The Great Books Behind PragerU’s America-First Education | Marissa Streit

On this episode of Anchored, Jeremy is joined by Marissa Streit, CEO of PragerU and host of Real Talk. They discuss Marissa’s educational experiences growing up in Israel and attending college in America, exploring how her travels deepened her appreciation for American freedoms. They dive into the founding of PragerU and PragerU's breakthrough moment. They also discuss how PragerU embraces the classical education movement and how homeschoolers and traditional school communities alike utilize its resources.

Transcript

Jeremy Tate (00:01.639)
Folks, welcome back to the Anchor podcast. We have a guest today that for many of you needs no introduction. Marissa Streit is CEO of PragerU and host of Real Talk. She was born in Los Angeles and moved to Israel at a young age where she completed her primary education and served in military intelligence unit 8200 of the Israel Defense Forces. She returned to Los Angeles to earn her bachelor's degree in business and economics.

and her master's degree in education and nonprofit management. Over the next decade, Marissa gained valuable experience as an educator, a school administrator, and the director of Philanthropic Institute before joining PragerU in 2011. Her experience in business, education, social media, and the nonprofit sector has enabled PragerU to grow its audience to over one billion views every year and influence millions of young minds every day.

Under Marissa's leadership, PragerU has rapidly grown into one of the largest and most impactful pro-America media networks. Marissa is also the host of PragerU Show Real Talk, which generates millions of views. The audience is invited to go beyond headlines to hear from PragerU CEO and today's thought leaders as they dive deeper into challenging topics that face many parents and professionals. Marissa, thanks so much for being on the InCure Podcast.

Marissa (01:24.586)
It's my pleasure. Thanks for having me on.

Jeremy Tate (01:27.441)
So you have a background unlike any anchored guests that I have read before. This is amazing. How old were you when you moved to Israel?

Marissa (01:36.238)
So I guess the thing about my background, it has made me into a true professional troublemaker, specifically in the world of education. I guess only God can make those kinds of plans. And so you're right, I have a very interesting background. I was born in the States and I moved to Israel when I was seven. I lived in Israel. I served in the Israeli military as an American. It was an incredible education that I got from Israeli intelligence.

And I just learned so much from the experience of watching Israelis defend their country. Everybody found a way to get involved, right? Whether you're in combat or you're intelligence or you're even a chef or a cook, somehow you contribute to your country. And when I came back to the States, that bell kept ringing in my mind. How do we have Americans contribute to their country? Even if they're not enlisted in the military, there is a way to enlist into protecting.

our great country, the United States of America. And so I guess God seated me with those thoughts at a very young age when I had the experience of living as an American outside of the United States.

Jeremy Tate (02:46.909)
an interesting age to move. I've learned recently that age seven is when language acquisition peaks. What was that like for you going to a whole new part of the world at that age?

Marissa (02:55.998)
Yeah, I mean it was actually a blessing. You mentioned language acquisition. So there are actual scans in children's brains where you can see that if they're learning a second language before the age of eight or nine, the brain actually develops an additional portion that enables you to pick up more languages over the years. And so it was a great gift for me to, you know, obviously I was born in the States and I spoke English, but then I had to learn Hebrew because we moved to Israel.

And that enabled me to easily learn French and easily learn Spanish and pick up on all kinds of other languages. So one of those unintended consequences of the adversity of moving out of the United States at an early age. So that gave me that gift.

Jeremy Tate (03:29.391)
Incredible.

Jeremy Tate (03:39.069)
Wow. And what was school like in Israel? Yeah, what was your experience like as a student in Israel as a young child?

Marissa (03:42.977)
What was?

Marissa (03:48.716)
Yeah, well, in the beginning was a little hard and also I was different. My mannerism were the I had the mannerisms of an American. So I was always that kind of different kid. And I also think that, again, that that adversity of being different built my character because it made me less fearful as an adult to differ or question or be OK being called names by by media because ultimately it helped me find my core. And so.

I integrated eventually into the classrooms and I learned the language, but I always had that feeling that I was a little different, which was true. I had family still living in the United States. My first language was English. I had many of the habits that an American family would have while living in Israel. And so it was a bit of a challenge, but I also think those challenges really formed my character.

Jeremy Tate (04:44.017)
Yeah, yeah. Well, I'm wondering, PragerU, enormous impact, you know, and it touches so many young lives. And when you think about your time in Israel, I mean, this is the sweet age, you know, kind of forming a sense of the world, the worldview. How did that experience kind of shape what you later have gone on to do over the past 14 years at PragerU?

