334: Ana Lorena Fabrega On How To Learn

Ana Lorena Fabrega is a former teacher who now spends her time focused on building products to reimagine education. In this conversation, we discuss what traditional education gets wrong, how to unlearn what you learned, the toxic school culture of memorization, the changing role of educators, the future of online learning, and how to raise generations of entrepreneurs, creators, and producers. =============================== Our second sponsor is choice, a new self-directed IRA product that I'm really excited about. If you are listening to this, you are likely part of the 7.1 million bitcoin owners who have retirement accounts with dollars in them, but not bitcoin. I was in that situation too. Now you can actually buy real Bitcoin in your retirement account. I'm talking about owning your private keys and using tax-advantaged dollars to do it too. Absolute game changer. https://www.retirewithchoice.com/pomp =============================== Pomp writes a daily letter to over 50,000 investors about business, technology, and finance. He breaks down complex topics into easy to understand language, while sharing opinions on various aspects of each industry. You can subscribe at https://www.pompletter.com

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Anthony Pompliano?

  What's up everyone, this is Anthony Pompliano. Most of you know me as Pomp. You're listening to the Pomp Podcast. Simply the best podcast out there. Let's kick this thing off.

• 0:10Anthony Pompliano?

  Anna Lorena Fabrega is a former teacher who now spends her time focused on building products to reimagine education. In this conversation, we discuss what traditional education gets wrong, how to unlearn what you learned, the toxic school culture of memorization, the changing role of educators, the future of online learning, and how to raise generations of entrepreneurs, creators, and producers. I really enjoyed this conversation with Anna, and I hope you do as well. Before we get into the episode, I want to quickly tell you about our sponsors. The first is BlockFi. BlockFi currently has three separate products. You can buy and sell crypto with no fees. You can deposit crypto and get a US dollar loan against your collateral.

• 0:53Anthony Pompliano?

  Or you can use my favorite product as an investor and a user, which is an interest-bearing account. You can deposit crypto or stable coins and earn up to 8.6% APY on your deposit. Later this year, BlockFi is also going to launch a credit card that pays rewards in Bitcoin. Nope, no cash back and no airline miles. You're going to get Bitcoin back for your purchases on the credit card. So head on over to blockfi.com/pomp. Again, blockfi.com/pomp and check out the interest-bearing account, US dollar loans, and their crypto exchange. Our second sponsor is Choice. They're a new self-directed IRA product that I'm really excited about. If you're listening to this, you're likely part of the 7.1 million Bitcoin owners who

• 1:38Anthony Pompliano?

  have retirement accounts with dollars in them, but not Bitcoin. I was in that situation too, but not anymore. Choice helped me out. Now you can actually buy real Bitcoin in your retirement account. I'm talking about owning your private keys and using tax-advantaged dollars to do it too. Absolute game changer. You can now have a self-directed IRA product where you can buy Bitcoin, hold the private keys, and use your tax-advantaged dollars to do it too. Go check them out at retirewithchoice.com/pomp. Retirewithchoice.com/pomp. Lastly, don't forget that I write a daily letter to over 50,000 investors about business technology and finance. I break down complex topics into easy-to-understand language while sharing my opinion on various

• 2:23Anthony Pompliano?

  aspects of each industry. You can subscribe at pompletter.com.

• 2:28Anthony Pompliano?

  Again, pompletter.com. All right, let's get into this episode with Anna. I hope you guys enjoy this one.

• 2:34Speaker 02

  Anthony Pompliano is a partner at Morgan Creek Digital. All opinions expressed by Pomp or his guests on this podcast are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of Morgan Creek Digital or Morgan Creek Capital Management. You should not treat any opinion expressed by Pomp as a specific inducement to make a particular investment or follow a particular strategy, but only as an expression of his opinion. This podcast is for informational purposes only.

• 3:00Anthony Pompliano?

  All right, guys. Bang, bang. I've got a very special guest today. Anna is going to walk us through why we all don't know how to learn and what we can do about it. So thanks so much for doing this.

• 3:13Speaker 03

  Of course. Thank you for having me. That's, that's a good way to put it. Like what we're learning, what we're not.

• 3:19Anthony Pompliano?

  Absolutely. All right, let's just start with your background. You spent a long time teaching. You went to a bunch of different schools. Like just walk us through where were you born and kind of how did we get to you being a teacher initially?

