Episode 94: Recentering the Family. A Conversation with Matt Beaudreau.

We talk with Matt Beaudreau about why kids are born motivated and how schools and homes can accidentally train that drive into distraction and compliance. We dig into microschools, family sovereignty, and practical ways to build capable young people through autonomy, clear boundaries, and real responsibility. 

• Matt’s origin story and learning to “play school” without learning self 
• Why microschools focus on kids over politics and bureaucracy 
• Apogee’s mission of building sovereign families through responsibility and self-leadership 
• A simple daily structure: academics, fitness, and passion projects 
• How lowered expectations for “teenagers” drains agency and maturity 
• Creating rites of passage that make kids feel alive and capable 
• Using mastery-based ed tech with intentional boundaries and strong culture 
• Coaching conversations that replace tech whack-a-mole and surveillance 
• Advice for parents who feel stuck in traditional school: move yourself forward and bring your child along 

About our guest
Matt Beaudreau is a globally recognized consultant and coach who partners with organizations ranging from Fortune 500 companies like Wells Fargo, Honeywell, and Lockheed Martin to leading brands such as American Eagle, Cedars-Sinai, and the United States Air Force. A two-time featured TEDx speaker and recipient of Stanford University’s Corporate Trainer of the Year award, Matt is known for helping teams unlock performance, leadership, and lasting cultural transformation.

In 2017, Matt founded his first private school centered on self-directed learning, with a mission to develop confident, independent young people grounded in strong character and personal responsibility. Since then, he has helped launch multiple campuses around the world, expanding his impact and championing a new vision for education rooted in autonomy, mastery, and purpose.

Connect with Matt
Apogee Strong
Apogee Strong Podcast

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.

Got a burning question?
We're all ears! If you have a question or topic you'd love our hosts to tackle, please send it to podcast@prenda.com. Let's dive into the conversation together!

Important links:
• Connect with us on social
• Get our free literacy curriculum

Interested in starting a microschool?
Prenda provides all the tools and support you need to start and run an amazing microschool. Create a free Prenda World account to start designing your future microschool today. More info at ➡️ Prenda.com or if you're ready to get going ➡️ Start My Microschool

Transcript

Kids Are Born Motivated

SPEAKER_01 0:00

I I personally believe, and I'm always glad to, I'm glad to be wrong, but I very much believe I've never met an unmotivated child as far as like how they come out. They're motivated to do something. They're motivated to go after something. They're curious about something, but we allow for environments where those things don't need to be fostered. Like we're not setting that expectation.

The Game Of School

SPEAKER_00 0:27

Hi, and welcome to the Kindle Podcast. I'm Katie Bradbett, your host for today. And I'm so excited about this episode. I just got off talking to Matt Baudreau, and I am like on fire about life and our mission, that printa, and all sorts of things. And I can't wait for you to just soak in this episode. It's really great. Let me tell you a little bit more about Matt before we jump into our conversation. So he is a consultant, a coach to organizations around the world with clients that include Wells Fargo, Honeywell, Lockheed Martin to American Eagle, Cedar Sinai, and the United States Air Force. He is a two-time featured TEDx speaker, and he was named Corporate Trainer of the Year at Stanford University. If you haven't seen his TEDx talks, definitely go check them out. In 2017, Matt founded his first private school with an emphasis on self-direction and cultivating confident, independent young people with a strong sense of character and personal responsibility. He's since helped to open multiple campuses around the world. You can learn more about that at apogeeStrong.com slash apogee schools. He also runs a podcast called Apogee Strong that you should definitely check out. So I'm super excited to share this conversation with you. Let's go talk to Matt. Matt Boudreau.

SPEAKER_01 1:36

Boudreaux. All of it. All of it.

SPEAKER_00 1:39

Welcome to the Kindled Podcast. We're super excited to have you. And um, I'm just like excited to learn from you today. So my first like question for you is just like take us back. Like, what's your origin story?

SPEAKER_01 1:50

Well, you know what's funny? So I will take you to where I was four years old. And I'm I promise I'm not gonna walk people from four to 40. How old am I now? 46. So I'm not gonna go through 42 years, but I will tell you at four years old, so I'm a November baby. So I started kindergarten at four. And I remember very clearly sitting in this kindergarten class and being grouped and sat at this table, and I went, okay, they're grouping us by ability. I remember recognizing that pattern. I remember like, okay, the blue group over here, like those kids can't read. And then you've got the yellow group over here. They can read a little better, the green group's a little better than them, and we're the red group because all of us can read well. Interesting. And by third grade, I remember thinking, oh, I've got this school thing figured out. I'm not that smart, but I saw the pattern of all of those things. So I do say that's kind of an origin story, right? Because I saw early on the game of school. So, you know, I was a quintessential straight A student, not because I was that smart, because I knew what the teachers wanted to hear. Went to college and got my straight A's there because that's what you're supposed to do, and left there and went, cool. I got no idea who I am. I have no idea how to offer anything of value to the world, you know, and and luckily I at least had work ethic. And so I ended up at Stanford University and working there, where I saw kids, young adults, who were a lot smarter than I ever was, and still struggled with the same thing. They could play school really, really well. And that was really the the push for me to get into education. I still didn't know what I didn't know, but I made it, you know, my goal at that point as a young 20-something. All right, I'm gonna go into education and see what I can do to help fix this problem of playing school for school's sake, but not having it translate into something that brings value to the real world. So that's really where it all kind of started for me.

SPEAKER_00 3:37

Yeah. So then so you got into education, what is like 2017?

SPEAKER_01 3:43

You started your first private school, or that's when I started my first school, but I went into I went from Stanford to public school first. Cause again, I didn't know. So I became a public school teacher.

SPEAKER_00 3:55

I did not know this about you. That's so interesting.

From Public Schools To Microschools

SPEAKER_01 3:57

Yep. So I've got the full, kind of the full gamut, right? So started the higher education, and then yeah, I was a public school teacher, became a public school administrator, and I went, oh, okay, cool. Well, this is about politics and about money. And I'm we're not really talking about kids to the level I'd like to be talking about. So I went to private schools, private school teacher, private school administrator, and went, cool, we're playing the same game here in a lot of ways. And so that's when I left. Because at that point, I had young kids of my own that were entering the school system, and my oldest was getting ready to go in. And that's when I went, okay, I've I've got it, I've got to start building something else. Uh and so that was my first foray into smaller micro schools. It was in 2000, 2017.