Marissa (05:08.91)
You know, I think that any American that lives outside the United States has a better sense of what an incredible country the United States of America is. I would come back home here to the United States, visit family, and I would just kiss the ground of America. I was in awe of the accomplishment, the freedom. Israel is a very free society, and it's the freest society in the Middle East and the closest in its

Jeremy Tate (05:18.314)
true.

Marissa (05:37.944)
culture and its freedom, including religious freedom, to the United States. Israel and the United States are allies, much because they share the same values. And so on that front, it was familiar and similar. I mean, the United States, at least to me, and maybe I'm biased because I was that American kid living in Israel, but I felt like it was another level. And my love and admiration of America and how it has become

the freest and most prosperous society in the world started at an early age because I would go back and forth and I would just compare. And all you really need to do is to compare America to any country around the world. And you said to yourself, well, how lucky I am to be an American. So I felt that way while living in Israel. I was so proud to have my roots in the United States and I knew I'd come back. I always talked about it. I always knew I'd come back. And I just felt like it was the journey that God put me on. And as I mentioned,

Jeremy Tate (06:13.661)
Mm.

Marissa (06:35.116)
It was not easy, but I picked up some gifts through that adversity that I experienced, I guess, in some ways.

Jeremy Tate (06:43.229)
Yeah. When did you get a sense that there was something wrong in mainstream American education? Do feel like you kind of always had that sense or did that develop as you were growing up?

Marissa (06:55.65)
Well, first I came back to the States and I went to college. went to UCLA. And UCLA is a college in Los Angeles, California. And so the first sentiment was many of the history classes were incredibly anti-American. I just couldn't get it. It couldn't resonate with me at all because at that point, unlike probably most 18 or 19-year-olds, I was at that point in

in my early 20s because I served in the military and so I was a little older than some of the other students at college at UCLA. But I had a sense of what the world looks like. And so I traveled the world. By the time I came back to the States, I've been to Europe, I've been to the Middle East, I've to all kinds of countries around the world. And I would go to college here, UCLA, and they would tell me that America is this terrible country. And I just didn't buy it. It just made no sense to me.

I didn't understand that it was politically charged, but it certainly didn't resonate with me. there was an anti-Western civilization sentiment which bothered me, and I felt like something was wrong in my stomach about it, but I didn't quite have the words and the language for it. It just bothered me in general. There was an anti-capitalist sentiment where socialism was kind of pushed. And I don't know if you know this, but Israel tried socialism, and they've

Jeremy Tate (08:07.517)
Hmm.

Marissa (08:18.446)
through the kibbutzim, these little towns that they created were these little socialist compounds that they brought in. And many of them didn't do very well. It was very difficult for anybody who really had a lot of ambition and people who really wanted to kind of do more. so some of those kibbutzim in Israel didn't work out. But then I went to college here in the United States and we were told that

Here on a much bigger scale, allegedly, supposedly, capitalism is not going to work, yet socialism is going to work. And so I do remember that some of those messages did not resonate and made no sense. I got a degree in business economics at UCLA. Surprisingly, I heard such a push for socialism even within my econ classes. But I was young and I didn't quite know how to refute those points.

which has really led me to why I do what I do today. I try to give intellectual ammunition so that young people can hear an alternative perspective and refute those points that we're hearing in American colleges.

Jeremy Tate (09:16.753)
Yeah.

Jeremy Tate (09:27.921)
It's such a powerful story. I've daydreamed before, like if the government could do one thing, you know, to really fix education, it would be, you know, requiring or subsidizing a study abroad in Venezuela for every teenager or something so they could spend a year and go, wow, this is not, this is not paradise, actually, for sure. Okay, so 2011, you make the transition over to PragerU, you know, as I recall, mean, PragerU was not, you know, this megaphone at that time.

Marissa (09:29.357)
Ahem.

Marissa (09:43.447)
Right.

Jeremy Tate (09:57.658)
Prager you like when you you arrive and tell us the origin as well if you would.

Marissa (10:00.782)
Yeah, so when when Prager when I was hired for Prager you Prager you Was not even a laptop. We didn't even have a there was no laptop when I first started so I I met with Alan Estrin who came up with the idea of Prager you of using the internet to disseminate important ideas and Undo the damage of America's education system

Jeremy Tate (10:12.605)
Thank you.

