5 Myths About Innovative Education

Choosing a school used to be simple. For most families, the options were public school, homeschooling or private school.

Today, the education landscape is changing. Microschools, hybrid programs and other innovative learning models are giving families more choices than ever before, but with these choices comes uncertainty.

On this week's episode of Let's Get Personal, Lydia and Kristin share the top five myths they hear about new alternative school models, and in the process they separate fact from fiction. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_05 0:02

Hi, I'm Olivia, and I'm Krista. Through artwork at Learning Lab, which is talking about we get our product roads into innovation and personalized kindergarten through 12th grade learning. On this podcast, we share stories of how educators and parents are helping kids discover their passions. So you can do the same for a child you love.

SPEAKER_03 0:20

I'm just dive in. Let's get personal.

SPEAKER_05 0:26

Hi everyone, and welcome to Let's Get Personal Real Talk about reimagining education. Today, for this lovely summer episode, it's Kristen and I, and we are just gonna talk about things. Sometimes we just have thoughts.

SPEAKER_03 0:42

We have to get them out of our heads.

SPEAKER_05 0:43

Yeah, and you all get to listen. So you're welcome. Um we recently hosted EdCamp and it was a great day. Talk about EdCamp. Just give a highlights.

SPEAKER_03 0:55

Well, we came up with the idea of EdCamp before we really were officially in existence. True. Um, and we wanted to host a one-day unconference where the people in Wichita that know about doing education differently got to share their expertise in different ways. And so this was our third annual Ed Camp, which is why I feel like you can call it annual once you've done it.

SPEAKER_05 1:21

Like three times.

SPEAKER_03 1:22

Yeah, we did it. Um and it's kind of changed every year. Yeah. But um we had about 30 local education professionals. What I love about all of our adult programming is it brings in people from different education environments. So we always have like nonprofit representatives, we have people in administration, we have regular classroom teachers, we have special education teachers, we have all kinds of school founders for sure. So um, you know, I always think back to us being nervous about bringing those different people into the same room, and that's probably like one of the better things that we've done.

SPEAKER_05 2:01

It's true. It's true. Yeah, so it's really rooted in diverse perspectives, like you were just talking about. We want people from all avenues to come together. And we really believe in like there are people here in Wichita that have great knowledge and skills and capabilities to share. I used to plan teacher conferences, you've planned teacher conferences in pre previous roles, and you would spend so much time like looking nationally for speakers to fly in, and that you're paying them a lot of money. And that's still valuable. But I think what we're pushing against is we don't need to do that because this experience, this unconference environment that we're trying to create is very like bottom-up rooted in like Wichita problems, if you will, Wichita education environments, like Wichita talent, skills, and knowledge. So, how do we just like curate that all together in a day?

SPEAKER_03 2:52

Well, it kind of goes back to our belief that the people in the work are the best people to find the solution, share the best solution. And if you think about those speakers, probably they were educators. Yeah, but they haven't maybe done it for a while. And so, you know, society changes, the problems we're facing shift. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 3:12

Well, and I feel like again, we're also both former teachers. You would hear somebody, my thought, oh, this is pessimistic, Lydia, which does not come out very often, right? Um, but my pessimistic side wants to be like, hey, you speaker who got paid lots of money to be here. I can hear what you're saying, but it's usually overgeneralized. And like, you don't know my kids, you don't know my town, you don't know our cultural, you know, narratives and social norms and all that. And so I think it just leaves you with like a seed of doubt in your mind of like, okay, well, thank you for the information. But I think that's what makes Edcamp special is like, no, you are a teacher who teaches down the street, or you are a homeschool mom who's trying to find resources, or like you're just so hyper-localized that we can have a really meaningful, thoughtful conversation instead of generalizing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 4:06

And it also kind of brings back the point of why we have the diverse perspectives in the room because just like kids, all education environments are different. Yeah. So we need speakers to speak to different people.

SPEAKER_05 4:21

That's right. That's right. When we kicked off Ed Camp, I gave some opening remarks, and I'm not going to repeat them for you. But I think the thought that Kristen was there, but uh you just had to be there. But I think what I was really thinking about a lot back to believing in the people as the source of the change is we just had America's 250th birthday. Who has America been? Who does America want to become? When I think about that, I think about our kids because that's who's going to grow up into our communities. And so we talked, I want to talk a little bit about innovative innovative education together, but really I think where the thought for this podcast episode came from was rooted in like, how do you believe in people and support them in a way that helps move innovative education forward? What would I really want Wichita to be the innovative education capital of the world. And so I was really thinking about like, okay, well, what does that mean? Like what does innovative education mean? I think when people hear that, you think of like tech and AI. And I don't think that's correct.

SPEAKER_03 5:32

Um that that can't be innovative, but it's not a good idea. Yeah, right, right. It's not the difficult.

SPEAKER_05 5:38

Yeah, yeah. I think innovative is an experience that focuses on the child first and creating an environment that is very personalized to the kid. It requires a lot of effort, it's messier than you expect, but it is like constantly dynamic versus a static experience. And that could use technology, that could use a Montessori approach, that could use a STEM-focused approach. I mean, it doesn't matter, but if that is when I think about what made the wheel innovative, I mean, that was innovative, right? Is it just made something easier? It made like you made something into a circle and it moved things forward. It's not something overly dramatic that can be innovative.