SPEAKER_00 4:37

Yeah, and we didn't even call them micro schools back then, right? Like the word microschools.

SPEAKER_01 4:42

It was kind of kicked around, sort of, you know, or some people would kind of do the quotes around it, but um, that was really it. But we got to connect with some of the early pioneers that, you know, I've obviously been following Prenda forever and got to connect with some of the early pioneers. I know you've had Michael Strong and and uh you know Carrie McDonald, and of course I talked to Peter Gray, you know, a ton, and some of these early folks are Ken Robinson before he passed, and John Taylor Gotto before he passed, and some of my heroes, you know, in this space. And so it was just like, hey, let's figure this out together, and we're connecting through online forums and let's see what we can do. It's the it was the best, man, and it's still the best. So we built a few campuses in California, and but now these last four years, man, we're helping other people build the micro school of of their dreams in this kind of apogee model, but they also have flexibility to to really kind of do their own thing. So we've had over a hundred schools launch in these last four years we've been doing this.

SPEAKER_00 5:34

So it's been the best, man.

SPEAKER_01 5:37

And we've been watching you guys like crazy too.

SPEAKER_00 5:39

So well, we're all I feel like it's all the same mission, right? Like we're all there for the kids. That is something that is like pervasive. Like, no matter who you talk to in this space, like the conversations are about the kids and not about the politics. I mean, we do talk a lot about like the funding and like you know, policy that enables us to care about the kids, right? But like that is something that I just feel like is very pervasive throughout the microschool movement and everyone in the space.

SPEAKER_01 6:03

Is such the through line. I mean, it really is the through line. And and you know, I always like to preface these conversations for anybody that listens too. It's we are, you know, I've said things where I see how people can take it, like, oh, he's anti-public school. And I've said things where I I look back and go, man, I wish I could have softened the edge on that a little. Like, I don't love the system, but I love the people. I love the kids that are there, I love the good teachers that are there, the families that are there. Man, I support all of them. And what I love, what you mentioned, is all of us in this kind of micro school movement, we don't have to deal with some of the other things that are inherently built into that system. We can just focus our time, energy, and effort on the kids. You know, and it's that's a beautiful thing.

SPEAKER_00 6:48

And I want that so badly for other educators. I like I so I actually run a middle school, micro school out of my house this year. So I'm had a thorning apprenda and I've helped like since 2018. And then I'm just like, I want to do this in my house. I I guided early on when we were developing our K2 program, and now we're developing high school, so I'm I'm guiding middle school so I could like shepherd kids older. And it is like such a joyful way to educate and to do life and to parent even. And it's like, oh, I just want this for so many people. And we talked to so many educators who are like feeling the burden of like carrying the system and things like that. And like they, you don't go into public education because you want to support a system, you go into public education for children, right? And then the system kind of like gets in the way a little bit, right? And so I just want so badly for all educators, everyone who has this intention and this desire to like support young humans in our communities to be able to do that with freedom.

SPEAKER_01 7:45

Same, same. And it's so it's so you know, you probably talk to a lot of the the public educators like I do, and we'll have conversations or they'll send me messages or send DMs or send emails. And it's this interesting mix of people who go, Man, I got into this for all the right reasons, but I am so disenfranchised, I'm out and like I'm never coming back, right? So you get this mix of that where it's that's heartbreaking in and of itself. And I think last time I checked in California where I'm from originally, I mean, it was something like it was over 50% of new teachers were leaving the profession within three years, never to come back. I mean, it was that drastic. And so, like, that's heartbreaking, just as heartbreaking, if not maybe even more so, sometimes is I get the educators are like, I'm broken by this, I don't love this, I wish I didn't have to do this anymore, and I'm just sticking it out because I've got a pension, I've got a you know, fill in the blank kind of thing. And then they're showing up burnt out for the kids that are exactly, you know, and so all of these things, man, are just they're heartbreaking, and I don't pretend I've got the answers on how to fix all those things. I just know I want to build something that helps somebody.

Building Sovereign Families

SPEAKER_00 8:49

For sure, for sure. So take me through like Apogee's mission, back up like from first principles, like what are you doing differently and why?

SPEAKER_01 8:59

Yeah. The the message that we send is that we want to build sovereign families. And when I say families, I mean the entire family. Um, and so people ask us to define that, which is, you know, Socrates says the beginning of wisdom is the definition of terms, right? So when we're talking about sovereignty, we are talking about building people who are personally responsible, who they who understand how to lead themselves, who understand how to lead others without having to devolve into chaos or the other end of the spectrum, which is like micromanagement. Right. And so we see that as the type of human we want to build, and we want to do that for the entire family. So we've got the K through 12s or really K through university options for our kids, but every parent who has their child at one of our campuses also comes through the men's and the women's program where we are mentoring them and we are bringing these mentors in from outside that are you know just ninjas in their field of expertise to pour into the parents so we can say, hey, we want you to continue to grow too. Because at the end of the day, we believe you're the primary educator in your child's life. It's not us. We're there partnering with you on the side, you know, and so we're building our campuses with that kind of premise. So that's the overarching mission. And so then on our campuses, it's about building an environment that can facilitate that and foster that. So um, you know, we have a very simple schedule of a couple hours of a academic block, a couple hours of a free time/slash physical fitness block. We're very fitness oriented and very fitness heavy, and then a couple hours of a passion project or a collaborative project block. Um, and it's been wildly effective. I mean, we've got kids graduating, you know, a young lady just graduated high school with her bachelor's degree, because that's what she wanted to do. She got them both. Um, just got into her first choice of med school. We've got kids operating six-figure businesses while they're in high school. And, you know, we've got everything, and I'm not saying everybody does that, but everybody learns who they are and where they want to go uh and what they want to do. And so we help individualize those plans. You know, it's not unlike a lot of the amazing microschools out there in that way.