Marissa (10:25.832)
And Alan Estrin was the producer of the Dennis Prager Show. And so Dennis and Alan were very close friends. And Dennis has been writing books. He's a syndicated radio talk show host. And I say that Dennis has penicillin for the mind. I didn't know Dennis that well at that point. And I didn't know Alan at all. But the three of us were introduced by a mutual friend. And we met at a cafe. And Alan basically said,

that we need to save America from within and it's gonna fall through bad ideas through the influence of our adversaries who are trying to really make Americans hate its own country and really walk away from the founding values that make America what it is. And as he would say, education got us into this mess, education will have to get us out of this mess. And so Dennis Prager, Alan Estrin and myself met at a cafe and with our very

different skill sets and different personalities. We decided to partner up. I became the first full-time employee. I had Alan Estrin and Dennis Prager available to me to coach me, to teach me, to support me. And really Dennis Prager's generosity to give me the confidence to use his name, to use his teachings, and to disseminate it to the public.

I went and purchased a computer and took it home. And the first office of PragerU was actually at my house just around the same time that I got pregnant with my, I just got married and then I just got pregnant with my first child at that point in time. So that's the origin story of PragerU. I gave birth to PragerU just before I gave birth to my children.

Jeremy Tate (12:00.989)
Yeah

Jeremy Tate (12:19.057)
Wow, wow. And this has been an incredible story. when did the PragerU start to really kind of get a national awareness kind of brand? Was there a breakout moment that happened?

Marissa (12:32.684)
Yeah, I'm sure that all of us here who are part of the founders of PragerU and there many of us, some of us are more out there in the public and we have our chief marketing officers and production folks who've been here from day one. so we all had that different moment where we said, wow, OK, this is actually making a huge difference. People are actually listening. People are starving for intellectual ammunition.

This is working the five-minute videos are working. The platform is working. We're having an influence So I'm sure we have different answers, but I will not forget the day that our video on the electoral college went viral and that was right after Donald Trump was elected the first time around and so around 2016

People were very upset about the electoral college versus the national popular vote. You might remember there was a very, very strong push to abolish the electoral college. And we had a five minute video that was actually made a couple of years prior. It had like, I don't know, 20,000 or 30,000 views. And so for us, that's not a big number. And we thought, okay, it's one of those kind of dry.

Jeremy Tate (13:30.833)
Hmm.

Marissa (13:44.438)
videos where, you know, just maybe just the geeks want to watch, right? And we love geeks, by the way, we're all geeks here. And so that video started going viral because there was the question on the internet on whether it should whether the electoral college should be abolished. And we had such a great five minute video on the subject and it started going viral and people were sharing it as a as a way to refute the concept that we should get rid of the

the amazing system of the electoral college. think those who understand what a genius the system is really realize how catastrophic it would be if we didn't have the electoral college. But the left always has this upper hand when it comes to propagating their ideas. And we got lucky, the video started going viral and within two weeks it garnered about 55 million unique views.

Jeremy Tate (14:37.253)
Wow, incredible. Many of the listeners here, a lot of homeschoolers, lot of administrators at brick and mortar schools. How is our PragerU resources utilized by both of those groups, both homeschoolers and schools, brick and mortar schools as well?

Marissa (14:54.456)
So the thing I'm passionate about the most, both as an educator and as a parent, is to remind parents and educators that it is the parent's role to educate their children. Now, it's not to say that you can't make the choice to send your kid to a brick and mortar school. Maybe it's a government school. Maybe it's a parochial school. Not everybody can homeschool. I do think homeschooling is ideal.

But if you can homeschool, you can still school at home. And you should certainly not forfeit teaching the core values of what actually matters to your children. Now the problem as an educator, I'll admit, educators have been giving the sense to parents that it's the parent's job to bathe the child and feed the child and make sure they do their homework and take them to sports and attend every sport game. But when it comes to actually teaching the values and teaching...

Jeremy Tate (15:38.335)
Yeah.