SPEAKER_03 6:22

Yeah. Well, I I think about sometimes it's helpful to think about what is not innovative to define the word. And when I think of not innovative, it is basically one size fits all. Right. So, like if you're not innovating, then you're just doing what everyone else is doing. You're doing it how it's always been done and you're not trying new things.

SPEAKER_05 6:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 6:47

And so our belief is that kids deserve a personalized education because every kid is different. That's right. And so innovative education is a broad term. And I think it's difficult to define. And I think when we talk about it, sometimes people are probably like, yeah, okay. Yeah. Um, but what we really mean is creating a solution for individual kids that works for them. Yes. And so in our space, that looks like homeschooling, that looks like a small private school, it looks like a new um public school model. And so um, we have all kinds of innovative education in Wichita, which is also an interesting thing. I was sharing that I talked to a woman who's in the education space in Kansas City, which is a much larger metropolitan area than Wichita. And she was just sharing that she doesn't see all of the micro school activity that we have here. And so there's something about our environment, our education environment in Wichita that is spurring people to innovate, both in the public and private and homeschool sectors.

SPEAKER_05 7:59

Yeah, yeah. It's super interesting. Yeah, I like your point about like the contrast, right? So, like what would be contrasted to be innovative education looks like dynamic, personalized versus what is it not? It's not static, it's not one size fits all. Like I think about like the ebb and flowing and like choosing for your kid each year, like what that learning can look like. We talk about unbundling, we can talk about all these things. Okay, but today's here's the point of today's last episode, everybody. 10 minutes, here is the theme of today. Is Kristen and I constantly encounter myths about our work or about innovative education. Um so we're just gonna do a little mythbusters episode. I'm sure that's trademarked. Please don't come after us. We're gonna debunk some. We're gonna debunk some myths about innovative education. Um, we have a list of five, but I may add a couple more.

SPEAKER_03 8:58

Yeah, I came up with the general five, and I think there are we hear a lot of wild theories about education. You know, there are a lot of theories about public ed that I hear that aren't true. So we just hear people tend to generalize.

SPEAKER_05 9:13

They do. And it and that's like not a bad thing. I mean, that's how we've survived as a human species, right? Is to be like, okay, these things are similar enough. So uh either matches with what I need or not. Like it's not a crazy thing to do. It just drives us crazy sometimes because we're like, nope. Not it. That's true. Um okay, Kristen, you want to kick off number one?

SPEAKER_03 9:35

Sure. So our first myth that we are debunking today is that alternative education means less rigor. In other words, that if you start a school, that it's not going to teach your child as well as a systemized rote curriculum is going to teach your child. So correct. I think that the reason that this comes up is because it is scary for people to take their kids out of like, for example, the public education system, which has like a curriculum that has been researched and designed and approved by quote unquote professionals, and they feel like there is some merit behind that, which I'm not disagreeing with that. Yeah. But um so they trust the system. And so to do it differently than that, they automatically assume that it's not going to be as good.

SPEAKER_05 10:33

Correct. I when you make that statement every time I hear this, I think back to my sweet, sweet therapist, Kimberly. And she says over and over and over again, like, different isn't bad, it's just different. Like just because it looks different than what you experienced as a kid doesn't mean that it's less rigorous. Just because it looks different than what we taught in our classrooms as public educators, doesn't mean that it's less rigorous. It is simply different. And it is different because that is the environment that the child needs. I also think with this myth, we have to think, like, we have to define rigor a little bit. Like who's who's defining that? There's so much subjectivity in that word. Um I've had conversations with parents recently where they're concerned that their kid isn't making progress in reading. They're they're going to a different education environment and they're kind of panicky. Like, I don't feel like my kid can read well enough. That's still a very valid concern. Don't let go of that. But are you also assessing, like, what are they gaining? What's the trade-off of the progress that they're making on reading or that you feel like they should be making? Well, they're spending a lot of time developing social, emotional, and human skills over here. They're still really young. There's plenty of time. Like, we're not behind. But when you are comparing environments, if that's what you've known and that's what you define to be rigorous, and then your child's not meeting that expectation, it does cause you a panic. But it doesn't mean that it's not appropriate or like pushing them or they're not making progress. It's just different. And different isn't bad. It's just different.

SPEAKER_03 12:21

Yeah, I think it kind of goes back to the idea of like, you know, there are some benchmarks that kids should probably be meeting. I mean, it's really important that our kids learn to read. And literacy is like something I'm super passionate about because some kids have a harder time being literate than other kids do. That's right. But it's the idea of like, who died and said these are the exact things that a six-year-old or a 10-year-old or a 15-year-old must know. And we've kind of been brainwashed to think, like, no, we have to know these exact things in each subject every year of a child's life. And really, there are things left out of curriculum. If a child has like an interest or a talent in a certain area, that might not be in the curriculum. So there are just all kinds of other things that kids could be spending their time doing or learning that are also valuable. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 13:14

It comes back to like your like what's your value system? And can you tie your value system to how you're defining rigor, right? It is important to me that my son knows how to be a problem solver and a good person, a helper. Like those are values that our family holds. Yes, I want him to progress on the academic side, but we as a family consider what he's going to for school to be rigorous because it's challenging him in those areas. It's causing like tension, right? Um the I'm gonna give you like a I don't know, psychology term, but like you want your kids to be in that zone of proximal development. It is like they're in this area where they feel the tension of like building skills, but it's not so far out of reach that they feel like they're failing and it's not so under that level that they're just like, this is boring.

