As someone who is interested in opening up a microschool one day
And falling in love with this substack and all of the world that brandon is opening up for me (hehe i just messaged you but addressed you in third person)
I’m very curious about your take on the much in hyped alpha school ‘model’ and such takes by prospective microschool operators
There's something, though, that I wish I had said in that recording, and I'll take a stab at explaining it: even if Alpha School were to upgrade to a curriculum that actually taught the content well (as opposed to IXL, which I criticize in the dialogue), there's something that would still worry me here: it doesn't seem like the people who run the school *care* about the academic subjects.
I imagine they'd deny this, saying that they obviously care more about them than nearly any other school... and I think they'd be right! But it feels like the academics are something to be gotten through as quickly as possible so kids can free up time to do REAL stuff.
I'm a teacher because I think academics ARE the real stuff, or at least a lot of it. I find history and math and science and so on to be gorgeous, brain-bending, human-connecting enterprises. And it seems to me — from the outside — that this isn't experienced in AlphaSchool.
But: maybe I'm entirely wrong. I'd love to be corrected. And even if my fears are correct, then AlphaSchool is STILL doing a much better job at schooling than nearly every other school. Like I said in that dialogue: I want to live in a world where our competitors are AlphaSchool. Even better, I would love to cross-pollinate with their methods. They're crazy, but they're my kind of crazy — even when we disagree.
As someone who is interested in opening up a microschool one day
And falling in love with this substack and all of the world that brandon is opening up for me (hehe i just messaged you but addressed you in third person)
I’m very curious about your take on the much in hyped alpha school ‘model’ and such takes by prospective microschool operators
https://x.com/mindbicycles/status/1961450959453721077?s=46
PS - if you’ve written or shared about it already elsewhere, oops please direct me there
Alessandro and I had a great conversation about Alpha School, actually! Take a peek: https://www.losttools.org/p/entering-the-great-acx-education
There's something, though, that I wish I had said in that recording, and I'll take a stab at explaining it: even if Alpha School were to upgrade to a curriculum that actually taught the content well (as opposed to IXL, which I criticize in the dialogue), there's something that would still worry me here: it doesn't seem like the people who run the school *care* about the academic subjects.
I imagine they'd deny this, saying that they obviously care more about them than nearly any other school... and I think they'd be right! But it feels like the academics are something to be gotten through as quickly as possible so kids can free up time to do REAL stuff.
I'm a teacher because I think academics ARE the real stuff, or at least a lot of it. I find history and math and science and so on to be gorgeous, brain-bending, human-connecting enterprises. And it seems to me — from the outside — that this isn't experienced in AlphaSchool.
But: maybe I'm entirely wrong. I'd love to be corrected. And even if my fears are correct, then AlphaSchool is STILL doing a much better job at schooling than nearly every other school. Like I said in that dialogue: I want to live in a world where our competitors are AlphaSchool. Even better, I would love to cross-pollinate with their methods. They're crazy, but they're my kind of crazy — even when we disagree.