like huge
1:47:55companies. Like part of our staff here
1:47:57were recruited from like DC and like
1:47:59these action sport companies that are
1:48:00like huge companies. Those were started
1:48:02by like kids we knew.
1:48:03>> Yeah.
1:48:03>> And so there was always this model
1:48:05embedded in my mind that like yeah there
1:48:07was Apple computer. There was Steve Jobs
1:48:08nearby but that wasn't really my my
1:48:10proclivity like tech.
1:48:11>> But like if you want to build something
1:48:13like oh yeah you want to make a movie
1:48:14you film your friend skateboarding. This
1:48:15was before you know camera phones. So, I
1:48:19realized a few years ago like, oh yeah,
1:48:21like building a podcast, we like set up
1:48:22cameras and like let's go like and like
1:48:24get a team together and let's do this.
1:48:26But I think for a lot of the world, this
1:48:28feels very much out of their reach. And
1:48:30yet they hear about it and you can learn
1:48:32about it all day from Herozi or from
1:48:34>> whoever online. And so there's this gap
1:48:37between what people
1:48:39>> are being told they can do and I believe
1:48:40actually can do, but then how they're
1:48:42spending their time. Yes. And and that's
1:48:44just stating the obvious, but so how do
1:48:46you embed in people's minds that the
1:48:49ultimate experience in life at the level
1:48:51of personal life, family, learning, and
1:48:54business is to create something
1:48:56>> and you can still consume stuff, right?
1:48:58>> You know, but how do you embed that into
1:49:00people's mindset? Because I feel like
1:49:02this is I'm a bit of a patriot. Like
1:49:04>> this is what this country was built on.
1:49:06It was the idea like I like cars. I'm
1:49:08going to start a manufacturing plant.
1:49:10Plans are good, but they could be
1:49:12better. I'm going to make better ones.
1:49:13Like this attitude has been challenged
1:49:16in recent years. And I'll just say one
1:49:18more thing about this in particular
1:49:19because of the emphasis on tech and AI.
1:49:21For many people, they hear tech and AI,
1:49:23not me, and they think of the five or
1:49:25six guys. It's mostly guys, and they go,
1:49:28>> "God, like the the press has cast them
1:49:31as bad people, right?
1:49:33>> These are bad people. This was not the
1:49:35way that Jobs and Bill Gates were cast
1:49:37early on. They were like nerds and
1:49:39designers and like these this is not the
1:49:41picture." So I think now people hear
1:49:43builder AI motivation
1:49:46learning alpha school and they go oh
1:49:49you know we have to become like
1:49:51tech nerds
1:49:53>> there's no place for humanity in this I
1:49:54can't build things and then they feel
1:49:56overwhelmed and I think and so I'm
1:49:57casting out a kind of a picture it's not
1:49:59a specific question how do you get
1:50:01people past consumerism to really
1:50:04internalize that they can build
1:50:05something and how would somebody not at
1:50:07alpha school start to internalize some
1:50:09of this stuff
1:50:09>> right perfect stuff and one is uh and
1:50:11I'll I'll hit the kids first but then
1:50:13we'll talk about alpha which is if you
1:50:14talk to alpha parents
1:50:16>> they're like
1:50:18>> there is this impression robot
1:50:19terminator alpha you know AI
1:50:22>> this is divorced from humanity kids
1:50:25they're I got one I got one you know
1:50:27it's it's not
1:50:27>> and if you ask the moms at alpha school
1:50:29they're like this is the most
1:50:31socializationrich human environment
1:50:33that's unlocking my child's potential
1:50:36>> that could be done and it's not because
1:50:38of tech and AI and all of It's because
1:50:41of the guides, the humans, the culture,
1:50:44the building, and the guides are the
1:50:46teachers.
1:50:46>> Yeah, these are the teachers. We
1:50:48couldn't call them teachers cuz they're
1:50:48not teaching academics. We had 100,000
1:50:51people apply for our roles. We're
1:50:53getting the best ex-teers. We also get
1:50:55people like world's best athletes, best
1:50:57coaches, if you're great at motivating
1:50:59kids. And so we get a range of them, but
1:51:02yes, our guides and coaches are what the
1:51:04role of teachers in a normal place or
1:51:06normal school.
1:51:07>> Uh but they don't do academic teaching
1:51:09because the AI gives good lessons for
1:51:11that. Mackenzie Price just did a a
1:51:13podcast with Wendy Cop, founder of Teach
1:51:15for America, right? And you know the the
1:51:17the line in is teachers didn't become
1:51:22teachers to grade seventh grade science
1:51:23quizzes. They became teachers to
1:51:25transform kids' lives, the human part to
1:51:28develop humans. And at Alpha, our
1:51:32adults, our guides and coaches, that's
1:51:34what they do all day. They don't grade
1:51:36seven great science coaches. Let the AI
1:51:39do that. What our guides do and why
1:51:41teachers became them is spend time
1:51:44developing humans. Run them through the
1:51:46struggle fail supported by a caring
1:51:48adult loop that we talked about earlier.
1:51:50we look at and and stepping back and
1:51:52let's hit AI generically and then we'll
1:51:53go back to the other one AI generically
1:51:56which is I understand why the AI pitch
1:51:58is negative which is if you put chatbots
1:52:01in most schools kids will learn less so
1:52:03I'd be like wow AI seems bad chatbots
1:52:05seem bad the overall pitch of hey AI is
1:52:09going to be make it efficient for some
1:52:10people so we lay everybody off but don't
1:52:13worry because the world's going to end
1:52:15soon right after that so there's not a
1:52:18positive view out there of AI completely
1:52:20agree. Now, when we look at education
1:52:22and how we want to transform education
1:52:25for a billion kids, we look at it as we
1:52:28need to make sure when we use AI and
1:52:30tech in our class and and in our schools
1:52:33and with humans in development, it's a
1:52:35win for everybody.
1:52:37>> It's not a win loss. It's the best time
1:52:39to be a 5-year-old. Using this stuff is
1:52:41just part of the solution, but what it
1:52:44does is it unlocks the humanity. It
1:52:46gives the humans time. Kids get to love
1:52:49school. They get to learn more. Their
1:52:51parents get to see, "Wow, my kid is
1:52:54being held to high standards but loves
1:52:55it and is struggling through it." The
1:52:57teachers, they love their job. That's
1:52:59why we have so many applying from
1:53:01schools, cuz they're like, "Wow, this is
1:53:03why I became a teacher. I'm connecting
1:53:05with these kids. I'm motivating them.
1:53:06I'm helping them thrive. I'm unblocking
1:53:09their biggest constraints. I'm letting
1:53:11them see that they're so much greater
1:53:12than what they thought. 85% of our kids
1:53:15are doing stuff even their parents
1:53:17thought was impossible, but not our
1:53:19guides and teachers. And so our whole
1:53:21loop for education is we have to make it
1:53:25better for everybody, not some win loss
1:53:28or dystopian robots are taking over.