• 3:30Speaker 03

  Yeah, so I'm from Panama, but because of my dad's job, he worked at a multinational corporation. So we moved around a lot. So I was born in Panama, but after a month, we moved to Colombia, then we moved to Venezuela, then we moved to India, then we moved to Mexico, then to Brazil, then back to Panama, and then I studied in the US. So really, I, I, I went to, you know, I, I moved around as a kid and by the time I was 15, I had been to 10 different schools because I also went to different schools in the different countries that I went to. And I guess that a lot of my ideas about education and all my questions come from my experience, um, having attended 10 different schools.

• 4:13Speaker 03

  And how, you know, I didn't really see that many differences in all the different schools that I went to, even though they were all, you know, once some were non-denominational, some were really religious, some were more traditional, some were more progressive, some were American, the other ones were national and still learning looked the same. So that's what kind of like I started thinking about this and then I decided to become a teacher. I love working with kids. And that also was when I started to see what was happening in schools and how it wasn't really working. And finally, last year I decided to leave in order to explore different alternatives and kind of raise questions that get more people to think about how little learning is happening in the traditional schools.

• 4:55Anthony Pompliano?

  Got it. And so when you started teaching, what grade were you teaching? And kind of what does that look like from the teacher seat? Most people listening have never been a teacher. They've just been in the student aspect of that relationship. But what does that look like?

• 5:08Speaker 03

  Right. So I, when I decided to study education, I went to NYU and I did childhood education and special education as my undergraduate. And one of the things that I think is really valuable about teacher training is that they make you student teach a certain amount of hours. I can't remember right now, but it was a lot. Like for two years, I was in five different schools just observing, you know, the whole teacher-student interaction and what it looks like. And that, you know, I was in multiple grades. I studied elementary school, so I was in first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth as a student teacher. And really, that's where most of my learning came from, from observing mostly the kids and how they were learning and how they were not learning. And then when I got my first teaching job, it was in Boston. My husband was doing his MBA

• 5:53Speaker 03

  and I was just teaching at a small school, a small private school in Boston. And I taught first and third grade in that school. And then I moved to Panama and I started working. And that's where I worked for four years at a big American school. And I taught third and fourth grade. So really, my age group, the one that I enjoy working with the most, are like nine and 10-year-olds. And I like that age because they're not too young. So they, you know, they're kind of like, but they're still not too cool for school. So it was like the perfect age and I enjoyed it a lot.

• 6:24Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay, so this is a weird question, but like, why is learning important? Right? So you spent a bunch of your time thinking about how we learn and what we learn and what the structures are and everything. But just like the core question of like, why is learning important? Especially at a young age, but even as we get to be adults and things like that? How do you think about that?

• 6:41Speaker 03

  It's interesting that you ask that because that's what kids ask when they're in school. They're like, why, why do we even have to learn? And, and that's when you start to notice, oh, my gosh, like, we're doing things wrong. Because if a kid is asking you, why do we need to learn? It's because they're not seeing the benefits of, of learning. And, and that's one of the big issues here, that in schools, learning has been kind of like removed from students. And it's, it's something like imparted by a teacher and something that happens inside this structure. So I think it's really interesting that to me, learning is really what happens outside of school. And It's super important because that's what that's when you start to see kids' interests and and what kind of things they're inclined to.

• 7:24Speaker 03

  And and what are the kind of things that they could end up doing in the future? So to me, it's not really like about what what we're teaching them and what they're learning, but more about like if they're learning, right? And and unfortunately, what I noticed in schools is that there's very little learning because they don't even they see it very detached from them. And and once you start to give them this space and the time to actually, you know, take charge of their learning, then it's completely the process is completely different. You see kids motivated, wanting to come back and then going through tangents and creating things that you wouldn't have even thought that an eight year old could do or a nine year old could do, right? And that to me is really learning.

• 8:05Speaker 03

  And and once they keep coming back for more, then that's when it's really important. Like, that's when things are going well.

• 8:12Anthony Pompliano?

  So the reason why I wanted to record this episode is Paul Graham recently wrote an essay all about like learning to unlearn. And he basically highlighted saying, hey, every single person that I talked to pretty much learned how to memorize and and kind of beat the test, but they didn't actually learn to actually learn. And so I said, look, let's go talk to somebody who is literally an expert at why is that? And so maybe you can start out just let's highlight the issues that kind of the traditional schooling system and the current mechanisms. Like, why are we all built to learn the way that we do learn through that school system? What are those issues?

