Episode 92: The Imagination Crisis. A Conversation with Nicole Jarbo.

We name the “imagination crisis” holding education back and argue that better schools start with better dreaming, not just better funding or tools. We share how 4.0 Schools helps change-curious builders and turn rough ideas into real tests while staying impact-first, resilient, and grounded in what families and learners actually need. 

• why education makes people feel personally invested and why that can still produce stale ideas 
• what 4.0 Schools does as an early-stage launch pad for education founders 
• how to build resilience by loving the work rather than protecting the original idea 
• design dreaming basics: cataloguing assets and choosing a motivating question 
• why “barely better” innovation feels safe and how it limits progress 
• what anti-scale really means and how to stay impact-first as you grow 
• learner-centric design as a practical way to build better solutions 
• AI in education as jet fuel for implementation and a risk to originality 
Go sign up for 4.0 schools, support the project. 

About our guest
Nicole Jarbo is the CEO of 4.0 Schools, where she leads one of the country’s most active platforms for early-stage education founders. A former Teach For America corps member and KIPP teacher, she is also a fintech founder who has raised millions in venture capital. Nicole has worked across philanthropy and systems-level education change, and is the host of Pitch Playground, an award-winning podcast spotlighting the future of education.

Connect with Nicole
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About the podcast
The KindlED Podcast explores the science of nurturing children's potential and creating empowering learning environments.

Powered by Prenda Microschools, each episode offers actionable insights to help you ignite your child's love of learning. We'll dive into evidence-based tools and techniques that kindle young learners' curiosity, motivation, and well-being.

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Transcript

Love The Build Not The Idea

SPEAKER_02 0:00

This is something that in 4.0's curriculum we talk about all the time. It's like, don't fall in love with your idea, fall in love with building something new that needs to be here. Right. And I think that's a piece that folks often like get stuck with. They're like, I love my idea. Yeah. This is going to be the next like billion-dollar company. And they start doing it and they hit all of these roadblocks and have a sort of inability to be resilient and kind of like committed throughout that process.

SPEAKER_01 0:28

Hi, welcome to the Kindled Podcast. I'm Kelly Smith. I'll be hosting today. And I'm excited to introduce you to my guest, Nicole Jarbo. Nicole's the CEO of 4.0 Schools, where she leads one of the country's most active platforms for early stage education founders. She's a former Teach for America core member and KIP teacher. She's also a fintech founder who has raised millions of dollars in venture capital. Nicole has worked across philanthropy and systems-level education change. She's the host of the podcast Pitch Playground, an award-winning podcast spotlighting the future of education. We're going to talk about what it means to innovate in education, why imagination is such a barrier to many people entering this field. I think you're really going to love this conversation, and I'm excited to introduce Nicole Jarbo. Okay, Nicole Jarbo, we're so excited you're here on the Kindled Podcast. Thank you for making the time.

SPEAKER_02 1:17

Absolutely. I'm super pumped, Kelly. This is going to be a great conversation. Thanks for having me.

The Imagination Crisis In Education

SPEAKER_01 1:22

It is. I feel like we met in, I want to say 2018, somewhere around there, and basically every conversation since then has been a great conversation. So you guys that are listening, you are in luck. This is going to be so fun. Nicole, let's dive right into it. I want to talk to people about your story and your background, but I think it would be helpful to frame this around this word imagination crisis or this term. Uh, you I've heard you talk about this. What do you mean? You say school in America or education in America has this imagination crisis. I've never heard anyone else say that before. Can you sort of elaborate on this and just paint a picture for our listeners?

SPEAKER_02 1:55

Absolutely. So if you haven't heard it before, I should probably figure out how to trademark this. But before that, I think I'll I'll say a little bit about 4.0 because that's how we met. Yeah. And so for folks who don't know, um, I'm Nicole Jarba, the CEO of 4.0 Schools. We've been around for 15 years this year. So a while. And it depends on who you ask, but I think that we look at ourselves as like a launch pad to innovation in the education space. It's essentially like your front door. So you have an idea, we help you, you know, spark and refine that idea and actually test it out. So like I think of our work, you know, almost as insurance for the broader space to make sure that we're putting in projects, schools, ed tech companies, just solutions that actually sort of work for folks. So that's sort of what we've been doing. I'm saying sort of because there's always like piloting, iterating. Now that's just part of how we do things. Um, but to date, and I have got to say all these things, like to date, we've probably invested in, I think 20 over 2,500 different entrepreneurs at all, you know, different levels, everything from 500 bucks to like 100K, you know, depending on the organization. And so it's been really cool to see um just where everyone goes. You know, a lot of folks stay in the space, a lot of folks leave. But I think, you know, at the crux of it, what we want people to do, which ties to this imagination piece, is we want them to get better at imagining. And when I talk about an imagination crisis, what I'm really thinking about is, you know, somewhere along the past, I don't know, 15 years or so, we just stopped being creative. Right. And I I think that there's an opportunity for infrastructure. So when I came into this role about a year and a half ago, everyone was talking about infrastructure and and how do we get capital to entrepreneurs and schools and all these things. And I think that's really the obvious answer. But as I started thinking about this even more, I was like, who's building the infrastructure to imagine a better future, you know, for parents, for educators, for kids? And that's really what 4.0 strives to do. And it took me being an alumni, it took me running this for a while to really understand that that's where the big market need is, you know, from our perspective at 4.0, is that if we can help people imagine better, then they can actually create more ideas. A lot of them will be terrible. But a lot of them will be really good.

unknown 4:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:13

Right.