SPEAKER_00 11:12

Yeah, there are some like really common uh like fundamentals that you'll see in microschools. And I think it's so interesting because like a lot of us are just like following our gut, right? Like this just makes sense. This is like how to treat other humans in a respectful way, which the traditional approach to education doesn't really treat kids like full humans. It's like, hey, your job is to sit here and passively receive and to obey, essentially. And if we want to have kids who are active participants in their life and to have an identity and know what how they want to participate, like we have to treat them differently. And that leads you to projects and mastery and things like that. So I think that's why you see so many commonalities, which is great because like it's substantiating a new norm where it's like, hey, if like these principles that we are that are now available to us in the 21st century, which weren't necessarily available throughout history, right? Now are available to us. And I mean, some of them were, but not all of them. Um it's very difficult to do like mastery-based learning without a computer or without the internet, like access to knowledge, right? Like things have substantially changed in the last 50, 100 years, and we can do a lot of things now that weren't possible, which is a loss, another, another reason I have a profound respect for the public educator, right? Because it's like for a long time, like like public education was a huge boon to society and has like raised tons of people out of poverty and like equalized so many things, right? It's been a good thing, but it's just failed to evolve and like to change.

Rethinking Teens And Expectations

SPEAKER_01 12:38

Gosh, I would say it's almost evolved. You know, it's become even more narrow in its scope and more narrow in its focus. And the irony is, or the paradox is what you outlined. You know, now they no longer are the gatekeepers to knowledge. Knowledge is freely available. Anything and everything you want to learn is freely available to everybody. And as that has gone on, that has become more narrowed in the public school, you know, system. And then also culturally, we've lowered our expectations for what kids are capable of. Yeah. That's been an interesting thing too. It's it was very interesting to me to find out, you know, uh, it was like 1944, the term teenager was invented. Like it was Yes, this is so fascinating. Right. Like that's fascinating. Prior to that, you had these rites of passage, and you had, but there were just you were considered a young adult, and there were expectations, right? There were just expectations around that because it was identified that you were capable, and it's like we've lost that. We go, okay, teenager, you're incapable. You're we like to talk about the brain, you know, that oh, you're not fully developed yet, and all of a sudden you're incapable now. Okay, cool. Well, the DNA hasn't changed. People were doing amazing things at 12, 14, 17. They can still do that. Our expectations have changed. And so when we put those expectations back and say, hey, we know you're capable, we're gonna be right here with you, but we're gonna put you in these scenarios to build personal responsibility and agency and see what you can do and go create more than you consume. And we eliminate the distractions because those are that's another thing that's changed. There's more of those distractions, right? But if we pull those back, man, they realize they can do some some amazing things.

SPEAKER_00 14:23

So I think an interesting thing for us to explore here is motivation, right? So we have this like we used to have the equation in education was people wanted to learn because it was like really clear like if you had education, then you could your life improved substantially, right? But then there was this bottleneck in getting access to information. So you had to have money, you had to have tutors, you have to all that was a bottleneck, it was the other way. Now it's like totally flipped where we have infinite information and like almost no motivation to consume or like to like to partake in that because life to a certain degree has gotten a lot easier. And our the connection between my quality of life and my education is like the cause and effect window on that is like really wide, really far, wouldn't you say? Like my I can still live my like middle class, like third, like first world life with my cell phone as a teenager and not have any responsibility and things like that. No one's asking me to run a farm or like my mom tells this interesting story about her grandmother, who her mom had to like go on this big, like she left for the whole day. And this girl was at home and she was 10. And she decided she was gonna do the laundry when while her mom was gone. And uh which involved boiling large pots of hot water and like kindling the fire and like all of these intense things that we would like never let a 10-year-old do these days in like safety culture. And she came, her mom came home and she had done the entire everyone in the whole family's laundry. And her mom looked at her and said, Wow, you can do the work of a woman. And like that was the biggest, like like had a such a huge effect on her because she was seen as as capable and a contributor in the adult world. That's what she was gunning for. And that's lost. Like it in this, like you're a teenager, you're not a young adult. Like that, it's been lost. Like the identity, the the cultural identity of our youth has been lost and misaligned. So they've lost their internal drive to like be seen as adults as capable, largely because of what you said. Like we've changed the narrative.

SPEAKER_01 16:21

We've changed the narrative. So this is where it's super. I'm so glad you told I love that stuff. I got chill, like I love that story, man. Um and I do think that's the bigger issue, is that we've changed the narrative. I I personally believe, and I'm always glad to, I'm glad to be wrong, but I'm glad for people to push back on this. But I very much believe I've never met an unmotivated child when as far as like how they come out. They're motivated to do something. They're motivated to go after something, they're curious about something, but we allow for environments where those things don't need to be fostered. They can slip into entertainment, they can slip into ease, and we are not setting the expectation that they are going to rise to this occasion that is going to be celebrated, where we go, okay, you are now, you're doing the work of a woman. You are now a good man. You are now like we're not setting that expectation. And the reason I really put it back on the parents is because I have seen so many parents who have gone back to that, who have eliminated, just eliminated some of the easiest distractions of the cell phones, the video games, just some of the easier distractions that so many kids get sucked into. I know parents that have kind of eliminated that. They've added a lot of personal responsibility very early on, and they've got these rights of passage, and the maturity of those children just rises to the surface. I don't think they've done anything magical. I think they've just tapped into what I call like the default setting. I really think we are driven for that if we're not distracted away from it. I don't know. I just I think that's the case. You know, when and when we talk about when you and I talk about, you know, wanting to develop this motivation and resilience in our kids. I automatically take a look and go, well, do I I don't think I see many resilient adults? Yeah. See many, right? I don't even see a lot of self-governing adults or motivated adults. So of course I don't see that in the children. They're not getting the example of it.

SPEAKER_00 18:29

You cannot lead a child to a place you have not been.

SPEAKER_01 18:32

Amen. Amen. Right? That's it.

Autonomy As A Rite Of Passage

SPEAKER_00 18:34

And a lot of us are are waking up, clocking in, clocking out, Netflix and chill, like that's our adult life, right? We've slipped into ease. I love that phrase, slipped into ease. And we're not gunning for something that's motivating or or like spiritually invigorating by any means. Like we're just clocked out. So when our kids become that like that's right, how can we be surprised?

SPEAKER_01 18:56

That's right. I mean, we're inheriting somebody else's schedule, somebody else's design for our life, and then we start to confuse it with our own, right? We never chose it, but just start to confuse that with our own. And and what is familiar to us, we start to confuse with truth. Right? And you start to confuse what's familiar with true, but you're in you're in a rough spot. And again, that's the example that you end up setting for your kids. So that's so for us, that's why it's so important for us to to have the parents involved. You know, I want our founders to really create a community where the parents are like it doesn't, it doesn't have there's no option to not be involved. Now we define what involvement looks like, but we want the parents to be involved by growing first and being the example first. And so that's why we've got the mentorship piece that we do.