SPEAKER_03 14:05

I love that because it reminds me of mastery-based learning, which we have a school here that lets kids do self-paced mastery-based learning. But you know, some kids, if they just skip them ahead of grade, they're gonna they're not gonna be in that zone because they need to still be back on a skill that was challenging them.

SPEAKER_01 14:23

Right.

SPEAKER_03 14:23

And they can get through that, but sometimes it just takes kids a different amount of time. The other thing I think about when I think about this, like means it's less rigorous. Like when people walk in our space, sometimes we get this. And I think of our great friends at Creative Minds because it's a public school and they still have to follow state regulations regarding education. But when you walk into Creative Minds, they do a lot of small groups, they do a lot of group work, they do a lot of creative projects, especially in the afternoon. So if you just walked in, it sometimes looks like chaos to an uninformed observer. Yeah. And, you know, in the end, I love that they are public because they have data. And so they can show, like, no, the test scores are still good. Just because my classroom is loud and messy does not mean that I am not teaching reading and math. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's organized chaos.

SPEAKER_05 15:26

Now, again, there are days when it's just more chaos than organized chaos. But um I this is a hill I will die on. And we've talked about this before. But I deeply believe that learning is very messy. Good learning looks very messy. It looks very nonlinear. It looks forward, backwards, upside down. But that again, that's that tension. Like that's that tension at play. It's like we were talking, we were talking recently on a podcast episode. I can't remember what we're talking about. But like just the kids need to feel failure in a safe environment. And like, that's what messiness looks like. It looks like the creative minds kids working on a project and they're trying to glue something for their shelter for their survival unit, and it's not staying very shelter-y, uh, not very sturdy shelter, but like that is learning in play. That is progress, that is challenge, that is tension, that is rigor. Uh, it just looks different.

SPEAKER_03 16:20

So well, and I would add noise to that too. Sometimes, not all the time, right? Sometimes you need quiet to learn things that happens. But there are times when noise is collaborative and collaboration leads to learning.

SPEAKER_05 16:33

So well, and like let's back this up to the educator for one second, because our work really focuses on the grown-up who's leading the learning. If you cannot open yourself up to that messiness and that kind of chaos and like feel that nonlinear progression, like that's a just a really hard place. And some educators you do need, like, that's just your style. Um, and that's where we all kind of have to find our own like methodology of teaching. But it's the same for the kids it is for the grown-up. Can you be open to failure? Can you be open to the messiness? Can you be open to the noise being louder? But knowing when you need quiet, like it goes for both sides. True. Um, anything else on myth number one? I feel like we could talk about this one a lot. Do you have any like specific, specific examples when you've heard this? I shared about like the reading that was like a very recent one where I was like, okay, I hear what you're saying. So, like, what are we trading off here?

SPEAKER_03 17:34

I give a lot of tours to parents who are concerned about switching from a more traditional environment. And like some parents want to know about test scores. A lot of people ask about accreditation.

SPEAKER_04 17:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 17:49

And I kind of have mixed feelings on that question.

unknown 17:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 17:53

Because I'm like, if you have a piece of paper that says this, does it actually like mean that you're teaching and learning better? That's true. That's just the question I have.

SPEAKER_05 18:05

Um, as a valedictorian, I can tell you that piece of paper means minimal.

SPEAKER_03 18:12

Well, I mean, there's there's merit in it, but is that all you need to worry about? There are a lot of terrible environments that are probably accredited. That's true. I mean terrible for your kid. Yeah, yeah. And then also, I think about homeschool kids when we think about this because we have just been in touch with so many homeschooling families, and you and I were not homeschooled. We were not, and we are not homeschooling our children, and we taught in a public school. So I think we came in with about as many preconceived notions as people can come into this environment with and like talk about debunking. Like, there are homeschooling moms that are very thorough and meticulous about the way that they go about curriculum and making sure their kids are reaching their learning goals. And so that's one side of it. The other side of it is we have even like unschooly friends, and they're homeschool kids that don't necessarily check every single curriculum box. They still know really cool things, they get to explore their talents and interests in a way that a lot of kids don't. They can talk to adults very well. I mean, they have all of these soft skills that don't present themselves in other certain situations. So it has just taught me that like my idea of what first grade should look like is not necessarily true for everyone.

SPEAKER_05 19:38

Yeah, no, it's so true. We um, my family just spent the last week in Seattle, the Pacific Northwest, right? And we went um to the Ho Rainforest, Olympic National Park, we went over to Canada. But I have that thought a lot because I've seen homeschooling parents. I mean, like our kids, I went with my sister's family, and so we had a 10, 8, 7, and three-year-old, right? And they are seeing so much like wildlife. I have way too many pictures of slugs. But I was like so enamored with like star slugs and the starfish. Yeah, like I mean, I just think like when you look at like that was a science experiment, experience the entire week. They were learning about science and nature and ecosystems. We talked about why in national parks you can't take rocks. You can't, you don't take anything, right? You leave it as it is, you stay on the trails. Um, we talked about like cultures, right? Because there's a lot of native uh culture that's present up in the Pacific Northwest in a way that's very cool. And so they just got to see a lot of things. We went to a museum when we were over in Canada. So, like, but that's that's what homeschooling families that we know are doing all the time. Now they're not always traveling somewhere, but like we have our friend Melissa, who's who's created the homeschool and ICT platform that has all of these resources locally that they're using to create these meaningful environments that are rigorous because it's tapping into curiosity and it is tapping into these skills that we want our kids to build, that is just as good, if not better, than what a kid could be experiencing in a traditional social studies class or science class or whatever. Yeah. Just different. So let's talk about number two. Myth two.

unknown 21:31

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 21:33

Okay, my turn to read. Okay. Once you make a bold decision to change your education environment, you can never change back. True or false?