SPEAKER_02 4:13

And then take those really good ideas and build a future that right now, like only a few of us can envision. And so that's really sort of where we come from. And when again, when I think about imagination crisis, I really think about the need for people to just get better at thinking, get better at hopeful thinking, get better at optimistic thinking, get better at creative thinking. And so, you know, my hope is that we can be an org that promotes that and start building a community of people who want to do something a little bit different.

Why Redesigning School Repeats It

SPEAKER_01 4:44

Right. Uh Hollywood, if you're listening, you might be thinking, do we do Fast and the Furious 14? Or maybe we come up with something new and different. And yeah, I mean, I think we make these jokes in in showbiz. I think particularly in education, and and this is interesting that you know, that's that's where you guys are at, that's your background. And and I will talk a little bit about my story with 4.0 schools because you guys played a critical role in Prenda's evolution. I really appreciate that. A lot of people are surprised to hear that I was a 4.0 alum and and did the tiny grant in 2018 and really uh not only received a lot of value in terms of you know advice and mentorship and and coaching and things like that, including meeting you, but but also that just entrance into this world. I mean, there's so much that as a you know naive, glossy-eyed uh, you know, entrant into the world of education innovation, there were things that I didn't know that I didn't know, right? Layers deep. And so to do this with people who had done it before, who had had experience, but yet we're willing. And I and I think this is something that's always been in the DNA, and I think you've taken this to really the next level with your leadership here is you know, still preserving that flexibility and freedom to think about things differently and and innovate, because that's it really is needed. I mean, we need we need ideas. You've probably done these before, Nicole. I know you've done four point, or you've done Teach for America, you've been involved in school innovation. There's these, this story, and it's kind of a it's almost cliche at this point where you'll gather a bunch of educators and even parents and other stakeholders, and you'll say, Okay, blank sheet of paper, let's design school. And you go through this process. So often the joke is the end result of that process is something that actually looks and feels very similar to what all of us experienced in school. And, you know, and it's for whatever reason, I think the hierarchy, the tradition, the inertia, it's hard to think outside the box on this. I mean, it's particularly hard in education. I mean, have you run into this as you've done this work where, you know, it's like you're goading people to say, well, why is it that way? Why does it have to be this instead of that?

SPEAKER_02 6:45

That's uh I have a lot to say about this in particular. And you know what I tell people often is education is a very unique place because in this country, and I think it's probably true of other countries as well, but I can mostly speak to the US context, that education is the only area in terms of like social impact issues that everybody feels deeply connected to, right? That's not true of, you know, healthcare, immigration, you know, all these things are obviously important, the environment, but everybody is impacted in a very visceral and personal way by education. So you can walk into any restaurant, any grocery store, any movie theater, and somebody will tell you what they hate about school and what you know, what they wish was better, and they will literally have an idea on how to fix it. That is not true of any other area. And so when you talk about having a chance to create, and then everybody ends up with the same thing, it's such a waste, I think, of energy, intellectual power, emotional energy, just because this should be the place where we're allowed to to like play, to have different ideas. If we're not coming up with imaginative new things in school and in service of making schools better, I don't think there's hope for us outside of this, right? And so it's very, you know, disappointing to me, but that's why four Ponot's here. But it's very disappointing to me that in a a sector where you would think we are the most imaginative, the most creative, you know, we have the most practice at doing this. Um, you'd expect to see a very, very different sector. And you know, I know Prenda has been in the micro school game very, very early, and which is amazing. And I'm seeing this now sort of take root. And I'm like, you know, Kelly Smith was there years and years ago. It's the nights that you all are catching up. Um and so I look at something like Prenda, I look at the micro school movement, but I remember Matt Candler, 4.0's um founder, he was writing about microschools 15 years ago, right? And to see them positioned as like the brand new shiny thing just kind of makes me like giggle inside.

SPEAKER_01 8:53

Right.

SPEAKER_02 8:53

Especially living in the Bay Area. And I know Prenda went through Y Combinator, you have some ties to Silicon Valley, you know, things move so much faster here. And so when I came back to 4.0 and looked around the education context, I was like, oh, we haven't moved very much. And so I I think it's a real disservice to parents and educators, and and of course students, right? That we are not keeping up with the pace of how fast culture moves, how fast technology moves. And so I think, you know, our goal is to get to a place where people can imagine not just through our programming and stuff we do, but actually have it be part of the way that they operate through life.

SPEAKER_01 9:33

That's beautiful. Okay, so you are actively challenging this imagination crisis by creating a space for people to imagine. And you're helping them actually develop the muscle of maybe breaking down some of those assumptions, looking beyond the the four walls of what they're used to. You guys have 2,500 schools that you've helped. I mean, so many people, including me. So lots of variety, lots of diversity. So you probably can't choose like a favorite, because you know, kid, you can't have like a favorite, a favorite kid. But can you point us to just some stories that that sort of exemplify, I mean, what are the kinds of things we're we should be thinking about when we think, okay, here's what the future of education might entail, right? We don't know for sure that this is, in fact, you'd be the first one to say this isn't the thing. This is a thing. This is an example of imagination that really breaks down what you know might maybe challenges some of our listeners to think differently about how education can work.