Jeremy Tate (15:43.569)
Leave it to the expert. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Marissa (15:44.034)
the fundamentals, leave it to the experts, that 22-year-old kid that just graduated from teacher seminary and barely knows anything about life, but supposedly they're the ones who are the experts on how to teach their children what actually matters. And so really PragerU is about creating content that helps both at the same time. And you'll notice that you'll go to other platforms and you'll find a space for the educators to log in and you'll find a space for the parents to log in, right? Why are these two?

different logins available? Why aren't we having one login? Why can't the parents see all the things that the teachers are seeing? it's too complicated. Really? It's too complicated? It's really too complicated for you, a CEO, to be able to see what an educator is teaching the children? I don't buy that and nobody should buy that. And so fundamentally, I think that we need to open a window into classrooms and we need to create a partnership between educators and parents because educators love it too. When I ran a school,

and I was an educator, my favorite parents were the parents who were involved because they would help me and they would communicate with me and we would put the child first and we knew that when we worked together, the children would benefit. And so we produce content that is available both to parents and teachers. We study the state standards when it comes to financial literacy. We're even working on actual reading literacy now through the science of reading. We're bringing back science of reading into classrooms. No more whole language. History, civics.

and many of the social studies elements of what are, these are things that are required anyway by state standards. And we're making these modules really fun for children and for parents to engage with. And so as we take the state standards and what ought to be taught, we add some of the classical education into it, which is the hot, I keep saying it's the hottest thing right now. Classical education is the hottest thing right now. All the parents are asking about it. Some parents don't know what it means.

But we're bringing it back and they're loving it. And so we're infusing it into this content that we're making. And we make the videos, we make the books, we make the ways to check for understanding. We make the entire lesson plan available where the parent or the teacher can just take it and they have a turnkey module that they can just take with them and feel, sorry, feel really confident that they're bringing patriotic, wholesome, truthful, clean education into their classroom.

Jeremy Tate (17:54.365)
Mm.

Marissa (18:10.198)
And nobody has anything to hide because the entire thing is available for everybody to look at. There are no walls.

Jeremy Tate (18:17.084)
Yeah.

So this language, the word, the term classical education, I've got a lot of dear friends who love it, but they prefer actually not to use the term for a bunch of different reasons. The reasons are different in the Catholic education world versus some various places. PragerU, you said classical is kind of the hottest thing. And in some ways, I think it's given a lot of people right of center a vision for education that's much richer than just like taking

the toxic ideas out of modern progressive ed. Now we've got something to call it and what it looks like. What has that been like for PragerU when I see your stuff come out? It always seems very classical friendly. Is that a term that you all embrace to describe what you're doing in promoting?

Marissa (19:05.528)
Well, one of the things that we do is promote the great books, right? The great books that have been taken off shelves and libraries and out of students' curriculum for all kinds of ridiculous reasons in the name of equity or the name of whatever it is. And for us, it doesn't matter what the color of the skin is of the person who authored a book. If it teaches important things that have important concepts, eternal concepts in many ways, that have shaped Western civilization, these books should not be removed from

from those shelves. And so, for example, we have a show with Michael Knowles called The Book Club. And these are books that have shaped Western civilization that are incredibly important. And by the way, it's a funny story how we even came up with the concept of The Book Club. If you want to, I'll share it with you. Because this is kind of how we sometimes reach these conclusions of what's missing. was a few of us sat around and we were like, how are some people just so aware of

the books that need to be read, right? It's like you go to college and you don't even know about some of these important like who is Dante and what you do know about Shakespeare and et cetera. And frankly, even the Bible or the federalist papers, right? How is that not part of core curriculum in America, right? So I bumped into Ben Shapiro's father at one point in time. And I said, it just appears to me that Ben Shapiro knows everything about all these books. How did you do that? What school did you send him to?

Jeremy Tate (20:09.436)
Yeah.

Marissa (20:31.586)
And he said, well, I couldn't find a school to send him to that would teach him all the great books. So I actually hired him a tutor. And on the weekends, the tutor would show up with one of these books. And he would discuss this with Ben. And I said to myself, well, isn't that amazing? Because I think that if any of us had access and we knew what are the great books, then maybe as parents, we would hire a tutor or do it ourselves with our kids or expose our kids to these porn books.

And so I got Ben Shapiro's father to send me the list and that's how we got started. Now that was the original list, but then Michael Knowles added to it and we all brought it in. And so that's an example of what I mean by a classical education is teaching the basic books and actually teaching them out of the original source, right? So the show itself will grab the original book and discuss the original book, not the woke interpretation of the original book, which is what you're seeing.

Jeremy Tate (21:26.205)
Yeah.