SPEAKER_03 21:42

That's false. Well, we get a lot of people who are just so afraid to leave an environment that maybe the rest of their kids went through or that they went through, and they feel like they're making this life altering decision. That is going to change the trajectory of their child's entire life. Yeah. And really, we're talking about one academic year in a child's life. And I don't think people, because school shopping or choosing your kids' education environment has not been a popular pathway for very long, then people are don't realize that your decision isn't permanent. We have had plenty of families skip around or go back to their original environment. One thing, if you if you do leave your original environment, sometimes it makes you grateful for what you had. It's not our desired outcome.

SPEAKER_05 22:41

No, I mean, no. But if you don't have the contrast, back to that word earlier, if you don't have the contrast and experience to say, here's what my kid was like in this environment and here's what they were like in this environment, it's hard to how would you necessarily know that the first environment actually worked best for your kid? If they're unhappy, then yeah, make the make some different changes and then see how it goes. I think what what people get stressed about is that feels feels a little experimental, feels a little like you're people who don't want to screw up their kids. We know that. So I think that's what this myth is rooted into is we have a lot of parents who uh just don't want to make the wrong decision. Which we get. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:27

Yeah. I think um it's scary. Change is scary. We talk about change a lot.

SPEAKER_05 23:33

We do. We do comfort and familiarity. People like it, human beings like it. So it's hard to make a different choice.

SPEAKER_03 23:41

Um I just also think that as a society, we should reevaluate our kids' education options more often.

SPEAKER_04 23:51

Uh-huh. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:52

Um, not that, you know, when you've been in the same school for 10 years at that point, sometimes it's hard to make that choice. But yeah, and not that you should try to change your school every year. Right. But you need to assess is this the best environment that is serving my child the best?

SPEAKER_05 24:09

Well, and I I had this conversation with a um a private schools leadership team one day of like, no, our vision, the world we want to live in is one where parents shop, actively shop for their kids' education each year, the same way that they shop for pediatricians, dentists, every other aspect of your life. If you are dissatisfied with something, you shop and find a better solution. And education is like the one avenue where we don't, as parents, like that's not the norm. So that's what we're trying to normalize, like Kristen said. Um, and the school leaderships team was like, oh, we don't want that. We don't want parents to like, why would we not want them? Because they might unenroll their kid. And it's like, well, yeah, that could be the consequence. But also, like, what a great motivation and incentive for you all as an academic team to be like, no, I want to have the trust and the faith and the commitment and engagement from the parents in the way that this is like a no-brainer decision for them each year. Like that's that's should be that should be the the incentive for the leaders that the environment is working so well for the kids that the parents wouldn't change their mind.

SPEAKER_03 25:22

Yeah. Well, and I think with confidence in as a founder, when you're gaining confidence in what is special about your model and what type of child that it serves the best, then you're more able to just, you know, tell it tell the parents that your confidence gonna work for their kid. And or equally, sometimes you do have to say, you know, your child is not well suited for this environment for whatever reason. Like they don't like noise, or yeah, you know, they this they want it to inspire you to sit still. And this child doesn't want to sit still or whatever it is. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 26:00

Yeah. No, that's exactly right. That's why that's why I like to ask that. Um, what are your non-negotiables question of school founders? Like, do you know the things that you you are willing to tell a parent, like, actually, this is not the best fit for you, because these are this is the vision that I have, and these are the things I'm not going to compromise on. Helps you have that conversation on the front end of enrolling a kid in the first place, but then also on the back end when it's maybe not working out that you can help them make that decision. Let's talk about or um no, hold on. One more thought. We we know that when you like I think we've talked about this a little bit, but just I guess to be clear, like when you make a decision, you are having trade-offs, right? Every decision in life involves trade-offs. So when it comes to your kids' education environment, there are things that we know that parents are thinking through. Like it's not, it's not always like even just the social things of like, well, my kid's friends are here and we know this environment. Sometimes it's the logistics, sometimes it's costs, sometimes it's um the parent commitment. Like maybe you as a parent have to invest more time in your kid's education than the what you would have had to do previously. So there's always, I mean, there's all of these things are like on sides of a scale to say, okay, which is the better option. We know it's not a simple decision, and we would never like imply that in any way. I don't I think I don't think that we have. I just want it to be clear. Like, we know that there's like a laundry list of things that parents are thinking through. Um, I had a conversation with a parent recently who was thinking about moving their kid to a different education environment, but like the school that they're a part of, they had to get like on a special transfer list. And it just was like real messy in a way where she was like, I don't know that we should transfer them because then if it doesn't work out, then I don't know that I'll be able to get them back over here. You know, so it just gets we know it gets um it gets messy. Um but it's something that we just want people to we want parents to like step into that shopping seat a little bit more actively.