Favorite Innovations And Early Bets

SPEAKER_02 10:25

Yeah. You know, I'm trying to think about if I have a favorite like innovator or thing, and I'm like, uh, I don't know. That that gets sticky. I mean, that is one of my favorites, but I'll I'll say, I'll say why very quickly. Well, I've just been really, you know, impressed and just like, you know, just humbled by the way that you all have operated in terms of being able to pivot and take these small detours. This is something that in 4.0's kind of curriculum we talk about all the time. It's like, don't fall in love with your idea, fall in love with building something new that needs to be here, right? That actually has value in in greater society. And I think that's a piece that folks often like get stuck with. They're like, I love my idea, you know, this is gonna be the next like billion dollar company. And they start doing it and they hit all of these roadblock blocks and have a sort of inability to be resilient and kind of like committed throughout that process. So one of the things that we think about all the time is, you know, the phrase like eat your own dog food. I don't know who came up with that, but I felt like it was like this big design thinking startup y thing for a while. But this idea of like, what does it look like for 4.0 to eat its own dog food? Well, it means that we actually iterate. Right. And so we've gone through over 50 iterations of programming since 4.0 started. And when folks hear that, they're like, Do you all know not know what you're doing? And I'm like, no, quite the opposite. We're literally trying to move at the pace, again, of culture of like society. And without that, we will just continue to introduce these old ways of thinking, which goes back to your earlier question. It's like, why does everyone keep coming up with the same stuff? And I think a lot of it is exposure, a lot of it is practice. You don't get a lot of practice at creating, at imagining anything. Really, you get it in school as like a kid, you know, or on the playground. Yeah, or on the playground, exactly. And you know, we need a version of that for the most sort of committed people who want to see things change. I tell folks all the time the right person for 4.0 is some that we call change curious, right? They just are unhappy with whatever the status quo means to them. And I do think the thing that's really unique about us is we try to be, and I I hope we are because I am in this context, but just non-ideological.

SPEAKER_01 12:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:47

Right. Like our ideology is about imagination. And coming back into this space has been pretty disappointed to see how ideological some of these moves can be when in reality we should just be trying to build something positive for kids and families, right? And so, you know, I'll lay all that out and then go back to kind of a favorite innovation, favorite idea. Um I think it's mostly about favorite people. So you're one of my favorite people because as we talked about, the ideas actually change over time. And as we've gone through all of these iterations of programming, we've started to distill kind of our curriculum. Uh, we call it design dreaming, but it's basically the framework of looking at your assets that you have. So that might be, you know, where you went to school, it might be a personal skill, it might be social capital, it might be, you know, being really good at it some kind of instructional model and taking all of that, combining, you know, that set of assets with something that we call like a motivating question, right? So this is the thing that keeps you in it, you know, when you're spending all your savings, when no one is like picking up your product, like what actually keeps you here? Like what is that world you're moving towards? And you know, my favorite founders have been able to take their assets, catalog them properly, and then use them in service of something that feels purposeful to them, right? And gives them meaning. And so I think the folks that I've been most impressed by, they operate that way. They know what they know, they know what they don't know, and they use the resources they have and marshal them towards something of purpose and like meaning. Yeah. So I'd say obviously watching Prenda has been really awesome. I'm trying to think of some other folks that have just really impressed me with the newness in terms of uniqueness they brought to the space. Jonathan Johnson and Rooted School, I think, has done a really interesting job of focusing on a very specific need and opportunity for his community. And that's been around work around universal basic income. And so very early, and for those who don't know, Rooted School Foundation, I think that's what they're called now. But Rooted School is a charter school network, and I think they've got schools in uh New Orleans, Indianapolis, uh, Vancouver, Washington. So they're all over the country right now. But they they've got their sort of normal charter school. Young people are working towards some kind of industry certification and a college acceptance. So very like unique just from that level. But they did this offshoot, tested um this what they're calling a cash transfer pilot. And so essentially a universal basic income pilot putting cash directly in the hands of young people. It's very controversial at first. And I'm happy to say 4.0 invested a very minimal amount of money really early to see that happen. And that's super important, not to toot 4.0's horn too much, although that's what I'm supposed to be doing.

SPEAKER_01 15:40

That's your job.

Barely Better Thinking And Fear

SPEAKER_02 15:43

Having a really creative person who has been looking for resources to truly try something new that will benefit young people and their families and hearing those or no interests. And 4.0 can be the place that says yes. You know, I tell people all the time, 4.0 says yes before your mom does, you know. 4.0 like believes it believes in you first before your mom does, before, you know, your uh husband or wife or even kids potentially. And that is, you know, I think it's something that needs to be protected in this space. And I don't think we should hold this on our own. I think, you know, most people should want to say, hey, that's new. Like, let's make it work. So I would definitely say Jonathan's work there. And I want to say a couple of years ago, City of New Orleans actually invested, I want to say, a million bucks in it. People can fact check this. Um, a million bucks in it to make it the largest government-funded youth cash transfer pilot in the country, right? And that just came from like a really interesting idea from helping families and a minimal investment of tens of thousands of bucks, but it's made a huge difference. Uh so I, you know, things like that like are amazing. Obviously, what Prenda is doing is amazing. And I will say one of the things I loved about Prenda is you've helped people start to think about the opportunity very differently. And so anyone who's bringing either like a new business model, sometimes it's an instructional or school model or or something to the space, those are the folks I look up to the most because it's so easy to just incrementally build in the space. People have caught me saying this because this is a little bit about how I feel about the modern kind of ed reform innovation movement. I'll just like lump those together for a second. Um, I think we have an obsession with being barely better. Right. And it feels safer somehow.