• 8:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, so so the thing is that traditional school as we know it and this like compulsor like compulsive schooling was something that was created one hundred twenty years ago and for a very different purpose and a very different time. So back then, it was important to train kids to become assembly line workers for, you know, it was the industrial revolution, so they had to work at factories. We also had to train kids to be in the military. So kids had to learn a specific set of things and they had to learn how to follow instructions in for the jobs that they were going to have back then. The problem, so it worked back then. The problem is that the years started to pass and pass. All the other industries started changing, you know, as I expected, except for education.

• 9:32Speaker 03

  So, you know, if you look at a picture of a classroom and the way things were done one hundred twenty years ago, and you look at a picture now, you're gonna see basically the same thing. Uh, maybe you'll see more technology, you know, here and there, but really, the, the structure and the way that we are teaching in traditional schools hasn't changed. And the problem with that is that nowadays, we need kids that are creative. We need entrepreneurs. We need kids that are willing to carve their own paths and figure things out without instructions. Yet, in school, we're still training them to be assembly line workers, you know, to operate under instructions. Like, kids barely know what to do if a teacher doesn't tell them, like, this is what you need to do now. Um, we are still having kids, you know,

• 10:17Speaker 03

  comply to rules and be obedient. And the whole nature of a school right now is just goes against everything we know about how kids learn. Right? So if you think about school, you can't really talk. You know, teachers tell you all the time, like, you're not here to socialize, you're here to learn. So, you know, the instinct of a kid is to talk. So they go to school, they can't talk. The instinct of a kid, they're so active, they need to be moving. In school, you need to be sitting down for eight hours, you know, except when you go to recess. And there's plenty of evidence showing how, you know, all the ill effects of sitting down for so long. In school, you know, they have to be listening to a teacher and listening to a lecture. Like, that's not how kids learn. Kids need to be active and creating things and making mistakes and trying things out.

• 11:02Speaker 03

  So all these things go against the nature of a kid and against how kids learn. Yet we continue to do it just because the system hasn't changed in so many years. And many people don't even question this just because it's the way that we, you know, we were all in the system and, and that's just the way it is. And many people are scared to raise questions and to kind of like try something different. Many people are like, well, why I can't play with my kids' education. Like, what if I try something different and they don't end up learning? I'm like, they're not learning right now. So really, it's about exploring something different. So, so that's the main issue, if you ask me, that we're still training kids for jobs that don't exist. And a stat that I saw the other day that was just

• 11:46Speaker 03

  very alarming is that two thirds of the kids that are in elementary school right now will end up doing jobs that haven't been created. So really, we are teaching them for a future that doesn't exist yet. So instead of focusing on teaching from a curriculum that may or may not be relevant, we should be teaching them how to learn on their own and how to figure things out and how to create things, right? Because that's probably what they're going to end up doing.

• 12:14Anthony Pompliano?

  So I think it's Neil deGrasse Tyson, who, uh, he's got this, um, story that he tells, uh, and I'm getting the secondhand from Plana, so forgive me if I mess it up. But basically, he tells the story of he's walking behind a mother and, uh, her son. And they're on the road and there's a big puddle. And as they're walking by, the little kid naturally kind of goes towards it. And he's about to make this big leap and he's going to jump right in the puddle and the water's going to go everywhere and all stuff. And the parent basically pulls the kid away from it, right? And his whole thing was like, look, the kid wants to go figure it out. Like, the kid has to learn. When I step in it, the water shoots out, it gets me wet. Like, there's all of these things that happen. But then there's also the parent being like, I don't want to clean it up. I don't want to deal with

• 12:58Anthony Pompliano?

  this and whatever. And so it feels almost like, uh, to your point, like, there's this element of conditioning kids to not be kids to some degree. And so my question to you then is like, why was the system structured that way in the beginning, right? So it hasn't changed, but when that, this system was originally built, like, why was it so lecture-based and, and, and kind of built the way it was? Is it a control thing? Is it just like they didn't know any better? Like, what, what do you think there?