SPEAKER_03 28:13

Well, which kind of leads nicely into myth three, because um the myth is just that people think that every innovative model is going to be unaffordable for their family. If you're a middle class or lower middle class family, sometimes you don't think about I mean private school sounds expensive, right? It does, yeah. And so I mean that's one reason why we're really proud to partner with Wichita Public Schools for the Creative Minds program because it's free to people in that district or people that are enrolled with the district. Um, but you know, innovative education doesn't have to cost money at all. But also a lot of our micro schools that are popping up are not nearly as expensive as some of our private schools that yeah, no, that's exactly right.

SPEAKER_05 29:06

We part of our work is helping there be more low-cost affordable options in Wichita. So um we know that money matters, we know that access matters, and so um we are not trying to create a bunch of really, really high expensive private schools. Uh that's not what is needed. Um, and as a school founder, you there is a way to build your budget in a way that you are basing it off of a an affordable tuition for families.

SPEAKER_03 29:39

Well, we see, I mean, a lot of our micro school founders started their model in their homes, right? Right. Where they're reducing costs in other ways. They have there are donors willing to support some of our micro schools. Yeah. Um, but we have options like hybrid homeschool. So for parents that are maybe interested in homeschooling but want a little extra support, it's only a day a week or a couple of days a week. And so those are less expensive. There are all kinds of options that families can look at that aren't expensive.

SPEAKER_04 30:12

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 30:13

Now, not to say that education isn't worth investing in. As someone who is putting two kids in expensive colleges back-to-back years, I can tell you that sometimes you pay for good education, but we understand that not every family has a budget to do it in that way.

SPEAKER_05 30:29

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And in like cost, yes, we're talking about like monetary cost, but again, there is a time cost for the logistics. Like, if if my family, like my husband and I had the conversation of like, we want our son to go to this school, it is 27 minutes from our home. Are we willing to invest that time cost, if you will? Um, and for us, it was yes, not everybody's going to have that. So that's why it's important also for our work is like, yes, we need more like lower cost, money cost tuition models here in Wichita, but also ones that are more like locally proximate to the neighborhoods that they want to serve. That's why we're a launch pad, we're not a home for people forever, is because we want things to go out into Wichita so that they are more accessible in like the logistic traveling kind of thing.

SPEAKER_03 31:18

There are neighborhoods in Wichita that desperately need alternative education models because of the transportation issue.

SPEAKER_04 31:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 31:25

So if you want to start a school in your neighborhood, give us a call. That's right. We'd love to talk to you about it. We want to talk about it.

SPEAKER_05 31:32

And to your point, like there are so many the conversations that we're starting to have now, if you're not familiar, with our space is very full in a very fun way. Um but it opens the door for us to have kind of more creative conversations of like where are the spaces in Wichita that are underutilized during the week when kids are in school? How could those environments be safe and secure and be a good learning environment, possibly for kids? So that's a it's a fun, it's a fun conversation that we're having more often.

SPEAKER_03 32:02

Yeah, we're interested in school founders, even if they can't start their school inside learning lab because they can't all start it in here. We wish. We have seven or eight. Yeah. Astros learning models in our space. And our space is big, but it's not that big. It's been a quiet week, couple weeks here, but we're about to disalmost around the corner.

SPEAKER_05 32:28

We're about to get hit with it. Yeah. Um, let's talk about myth number four. I don't want to skate over myth number three, though. Because we know that's there to say. It's like we know things cost.

SPEAKER_03 32:41

They're not all monetary. But it usually families have to ch change something to change their education environment. And it can be a sacrifice for parents, but it just depends on how much that family feels like they need the change, right?

SPEAKER_05 32:57

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And I think that's the thing. I mean, I think that's the conversation that we're having more often is I feel like we're getting families who are we're their last resort. Not that it the solution's gonna be here, but they are like so desperate for their kid to be happier and more successful in school that they are willing to figure out if they can find the right environment, they're like, I will figure it out. And not that we want anybody to be pushed to that sort of level, but that's really when we see like the impetus for change, right?

SPEAKER_03 33:29

And unfortunately, there are a number of reasons why a kid is miserable in school, but really it is our hope that that would never happen. Yeah. And so when we see a family who is that desperate because the child is miserable, then we are also desperate to provide them with options.

SPEAKER_05 33:46

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Um myth number four is school founders have always wanted to open a school. You know, true or father.

SPEAKER_03 33:59

We've talked about this on the podcast and we talk about it all the time off of it. But um, we have just learned that not every school founder has a background in business. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 34:09

It's a very reasonable thing. And that is okay. Um what we observe is that the school founder feels compelled really to create the learning environment, right? They they can see a vision for what they want the learning to look like. It's the um, they have this so human action model, right? There needs to be a sense of unease, a belief, a vision of a better state, and then lastly, a belief that that vision could be a reality. Those three things have to come together for people to take action. So these founders typically have a very much a sense of unease. We have a lot of parents who have started schools because their kids needed something different. We have a lot of educators who are unhappy, right? So, like they they see these things, they see a vision for what it could look like. But the belief part is where the business acumen comes into play. And what's part of our big hypothesis is that if you could make that easier or more supported or whatever, that you'd have more people who'd be willing to take the leap to be a school founder. Um, because they don't feel like they they're not accountants, they're not real estate and operations people, they're educators.