SPEAKER_01 17:33

I think it feels safer, right? It's like, well, at least I don't have to defend this whole different thing. I can say, look, it's like that, but this, you know, but even entrepreneurs do this, and entrepreneurs are famous for being, you know, like supposedly risk takers. But, you know, you'll hear this in in Silicon Valley a lot. Like, we are the X for Y. We are the, you know, like the Airbnb for dog food or whatever. And people are like mixing up that it's it's really isn't incremental framing. It's saying, look, think of me this way that you already know. And there's reasons why like humans respond better to that. But I think to your point, and this is something, not to make this into a love fest, people, our listeners are going to be like, okay, this is too much, but that like the something you guys do. I mean, I've encountered lots of organizations that help educational, you know, entrepreneurs. And I felt like going into 4.0 schools, I almost expected indoctrination and rigidity because of the KIP background. And, you know, Matt was at KIP, I think you were at KIP. It's like these, you could show up and be like, everyone should be like Kip. And it was quite the opposite. It was like, forget about that. What does your community need? What, you know, what can you see? And I love this framing you're giving. Like, look, I hope people are at home listening. Start with your assets, like knowing yourself. These, this is what I've got. I know this, I know this. I'm deeply, I have this skill, I'm deeply committed to this, I know this community. And, you know, I think you take that, and then I love that you're coupling it with this, with this question, this animus that's just like, what if for me it was like, what if school actually empowered learners, right? The structure of school was about helping kids become these lifelong, powerful learners. And I had seen that in my after school program. So I was like, what would that look like if school was done that way? So that's it's a big, crazy question. And you're to your point, like, I don't think some of those people in my life that you listed, I'm not gonna name names on this podcast, but I don't think everybody saw it or believed it at the moment, right? It's it's like I saw it and and 4.0 schools agreed with me and said, yeah, there's something here, and I was piloting this in my house. That was a question that even though it's big and crazy, it's so motivating, right? Like still to this day, I'm this is almost 10 years later. I wake up every day obsessed with empowering learners because it's such a quest, right? It's like it almost has more emotional horsepower because of how big and crazy it is as an idea. And I think that's maybe counterintuitive. People think, okay, if I do a small one, at least then I'm like reducing my risk of failure or I'm somehow keeping safe. And then you slipped a third one in here, Nicole. And I I know you you guys talk about this, but it's this iterative persistence. It's like it's constantly in quest of improving. And you guys do that, you know, any successful organization. If you just stick rigidly on your initial idea, what's the quote from Mike Tyson? It's like everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face, right? It's like you're you inevitably are going to fail if you just stick on your original plan. So I'm just like trying to distill all this down because this is not just for you if you're out there trying to start a micro school or trying to start a new education establishment, which I hope you are. And it's very valuable advice if you're that. But if you're just like a person wanting to build a better life, do these things. Like find your assets, like find a motivating question that you're willing to wake up every day and you know, run out into traffic over and then keep going. Like you keep iterating, right? And and if you're willing to do that, you've got a recipe for a very successful, happy life, and the world's better off because of it. I'm not getting too that's that's probably too pie in the sky, but I just think there's so much wisdom in what you're saying that I wanted people to hear it.