1:53:31That's not the reality, right? Nobody
1:53:32wants that. So that's the the whole view
1:53:35when we talk about that. But when we
1:53:36talk about how do we take consumers and
1:53:38make them creators and builders and
1:53:40philosopher builders, the bigger picture
1:53:42on that is our education system was
1:53:46built to create consumers. Just
1:53:48fundamentally 100 years ago, we lined
1:53:50you up in a classroom and we told you to
1:53:53sit there and listen and write stuff
1:53:56down. You were being built for an
1:53:58industrial factory. the Prussians
1:53:59started, they're like, "We need people
1:54:01who follow rules, who do what we're
1:54:03told, and we put enough knowledge in
1:54:05that they can do those jobs." And it was
1:54:07an industrialization of of education to
1:54:10create industrial workers. And that was
1:54:12the that was why it started and that is
1:54:14what we got. And we've created a system
1:54:17where that's all these kids, right? We
1:54:19put them in that system for 12 years.
1:54:21They're like, "Yeah, I scroll. It's the
1:54:22only fun thing I do all day, right?" And
1:54:24you know, or whatever it is. And then
1:54:25they get caught in the loop. We aren't
1:54:27giving them the chance to be builders
1:54:29and they can watch a YouTube video but
1:54:31back as you said everything MIT is
1:54:34online and so is like all these
1:54:35entrepreneurs who started their own
1:54:36business. You can't watch a YouTube
1:54:38video and say I can build a business
1:54:40anymore than you can get your MIT degree
1:54:42that way. You need to be taught. You
1:54:45need to have workshops. You need to be
1:54:46with your friends and say just like when
1:54:49I dropped out I dropped out with my
1:54:51friends and we went and built a
1:54:52business. I did it during my school age
1:54:54years. We've normalized that at least in
1:54:57college that you can drop out with a
1:54:59bunch of friends and build something,
1:55:00right? And build something significant.
1:55:02And back to what we do in these
1:55:04afternoons is our afternoons are the
1:55:06builder afternoons. These life skills,
1:55:08we're going to make you climb rock
1:55:09walls. We're going to have you start
1:55:11food trucks, right? One of our workshops
1:55:13about character building was the key to
1:55:17my happiness is contributing to my
1:55:19community. Right? That's one of one of
1:55:20our values, one of our workshops. Every
1:55:22kid does it across all campuses. And so
1:55:24our Austin kids are like Austin City
1:55:27Limits, right?
1:55:27>> Sure. Yeah. Know big music town.
1:55:29>> We're doing Alpha City Limits, right? So
1:55:32these are fifth, sixth graders. They're
1:55:34putting on their own music festival.
1:55:35First of all, they all learned how to
1:55:37play an instrument, had their own band.
1:55:39They went and raised. It's almost as if
1:55:41Jack Black and School of Rock.
1:55:44>> It's one of my favorite movies in part
1:55:46because also the musical references that
1:55:48he describes on the chalkboard should
1:55:50watch like Yeah. I mean, he has great
1:55:52taste, obviously, like very like
1:55:55specific knowledge in certain genres,
1:55:56and I'm like, okay, he really knows his
1:55:57music because they weren't like the
1:55:58generic things. But the amazing thing
1:56:00about that movie was the energy he
1:56:02brought to the work, right? Flipping the
1:56:04switch on for these kids by identifying
1:56:07their unique abilities, but also pushing
1:56:09them through the keyhole sometimes of
1:56:11like their lack of percept.
1:56:15It's such a more important movie than it
1:56:17appears to be on the front side. There's
1:56:19so much to that.
1:56:19>> But just imagine, everybody watches
1:56:21School of Rock. It's like, "Oh, I wish
1:56:23my school would do that."
1:56:25>> Well, why don't they? Cuz they're like,
1:56:26"Oh, we have to teach academics." No, we
1:56:28teach academics 10 times faster. It gets
1:56:30done in the morning. Now we have the
1:56:32afternoon and Jack Black, if you want to
1:56:33teach one, come, you know, come on in.
1:56:35But, you know, our guide is Jack Black
1:56:38in that movie saying, "We're going to
1:56:39launch a music festival." And he sent
1:56:41the kids out and they had to raise
1:56:43$25,000 selling, you know, sponsorships.
1:56:46The kids afterwards, they're like,
1:56:47>> "Mr.
1:56:48Can you believe companies will pay
1:56:50$1,000 just to have their name on the
1:56:54learn about advertising and then
1:56:55literally at the and then by the end
1:56:56they're like we could have charged way
1:56:58more [laughter] right and so they're
1:57:00learning they're out there doing it
1:57:01right they're learning instruments
1:57:03they're putting a band together and
1:57:04they're doing this at fifth grade
1:57:06>> and they're like oh I can do this and
1:57:08both whether I'm learning an instrument
1:57:09whether I'm learning to sell
1:57:10sponsorships whether I'm calling bands
1:57:12and saying will you play and are they
1:57:14showing up and that building concept we
1:57:17should have all kids doing that. There
1:57:19was a a weak form of that in shop class,
1:57:21those kind of things. But we now can do
1:57:23that so much more, right?
1:57:25>> We had a sadistic shop teacher. I mean,
1:57:27I you know, like had all these rules
1:57:28about like you had to clean up your own
1:57:30blood if you you [clears throat] know,
1:57:31you hurt yourself on the band. So,
1:57:32everyone knew this guy, Mr. Mitchell,
1:57:34like the coin flip of teachers. It's
1:57:36like is and that's a darker example, but
1:57:39um but we had auto shop at our school.
1:57:40Nobody went this was Gun High School in
1:57:42Palo Alto. Like it was considered like,
1:57:44oh, why would you do that? Correct.
1:57:45You're in Silicon Valley. It wasn't
1:57:47relevant. I learned how to balance
1:57:48tires. That was kind of cool. Not
1:57:50relevant nowadays, but it's kind of cool
1:57:51to get under a car.
1:57:52>> But no, back to We have a life skill.
1:57:53They have to learn how to change a tire,
1:57:55>> right? Physical. We can't keep them on
1:57:57screens all day.
1:57:58>> We minimize our screen time to 2 hours
1:58:00and then you're like, "Yeah, you know
1:58:01what you're going to do in the
1:58:02afternoon? You're going to change a
1:58:03tire."
1:58:03>> Could I ask you about biology and
1:58:05medicine? Cuz I'm heavily biased here.
1:58:06>> Yeah. Yeah.
1:58:07>> But when I was in middle school, I
1:58:08dissected a frog. wasn't my favorite
1:58:10biology experiment, but getting in there
1:58:12and seeing things and and feeling things
1:58:14with your hands is a very important
1:58:16experience in becoming a biologist. And
1:58:18when you said the microscope changed
1:58:20everything, and I totally agree, the
1:58:22ability to sit at a microscope and
1:58:24you're the one panning around and to
1:58:26actually stain cells or do a dissection
1:58:28of a brain or this kind of thing,
1:58:30there's a lot of tactile learning inside
1:58:32of what we think are often just
1:58:34intellectual pursuits.
1:58:35>> Yes.