SPEAKER_03 35:28

Yeah, I think 90 something percent of school founders are educators first, and they should be. I mean, the educators are in the weeds, they see the problems, they know what they want to change and make different, they care about kids, they're trying to serve a certain population. So, all of those things are what is causing them to want to start a school. It's not because I've always wanted to learn to do bookkeeping. Um sometimes it takes us some convincing that number one, they're capable of being business people. Yeah, yeah. But number two, that they have to do it. I don't want to have a school. That's right. Uh, I was just talking about like for myself, like I don't always love spreadsheets and budgets. I mean, that's just not my first love in life. I want to talk about the big picture and I want to talk about why we have this relationship and blah, blah, blah. But I'd love to talk about the mission, talk about that all day. But if you want to talk about the budget, I have to really try. And that's just kind of how our school founders are. That doesn't mean we're not capable of doing that type of skill.

SPEAKER_05 36:40

It just means like that's not our first love. Nope. Nope. And that's but to your point, I do think being education focused first. You've heard me talk about like incentives matter in life. Incentives matter, and you have to have aligned incentives to do the right thing for the right reason. And I think if it was reversed, I think when you see education go awry, is when it's reversed and you have somebody who's focused on like business and money and profit margins first. And then education. We don't want people to be bro. Like I don't as a school founder, I want you to make money. A good look. Yes. But that is part of your budgeting, and that is part of how you do the math to say, okay, what tuition do I need to charge? What experience can I create? Like you're backwards mathing from all of these things to kind of whittle down to these numbers. But if I was starting saying, okay, I want to make a margin of hundreds of thousands of dollars, well, now we're in the wrong, you're in the wrong industry. Um, because what we know and what we observe, and part of back to myth number three is education is not a like profit-driven industry. It's not one that as a human, or at least as an American culture, that uh we're wanting to spend a ton of money on. Like we think that every kid should be educated. I think most people would say that. Um, but like who is spending the money and how much money should we spend? I think is where people get into differing conversations. Um, but like we need to focus on the education first. So founders who are focused on the child and meeting their needs and creating an environment that's personalized to them will get much farther and then understand that the business backside is like the necessary evil, if you will. Or you have to figure it out. Um, and so who can help you do that?

SPEAKER_03 38:37

I mean, that's what I want to do. I just want to shake some of our founders and say, like, no, like you can do this. You just have to figure it out. You have to either partner with a resource that can help you get on YouTube. I don't know, girl, but you you have the power to do this. You just have to believe you can't.

SPEAKER_05 38:54

Yeah, that's right. At EdCamp, yes, two weeks to talk about that. Yes. I wish I had like, I wish I had all my papers here. Um, I hosted a session that was about like bringing people together and designing a future learning model. And we did this very, very light. But my approach was getting them really focused on the learning environment first, getting excited, painting a vision, all of that. And then we talked about operations second. And I did that because I didn't want to get bogged down in the constraints first of like somebody saying, Well, I'm not an accountant, or like, how am I supposed to hire somebody for this? Or like, that's important. It's something to consider. But I think getting them really excited about like the vision that they have helped us move into the operations conversation. And then what I had them do was I gave them like a bunch of slips of paper that had business operations on them, like compliance, legal, accounting, HR, insurance, real estate management, facilities management, whatever. And I had three categories, like, I'm not gonna remember exactly what they were, but the first one was like, I can do this. I got this, not don't need any help here. Sure. The second column was like, I could do it, but I would need to learn. Like I would need some time to figure it out. And then the third column was like, I don't know how to do this, and I don't know if I could figure out how to do this. I would need like extra support. I would need a like that was kind of the help column of like, okay, you'd want to outsource these things. And it was just really interesting to see just kind of like data points of how do people sort things and then to hear the narrative around like, well, why did they sort things where? We did talk about YouTube a lot, we talked about like contract services a lot, right? So they were seeing a way, because again, like I'm not wasn't trying to manipulate them in any way, but like if you're so captivated by your vision, then you're not going to let these things slow you down. You're gonna get into the mindset of it's figure outable, not like a wall in front of you that you can't overcome.

SPEAKER_03 41:03

Well, you have to believe in your idea. You have to. I love that you should be a founder's boot camp. And I was fascinated with like the number or the amount of interest that you had. And these people, I mean, it wasn't like they were gonna go tomorrow and start their school or their nonprofit or whatever they were visioning out, but it was like, no, these people actually might be school founders. And we didn't go to like some great marketing length to attract school, by the way. Good luck doing that. It's hard to find school founders, but I just really believe that the innovative educators in the world, some of them are probably suited to do this. It's just it's like you're totally right to focus on the vision because again, they're the people that see the problems in front of them. Yeah. And then if they believe enough in that vision, then they're gonna figure out the stuff that's hard.

SPEAKER_05 42:02

Yeah, that's right. That's right. Well, and then part of our conversation with the like the categories was then evolved into a conversation of comparative advantage, which you know I love to talk about. Because we got this conversation of like, yes, I could do these things or I could figure these out, but is that actually the best use of my time? And like that is what it means to think about your model as a business operator. Like that is business at its best play, is understanding there is a cost to everything that we do. There is cost to us, you and I sitting in this podcast right now. But this is the most optimal use of our time so that we can share stories and and share what we're learning. That's the same thing that every school founder should be doing. Any business operator should be doing is saying, Okay, is this the best use of my time? Sometimes that means you're scrubbing toilets because that's what must be done, and you don't want to pay for a janitorial service. But like that's that was just a fun part of the conversation to get them thinking that way.