SPEAKER_00 19:46

I honestly have a bit of like educational envy for you right now because Parenta doesn't do a ton of parent work. We do a little bit, but not a ton. I'm like a little bit jealous because a lot of times our guides will say, like, we do advanced guide training where we're talking about psychology and neuroscience and like helping them understand how to create this like motivated culture that the kid can then just like be his be the normal human, natural human, like motivated self. But like you have to create the environment and the relationships that unlock that, or like you know, have to curb the distractions, all the things we've been talking about. Um but they say, like, but then they go home and then they're getting they're not getting this at the house.

SPEAKER_01 20:22

And it's it's a disconnect.

SPEAKER_00 20:24

It's like a seed where it's like, hey, let's let's create this amazing soil at school and let's have a gardener that really knows what they're doing. And then like, but school, you just take the seed out at the end of the day and put it in a different soil, and a different gardener has to take care of it, and then drop off in the morning and you pick the seed up, and it's like the seed in a real seed would never grow like that, right? You have to kind of have this like congruency across environments and relationships if you really want to see that grow. And I don't, I don't think like we definitely see a ton of kids make a ton of growth, even if they don't have the same, same environment at home. I'm not saying there's no growth, but it's so impactful when there is congruence in those environments.

SPEAKER_01 21:01

Amen. That's a great example with the seed. And that's, you know, one of the, and I want to make sure I'm not sounding like it's a it's a pitch by any means, but that is one of the things that we have gotten from other school networks. And even there's, I'm talking to the commissioner of of a specific state of education next week. And there's like, man, look, obviously we're public schools, you guys have your thing. That's not gonna cross over. However, what you're doing for the parents is something that I've seen through somebody I work with who is a parent. Interesting. Could you maybe potentially help the parents of our state? Man, glad to. And and I'm so motivated to do it, partially because it's not just something that, well, Matt thought it up and put it together and put together some program. No, no, no. Like brilliant human beings that we go to and go, okay, you're amazing at this. Will you help us with the focus of this? We're gonna focus this month on, you know, the personal psychology or health. If we're coming up into March, that's gonna be health and fitness month. So We've got, you know, Jason Kalipa and Dr. Gabrielle Lyon and Dell Bigtree. And we've got a number of people that are just going to come in and give their perspective and help our parents answer their own questions and figure out their next phase of growth. Right. And then we'll go into a spiritual growth month and a communication month. And we'll go into marriage and parenting and finances and real estate. And I don't have to be the guy that knows all the things because I don't. And I can just partner, I can bring these people in. So I'm really bullish on what we get to do, partially because selfishly, I get to grow through all of that too. You know, and that's the kind of community we want to foster because he's exactly right. Then the seed's not jumping around back and forth. It's that.

SPEAKER_00 22:38

And then they have that example. Their primary primary attachments are leading that. Um, one of my favorite quotes is um a child's heart finds something to attach to and becomes like it.

SPEAKER_01 22:48

Oh, I like that. I've never Dr.

SPEAKER_00 22:51

Gordon Neufelt said that. And it's just like that is so key. Like we try so hard, sticker charts, grades, like all of these things we try to push into that the educational environment, or like the way that we like look at kids who are maybe off task with like the look or like our tone changes, right? Like all of these subtle communications that like they're less than if they're not jumping through our hoops. Um is so like all of those things are on the like effect scale, like very, very low effect. Whereas if they just have a relationship where like there's someone dialed in who cares about them and is leading them and can show like this this is how to live a meaningful life, that kid is very, very likely to follow that example. And it's very hard to do if they don't have that example. So you're you're not only creating kids who can do that, but also modeling that in your founders and do you call what do you call your teachers?

SPEAKER_01 23:45

Coaches.

SPEAKER_00 23:46

Coaches, okay. So coaches and parents, like all of the adults that are kind of like baked into this kid's environment. It's like this is what being an adult means. Being an adult doesn't mean scrolling your phone all day and and phoning in it at work and trying to like avoid hard work or you know, like any of that. It's like being an adult means you are responsible, you are capable, and you are gunning for something important.

SPEAKER_01 24:07

That's right. That's beautiful. And it's so, it's so interesting to me because in I know you know this, and so many people that work in our space know this. And I know everybody knows this, but it's one of those things that when I say to parents, sometimes I just go, Yeah, uh, kids are people. They're not, they're not learning how to be people, they're people that just haven't done it as long. So the same things that you know we want, those relationships and being around others that are gunning for something and having a mission and a purpose to go out, they want these same things. They can't necessarily consciously identify it yet, and that's fine, but they want those same things. So we have to operate as the example, but also with the assumption that they want that too, because they they do it. Just makes that connection a little easier, I found when you finally realize, oh yeah, that's right. They're no different.

SPEAKER_00 25:02

I think that is such an important idea that you just said. Like your belief about a child that they want this or that they are capable of reading this book or capable of doing something. Like your belief, like the other day. So I took my micro school. Um, we just went to the mall, but we took the city bus to the mall, and they were like, We get to go on a bus. Like, you know, microschools don't have school buses. So it was like so cool to them. And they, it was like this little journey of microindependence where they're like learning how to do stuff. And like, that's so little. They're not starting a business, they're not doing any of these like big things that we see some kids do. But it's like on a micro scale, like I'm learning something that will help me navigate the adult world. Like I'm handling all my own purchases at the bookstore we went to. We went and got ice cream, and like I wasn't like ordering for them and putting limits on them or anything. It's just like they're just handling themselves. You know, these kids are 11. Then yesterday, my so I have a 13-year-old and an 11-year-old that are in my class, my two boys. Everett, my oldest, he's like grabs my phone and he's like looking at all the bus bus stuff. And he's like, Can me and Walter go on the bus by ourselves? And I'm like, Yes, you can. Like you've got money, like you know where the bus stop is. Like, you can bring my phone so like you can manage the bus schedule and things like that. And so they like got on the bus and they like went to the store and bought candy and like took the bus back and like missed their stop and had to walk a long way and like all of these things. But it's just like they came home and they were so alive. They were like just you could feel it coming off of them. Like they were like the they were like drunk on autonomy. They were just like, we did it, like we, you know, but but we have to assume that kids can and that they want to, or else we won't be putting opportunities in their in their way for them to like. I like to think of it as like like an invitation or a call to excellence. If you don't believe that they could arise to that, you're never gonna extend that invitation. And then they're gonna be in an in a in a less productive loop than they could have been had you believed and extended.