Anti-Scale Culture And Impact First

Learner-Centric Design And New Voices

SPEAKER_02 21:06

I love it. I love it. I mean, look, let's just be really honest about kind of how I think some of the general sentiments in, you know, our country right now are going. Like there are a lot of people who I think have lost hope. And I think that it's it's really important for people to find something that helps them to stay optimistic. And I think building something is a really important, um, it is a really important skill to to like take on because it's about having a vision. It's about getting resources together, it's about building confidence over time. You know, when you sell your first product and you make that first five bucks or 10 bucks, like that is a feeling that nobody can kind of replace. Like it is such a unique and like special feeling. And so I tell people all the time that 4.0's role, particularly in this context right now, is to be the Hope hustlers. And you know, I look at something like what you've built. Look, folks, you know, you were building in like 20, 2018, 2017, even before that. It's like you've been able to do things like get VC funding from folks and and kind of, you know, set this sort of kind of approach that people can adapt to all over the country, right? And like look at your model. And so when I think about that, I'm like, that is possible because one person wanted to answer this one question and was willing to do what it took to get closer to that answer. And so it's that, you know, you mentioned the word quest. It's like that quest that is so powerful and so purposeful for people. And I do think in a time like this where people feel a lot of uncertainty, it's really important to find meaning and purpose in your work. And I think a lot of people can find that in the imagining a better world for them and for the people they care about and moving towards that. And you know, the other thing I would say about that is um people get obsessed with like what is school for question. But I have recently decided to never ask myself that question again. Um, because I think the reality is we live in a society with a bunch of different people who have a bunch of different values, have a bunch of different interests. And to to try to throw people in a sort of one size fits all or one standard for that, um, I don't actually think has been working for us. I think that's the reality. Yeah. Right? Like it's a very idealistic way to think, but it's just not working for everybody. Um I think that's the point. And that's why I think 4.0, you know, I came back to the organization. So I had um, I was a really early alumni. So I was around 15 years ago when it was just starting. And, you know, I left, I went into the fintech space, did that, and I decided to come back because there were so many changes happening in education. And people were so like worried. And I'm like, this is great, actually. This we could start something like new, like we can bring new energy here. And I think a 4.0 is like designed for a moment like this where there is some uncertainty, and depending on who you ask, some people are happy like structurally and see opportunity, and and some people, you know, feel the exact opposite. And I think what our role is, is to welcome all of those voices and say, if you don't like something, build something better. And say that and like believe that they can, right? So I think that there's there's a difference there. And we believe because we've been putting together, you know, this community, this curriculum, these opportunities, and we've seen them work. And of course, people are gonna fall off. That's fine. But the ones that don't have literally made a palpable kind of mark in their space. We were just doing some research on this, and for like a alum, oh, I'm gonna ruin this like a little bit, but we've we've done small investments to date. So we've probably invested a little over five million, maybe six million dollars over time. And in terms of financial impact, so this can be follow-on revenue, this can uh follow on funding, this can be revenue, all that stuff. I mean, our impact's I think over$1.4 billion. And so when you think about just how early, and unfortunately, we don't have a model that helps us benefit from that, but that's okay. But you know, if we were early VCs, if we were pre seed our seed stage, um massive return, and then just like the societal impact of this stuff, right? So there's like societal in terms of education, and there's the financial impact where we just talked about, but there's also again the imagination and creative impact, right? Like there is a school network that exists that didn't before because of 4.0. Yeah, right. It's obviously because of the innovator, but getting started that early and and folks leave. And so there's there's been like private equity funds, yeah, there's been huge CG companies, all of this built by 4.0 alum who um, you know, I've I've seen kind of bring these um these values that we have or try to espouse into what their work is and their industry now. Yeah. And so I think that's just a really important thing to think about. Like, how do we get more of this? How do we move people towards port purpose and meaning and and like let them play, let them try things, let them build confidence.

AI As Jet Fuel For Implementation

SPEAKER_01 26:26

Here's what's coming to mind as you talk because I think it's too easy to focus on things that are measurable and clear. So even these numbers, like these are astonishing numbers. Every philanthropist I know would be thrilled to put in five or six million dollars and get 1.5 billion out in terms of that's actually measurable, monetized, you know, you know, contribution to the world. But I think what's amazing is I think the danger there is that people see those, the scoreboard and they think, okay, I have to do it that way. I think I've met so many people that don't think that way. They just say, what I want is for these 10 kids in my house or wherever I am, that in my church, to like become this type of human, right? To see themselves. For example, if you're if you're 12 or 13 years old and you're already talking about your assets, like what you're born with and what comes easy to you and what you're interested in, and you know yourself to that level. Socrates said, like, know thyself. That's like step one of all of this. So if you're aware of what you've got to work with, what you've got to bring to the table, that's that's incredibly valuable and it's not going to show up on any of these measurements, you know. And I think it's important to just say that out loud. I'm thinking of an example from 4.0 schools. You guys put me in touch with uh a mentor. She's in Atlanta. Her name's Michaela Streeter. Michaela's an incredible person, and she really did change the whole trajectory and infused just perspective and heart into my work that I'll just always be grateful to her for. But I've actually since then pointed people back to her school. It's called the Life School in Atlanta, and the work she's doing in her community there. It's like it's like as each person encounters her and her work, and they just grab just a little bit of that, whether it's an idea here or an inspiration there, you know, that's impossible to measure. I mean, this is literally that, you know, you're talking about this pandemic of of hope or this deficiency that that we're all you know, kind of feeling in the world. But when you do that, it not only benefits you, there's the measurable stuff, but there's this much larger impact that you're having. And so the world needs you. If you're out there thinking, I can't build, I mean, Nicole's saying build something, but what does that even mean? It's like it doesn't have to be like build a venture-backed microscopy. I don't think there should be lots and lots of those, like, you know, some number of them. But like I think, but build something, like build a life, build a relationship, build a contribution in your community. It doesn't actually matter. And interestingly, it's not any of those numbers that when I'm having my moments of joy in this work that I'm reflecting on. It's when I meet a human that's impacted by this work. It's when I reflect on, you know, just having impact in in people's lives. I mean, doing good and and contributing is is really what it's all about. And so uh yeah, anyway, it's it's just exciting to think about all this. And I just want to sort of celebrate the work again. I mean, I feel like this is just such an important thing to be doing. And uh I hope everybody that's flagging in motivation is getting pumped up as they're listening right now. It's like, yeah, we need you. We need you and all of your friends. So let's get this, let's get this going.

SPEAKER_02 29:27

Yeah, well, thank you. I mean, tell your friends, everybody who's listening, especially your funder friends. That'd be great.

SPEAKER_01 29:32

Go sign up. Sign up for 4.0 schools, support the project.

SPEAKER_02 29:36

Yes, please do. But you know, one of the things I was I was just writing some stuff down, um, and you were talking about Michaela. I think one of the things that's really powerful is that there's a compounding effect that exists here.