SPEAKER_03 43:05

Well, it's interesting because people, people make that equation in their personal lives all the time. All the time. And so if you can just transfer that, I always think about my dad because my dad was like a serial entrepreneur and he would pay anyone to do anything if it didn't take his time. He believed his time was the most valuable asset that he had because he knew how to make a business work. Yeah, and he was doing that. So you can clean the toilets, and do the lawn care. I mean, like he and so then when I, you know, first got married as a 20-something, I thought we were gonna pay everyone to do everything. Like I thought we were gonna pay the lawnmower and them to bag my leaves. And my husband was like, excuse me, what? So comparative advantage works in your personal and private life. It's true. It's true.

SPEAKER_05 43:50

Well, I mean, I think about like that as like parents for Connor and I, right? Like that's a kind of like, no, you you are the that's the conversation we have with crew sometimes now. It's like you're asking the wrong parent. Like that isn't like I am the wrong parent to ask for certain things. Like, go ask your dad. Um, but it's just something like to always be evaluating. Um, but I guess I by my takeaway from that conversation is it left me feeling hopeful because I think so often we hear this. I don't know. I feel like we've had some challenges from people. Like, I don't think that there's innovative educators out there who would be willing to do the work. And it's like, no, they are, there are, they are out there, but like it is okay for them to realize and us to realize that they are not business operators and they will need a different kind of support to bring this vision to life. So, how can Learning Lab be helpful to that? How can our partners be helpful to that? If our goal is to be the platform that helps education innovators get started without having to like carry all the operational burden, I mean, that's what this space does here. Then, like, what does that look like if you yeah, if you could like pick that apart a little bit more?

SPEAKER_03 45:05

Well, and I mean, I do think there are some people that just don't have the like HUD spa to do their own business, but those aren't, yeah, those people aren't called to be founders. But then there are people that maybe just don't realize that that is their calling. So we're here for that too. But I would love to see us be able to help people well on the backside. Yeah somehow. That's right. However, we do.

SPEAKER_05 45:30

Yeah, we have great founders in our space who have kind of gone through this journey themselves and it's up and down in a roller coaster all the way around. Um, but they're figuring it out. Um, our friends over at Vela Education Fund, right? They have a whole community of founders who have like been figuring it out. I mean, there's just there's people who have figured it out. So if you are somebody who wants to figure it out, we are here to help. We are shaping up some content and some learning and some communities for the coming year that we want to gather people together to kind of work through some of these things. So if that is up your alley.

SPEAKER_03 46:05

I feel like you just like gave a teaser.

SPEAKER_05 46:07

I did give a teaser, but vague enough where I'm like, I'm not committed.

SPEAKER_03 46:14

We are here to help you someday, somehow.

SPEAKER_05 46:16

Someday, somehow, some way, come talk to us. That's right. Um, let's talk about myth number five, then. Um, maybe our final bigger myth, and then maybe we can do some rapid fire myths because I have some myths for our day-to-day I want to get rid of.

SPEAKER_03 46:31

Well, we alluded to this kind of in myth one, really, but I mean, probably the biggest objection I hear from parents, especially of secondary students like middle school and high school kids, is that they believe if they pull their kid from a more quote unquote traditional environment, that their kid is not going to get to enjoy any of the things that they did as a kid, which they perceive to be as like tragedy.

SPEAKER_05 46:54

Yes. Yes.

SPEAKER_03 46:56

So things like prom. I mean, we hear prom all the time, as if like prom, I mean, Lydia was your junior prom the best night of your life. It was not. Um, and you know, things like organized sports, like school sports, being in the band and choir, doing the school newspaper. I mean, there are a lot of extracurricular opportunities that secondary schools offer kids.

SPEAKER_04 47:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 47:19

Um, so I guess my question to the parent would be number one, how important is that thing actually? Because I can see the argument for choir being really important as your child's gift and talent and passion. Yeah. If you tell me that prom, I I was I looked at a parent a couple weeks ago and I said, Well, would you rather your child be miserable at prom or confident and happy here? Yes. Yeah, no, it's true. Uh how important is prom? How important is that thing? Uh-huh. Number one. And number two, is there another way that that child can gain that fulfilling experience? And we're living in a crazy time in Kansas where if you homeschool or you go to a non-traditional environment, you are still able to participate in some of those extracurriculars in your local, like your geographical school district, public school. And so you can, as of what, two years ago, you can homeschool and play basketball for your local school. And so I feel like that in itself has opened up a bunch of opportunities. And I honestly don't think the public is super aware of that law.

SPEAKER_05 48:28

No, I know. I just saw an article. I wish I remembered like the numbers with it, but there's been like an immense amount of increase in participation by homeschooling fans. I mean, like, or like just there's like a big surge of it. And because of that, um, that change in the regulation or whatever. Um, but also like back to our homeschooling friends, like people have been homeschooling for a long time, people. And so there have been enough like demands from the homeschooling community for some of these things to be solved, and people are figuring it out.

SPEAKER_03 49:02

So there is in fact a homeschool.

SPEAKER_05 49:04

There is a homeschool problem. I mean, there are like so many activity groups or so many high school sports leagues and so on. There's a robotics team, and like, yeah, I just I don't think that again, you could look at your so kids' peers and be like, well, no, I want them to have the social groups that they've grown their whole lives up with. Again, that's a trade-off cost that you have to weigh. Um, but if it is for some of these singular experiences, I think there's a lot more flexibility to kind of unbundle and bundle these things back together in a way that works for your kid.