1:58:36>> So, do they get the opportunity to do
1:58:38experiments? Totally. It's an amazing
1:58:40thing to see a brain and it looks all
1:58:43white and gray and then you you put on a
1:58:45particular label. You explain to
1:58:46somebody, doesn't matter what age, what
1:58:48it's labeling and then they get to see
1:58:50and it lights up like artwork and you
1:58:52go, you have these inside your brain and
1:58:54here's what they do. There's something
1:58:55completely different about that
1:58:56experience than watching it on a screen
1:58:58100%. And so back to that one is yes,
1:59:01part of what we're doing is we're
1:59:02redoing
1:59:04>> normal, you know, dissection biology
1:59:07classes are boring and kids aren't
1:59:08excited or chemistry classes or whatever
1:59:10labs you do. And we're trying to build
1:59:12next generation ones. So if you have
1:59:14ideas about how we can make this 10
1:59:16times better than whatever any lab you
1:59:17ever went into, I don't know what the
1:59:18upper limits are, right? I mean, if you
1:59:20gave me like a cart blanch, I said we
1:59:22put channel options into some live
1:59:24animals and shine light on their heads
1:59:25and their behavior will change. Yeah, I
1:59:27don't know if you get permitted to do
1:59:28that.
1:59:28>> Yeah, we'll have to go see what level we
1:59:29can do. But back to that kind of stuff,
1:59:31you know, back to engaging kids around
1:59:34experiments, you know, and just science
1:59:35in general. Like Mark Robber, right? Oh,
1:59:37yeah. Like he's doing so we're working
1:59:39with him on some things where we're like
1:59:40that is what science needs to be, which
1:59:42is, you know, think go do 11 minutes in
1:59:45your app to make sure cuz you can watch
1:59:47all the Mark Robber videos, you're still
1:59:49not going to pass the test because you
1:59:50haven't actually learned it to to
1:59:52mastery. So, we're like, spend the 11
1:59:53minutes, get it to mastery, but then
1:59:55spend 45 minutes the rest of the class
1:59:56doing this experiment and this project
1:59:58because it's awesome and it's engaging.
2:00:00And kids will do both. And it's
2:00:01combining those. One of the things we
2:00:03have in labs is,
2:00:04>> you know, when you first get into labs,
2:00:05what you're trying to do is sort of two
2:00:07dimensions, which is how many steps can
2:00:09you do in a row? Can you follow
2:00:11instructions? And then what's your
2:00:13margin of error?
2:00:14>> We'll start the kids early with like
2:00:15baking
2:00:16>> and we'll be cooking and we're like,
2:00:18okay, can you follow most is just
2:00:20following. you follow the instructions
2:00:22and what's your margin of error, right?
2:00:23And did you put the sugar instead of the
2:00:25the salt? If you do a cooking one with
2:00:27third graders and second graders,
2:00:29they're going to start to be like, "Oh,
2:00:30I'm now getting the skills of labbing."
2:00:33Then we have one, our chemistry one that
2:00:35we start uh that all the sixth graders
2:00:37start is called um PFX, special effects.
2:00:40So, you know, we have videos online
2:00:42where you can see it, but they're
2:00:44everything from light your hand on fire
2:00:47using things to creating like the plate
2:00:49glass so you can walk through, you know,
2:00:51a special effects glass that's safe.
2:00:54It's super hard. It's like a 40step
2:00:56process and the margin of error at any
2:00:58step is very low. And kids will sit
2:01:01there and it'll be they they'll start it
2:01:02at 1:00, you know, they'll be like, "Oh,
2:01:04I'll be done by school." At 6:00 they've
2:01:06they're like, "I I'm I'm not going home,
2:01:08Mom. I got to finish this one cuz they
2:01:10want the Instagram or whatever they want
2:01:12to post on Snapchat of them breaking
2:01:14through it or whatever, but the kids get
2:01:16totally engaged and learn all the
2:01:17fundamental skills. And to your point,
2:01:20you can build ones for any subject,
2:01:22physics, biology, chemistry that engage
2:01:25kids where they're like, "This is
2:01:27awesome. I love to do this." You can do
2:01:28it on computer science, too, on on that
2:01:30dimension. Go build things. Back to
2:01:32being builders. Kids naturally want to
2:01:34build stuff. You want to teach kids, you
2:01:36know, how to program or use AI, you can
2:01:38say, "Let's go build a music video.
2:01:40Let's build a movie trailer." And they
2:01:42can now do that at a quality level that
2:01:45couldn't be done before. There was one
2:01:47where we have a hackathon on the weekend
2:01:49about learn how to use cursor. Fully
2:01:51voluntary. Kids would come in at 6:00 on
2:01:53a Friday, work through the weekend. On
2:01:55this hackathon, it's all dimensions. We
2:01:57had a set of girls who were building one
2:01:58that was a Love Island social thing. So
2:02:01when they were all watching it, they
2:02:03could all chat online, you know, while
2:02:05they're doing it. So they're they're
2:02:06building projects they like, but they're
2:02:07learning actually all the skills of,
2:02:09okay, I can I can be a builder. And this
2:02:11would be a set of of of students who
2:02:13normally wouldn't do programming. And so
2:02:15when you engage around what kids like,
2:02:17you make it hard. They're coming in on a
2:02:18weekend. One of them showed me if you,
2:02:20you know, and it's like 10:00 on a on a
2:02:23it was Saturday night. It was 10 o'clock
2:02:24Saturday night. She's a junior. She's
2:02:26like, "All my friends are out at a party
2:02:28and they're all jealous of what I'm
2:02:29building in here." back to doing hard
2:02:31things and having fun because they were
2:02:34building stuff that was significant.
2:02:35They were also working on an app that
2:02:38was how do we show a 100red million
2:02:40teens the key to their happiness is
2:02:43contributing to their community. And so
2:02:45it's an app that builds that daily
2:02:47habits of contributing. Now their
2:02:49special hook that made them all wanting
2:02:51to work hard on this was influencers are
2:02:54are contributing and helping them. So
2:02:56they're able to spend time with the
2:02:58influencers. the influencers get reach
2:03:00but they're like wow I'll go I'll go
2:03:02work on these things and so when you
2:03:04think about what do we need to do in
2:03:06school and development of kids and what
2:03:09does AI letting kids learn once kids can
2:03:12learn 10 times faster the question every
2:03:15parent every education minister has to
2:03:17say what are the skills we want our
2:03:20family or society to have going forward
2:03:24and so we believe this whole concept of
2:03:26being a builder these life skills that
2:03:28we teach entrepreneurship and
2:03:30storytelling, financial literacy, that's
2:03:32where we should spend our kids' time.
2:03:34And by doing it, you actually see these
2:03:37kids thrive. They totally unlock. They
2:03:39love it.
2:03:39>> Incredible.
2:03:40>> Right. And that's the opportunity we
2:03:42have cuz we we have built an educational
2:03:44system to your point that generates
2:03:46consumers. It forces them down that
2:03:48path. We all know we don't want it. Like
2:03:51this isn't good. We're on a bad path
2:03:53here. And now we have the opportunity to
2:03:55say, "Okay, here's a new one, right?