SPEAKER_01 26:52

Amen. And they're gonna feel your fear around that, they're gonna feel your doubt around that, they're gonna feel that and they're gonna own that, right? They're gonna own that you're afraid of something, so they're gonna go, well, I guess I'm not capable because mom's totally afraid of this, so I should be afraid of it too. I don't even know why I should be afraid. I felt like I could do it, but I'm gonna be afraid too. They will take that on. I always I tell parents, man, they will, they will become who you are before they do what you say. And when you're afraid, that transfers too, you know? So I love that. I'm so glad you let them, you let them do that and experience that. I was I you told that story. And I think back I was the first time I traveled by plane alone, um, or I'll say alone, I was with my sister, but we didn't have our parents. I was 14 and she was 10. And we flew and we got stuck. We got stuck in in uh in another state. And the flight, it was thunderstorms and the flights were canceled. And so it was like we're no parents there in DFW, you know, as kids, and had to figure that out. And we went to a place and they're like, all right, well, we got to separate boys and girls. I'm like, I'm not getting separated from my sister, you know, and so they did this whole thing, took care of us, took us back the next day, got us first class seats, got a hold of our parents, and did all this. But man, I remember coming home and just feeling like, I guess I'm an adult, right? I'm not, but I felt like it. I sure felt like it.

SPEAKER_00 28:09

And you're gonna act like it more than when you left.

SPEAKER_01 28:12

You bet. That's exactly right. You know, that inherently became a rite of passage. Hey, cool. We can give our kids those too, right? Bring them to the mall. Like, I mean, it's a great example of that. We've done just so this is something kind of fun too. We've done this in our so we have a teen specific mentorship program that we go in for our teens on top of what we do on the on the campuses. And so they've got a digital portfolio of work that they'll create around some of these unique challenges. And so one of the challenges for them is a uh a paperclip challenge where they take them, you know, they have a month and they start with a paperclip, and everything is via trade. You just have to trade, you gotta trade with somebody somewhere, sometime, paperclip, four up, you know, whatever. And then you trade up and see what you can do. And we've had, I mean, we had somebody that did, you know, when you do it off the the campus, we've had a kid that got his first car that way. I mean, paid no money, got his first truck, right? Starting from a paperclip. But we've done the thing where we've gone to the mall and we're like, all right, you guys are on your go get your stuff, do whatever you want to do. You got a few hours, and we'll do a paperclip challenge at the mall and let's see what happens there too, and see what you come back with. That's super fun. So just something for you to try next time. So they got three hours complete strangers and see what happens. We had kids like clothes and functioning cell. We had a kid come back with a functioning cell phone in three hours at the mall. It was like, all right, man, I'm not sure how that happened, but good, you know, good audience.

SPEAKER_00 29:32

And the the power in that is like that kid just like three hours ago, he thought one thing about himself, and now he thinks a different thing about himself. He thinks a different thing about his capability and talking to strangers and negotiating that you know, like his mental framing about himself has changed forever.

SPEAKER_01 29:49

Ever. And that same three hours could have gone to a video game or it could have gone to you know a Netflix show, it could have gone, it went to something like that that he'll remember for the rest of his life that completely changes the fabric of who he thinks he is.

Tech For Mastery Without Distraction

SPEAKER_00 30:01

So cool. Okay, I want to talk quickly about we mentioned mastery-based learning, and I this is kind of like it's just a hot topic right now of like kids and technology. We've had like kind of the last year, this movement that's been, I mean, not anti-technology, I would say definitely anti-social media, but it's now like filtering over into like using technology in education, which is interesting. So when I met Kelly Smith, the founder of Prenda, like I didn't allow, I didn't have a TV. The TV was under a bed, and I didn't allow any of my kids to have toys with batteries. So I was like the lowest tech person that you could possibly find. I was homeschooling my kids, like so low tech. And then when I met Kelly, he was like, I agree. I had this education blog and he connected with me on there and he was like, I agree with all of your ideas, but like I think there's a place for technology, you know, and like at that point, my kids were very young. They hadn't even started real school yet. So, but I've kind of done this 180 where like my kids now have only micro-schooled. They've never had a teacher, and none of their guides have ever been certified teachers. They've only learned through, like, I mean, obviously, relationships and environments and coaching and all of like the kind of non-curriculum things that we put in place in their life. But as far as like math, reading, like the like education skills, like it's all come through ed tech, like mastery-based ed tech. And I've loved the results. And so when I hear all this like research, I'm like, there's there's gotta be a way to not throw the baby out the bathwater here because I've seen the effects of it. And so I'm just so curious. Like, how do you use technology at AppG? Do you it all? And like, what has your response to all of this the last year been?

SPEAKER_01 31:39

It's such a good question. And it's and I wish I could say, here's the blanket answer, and I can't because there is nuance to it. So I like to frame this conversation whether this is how um I always say this is how we do it at the house, and this is how we recommend it for apogee, and everybody follows roughly this template, and some may go a little you know in different directions, and they're having conversations with the parents, and so they've got a little bit of they've got leeway on their campus on on where they want to go with it to. So um, you know, from the tech standpoint, same thing. At our house, we're very, you know, low, low tech. My kids don't have just free screen time, that's not something they do, but they will use tech for research, they'll use tech for creation. They do not have smartphones, they don't do video games, you know. We have certain things that we stay away from, but they will use it for those things and they'll use it for education-based platforms. They have done the same thing, they've done very well. We've got a limit around, you know, the amount of time, and we have connected that to ages as well. And so when they're really, really young, we are they did not have tech at all. As they got to about eight, my kids are now 10, uh 10, 13, and 15. Um, and so it was right about eight where we allowed a little more of those platforms. And even then, they were doing like 30 minutes, 45 minutes, maybe a day. It was always very, very intentional. Here is exactly what it can be and should be used for. It will not be used for anything else. We got all those safeguards in place, but when I say safeguards, it's not like we're putting all these apps on there to lock down. Safeguards meaning things are out in the open, and we have set a culture in our home of honesty and like disciplined humans. So we're not worried about them diving into things that they shouldn't be diving into when we can see what's going on there. So they've used that as a tool on our campus or on our campuses, it's really been the same thing on our side. We uh want to make it available and we want to make it available for the things they want to go after and create and take away the things that are not. We want to be very intentional about what we're using it for. I don't love the AI push so that everything is around standardized test performance. I don't love that, but I do like it as a tool to create something meaningful. And I think there's inherently nuanced conversations that come in with every family, you know, with that. So I think I fall pretty similar to where you land right now.