SPEAKER_03 49:40

Well, it's also a cost-benefit analysis, right? Because there are many things that you can experience in a non-traditional environment that if you're in school from 8 to 3 p.m. every single day, that you just don't get to do, whether that be traveling or learning from an expert in town or um, you know, having family time that you would be giving up. I mean, there are a lot of things that you gain when you don't have the time restriction of eight to three, all depending on the family situation. Of course.

SPEAKER_04 50:14

Yeah. No, that's exactly right. Um anything else you want to share with that, Meth?

SPEAKER_03 50:21

Uh, I don't think so. I mean, I just think you kind of have to let go of things that were important to you as a kid because those same things might or might not be important to your child, and you have to consider who your child is. It's kind of like the football player that wants his like nerdy engineering son to play football, and like that's just not gonna happen. Yeah. Um or, you know, I mean, I I'm really sad my kids didn't take high school journalism because it was such a huge part of my life for you know, 20 years as a student and then as a teacher, and they just like flat had no interest in that. So but you have to respect your child's gifts and your child's interests.

SPEAKER_05 51:04

Yeah. And to be also clear, kids don't always know what they need. Like you are still the parent. Sure. You are still able to say, like, no, I want you to experience this because that is important. Like, like you can't that we hear that that's a myth I hear is like, so the kids just get to do whatever they want all day long because you're just letting them follow their interests. And it's like, no, there are grown-ups who are guiding them. Everybody's fine. It's back to that zone of proximal development, that tension. Like, we want them to productively struggle and and fail forward. Um, but yeah, it's it's probably easier said than done. And I think it's also just part of human existence that it's not your job as the parent to relive your childhood through your kid. And so if they don't care about the things that you cared about, that's hard. But that's the work for you to do, as my therapist, Kim Burley would say. She's getting a lot of shout-outs today, Kim. I hope you're listening. Um okay, let's do some rapid fire, just learning lab myths. Because here's one that drives me crazy. Learning lab is not a school, my friends. The myth is that Learning Lab itself is a school. We are, we house many schools. This is where, like, as a society, we want to group things into things that we know and we don't know. So I understand why people think that. But the number of times that our dear friend Lauren gets phone calls from parents being like, I want to enroll my kid at your school. And Lauren's like, well, which one? And they're like, What do you mean? Um, we had our like back to school bash registration day last fall. And I had parents coming up to sign paperwork. Like Learning Lab, we have like our waiver and our social contract. That's really all they sign for us. But parents were like, What do you mean there's more than one school under this roof? So just to be very clear, Learning Lab is like an umbrella, if you will. And then we have different schools that operate within our space. That's right. We call them our residents, but they are founders who are operating a model under our roof, but it is their operation. So, no, to be very clear, Kristen does not do the marketing for Khan Lab School. I know. In fact, I do not do the accounting for USD 259's Creative Mind School. Like, we are more like a partner. If it helps you to think of as kind of like a landlord and tenant, but like more meaningful relationship, you can think about it like that.

SPEAKER_03 53:42

Yeah. It yes, and we don't do the discipline, we don't have to do that. We don't make the school rules, we do not accept or reject any ideology or curriculum choices. Nope. If a tenant, a tenant, a resident has something on their wall that is their choice, that does not mean we agree or disagree with that thing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 54:04

Yep. Yep. We have norms for our space. Okay. So that's we have five norms. They're all about accountability and integrity and stewardship. And I don't want to list them all off. But as long as everyone, we we go by a norms over rules, principles over rules approach here. And so, yes, you may individually disagree with something that you see on one of the walls of a resident model space. But as long as it is laddering up to these overall principles that we have, which is uh respect and integrity and all that, then we are fine. Doesn't mean you have to be fine, but that's not for you to be worried.

SPEAKER_03 54:48

That also just doesn't mean, you know, we are agnostic. That's right. We don't care. You know, we currently don't have a faith-based school in our space, but we would accept one if they were starting a school model that we thought was viable. Yeah. And so, you know, ideologically, like I have my own beliefs, they're different from your beliefs, but they are not learning lab beliefs.

SPEAKER_05 55:13

They're not learning lab beliefs. Yep, that's right. That was like a whole bundle of myths. That was a lot of things. So just to be clear, like learning lab's not a school. We don't run the operations for any of our school models. Um, we don't do enrollment, we don't manage admissions. So please don't send me a message being like, hey, can you get my kid into this school? No, I can't. Not my job. Um I feel like those are like the big ones.

SPEAKER_03 55:39

I agree.

SPEAKER_05 55:40

Everyone is welcome here to your last point. Like all of you.

SPEAKER_03 55:43

We aren't catering to any specific audience aside from kindergarten through twelfth grade education.

SPEAKER_05 55:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 55:49

So, you know, our goal is that we have more, better, and different options for different types of families with different beliefs and different schedules and different needs.

SPEAKER_05 55:57

That's right.

SPEAKER_03 55:58

That's right. And that's what I love about us. I love about us. We believe all kids deserve an education that works for them.

SPEAKER_05 56:04

Amen. And on that note, thanks for joining.

SPEAKER_03 56:07

See you next time.

SPEAKER_05 56:08

Bye.