2:03:57here's a new different way to to do
2:03:59that. And the capability of your child,
2:04:01like back to what I was told 10 years
2:04:03ago, we are limited. We as parents are
2:04:06limited because we went through this
2:04:08terrible system. It's we're fish and
2:04:10water. What we went through, our parents
2:04:11went through, our grandparents went
2:04:13through. It didn't help move the
2:04:15frontier. It didn't develop kids to the
2:04:18utmost potential. It's why in sports,
2:04:20more than anything we do in America does
2:04:21that. Music the same way, right? We have
2:04:24these stars who get developed. We just
2:04:26don't do that broadly in schools and we
2:04:28we have enough time now. The name of our
2:04:30product is time back. Give kids their
2:04:33time back.
2:04:34>> And so we've used up a hundred years of
2:04:376 hours a day in homework. We have this
2:04:39new magic that makes it 10 times faster
2:04:41so that it only takes a couple hours.
2:04:43You've given kids their time back, which
2:04:46is is the actual biggest motivator. And
2:04:48then once they have their time back, how
2:04:50do we want to spend it, right? How do we
2:04:52want to help these kids become builders
2:04:55and creators who learn the skills that
2:04:58we think these are the things that you
2:05:00need to do to thrive in the world?
2:05:01There's a fourth grader in our New York
2:05:04campus. She's a fourth grader. She loves
2:05:06quantum mechanics and so she started a
2:05:08podcast called Quantum Plations and
2:05:11she's using it to go find the other kids
2:05:14who love quantum mechanics and I love
2:05:15it.
2:05:16>> Right. Back to that thriving. She is
2:05:18learning. She's thriving to be able to
2:05:20work with that and you can teach them
2:05:22how to be a creator as part of it and do
2:05:24it productively. You get the best of
2:05:25both worlds.
2:05:26>> Hi everyone. I'm delighted to share that
2:05:28I'll be hosting three live events very
2:05:30soon. I should say our past live events
2:05:33all sold out. So make sure you get your
2:05:35tickets for these events soon. The first
2:05:37live event is in New York City at the
2:05:39iconic Radio City Music Hall on
2:05:41September 17th. The second live event
2:05:43will be held in Los Angeles at the Dolby
2:05:45Theater on October 8th. And the third
2:05:48live event is in San Francisco at the
2:05:50Masonic on October 28th. At all three of
2:05:52these events, I'll be discussing topics
2:05:54from my new book, Protocols. And my
2:05:56favorite part, taking questions live
2:05:58directly from you, the audience. To get
2:06:01tickets, please go to
2:06:02hubermanlab.com/events.
2:06:04That's hubermanlab.com/events.
2:06:07I hope to see you at one of these live
2:06:09events, or who knows, maybe even
2:06:10several. And as always, thank you for
2:06:13your interest in science. I have a
2:06:15question. And throughout today's
2:06:16conversation, it almost seems that boys
2:06:19and girls
2:06:20>> Yeah.
2:06:20>> are equally supported by this program
2:06:23like like maximizing potential, whatever
2:06:25you want to call it. I haven't looked at
2:06:27the latest data on on the discrepancy of
2:06:30male female performance, but when Scott
2:06:32Galloway was on the podcast or flip on
2:06:34today's New York Times or you actually
2:06:36can look at even like a Fox News thing,
2:06:38right, and you're going to hear about
2:06:39this gender gap in performance and it
2:06:42almost seems like that's been eliminated
2:06:43at Alpha School. Is that true? Yeah, I
2:06:45back to the frontier and wherever it is,
2:06:48most of these are uh self-imposed
2:06:52constraints that at least in the
2:06:54framework of K12 don't exist on whatever
2:06:57stuff. So if I have ADHD boys who now
2:07:00aren't doing as well as the girls on one
2:07:02dimension sort of broadly when you only
2:07:05take two hours a day, you know what
2:07:07happens to ADHD? Wow, what happened to
2:07:09it? They're building all afternoon. You
2:07:11know, there's a set of things which is
2:07:12one, you take those kids, those guys
2:07:14kids can lock in for two hours in the
2:07:16apps. Like we always tell the parents
2:07:18when they come in and they have their a
2:07:20ADHD diagnosis. We're like, can he play
2:07:22a video game for 25 minutes straight and
2:07:25they're like, "Yes." And I'm like,
2:07:26"Well, we do 25-minute pomodoro blocks.
2:07:28It'll be fun."
2:07:29>> Yeah. This is all mark of ADHD. The kids
2:07:31can focus if it's engaging enough.
2:07:33>> If it's engaging and so we just make it
2:07:34engaging and motivating. If on the worst
2:07:36case, like in our sports academy, they
2:07:37run them before the apps. fairly, you
2:07:40know, and so you can take any second,
2:07:42third grader in engagement and solve
2:07:44that and then they're doing things in
2:07:46the afternoon they love. One of our
2:07:47Alpha X projects, um, Rat, he would just
2:07:50crush his apps in one day and then he
2:07:53went he was a mountain biker and then he
2:07:56went and he built a bike park outside of
2:08:00Austin. It was the best bike park in
2:08:02Texas. You like Texas Monthly's writing
2:08:04it up. Actually, one of the Walton
2:08:06family members told me, "We saw his bike
2:08:08park that motivated us to go build one,
2:08:10you know, here in uh Bentonville. He
2:08:12went down, SpaceX hired him to build one
2:08:13on on Starbase." So, it took this kid
2:08:15who's like, he was not into just sitting
2:08:17at the books all day, right? And all
2:08:19that stuff, but then all of a sudden
2:08:20he's like, "Okay, I can spend the time
2:08:23building." And so, all these things,
2:08:25different discrepancies of where they're
2:08:27good and where they're not. And I
2:08:28believe as you unlock their potential,
2:08:31you'll see these differences go away
2:08:33because the kids are all just doing much
2:08:35better. Now, I don't know, maybe we move
2:08:37the frontier out and there's deltas when
2:08:39we when we get out there. But yes, right
2:08:41now, whether you're male or female into
2:08:44alpha, your kid, if they're performing
2:08:47here, is going to perform here, wherever
2:08:49it is. And let's talk broadly. Here's
2:08:51let's go to another dimension just about
2:08:52reach, which is selection effects. and
2:08:55this only works with rich kids and and
2:08:57all that which is in education there's a
2:09:00concept that I think is really poison
2:09:02and why we have trouble innovating in
2:09:04education which is there's a view that
2:09:07you must serve everybody all at once for
2:09:11free like just anything you do in
2:09:14education no matter who it's for they're
2:09:16like I'm going to come up with a counter
2:09:17example where it doesn't work for
2:09:19everybody all at once for free and
2:09:21that's not how products are developed
2:09:24there's no venture capitalist in Silicon
2:09:25Valley who when you're presenting said,
2:09:28"All right, I've been telling you about
2:09:29the product, but here I promise you I
2:09:32won't release it until it serves
2:09:33everybody all at once for free." You
2:09:36would never get funded. That's that just
2:09:37it doesn't work that way. Whether it's
2:09:39the Roadster to the Model S, you know,
2:09:42to the Model 3 to what'll be 20 cent
2:09:45robo taxes, you have to move through a a
2:09:47cost curve. You find a a market where it
2:09:49works and then you expand the radius of
2:09:51that market, you know. And why do we
2:09:53start? So we started high-end private
2:09:54school. So alpha's an expensive private
2:09:56school. Now back to this concept.