• 13:24Speaker 03

  Yeah, well, well, they didn't, they didn't need for people to come up with, you know, to be creative and to come up with ideas. Like, that was not the purpose. The purpose was for kids to follow instructions. And for that, they had to be very rigid and they had to like kind of have this authoritative role so that kids would comply. And that was the whole purpose and, and it worked really well. Like you had all these kids, you know, the teacher's the founder, the fountain of wisdom and the one that tells you what to do and this and that. And, and it worked back then for those jobs. But now, um, I find it so interesting, like kids are, they get in trouble if they question something, you know? If, if, and, and even if they do it in a respectful way, like teachers still have this, not all, but many teachers still have this notion

• 14:07Speaker 03

  that they are the authority and anyone who challenges authority, like it's wrong. And I'm like, I did it very differently in my class. I was always like, you guys, question everything. If something doesn't make sense, like respectfully, you can raise your hand and say, you know what? I, I don't agree with that, or I don't, you know, I, I want to dig more into this, or I, you know, have a different opinion. Um, and, and we need more of that, but, but that's the big no-no in school, right? It's not part of the obedience and, and, and compliance, kind of like culture in a school, which is really damaging for the kind of people that we want, you know, to raise.

• 14:42Anthony Pompliano?

  So the other thing, uh, and I don't have young kids, right? So I, I, I'm not as well-versed on this, but it feels like, uh, there's the structure of the school is very driven on obedience and like, sit in your seat, be quiet, we're gonna tell you everything, you know, like you're describing. The other thing is, it seems like all of a sudden, there's been this explosion, especially in the United States, of, uh, ADHD, uh, prescriptions and kind of like, we're also gonna just drug the kids into behaving to some degree. Um, and, and, you know, pretty much if you talk to anyone over the age of like thirty-five, they'd be like, we all had ADHD. Like, by, by today's standard, like, we all had ADHD. And, but we didn't get drugged. And so maybe like, what did you see in the classroom? And, and kind of what do you see now with, with just that aspect of trying to control kids?

• 15:26Speaker 03

  Um, I don't even know if I can talk about this, but I'm just going to. Um, if if I had actually, you know, paid attention to the psychologists and the parents that would come to me and be like, my kid definitely has ADHD, like, we need to prescribe him, right? And the teacher kind of has the same, and I was always like, no, like, had I said yes to most of, and I'm telling you, I taught in this past like four years, the amount of times that I had a meeting to discuss if we should put the kid in medication, and it was really my saying, because the teacher is the one, I would have had like ten kids in medication for ADHD. And to be perfectly on it, yes, they were extremely active, but in my mind, that is normal. I don't know if it's because I was like that and I got prescribed Ritalin, the entire thing, because I couldn't stop talking, I couldn't stop moving.

• 16:12Speaker 03

  To me, that is normal. And if you walked into my class, something like interesting was that you would have kids, I don't know who I was talking about this, um, to this, but you would have kids like reading, standing up. Or you, and and it's because I, they would ask me, like, can I stand up and read? I'm like, sure, like, if that works for you, go ahead. Like, I I don't care if you're sitting down or not, like, like, that doesn't make sense to me, like, some kids were on the rug. As long as they were doing what they were supposed to, it doesn't matter. You know, we would have frequent breaks where we were moving, because I know how important it is for kids to move. I am the kind of person that when I need to be creative and when I need to come up with things, I need to go on a walk, I cannot sit in front of my computer. So I cannot expect that from kids who are even more active than adults. Right? So to me, that is just so messed up.

• 16:56Speaker 03

  It's so messed up that that when you walk into a classroom, you're like, oh, what such a well behaved room. All the kids are sitting down like this. To me, I'm like, oh, my gosh, poor kids, there's very little learning going on in here. You know?

• 17:08Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, and and so I guess, like, when you're a kid, right? When you're nine, 10 years old, like, you can yell and scream and complain, whatever, but like, if your parents say, take the medicine, you take the medicine. If your teacher says, sit down and shut up and listen, like, you pretty much do it. You may fight it, you may be good at fighting it, but ultimately you succumb to the authority, because you want to ride home, you want to eat dinner, like, you know, you don't want to get spanked, or, you know, I guess you can't even do that these days, right? But like, all of those things. So that still persists, though, as you get older as well, to a degree, where it almost feels like there's this world of people saying, like, I want to learn, but it's supposed to be painful. I need to sit and like, study this book and read from, you know, front to back. I'm like, that's the only way to learn. And so is it a thing where, like, adults are just, uh?

• 17:54Anthony Pompliano?