SPEAKER_00 34:16

How have you seen a tech like unlock things for kids and how has it been an impediment? Like I'm sure you like have wins and losses. Like tell us some stories. Like, how have you seen it help?

SPEAKER_01 34:28

Yeah. I mean, we've we've had uh again, we've had some about I tell I talk about that young lady that you know graduated, just graduated with her bachelor's degree simultaneously with her with her high school diploma, and then got into her first year in med school. I mean, she almost all that was tech driven as far as finding the courses and the resources that she wanted to connect with. I mean, she was using it, she was diving into MOOCs and and taking all these college courses, even just for fun, you know, prior to and and utilizing various platforms. And so so many people on our campus are doing that and moving themselves forward, creating these digital portfolios, really using tech to create, to get themselves jobs, up job opportunities to, you know, run businesses at a very early age. My daughters bought their first horses when they were nine and seven. And the primary way they made money for that was a digital product. It was a digital product they created. The nine-year-old really created it at the time. And so the seven-year-old kind of partnered on. It was a digital product. They made enough money to buy a horse. I mean, so are two horses. So I've seen that be wildly successful. The downside is obviously if you don't have safeguards in there, again, more the relationship piece with that young human. We have seen young people on our campuses take advantage and go dive into things they shouldn't dive into and go show other people they shouldn't. So that's where, you know, it's a it's a hard culture thing. It's one thing to create a culture in the home, and then another thing to create a culture on campus. And the greater number of students you have, the more you really got to be tight around what that culture means. Um that's where it gets dicey. I've had kids bring things to campuses, you know, bring things up that they absolutely should not be bringing up on campuses.

SPEAKER_00 36:05

And there's obviously this like negative, like they're finding negative, like harmful things, but there's also just the distraction, right? That we talk, it's like I just scrolled YouTube for my entire academic period instead of doing anything productive, right? Like, how do you how do you handle that? How do you like coach kids? Do you do you just block YouTube or is it a coaching conversation? Like, what do you think about it?

SPEAKER_01 36:26

Yeah, that's a coaching conversation. It's a thousand percent a coaching conversation. So on our campuses, we make sure that the students are setting the goals, but the parents are signing off on the goals so that we are really there to be facilitators. The parents are signing off as they're when they're younger, we're meeting with them more often. It's usually a weekly related thing. As they get older, as they have more evidence of being able to kind of earn that autonomy, um, then it's maybe a monthly check-in or a or a you know every couple of months check-in kind of deal, as long as things are being met. So everybody's got a very clear idea of what this young person is excited about, wants to go towards. The families know what the environment looks like. And we go, hey, part of the environment is a digital environment. Here is our Google workspace with a hundred individual projects for you to tackle and to dive into. And some of these are, you know, tech based. Like if you want to go after these, go after these. This is fantastic. Your parents know you're going after these too. And then we'll check in and go, hey, how's it going toward moving towards these goals? If we notice somebody is distracting themselves based on just trying to go down the YouTube rabbit hole, you know, we've got uh guidelines there where it's like, hey, that's not what we're what we're doing here on campus. So um, if you're getting distracted on that, it's better to go bring yourself over here and maybe tackle one of these other projects right now that doesn't have anything to do with that. And then it's just a simple conversation, it's not a telltale, it's just like, hey, this is a this is a struggle. This is something he or she is working on. Let's bring the parents in so that all of us are there in support of them making better decisions. We've got the code, you know, that's up, we've got the specific use in specific places. We very much use a kind of a dojo martial arts analogy for a lot of our campuses. And so, you know, just like in a dojo, this is the place for wrestling, this is a place for jujitsu, this is the place for kickboxing, this is the place. We've got our very tech specific locations, so we can kind of easily monitor that, but it ends up just being a decision. It really, if we've got the environment set up and and good communication with parents, it really doesn't turn into that big of an issue.

SPEAKER_00 38:25

Love that. I love how so your kids, obviously, they it sounds like you're trying to help them feel accountable to themselves, right? And their own goals. Part the parent, would you say is like the next like accountability layer, like you're accountable to your parents?

SPEAKER_01 38:38

You bet. Because part of it is, again, running micro schools, the parents are a big part, right? We want the parents to be growing and be an example at home. We want that scene analogy earlier. We also want parents to know what's going on on campus, because again, I'm always going to tell them they're the primary educator. And I want them to know and sign off on, partially because I don't want my staff to be in battle with the parents, right? So now everyone's that's exactly right. So now we're supporting the child. We are truly there as a support coach. We are not there to be the hammer, we're not there to be dangling a carrot. We are there going, This is what you say you want. Parents are agreeing, this is what everybody wants. Cool. Then let us help your family go exactly where you say you want to go. That's our role. Our goal is not to tell you, ah, okay, yeah, but you should do the that's not that's not for us to say. We're gonna just create this giant menu, huge buffet. You come tell us what you want to eat, and we'll make sure we're making that for you.

SPEAKER_00 39:41

I love that. I think I'm like jotting down my notes here. Successful, like allowing kids to use technology in like a helpful, healthy way, like to me, is a huge culture question. Like you have to have transparency, you have to have accountability and like clear expectations, but it's a huge cultural thing because in like where all of this research about ed tech is coming, is coming out of schools, right? Which have wildly different cultures. Like it's uh you have an asymmetrical relationship between child and adult set up where it's like I am the authority, and that relationship is triggering, like all kids, especially teenagers, like they want their autonomy, like they want to be their own individual person who gets to make important decisions about their lives. And the system currently like doesn't allow that till you're 18 when kids really get hungry for it about 11, 12. Like, and so they're fighting their whole adolescence for that, where the teacher in the room is like the taker of autonomy. It's just this adversarial relationship, right? Set up. So it's like the teacher says, okay, go to this website, we're doing this research, or you're gonna use this practice app or something like that. The kid is already predisposed to say, no, I'm not, and I'm actually gonna go on YouTube and you're gonna, you're gonna set up some sneak, something to like control the internet, and I'm gonna find a way around it. It just becomes this big game. But if we can get that relationship, what you're saying right, and give the kids the time. It's like we're not here to control you. We have opinions and thoughts and guidance around like a productive way to live your life, right? We have we have values and we have your parents and your family culture and things that we believe in, things like that. But no one's here to like be the hammer, in your words, right?