2:09:59Everybody dismisses our academic
2:10:01results. Oh, selection effects. But we
2:10:04have a very different view on it, which
2:10:06is you know who doesn't parents don't
2:10:09dismiss it. That's why everybody's
2:10:10coming to the school and we have such
2:10:11demand.
2:10:12>> It makes the current education system
2:10:14seem either completely deprived or
2:10:16partially deprived. Right. But that's
2:10:19but that to me is I
2:10:20>> think even taking a steel there's a lot
2:10:22of educators who are trying to fix
2:10:24>> calculator is faster for a lot of things
2:10:26than what people were doing on pen and
2:10:27paper. Both are valuable but I think any
2:10:30new technology which is really what this
2:10:31is it takes time.
2:10:33>> It takes time and but here's here's how
2:10:35we look at what we've done is using
2:10:37technology. We didn't build a robo taxi
2:10:39that just works on a test track.
2:10:41>> We literally have a a robo taxi, right?
2:10:44our system that beats F1, that wins F1
2:10:48races. We are competing against the best
2:10:50schools in this country, the best
2:10:51students in the country, the best
2:10:53teachers in this country, right? The
2:10:54best systems. Our 1400 freshman year,
2:10:57we're doing 2x in 2 hours, but our
2:11:00benchmark of 2x is given your
2:11:02percentile. So our top 1 percentile kids
2:11:05are learning twice as much in only two
2:11:07hours a day as other top 1 percentile
2:11:10kids are learning all day, right? So we
2:11:13benchmark and built I want to go against
2:11:15the best educational system. It's not
2:11:17just rich kid selection effect which is
2:11:19I didn't say I'm going to go compete
2:11:20with IMG which is $100,000 plus tuition
2:11:24the sports academy who doesn't do good
2:11:26academics. I'm like, "No, I want to go
2:11:28against the best schools." Right. Well,
2:11:30that's how you isolate the variable of
2:11:31what you're doing specifically that's
2:11:33working.
2:11:33>> Correct. So, build that. Now, our answer
2:11:36is how do we get that broadly? And so,
2:11:39you know, the American educational
2:11:40system today because of how it's built
2:11:43and how it's structured. The single
2:11:44biggest indicator of your performance is
2:11:47your family income. You can predict
2:11:48somebody's test scores basically.
2:11:50>> Not IQ.
2:11:50>> IQ is a second effect within, you know,
2:11:53it's but it's a secondary effect within
2:11:55that. Then with IQ, the second one once
2:11:58you get to the next level, it's IQ and
2:12:00big five conscientiousness
2:12:02>> are the two, which is IQ, you get more
2:12:05working memory slots. So if you put in
2:12:06material that's too hard and stuff, you
2:12:08can struggle through it easier. And then
2:12:10big five conscientiousness is
2:12:11interesting, which is, you know, our
2:12:14system, our educational system isn't a
2:12:15mastery based system. It's time based.
2:12:17You got an 80%, you got a B, you're
2:12:19moving up the next grade level.
2:12:20Conscientiousness is, you know, the
2:12:22concept of you're sort of a natural
2:12:24grinder. And so you do all the problems
2:12:26on the problem set. You do all the
2:12:28problems in the back of the book. You
2:12:30are basically implementing a mastery
2:12:32system for yourself. And so you are
2:12:35implementing a mastery system. So if you
2:12:37have high IQ and your big five
2:12:38conscientiousness, those are the people
2:12:40who thrive in the traditional education
2:12:43system. High IQ people who don't have
2:12:46conscientiousness, those are the people
2:12:48who don't thrive. even they're always
2:12:50like, "Ah, he's smart and she's smart,
2:12:52but you know, whatever."
2:12:54>> And maybe I'm just extrapolating from a
2:12:57few examples, but you see that a lot in
2:12:59wealthy families with smart kids that
2:13:02had enough exposure to good conditions
2:13:04early on and then just kind of like blow
2:13:06it off. Like you left school, I'm not
2:13:08saying that was you actually don't know
2:13:09your background at all in the family you
2:13:11grew up except what you've told us. But
2:13:13when you left, you went into like fifth
2:13:15gear.
2:13:16>> Yeah. It wasn't as if you left and like
2:13:17were like I'm going to travel the world
2:13:18which is an interesting thing to do but
2:13:20like you built something immediately at
2:13:22full time.
2:13:23>> That's why I left and that's what I
2:13:24wanted to go do. But back to this this
2:13:26is where it's interesting which is
2:13:28motivation is the piece right if you if
2:13:31you have all the skills but you don't
2:13:32have motivation it doesn't matter. And
2:13:36our system when we wake up we're like
2:13:38well I have to solve if I have to get
2:13:40this to a billion kids I can't build a
2:13:41system that's based on income IQ and big
2:13:44five conscientiousness. Right? That's
2:13:46I'll just rebuild our current system.
2:13:48And so the first part is on IQ. If I
2:13:52give you a lesson that's at your level,
2:13:54you can learn it.