SPEAKER_01 29:48

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 29:49

Right. And so I do think we need more organizations and more communities, more writing. It could be anything, just more content, just more, more, more of building human connectivity. I think that's probably even more important now in like the age of AI. And when I think about creating ideas, right? Like we want as many ideas out there because we think more ideas leads to bolder ideas, right? Bolder ideas can lead to, you know, more interesting like visions for the future for people. And also, like there's just higher integrity innovation. Like when we actually have a variety of ideas, a variety of viewpoints, like we can have higher integrity, more interesting innovation in this space. And again, I'm gonna keep hearkening back to Silicon Valley. Silicon Valley definitely has its issues, but the belief that you can do something disruptive is par for the course. It's it's part of like a cultural mentality here.

SPEAKER_01 30:43

Right.

SPEAKER_02 30:43

And going back to education, it's like, what if we had that mentality in education? You know what I mean? What if people just wanted, just saw a much, much bigger vision for what's possible? And so that's something I think about. And I love what you just said about like building a relationship. Like you don't have to build this huge venture scale thing. And I think that's been a bit of the problem in our space, where everybody's like, this is gonna be the thing that I exit, and I'm gonna be super rich. And like, yeah, sure, that might happen and that's a possibility.

SPEAKER_01 31:16

Right.

SPEAKER_02 31:17

But I do think the obsession with sort of scaling has actually pulled us away from being obsessed with like impact or like we conflate the two.

SPEAKER_00 31:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:26

Right. In a way that I actually think um hasn't helped us as much as it could.

unknown 31:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:31

Right.

Final Challenge And How To Join

SPEAKER_02 31:31

So when you mentioned like KIPP and Teach for America, I mean Matt's claimed to fame, Matt Caller's claim to fame one of them. Uh he's got many, I think, is start was the he was the first KIP's chief growth officer. That's right. He was the first uh chief growth officer at the organization. You know, the organization is is known for its scale all over the country. And so it's a really interesting role to play and to come back and build something like 4.0, which is not necessarily anti-scale, but I would say like pro-impact, right?

SPEAKER_01 32:01

Let's let's talk about this because I I've literally heard you say anti-scale before, Nicole. And I want you to sort of like what is the actual vision? And I think we're giving words to things that people don't understand. So give us a concrete that's a good call out.

SPEAKER_02 32:15

Anti-scale can be controversial in our space. So thank you for letting me explain myself here. You know, when I think about anti-scale, what I'm really talking about is not being like against scale, but being against sort of like the culture that is super focused on scale. Because I think it often comes with scaling before folks are ready. Right. And so there's a trade-off with like impact and like reaching other people. And that's just true. I mean, you know, when you when you have one kid, you can spend all your time with that kid. That is free. Once you have more kids, you know this, it is much harder to do everything at the same time, right? Like these are just like basic understandings. And I think we've tried to abstract them away from like what we already know as people. But the reality is, you know, the more kids in a class, the harder it is to serve in terms of like impact. You know, the more schools you have around the country, the harder it is to give sort of attention. And it's not bad, right? But it requires an infrastructure that can allow you to, you know, get the same level of quality in school one as school ten. And when you can't, I do think 4.0's way, our mentality is to look back and and ask yourself, was that actually your intention? Right? Was your intention to diminish quality over time? Now like again, this gets controversial because it's like if you have a good school, you should put it everywhere because everyone deserves a good school. And all of those things are true, right? But I I think where I'm coming from is there is a world where people can have different interests and see different visions for the schools that are building, the products that are building, and that's okay. Actually, we need that. And it's actually more reflective of society than everybody using one thing. And so the reason, one of the many reasons at 4.0 is we don't, again, we don't like go out there and say we're anti-scale, you shouldn't scale things. It's much more about being pro-impact and saying you can scale, but don't become anti-impact in the process, right? Impact first. Exactly. Stay impact first. Yeah. So that I think is a um a big part of it. And when you were talking about Michaela and this sort of building relationships and just build something, that is so vital to just everything, like society to confidence. Like building these connections matters, building a school or a product that certainly can matter as well. But I think the goal is to like keep momentum going. Yeah. In service of bringing something new or bringing something valuable to a community of people. Cause in turn, you'll feel it yourself. Like you mentioned, some of your best days are about things that some people would consider small.

SPEAKER_01 35:03

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 35:04

And if people are definitely keeping you going.

SPEAKER_01 35:07

If if people are out there thinking, hey, this is the way to make lots of money, I'll just maybe give a little hint here. I've been at it for 10 years, and prend has been pretty successful as far as this industry goes. And uh I drive a Honda Civic. It starts every time, so you know it's a good car. But I'm just just so you know, like this isn't necessarily your ticket. You may you may go look at FinTech or something if you're really about like make the most money. But thankfully, there's so much good, so much good that can be done. Um, Nicole, that that was really helpful clarification, and I I 100% agree with you. I I love how you're focusing on that and building around each founder and and each community that needs to be done. And in fact, in some ways, I see Prenda's work is very similar, finding someone in a community that sees a need, they're gonna bring their own spin, their own take. Prenda tries to give them tools and resources, but they start a micro school that's actually gonna look different than the one down the street or the one in the next town over. Talk about, you know, I've heard you talk about learner-centric. This is maybe one idea of this that kind of permeates everything, is saying, you know, if you if you can start with that learner, whatever you're making. I mean, somebody in my 4.0 cohort was doing like children's books about the history of Baltimore. It was really like fascinating stories and interesting stuff. Somebody was doing like full-on like self-directed unschooling in Brooklyn, and someone was doing a charter school. And, you know, you had all these different people that were doing different things, and yet all of them did seem to have this in common, this idea of let's focus on a human at the other end of this. You know, you say impact first. Can you can you just elaborate a little bit on what it means to design that way and and what the benefits are?