Marissa (21:28.155)
in many English classes these days.

Jeremy Tate (21:32.893)
When you dream big about the future, pray for you. and you all have done so much in the first 14 years. When you think about 2030, you 2040, what are you hoping is the impact? What are some of the goals you'll have?

Marissa (21:48.142)
My biggest goal is for parents to realize how significant it is that they can get involved in their children's education. a, if I may use this term, I'm a freedom junkie. I'm not a big fan of big government and I don't co-parent with the government. And I don't want other parents to co-parent with the government. And I think that we're going into a very dangerous road where the government is insisting

in co-parenting with us. And you're seeing this in local governments in particular, right? If you're looking at states and communities and school boards, they wanna make all kinds of decisions for us. And I think it's a very, very dangerous un-American way to educate our children. And so my number one goal is to get to the parents and remind them that it's not just their responsibility to...

Jeremy Tate (22:33.169)
Yeah.

Marissa (22:43.04)
educate their kids, but they can actually do it and it's not that hard and it's not that overwhelming and they're gonna do amazing at it. And here at PragerU, we're available to support them in that process. And it doesn't mean that they have to homeschool, but they can still school at home. They can still grab one of our short five or 10 minute videos and have an incredibly, an incredibly impactful conversation with their children so that when their kids become adults,

Jeremy Tate (22:54.909)
Hmm.

Marissa (23:09.486)
They look back and say, we had those meaningful moments and I helped shape this amazing human's character. And it wasn't the government who did that.

Jeremy Tate (23:17.917)
Yeah, 2020, we may not know yet. 2020 may have been this great waking up. Sometimes you wake up at night and you go back to bed and you kind of forget about it. But sometimes you wake up and you're up and you're awake and you're alert. And parents seem to have woken up across the country.

during the COVID lockdowns and finally they're seeing what their children are being taught and they're shocked sometimes. Like you said, this is anti-American, this is anti-Western, the gender ideology, all the rest. Did we make, mean, has a cataclysmic kind of shift happened?

from that moment? You know, you classical is kind of the hottest thing right now. I are you seeing this generation that is now becoming parents? And are you hopeful that we are kind of correcting course as a nation?

Marissa (24:09.568)
I do think that people have woken up and I think they're running towards the hills. The question is, do they know what hills to run towards? I think it opened people's minds and having an open mind is a very good thing. But if you don't know where to go and you don't have truth to lean on, that can also be a very dangerous thing. And I think that is something that we should be very much aware of. It's not enough to just question everything. It's important to question everything.

They also need answers. And that is also one of the reasons why it is so important that we do lean on timeless truth, that we do lean on bringing back those great books, bringing back the great books that actually chronicle what human nature is like and what the dangers are if we don't learn about it and if we don't understand it. And while history may not repeat itself exactly, human nature remains. And so...

I, yes, do I think people woke up? Yes. But do I think they have the knowledge that they need to make the right decisions in the future? The answer is never, right? We should always seek the knowledge and we should also lean on enduring truths that Western civilization has thrived over. And I don't know that we're there yet. I think we are at a point where parents are awake and people are awake and Americans are awake, but I think they're running into all kinds of hills and that could also be a problematic thing.

I do think that it's important that it's not just opening their minds, but we actually provide them with education.

Jeremy Tate (25:43.909)
Marissa, we always end the Anchored Podcast talking about books and typically I like to ask the guests, was there one book that was most formative in kind of shaping who you are? Maybe it's a book you like to reread time and time again or just share with others. Is there one that has been kind of uniquely impactful for you that you would share with the audience?

Marissa (26:02.604)
Well, I continue to read the Old Testament, the Bible, time and time again, and I'm always in awe at how relevant the Bible is. so, you know, I'm going have to say it's the Bible because it's it's a, you know, they say that children don't come with a manual, right? And like, you have to figure it out. But I actually think that children do come with a manual, a manual, and I think it's the Bible. And so,

I think it's the answer to so many important things and if you're willing to read it and listen to the enduring truth in it, then you'll never get bored when you reread it time and time again. So that's my book, the Bible.

Jeremy Tate (26:43.845)
Incredible. guest today is Melissa Streit, CEO of PragerU. Y'all are doing great work. Marissa, thanks so much for being a guest on the Anchor podcast. Definitely come back and visit us again in the future.

Marissa (26:56.536)
Thank you, Jeremy. It's fun being with you.