2:13:56>> If you're in seventh grade and I give
2:13:57you seventh grade lessons when you need
2:13:59fourth, you can't learn it. But if I
2:14:01give you the fourth grade lesson, you
2:14:02can learn it. The way US Common Core is
2:14:04designed is for people to learn it,
2:14:06right? It is actually the mental the
2:14:08conceptual leaps aren't that big
2:14:10>> so that everybody can learn it. So when
2:14:12you think through eighth grade, I can
2:14:14get everybody through eighth grade if I
2:14:15give a material at the right level. And
2:14:18so that solves your IQ issue of learning
2:14:20it. Second, I need you to do it right. I
2:14:24need you to go to mastery. I need you to
2:14:26grind through it. And I'm going to solve
2:14:27that with motivation. Whatever
2:14:29motivation I need. You got support in
2:14:31the afternoon. Grind through those
2:14:32lessons first kid. I got to pay you. I'm
2:14:34going to do that. I'm going to do what I
2:14:36need to supplement that you don't have
2:14:38big five conscientious naturally. you're
2:14:40not grinding naturally. And then on the
2:14:43income side,
2:14:45the income side is just are you
2:14:47designing your product for somebody who
2:14:49can afford it. So Alpha is expensive,
2:14:51but we're going to be in, you know,
2:14:52public schools this year where we're
2:14:54designing for we spend about $20,000 on
2:14:57average. I'm we're in schools at uh 195
2:15:00is one of them and 24 is another. And so
2:15:02we're designing our workshops in the
2:15:04afternoon actually for that budget,
2:15:07right? Sports is actually one of our
2:15:09cheapest, right? We have a thousand over
2:15:11a thousand kids who are getting it for
2:15:13free because there's a voucher system
2:15:15where we have to solve that thing for
2:15:17less than $20,000 a kid. And sports is
2:15:19actually cheaper because fields are
2:15:21cheap, right? There's capex, but then
2:15:23there's no offex, right, to your your
2:15:25annual cost. And a coach is used to
2:15:27managing 30 kids, right? And I can
2:15:29manage a team of 30. So I can hit your
2:15:31cost target, too. And so when I think of
2:15:33the US educational system, we absolutely
2:15:35can, but you have to redesign the whole
2:15:38school day. It's not it's and I want to
2:15:39be clear, you can't throw edtech in. You
2:15:41can't take our time back and throw it
2:15:42into a school. It's not going to work
2:15:45cuz you haven't solved any of the other
2:15:46problems. And so edtech is not a magic,
2:15:49you know, it's not a silver bullet. We
2:15:51literally have to say in America, we
2:15:53want this new thing. We want our kids to
2:15:55thrive. We want them to love school. We
2:15:56do want them to learn 2x, but we want to
2:15:59teach them all these life skills and
2:16:00make them builders in the afternoon. And
2:16:02we're willing to redesign the school day
2:16:04for it. So, some of these public schools
2:16:05that are going out, I wasn't able to
2:16:07convince the superintendent to go to 2
2:16:09hours, but they're going to do three in
2:16:10the apps. The superintendent's like, he
2:16:12hates that tech. He's just like, I don't
2:16:14really believe this, but okay. He saw
2:16:15enough of our results to say, let's try
2:16:17it, but he's like, I want the kids in
2:16:19three hours. But then the afternoon
2:16:21workshops, right, our alpha like
2:16:23workshops designed for their
2:16:26constituency, their price point. And so
2:16:28our goal is we can get it out. We can
2:16:31break these links. But back to selection
2:16:33effects, I believe you have to design
2:16:35your product for your customer. And so
2:16:38let's take our, you know, some of the
2:16:39different schools we have. We have the
2:16:40sports academy school. If you don't like
2:16:43sports, it doesn't work
2:16:44>> right
2:16:45>> now. Your family income doesn't matter
2:16:47if I've designed it for the right price
2:16:49points because I'm going to give you
2:16:50lessons at the right level and you're
2:16:52going to be motivated and that's
2:16:54independent of income. And we have a
2:16:56gifted talented school. It's the one
2:16:58place we actually test cognitively. You
2:16:59have to be top 10% cognitive. But we
2:17:02also say when I say what would make you
2:17:05love school more than vacation, you're
2:17:06like more academics. It's like 5% of the
2:17:09market, right? One in 20 kids is like I
2:17:12want more. And we're like, "We're going
2:17:13to design a school for you and we're
2:17:15going to crush you with academics
2:17:17>> cuz they love it."
2:17:18>> Yeah. Kids like that.
2:17:20>> Yeah. My My youngest daughter's the
2:17:21opposite. My oldest daughter, like she
2:17:23was reading calculus books for fun.
2:17:25She's a Stanford. She's like, "Oh, I'm
2:17:26going to get my masters in while in
2:17:28undergrad. You know, I need more
2:17:30school." You know, she's a English math
2:17:32double major. She's like, "More, more,
2:17:34more." She's hungry for it.
2:17:36>> Yeah, she was. She's She's not me. You
2:17:38know, she's not dropping out. She's not
2:17:39doing the minimum. She's doing the max
2:17:40cuz she loves it. Schools are
2:17:42communities. Socialization matters. Like
2:17:45putting those GT kids around each other.
2:17:47I mean, they build on each other, right?
2:17:49They see what you know, the number one
2:17:51motivator to get rid of a block. It's
2:17:53actually not the guy as the the biggest
2:17:55one. The number one thing that convinces
2:17:57kids they can do something is watching
2:17:59their classmate do it.
2:18:01>> This is huge in athletics. I mean I I
2:18:03don't want to take it back to like a
2:18:04trivial example but like being around
2:18:06people that are much much better at
2:18:08whatever sport you're in like you just
2:18:10push yourself harder and I I will say
2:18:12like being a posttock at Stanford years
2:18:14ago it was the first time I looked
2:18:15around the entire room and like everyone
2:18:17is at least submitting their papers to
2:18:19like the top tier journals and they
2:18:21deserve to be there and you just push
2:18:23harder you you think harder you don't
2:18:25just work longer you actually think much
2:18:27more carefully about what you decide to
2:18:29do and what not to do that's a big piece
2:18:30of it on the backdrop of all this. I
2:18:33just this is not a push back, but it's
2:18:34something that I I imagine a number of
2:18:36people are thinking and part of my job
2:18:37is to to reflect that.
2:18:40>> At risk of editorializing too much, but
2:18:42I hit 50, so I think I can do it a
2:18:44little bit. I've lived in this country
2:18:45my whole life.
2:18:47>> There seems to be a kind of cultural
2:18:50stance that has been around a lot more
2:18:53in recent years, which is if somebody
2:18:56didn't suffer and have disadvantage, we
2:18:59don't really want to see them succeed.
2:19:01We're not I'm not saying people have a
2:19:02problem with it per se,
2:19:04>> but if you look at the stories that are
2:19:06celebrated, they are stories of the
2:19:07underdog,
2:19:08>> right? That's like an American tale,
2:19:10right? You know, and we have many of
2:19:11them that we could select from, but
2:19:13there almost seems to be a a push back
2:19:15against
2:19:17>> people who had things mostly right
2:19:19>> getting to their their frontier. I
2:19:21realize that's not your stance. That's
2:19:23not the stance at all that Alpha School
2:19:25takes. In fact, it takes quite the
2:19:26opposite stance, which is let's develop
2:19:28everyone to their frontier.
2:19:29>> Yes. And I think the big question here
2:19:31in a lot of people's minds is probably
2:19:33this everyone piece. You're saying we
2:19:34have to start here before this can wick
2:19:36out to the entire educational system.
2:19:38Totally understand and support that.
2:19:40>> But I I think there's this opportunity I
2:19:43think we have here in this discussion to
2:19:45embed in people's minds that like seeing
2:19:47somebody succeed is not necessarily
2:19:49taking from anyone else especially if
2:19:52the way they got there can be exported
2:19:55to anyone. like the specific
2:19:56circumstances that we've tended to focus
2:19:58on in this country have been the
2:19:59outliers, right? The spud webs and and
2:20:01these are remarkable stories,
2:20:03>> but there's not a lot that's exportable
2:20:05about that story except if you really
2:20:08want it and work really really hard, you
2:20:10can have it
2:20:11>> and and so we've sort of sold this myth
2:20:13that anyone [clears throat] can hit hit
2:20:15the frontier
2:20:16>> or their frontier. And I do think that
2:20:18if people hear the cost, the sort of
2:20:21that even the positivity, which I love,
2:20:23but then again, I'm born and raised in
2:20:24Palo Alto, California. But for the
2:20:26person who's listening thinking, okay,
2:20:28like how do I ensure that my kid someday
2:20:32>> Yeah.