SPEAKER_02 36:43

Yeah, it's just easier. And this is like this isn't actually a really practical matter in some ways. Um, I think some of this was pulled from the sort of tech startup kind of scene for a while, but just focusing on a a user that you can really, really benefit.

SPEAKER_01 37:01

Right.

SPEAKER_02 37:01

And making um a a commitment to helping them solve a problem or presenting an opportunity to them, right? It's just again, I think these are just like very practical skills. Right. When you're writing a letter, you address it to a person. Right. And so there's things like that where they just like they activate different parts of your brain. Like a conversation with you and I is gonna be very different than a conversation I have with someone I haven't known, you know. I I just met like, you know, yesterday. And so this idea that we would want to to activate kind of our full scope of experience and focus that on a particular challenge or opportunity, I think is actually just a good practical way to approach things super early.

SPEAKER_00 37:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 37:45

So it makes sense to to remind everyone that 4.0 is very early, like an idea on a napkin early. Right. And you might not even have an idea, we'll still let you in and give you some money to develop it, right? So it's really about helping people activate these ways of thinking in these ways and these skill sets that they will actually need later.

unknown 38:05

Right.

SPEAKER_02 38:05

And so a lot of ways I think of our work is entrepreneurial or leadership development. Yeah. Right. Like, how do you deal with a rejection? How do you design something low stakes? How do you stay focused on like the main mission over time? A lot of folks are getting into different programs or there's different opportunities where they haven't built any of these skills in a way that's been structured, right? So they get in and then all of a sudden they've got to start a company, but they've they've never built a budget before. And then you you start getting like spam emails where people are like, hey, I just saw you raised around. Do you need a XYZ? And it's just so easy to get sucked into this kind of crazy ecosystem. And so, you know, starting with a learner is again just like starting with a user and being very focused on that experience. And then more practically, for like learners who are like students, so if we're talking about students and young people, their world is vastly different than often most people really understand who are designing for them.

SPEAKER_00 39:05

Right.

SPEAKER_02 39:06

And when I look around our space, I see a lot of the same names. And this is not necessarily a problem, but our space has has done a pretty poor job, in my opinion, of welcoming more folks in to compete, right? It almost feels like, again, I said I wasn't gonna get political, but I'm gonna get a little political here. It feels like Congress a little bit. Congress is the term like limit here. Um fine, if we're gonna have, you know, some thought leaders from the past here, I love that. I think there's a lot to learn from folks who've seen some of this work, but again, we do need to be very conscious about opening up an opportunity for more people to come in. And so, how does that connect with sort of a a learner-centric model? They are the most connected to the experience that we want to impact, right? And so it would behoove us to really try to connect and and build with them. And I actually think, you know, with your clubs and then going on to do Prenda, I mean, that is sort of like the instinct and like the ethos there.

SPEAKER_01 40:07

Eating the dog food. Well, yeah, I mean, the the ultimate vision that I'm getting from all of this is maybe there's a day coming where it's the kids actually reaching out to Prenda and starting the microschool, right? And that would be mostly it's adults right now, but it's maybe a parent or a teacher that knows kids, which is amazing. I think it would be one step closer to really start with that young learner and say, I mean, you imagine a 10-year-old saying, Hey, I want school to be different, and I found this thing online and I'm, you know, I'm starting my own microschool, and I had to recruit a teacher for my microschool, and I had to, you know, work out the scholarship with the state and all these things. But it could be done. It's it's kind of fascinating and exciting. Well, I I absolutely I want to shift gears one more time because you mentioned AI briefly. We're crazy world. Seems like all people can talk about. Can you just briefly share? I've I've heard you talk about this before. I just think you have an interesting take on interesting take on tech generally, you know, AI specifically. And you know, what how does this fit in? How should we be thinking about AI in the world of education and learning?

SPEAKER_02 41:08

Ooh, I don't really have an answer to like that one, but you said something pretty critical in that, which is it's all people can talk about. That I think will I connect back to the first piece around imagination. You know, if AI is the only thing we can talk about, we're not really using our brain to its full capacity right now. So that that's where I might frame it. I think about AI as just jet fuel for some of the stuff that we're talking about, right? Because we can now build faster, which means we can test faster. We can also, you know, again, scale if that's the path faster. We can do all of these things faster, right? And then I'm gonna just keep bringing it back to the imagination thing. And what we what we really need to do is imagine faster, right? If our capacity to build is going up a thousand X, two thousand, five thousand X potentially, right? But if it's growing that much, our ability to imagine what's possible for people actually needs to be running at a trajectory that's actually like increasing, right? And I think right now it's not. And that's why I've been so adamant and it feels like an epiphany for me. I came in being like, we can build faster, we can deploy capital faster. And instead I had to take a step back and say, like, but we're not imagining fast enough to put those tools to good use, right? And, you know, we we even met or I mentioned earlier the micro schools and having Matt kind of talk about these 15 years ago. Have you, you know, working on these things 10 years ago essentially, um, we we need to be moving faster, right? We need to actually be moving faster, which again requires us to be able to imagine what's possible in a more rigorous way. And so all of it comes back to the thing that I've finally just I've relinquished myself to saying we're in imagination crisis. And um Jared, this guy Jared Joyner, who's who's wonderful, did our essentials program uh we did in Oakland a couple months ago. And I got to have coffee with him. Another big value of this like huge community, everyone is so interesting and so committed to what they're doing. And he was like, Yeah, our uh our tagline for some of my work is imagination to implementation. And I'm just like, yes, can we steal that? I'll give you credit. This is me giving him credit. But I think like that's where we need to go. And I think AI, you know, I would bucket on, of course it can help imagine, but I'll come back to that in a second. But I would see AI's utility really in helping us implement better, faster, cheaper, um, you know, more efficiently. The imagination, I do think we need to preserve a human part of this. You know what I mean? Because AI will take us to the mean, right? And the average.