SPEAKER_01 41:25

That's right. And there's left and right.

SPEAKER_00 41:27

Then they don't have to fight.

SPEAKER_01 41:28

That's right. There's left and right boundaries. There are certain times, you know, you don't go into a restaurant and say, Well, I'm an autonomous person and I'm gonna dance on the table while everybody else eats, right? Like there's left and right boundaries everywhere you go, but it's exactly that that relationship and setting that stage prior to people all the time are like, okay, well, how you know, uh, how do you perfect example? You got a 15-year-old, a 13-year-old girl. I'm like, yep, two girls. My my young man's 10, two teenage girls. Oh my gosh, God bless. I'm like, dude, they're so easy. They're so fun. It's so they're like, Well, how did you make it easy? What are you doing right now? I go, no, no, no. What have I been doing for 15 and 13 years? Exactly. That's the difference, right? Is setting up that relationship. It's the same thing for all of these things, including the use of these tools at various, you know, ages. You show them what's okay, what's not. Here's the left and right boundaries, and you have relationships where you show them why. And then you lead by example and you use, guess what? If I say, hey guys, no scrolling, no getting on a phone, especially at dinner, and then I'm like this at dinner, that's called hypocrisy. And they go, That's what actually is okay. Not what he's saying, what he's doing, right? So it's setting that standard. My young man, I came home, came home from from an event a few weeks back, and uh my wife was like, Yeah, that little tree over there. Like he went out there and had chop that down. Like, what do you mean you chop that down? She's like, Yeah, he decided that was blocking uh something that you know they were trying to build for the goats, and he so he went out there and he chopped that down. With an axe. She's like, Yep, with an axe. Well, cool. I've taught him how to use that. I've taught him how to use it the right way, I've taught him how to use it well. I've taught him what he's allowed to chop, what he's not allowed to chop, what I chop, what needs to be chopped on the farm, what cannot be chopped on the farm. And he took ownership of it and went out and chopped a tree down. That's awesome. Because he knows how to use the tool and what the tool is used for. It's the same thing with tech. Same thing. Relationships there, left and right boundaries are there. Teaching them how to be capable with it is there. I mean, it's really not different.

SPEAKER_00 43:29

And all of those things, I love that you center the family so much because those things don't scale well. You can't do that simultaneously for 30 kids.

SPEAKER_01 43:37

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 43:38

Right? Or like for 30 kids for 90 minutes and then they have a new adult. Like it takes consistency. It takes like it's a long harvest, right? Like we we plant things and if you like flip the back of the seed, the seed, then it's like ten days to germination, it's like thirty years to germination. Like we'll see how this works. But I'm just kidding. It actually you can see much, much, much, much earlier if what you're doing is working, right, right. But like the functional adult that is like the fruit of all of our work, right? You don't get to see that for years and years and years. But you can definitely tell if what you're doing is working. And if you're not getting those results, then that's just like the you know, if you walk by a plant and it's like has wilty leaves or something like that. It's like that's information for you about the plant's environment and what it needs and what it's not getting.

SPEAKER_01 44:22

That's it.

SPEAKER_00 44:22

And that's how we just And that's it.

SPEAKER_01 44:25

That's the environment. It's the environment thing, right? And that's something. So we moved out here from California four years ago and to a functional farm. A couple city kids, you know, raising, raising a family in the city in California. We've never grown grown up anywhere else. And now we're on a 20-acre farm with animals and multiple, you know, buildings and electric fencing and thousands of trees everywhere. And so it's an entirely different environment. One of the things I can see from my office now where I'm talking out this window, I can see where the the main garden area is. And so I watch as my my wife really has taken that on, and the kids have helped take that on with her. And so everything they do out there is about creating the environment. Again, the the seed gets planted, and they don't really do much with the seed at that point. It is, is it the right kind of soil? How much water? Not too much water, how much sunlight, not too much sunlight, but you want enough. You also don't want to plant something next to it that's gonna, that, that's gonna choke it out. You want to, it's the environment. You're spot on, man. We get the environment, we get the environment right. It does amazing things.

SPEAKER_00 45:26

My other go-to analogy here. So you're you were mentioning earlier that like you have to, you've never met an unmotivated kid, right? But then it's like if you're listening to this, you're thinking, like, well, I know lots of unmotivated kids, right? But it's because the seed, the the kid is in an environment that it has stripped away all like the natural factors that would push you to to do cool things. That to it's like you have to believe, uh, like going with the farming analogy here, like, do you guys have like irrigation that like goes out to the farm at all?

SPEAKER_01 45:57

Or we've got we've got some underground. So we live in North Carolina. We l actually live in a rainforest. So when I think irrigation, I think about California and how we had to have sprinklers everywhere. So here we get a ton of rain, but what we do have is underground piping for when we move the animals and we can put manual spigots in there. So we do have underground piping that comes from one of the wells that we have on the property. So there's that.

SPEAKER_00 46:18

Yeah, so okay, so like you're directing that water, right? Where it needs to go so that it can be functional. It's like, it's like you telling me that like you don't have a motivated kid, is is saying like when you like you have water that doesn't flow forward, which is like gravitationally, like if the environment is just tilted like in the right way, that water's gonna flow forward and it's gonna go where that channel like directs it, right? So if like if you have an unmotivated kid or you have your kids are not actually unmotivated, they're just directing their time towards non-productive things or things that you don't value, like video games or whatever. So it's like they are totally moving forward in Minecraft. Like they are very motivated and they have lots of growth in Minecraft. But if that's not a functional like fruit or outcome for you and your family, then you're gonna see it as like they're not motivated to do their math or to like get a job or like do any things that you have said are functional. But it's your job as a parent to help them get the environment right so that water is gonna flow downstream and into the right fields, right? So that the right things can fruit and flower.