2:20:33>> hopefully gets access to something like
2:20:35this and it's not just a financial
2:20:37barrier, it's also a it's a mindset
2:20:39barrier. Totally.
2:20:40>> So, I'm not asking you to be politically
2:20:42correct. I'm just saying, you know,
2:20:44because this is a real thing. No, I 100%
2:20:47this is like you're in Austin, you're a
2:20:49successful guy. I'm here in California.
2:20:51I've had a a wonderful life with some
2:20:53hardship, but like
2:20:55>> the notion now at least that the public
2:20:59>> sort of newspapers, television, etc. is
2:21:02like it's only if you had nothing
2:21:05>> and you made it Yeah.
2:21:06>> that we're cool with it. Otherwise,
2:21:08success is actually kind of looked down
2:21:09upon right now, which is its own
2:21:11problem. So, how do you think about
2:21:13that? And how do you tell the kids
2:21:14coming through alpha school like here's
2:21:16how to be a successful person in the
2:21:17world which is its own set of skills.
2:21:19>> So there's two parts which is we
2:21:21absolutely have to get this to
2:21:22everybody. I put a billion dollars in to
2:21:25say, "Let's make sure I have the
2:21:26resources so that it's not just for, you
2:21:29know, high-end private school kids and
2:21:31rich kids that we can get it out." And
2:21:32it's it's why we can sit and say, "Yes,
2:21:35we'll be the biggest school with kids
2:21:36under $65,000 income in Texas next year,
2:21:39and those kids are going to learn at the
2:21:41rate that private school."
2:21:43>> I think you should repeat that once more
2:21:44so people. So, you'll be the largest
2:21:46school with kids with with less than
2:21:48$65,000 family income.
2:21:50>> Yes. So, that's impressive. So, and
2:21:52that's our sports academy, right? That's
2:21:53the product they wanted. So, let's talk
2:21:55about sports academy as an example,
2:21:56which is back to designing it, right?
2:21:58And we talked about it. Sports is
2:22:00actually one where you can design for
2:22:01lower cost
2:22:02>> because fields are cheap
2:22:05>> for workshops. They teach well. Coaches
2:22:07are used to teaching bigger teams,
2:22:08right? And kids are totally motivated by
2:22:11it and they love it, right? And so, it's
2:22:13a magical to give you an example. So
2:22:15Texas vouchers allow people in Texas
2:22:17either you have a learning disability or
2:22:19you're under $65,000 income. You were
2:22:22able to get a voucher. Not all of them.
2:22:23They ran out. They put a billion dollars
2:22:25in and and they ran out. But we put up a
2:22:29website that said, you know, Texas
2:22:30Sports Academy on January 1st when the
2:22:32vouchers opened to a 100 days later, we
2:22:35had over 120,000 families in Texas say,
2:22:38"If I get a voucher, I want that. I want
2:22:40Texas Sports Academy for my kid." Now,
2:22:42we got a little over a thousand
2:22:44vouchers, which is the largest voucher
2:22:46recipient in the state. These are all
2:22:47families who are under $65,000 income.
2:22:51And their kids love sports. Those kids
2:22:54are going to be on the same academic
2:22:56system
2:22:58at Alpha super high-end private school
2:23:01>> and they will be learning 2x in two
2:23:04hours. Their academic achievement coming
2:23:06in is below what alpha is. They aren't
2:23:09at the same rate. They will be learning
2:23:13at the same rate. They will be learning
2:23:15faster than standard private schools. So
2:23:18you will put them in the system. It's
2:23:19free and they will be learning in 2
2:23:22hours. They'll be on the best academic
2:23:24system in the country. And we believe we
2:23:27can expand that across the country.
2:23:28There will be public schools where this
2:23:31is released where if you're in those
2:23:34public schools in the two hours you will
2:23:36be on the alpha system alpha timeback
2:23:40and your afternoons are going to be our
2:23:42workshop creator builder ones that we've
2:23:44all talked about. Now they'll be a
2:23:46little different because you have a
2:23:47$20,000 budget instead of alphas, you
2:23:49know, 40 plus,000 budget, but they're
2:23:52still going to be fantastic life skill
2:23:53workshops, right? 40 20 grand's plenty,
2:23:56right? 20 grand a year you can make a
2:23:5810-year-old like love school. And then
2:23:59for the sports guys, they'll be on that
2:24:01program. Our job is to make that work.
2:24:03Our we have to prove it. So we signed a
2:24:06deal with MIT cuz nobody believes us
2:24:08obviously because it's all too
2:24:09fantastical. And so MIT, you know,
2:24:12Blueprint Labs, right? Their Nobel
2:24:14laureate group is going to sit here and
2:24:16be like, "Let's run the test. Let's run
2:24:18the RCTs. Let's show that this works.
2:24:21Let's show where it doesn't work and and
2:24:23get that data out so then we can start
2:24:25expanding this to everybody. There's 55
2:24:27million kids in America and we need to
2:24:29get it to everybody. We're on that path.
2:24:32We believe we're going to have a bunch
2:24:33of data over the next year that shows
2:24:35it. We'll have the sports academy one is
2:24:37like the big driver that everybody
2:24:38really wants. The other one we're going
2:24:40to have is this GT squared where we're
2:24:42going to make a 100,000 kids, you know,
2:24:45MIT eligible by middle school,
2:24:47academically eligible by middle school.
2:24:49And it's going to be rural kids. It's
2:24:50going to be available to everybody
2:24:51across the country. You know, that
2:24:53program for those who love school, more
2:24:55academics makes me love it. They'll
2:24:56that's like four hours in the apps
2:24:58instead of two. So, those things will be
2:25:00free. They'll be able to be paid for
2:25:02with vouchers and different programs.
2:25:04There's actually philanthropies who will
2:25:06who'll do it as well. And then we're
2:25:07going to be putting it in public
2:25:08schools. Now, it is going to take 20
2:25:10years to change a whole educational
2:25:11system. I don't want to say it's
2:25:12overnight.
2:25:13>> It would be a false advertising to say
2:25:15this is coming to you tomorrow. now, but
2:25:17we're working on ones to get it out
2:25:19there as quickly as we can. And I'll
2:25:20give you the best one that's going to
2:25:22come sort of quickest at the biggest
2:25:24scale. We have one of the other schools.
2:25:26We talked about how we have that founder
2:25:28school for the entrepreneurs in our
2:25:30sports school. We're also opening
2:25:32schools in Africa. This is one where
2:25:34we're like, they have a price point. I
2:25:36have to get down to $1,000, right? Less
2:25:38than $1,000. So, that's going to take
2:25:40even longer and harder, but we're
2:25:41starting to work on that. And we have a
2:25:43bunch of alpha high school kids who are
2:25:44like, "Okay, we know what alpha is here.
2:25:47How can we go learn more and spend a
2:25:50year abroad figuring that out?"
2:25:51>> So the students are building a school in
2:25:54Africa.