SPEAKER_01 43:51

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 43:51

But we can come up with a thousand ideas. And we might get one that feels truly, truly different and unheard of. Of. Yeah. But humans can do that much, much faster now, right? So I think it's about separating um and using tools the way they're supposed to be used. And I think for us, our brain tool is supposed to be used to imagine and we've let that atrophy off a lot of it.

SPEAKER_01 44:15

No, no, no. This is great. I'm I'm getting so excited. I mean, I want everybody to, and I wish we could talk for another hour. I I want everybody listening to, you know, if you're if you're willing to do this, right, instead of going to Chat GPT or your favorite AI tool and say, imagine for me, right? Come up with some ideas. You imagine you say, hey, robot, here's something I've been thinking about. And then, and then you literally tell the robot, I want, I want to talk about this with you. I want you to take it seriously and engage with me on it. It'll actually force your thinking and deepen it as a kind of a thought partner. And then at the end of that chat, I want you to say these words, I'm worried that my imagination is too limited. Will you challenge me? Make sure to challenge me on my imagining. Because that is, like you say, fundamentally human. I agree with you. I think, you know, they say looking for the bottlenecks or the scarcity or the thing in the system that's that's maybe the weak spot. And I think everybody's so obsessed with capital and tools and a tech and all these things. And it's like, it could be, you know, like what you're saying is that this the scarcity, the constraining factor, the bottleneck in all of this is humans stepping up and doing what humans do best, which is, you know, watch any five-year-old, like imagination is so innate in us, it's there, and yet we talk ourselves out of it. And I guess I would just add my piece to it, which is adding the courage to do it, right? To just give yourself the permission to think about things differently, to ask questions. Because people are, I don't know whether that's you know, being shushed at school or what, but people are are afraid to do it. And uh, and so have the courage, ask the questions, and do that imagination. And whatever that looks like, there's not a wrong answer here. You know, you could dream up and build whatever you want. And even if it's just fake for right now, you're just engaging in in thinking about it, talking, talking to others, including robots, which that's where it kind of gets interesting. But I would definitely talk to humans too. And now you're in this world of of building it at some level. Doesn't mean you have to drop everything, quit your day job, risk, you know, your your house and your mortgage and everything. But like taking those steps is going to bring meaning and purpose to your life, and you're gonna learn things that you never expected was possible. Nicole, give us give us your like final yeah, your final remarks here as people hopefully are feeling the feeling the call to action.

SPEAKER_02 46:31

I'll add something just to what you said because I thought it was really beautifully said, but you know, all of it is fake until it's real.

SPEAKER_01 46:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 46:39

And it reminds me, because I have to thank you for being on our podcast. Season one. And I finally got these in the mail, but we ended up winning, I think you knew this, a three signal award. So these are these are hefty big boys here. So this one is actually for best new podcasts. And the reason I actually wanted to bring it up is because that was just an idea to tell stories and just a hunch, just just an idea that like there were people out there that wanted to hear these stories. Yeah. Right. So, and you know how this went down. It was me asking for a ton of favors and then hodging people together and to see it internationally recognized. And again, this it's not me. I'm barely in it, thank goodness. But it was so resonant with an international audience that wanted to hear this. And so when I say that this is the only place that can truly bring bring people from all different backgrounds, different interests, different viewpoints together to create something, like I mean it. And I and I think that that to me starts to serve as a foundational proof that our work matters, that people believe in creators, they believe in like people who are imagining. And this has exponential like opportunity. And so my my final kind of message is if you're change curious in any way, just build something, take a chance. And then the work stuff, look us up 4.0.org, pt0. And just check out all the stuff that we're doing. We're again trying to eat our own dog food. So we're launching contests all the time. We're trying to have people tell their stories, introduce folks to each other. So just be part of a movement that's about hope and making things better.

SPEAKER_01 48:18

So exciting, Nicole. And we will put all the links and everything in the show notes so people have them. Thank you again for joining us on the podcast. Thanks for being here. Thanks everybody for listening. And we wish you the very best as you take the courage to be imaginative and build something. So have a great day.

SPEAKER_00 48:33

Thanks, Kelly. The Kindled Podcast is brought to you by Prenda. Prenda makes it easy to start and run an amazing microschool based on all the ideas we talk about here on the Kindled Podcast. Don't forget to follow us on social media at PrendaLearn. And if you'd like more information about starting a microschool, just go to Prenda.com. Thanks for listening and remember to keep Kindling.