SPEAKER_01 47:15

Nailed it. You you nailed it. I mean, that's exactly that. And it's the same for us as adults. It is the same thing. Like I'm always motivated every week to go with my boy to go train in martial arts. I've grown up as a martial artist, I love it, I enjoy it, very motivated. If it was, if he was into you know, ballet and he wanted to go do that, great. I'm not gonna be motivated to go train with him on that. So I'm does that make me an unmotivated no, I'm just not motivated for that. It's exactly how all of us work. Our kids are they're not broken. Not broken. That's right.

SPEAKER_00 47:51

Right. Yes, I love that. And I just want to clarify before when I said that that you could do like the that girl who story could do the work of a woman. I didn't mean that women should just do laundry. Oh, I don't think uh I don't I I definitely could take care of a family for any of our listeners who think I should just I I I just think uh women should just do laundry. That's not what I meant.

SPEAKER_01 48:14

That's what I wrote down. That's what I wrote down. I said Katie thinks women should just do laundry. It's my one biggest takeaway from this. But no.

If You Cannot Leave School Yet

SPEAKER_00 48:21

Tell my stay-at-home husband that he's just um I definitely would take it. Yes, okay, just to clarify that. And then I just have two last questions for you and then we'll wrap up. One advice for parents who who I will say who think they can't take their kids out of public school or like they're I mean, I think I believe that all parents, if you get crazy enough, you can make it work. You can figure something out that's that's better for your kids. Not that public school is better, or not that what we do is necessarily always better than public school, that public school is not the right choice for some people. Like it is the right choice for some people, and I support them. But if you want different results and you can't just like go find an apogee or go find a prenda, like what do you do? How can you get some of the benefits of this like in your family, like without making a huge educational shift?

SPEAKER_01 49:05

Yeah, it's a really good question. And there usually ends up being, you know, I I love it when parents come and go, I can't. And I always want to unwrap the the why. Why do you think you can't? Some of it is just a blanket. I don't feel like I'm qualified. And so then I always give them with, you know, give them the cool. So you're gonna send them back to the same system you went through that made you feel unqualified to then right to to lead your own child. But I'll go back to, okay, where did you send them to school to learn to walk, to learn to speak English, to learn to, and they're like, Well, I didn't. I'm like, cool, you led by example, and you knew they were gonna fail, and then you helped them through it, and you went, so I'll walk them through. You were the primary teacher for a long time, and it's the same sort of thing. So the next layer of questions is well, what do you think everybody should know? What do you want them to know? When should everybody know it by? When do you want them to know it by? And what's the most efficient means of getting it? Because when you start walking through the simplicity of all that, and you start to go, okay, well, I want general math. Cool. What does that mean? Like actually define it. So I walk through parents, and so if parents are listening to this, walk yourself through those questions of defining everything. What do you want them to know and when do you want them to know it? And what's the best way to show them? Because ultimately, where we almost always land, the best advice for any of these parents is move yourself forward in the way that you would want to have your kids move forward and just bring them along with you. It's almost always the best advice. You can do that with your child for free. So if it's a financial thing, great. We can we can figure out the finances, we can start talking about how to how to do it on a single family income. We can start doing if it's a I don't feel qualified thing, cool. We can talk the reality is move yourself forward, bring them along is always the best advice, and you'll realize that you're teaching them a whole lot more than you think you are, no matter what the scenario is for the rest of the day. You're paying your bills, have them come pay the bills with you. Have them take care of it. You got chores to do, have them do the chores with you. You're doing laundry, have them do the laundry with you. What are the things you do on a daily basis? Have them do that with you. You'll find out that they're ridiculously functional. It's not difficult. It ends up being a very, very simple thing.

SPEAKER_00 51:24

That's beautiful. Thanks for sharing that. And then the last question that we ask all our guests, who is someone in your youth or life who has like kindled your motivation or helped you see yourself as capable of more, inspired you to like find a greater mission.

Who Kindles Us And Closing

SPEAKER_01 51:37

I love that question, man. And I think the important part is the see myself as capable. I've got a bunch of educational heroes, but those came later. I think back to my younger years, and it was really coaches for me that that poured in and were like, okay, you're you're able to do you're able to do some amazing things. It was martial arts coaches, it was basketball coaches, and that really allowed me to see myself as wildly capable. And there was just as many, there were just as many people around me, and I will throw my dad out there too, is this unique person who spoke life into me a lot of times about how capable I was, but also showed me what it looked like when somebody who was wildly capable as he was chose not to lean into that. I learned a lot from that too. He was capable and he didn't let himself have a mission. He didn't push himself forward. He wasn't joyful, didn't, you know, he showed me a lot of the things that I didn't want to do that I'd now come to realize. So I gotta give him credit for that too.

SPEAKER_00 52:36

It's powerful. Sometimes I have a lot of like guilt in my like mothering that I'm like not enough or like that I'm not doing a good enough job. And someone told me when my kids were little, like, you are the perfect parent for your child because of how you're not perfect. And they're actually learning a lot from your negative, like we're not perfect. Like we talked a lot in the in the last hour about being a good model and a good example. Your kids can also learn from your bad example.

SPEAKER_01 52:58

They very much do. It doesn't mean we lead with a bad example, but they're they're going to learn from the mistakes you make. Period. End of story.

SPEAKER_00 53:07

And the best thing you can do there is be vulnerable and transparent about that. It's like I didn't like how those I yeah, it's like like it's okay for me to make make mistakes. Here's they are, and you can make mistakes, and we like the relationship doesn't uh rely on perfection, it relies on persistence, and it's just so much power in relationship. Um good shit. Okay, one last thing. What quote is behind you?

SPEAKER_01 53:30

Right there, that's man in the arena, Teddy Roosevelt. Are you looking? Are you talking about that one or are you talking about this one? No, that's one block here. D H Lawrence. Oh, come on.

SPEAKER_00 53:39

Matchy matchy.

SPEAKER_01 53:41

Right on, man. Right on. I love it. Yeah, I got man in the arena right there, and then yeah, over here, I wasn't sure. Yeah. Um DH Lawrence. So uh self-sign I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself. A small bird will fall frozen dead from a bow without ever having felt sorry for itself. Uh and so it's there's an entire part of a lot of a keynote that we give that that um that pertains to that too. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 54:04

I love it. Thank you for your time and thanks for coming on the Kindle Podcast.

SPEAKER_01 54:07

Katie, you're awesome. Appreciate you.

SPEAKER_00 54:09

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 Prenda Learn, and if you'd like more information about starting a micro school, just go to Prenda.com. Thanks for listening and remember to keep Kindling.