2:25:54>> In Africa and they're like, "Oh, we have
2:25:57to bring in solar and Starlinks and dig
2:25:59a well and the community is very
2:26:01different." when they signed up for the
2:26:03school, back to hard things, we made
2:26:05them sign a thing that said, I
2:26:06understand this will be the hardest year
2:26:08of my life. But back to the key to my
2:26:10happiness is contributing to my
2:26:12community. They're all in. One of my
2:26:14biggest problems was I have an alpha
2:26:16middle schooler who's like, I want in.
2:26:18And her parents are like, you know,
2:26:20she's too young. Like we don't don't let
2:26:22her in. Like get her to wait till she's
2:26:24in high school. But then back to getting
2:26:25this access out. One of the things we
2:26:27have is you know there is a group of the
2:26:31best video game developers in the world
2:26:33who've been building a worldclass video
2:26:37game not like all the edtech video games
2:26:40that have been out there. It'll
2:26:41literally it's a team who's built the
2:26:43best video games in the world and they
2:26:45are building one on take these learning
2:26:48science concepts that we all talked
2:26:50about in time back and imagine embedding
2:26:52that with a game and the economic model
2:26:56for that is it's going to be available
2:26:57for 500 million kids and it's starting
2:26:59with like third through fifth grade
2:27:01reading and math and then it'll expand
2:27:03to the full you know curriculum uh
2:27:05through 12th grade but
2:27:07>> any kid in America after pool is going
2:27:11to be able to use this and learn as fast
2:27:14as if you were in the best private
2:27:16school in the country and it's going to
2:27:18be so back to solving motivation. Why do
2:27:21we do things like with influencers or
2:27:24video game developers is I have to solve
2:27:26the motivation problem to get them to
2:27:28engage through the material. And Alpha
2:27:30Kids have been like interns and test
2:27:32testing it. They're like, "Dude, this is
2:27:33so fun." I'm not a gamer, but they're
2:27:35like, "Everybody's going to play this,
2:27:36Mr. Lemont." And it's built where it'll
2:27:40be free. So it'll be free to learn for
2:27:42500 million kids in this in the world,
2:27:45kids can play it after school. So even
2:27:46if your school thinks edtech's terrible
2:27:48and all this stuff, you'll be able to
2:27:50use it at home and you're going to love
2:27:51it so much, you're going to use it
2:27:53instead of whatever video game you play
2:27:56after school, except it's going to put
2:27:57you top 1% academic performance.
2:28:00>> Amazing. And these are the kind of
2:28:02things when we talk about unlocking kids
2:28:04potential and putting this all together
2:28:06and why we're so optimistic about it.
2:28:07And it does it takes a lot of capital.
2:28:09They just had to raise hundreds of
2:28:10millions of dollars of capital to build
2:28:12this kind of stuff. We are at a
2:28:14renaissance in education. It's the best
2:28:16time in history to be a 5-year-old. And
2:28:18every parent's going to be able to sit
2:28:20and say, "My kid will be able to thrive
2:28:23at levels I never expected doing things
2:28:26that I couldn't do at their age." So we
2:28:29have a incredible optimistic view and we
2:28:31believe that it's our job to, you know,
2:28:33build it and get it out to everybody.
2:28:35>> I love it. What you've built and where
2:28:38you're taking it is truly incredible.
2:28:39And I say that both from the stance of
2:28:41somebody who loves learning who also
2:28:43didn't,
2:28:44>> you know, well, had a period of
2:28:45floundering and then found the track and
2:28:47when those gears switch on, it's a
2:28:49remarkable thing. And and I can tell you
2:28:51want it for everybody. Yeah.
2:28:52>> And um these kids sound incredible. The
2:28:55guides sound incredible. And I'm just
2:28:57very grateful to you for coming up with
2:28:59this, organizing the team. I realize
2:29:01you're part of a team that came up with
2:29:02this. I understand you're the principal,
2:29:04and for taking the time to come educate
2:29:06us about Alpha School, because what's
2:29:08more important, right? I mean, it sounds
2:29:09so cliche, right? But what's more
2:29:11important than like the the
2:29:12neuroplasticity and learning of of our
2:29:14species as they grow up and eventually
2:29:17replace us? Like, this is super
2:29:19>> super exciting. So, um, we'll keep tabs,
2:29:22we'll put links to all the things that
2:29:23are relevant to the general public. I
2:29:25also have to say in listening to your
2:29:26previous podcast, I'm going to flatter
2:29:27you a little bit. I hope you're okay
2:29:28with that. You have a remarkable mastery
2:29:31of the the learning data, the
2:29:34neuroscience. We didn't get into
2:29:35critical periods and stuff today, but
2:29:36you have a mastery of that. And dare I
2:29:39say, I'm not a psychologist, but you're
2:29:41super organized, but you also have this
2:29:43like almost like childlike delight about
2:29:45these children learning. Like it comes
2:29:47through. And and and I think that's in
2:29:49my experience, that's perhaps the most
2:29:52important thing about any educator. The
2:29:54best teachers have mastery of the
2:29:55material. Yeah. But they also are
2:29:57looking at the material and what's
2:29:58happening with the students with the
2:30:00same kind of like awe and excitement as
2:30:02as the first time they learned the
2:30:04material. So thanks for letting me and
2:30:06everyone else experience that today.
2:30:07>> Well, thank you very much. And to that
2:30:09point, I had a great career before I
2:30:11became principal four years ago. It was
2:30:12fantastic.
2:30:13>> The last four years have been the best
2:30:15years of my life. And watching these
2:30:18kids thrive, right, back to your point
2:30:19of education, it is awesome. There is
2:30:21nothing more exciting. There's nothing
2:30:23more important, right, for a family or
2:30:25society than this. But as an individual,
2:30:28you know, and this is my appeal to
2:30:30everybody who's who's listening, which
2:30:32is if you want to come change education,
2:30:35I can promise you this will be the most
2:30:37rewarding thing you do in your career.
2:30:39Like wherever you are, coming straight
2:30:41out of college, in college, after
2:30:43college, retired, wherever it is, this
2:30:47is the opportunity to spend time. And
2:30:49there's a lot of people who never went
2:30:50into education, right? These software,
2:30:53these game designers had never been in
2:30:55education before. We're pulling in the
2:30:57best people in the world who want to
2:30:59help and change this and come join the
2:31:02team because it's awesome.
2:31:03>> Well, your applicant pool just got
2:31:05bigger. So,
2:31:06>> great. Thank you very much.
2:31:07>> Thank you. Thank you for joining me for
2:31:09today's discussion with Joe Leont. To
2:31:11learn more about Alpha School and the
2:31:12work they're doing, please see the links
2:31:14in the show note captions. If you're
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2:31:31you can now leave us comments at both
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2:31:36and throughout today's episode. That's
2:31:38the best way to support this podcast. If
2:31:40you have questions for me or comments
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2:31:44that you'd like me to consider for the
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2:31:51that haven't heard, I have a new book
2:31:52coming out. It's my very first book.
2:31:54It's entitled Protocols: An Operating
2:31:57Manual for the Human Body. This is a
2:31:58book that I've been working on for more
2:32:00than 5 years, and that's based on more
2:32:01than 30 years of research and
2:32:04experience. And it covers protocols for
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2:32:22There you can find links to various
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