  Much easier to like kind of suck up the pain and that they just do what they have to do? Or is it literally that we're conditioned since we're so young? That that is the path and that is the only path?

• 18:04Speaker 03

  I I really think that it's that we've been conditioned to believe that. And and I'm I'm glad you bring that up because I can give you examples of how I saw the complete opposite in my room. So. One of the things I I I really believe and I talk about a lot is that you cannot enforce learning. Like you can, it doesn't matter how hard you try. You cannot force somebody to learn. What you can do, and not a lot of people take this approach, but I did and it worked. Is you can inspire kids to want to learn. So really, and we can talk about how the role of the teacher has changed throughout the years. But the most effective teachers are those who do a good job selling the idea of learning. You know, you kind of make kids be like, I really want to learn about that. That looks interesting.

• 18:46Speaker 03

  You know, you make it like for them to be curious about it and want to come. Because if you try the other approach, they are going to repel it. Nobody likes to be told what to do, right? Especially when it comes to like learning. So one thing that worked really well for me is that I I've never used rewards in my classroom. Or like a behavior chart, and this is really common for teachers. And I don't blame them. I mean, once when you're in a room for seven hours a day with twenty four kids, different personality. I mean, it's chaos, like it really is chaos. And then you have the set of parents of each kid, which is even more chaos, right? So I don't blame teachers for thinking, oh, I'm gonna go and and have a behavior chart and, you know, pump every time you misbehave, that's one point and this and that. Here's what I've noticed. That doesn't work.

• 19:28Speaker 03

  Like it may work in the short term, the kid may learn, okay, I'm not going to talk right now. But the moment the kid has a chance to talk, the kid will do it. And the relationship that you're establishing with the kid is a really negative one. They see you as the enemy and they don't want to do anything that you're telling them. In, you know, like learning. So what really worked for me is I would give them lots of choices. And together we would come up with the things that we thought that were appropriate in the classroom, the things that weren't. And I would always tell them, like, I trust you until you give me a reason not to. And we established a culture where kids didn't feel like I had the control over the classroom and the rules. And because of that, I had very, very little behavior issues in my room. And every time the principal would walk by or teachers would walk by, they're like, what do you give these kids? I'm like, I give them choice and I trust them and we've established.

• 20:14Speaker 03

  You know, a a relationship where I'm not like the authoritative figure. I'm like, I don't wanna say a friend because I wasn't a friend, but you know, I was someone that that I was approachable and they saw that my intentions were for them to learn. And that works really well. And for parents as well, like, you know, establishing that, the behavior problems just really diminish.

• 20:34Anthony Pompliano?

  It feels like, uh, you know, I wasn't the best behaved kid even all the way through high school. And, uh, I remember you'd walk in certain rooms and the teachers who wanted to be more authoritative, like, you're like, literally, what can I get away with in here? How far can we push the teacher, right? And even when you're literally like a a teenage boy, you feel the same way and it's even worse when you're younger. But then there was teachers that would literally on day one be like, hey, here's the deal. We don't have behavior issues in here because I trust you, you trust me, like, we're just gonna work together and you're gonna walk out of here learning things. I'm gonna learn things from you, like, we're cool. And it was almost like this, uh, mutual respect to some degree. And that, I think people kind of get used to that maybe when they get older into college and stuff. But it sounds like you were able to take some of those same mechanisms

• 21:17Anthony Pompliano?

  and bring it all the way down to kids as young as, you know, nine, 10 years old, and it had the same impact.

• 21:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, and then just being really honest with them. Like, I cannot even tell you the amount of times that kids were like, so why are we learning this? And I'm like, I have no idea because I've never used this in my entire life. And sometimes I would be like, let's forget about this. Let's try something else. Like, obviously, I had, you know, the, to a certain extent, because I did have to follow a curriculum, but I was like, you know, don't, if they have a question and they don't understand something, you can just be honest with them, like, you need this for this. And when you explain it and they see the relevance, then they start to understand. I remember I had this kid who was like, they had to learn and memorize like all the states in the US. And this kid's like, Ms. Fab, like, I I've never been to the US. I don't know when I'm gonna be. I live in Panama, like, I I I don't wanna learn the states. I wanna learn the provinces of Panama. Wouldn't that be more relevant?

• 22:06Speaker 03

  And I'm like, you're totally right. Like, you're totally right. Like, why am I gonna force you to learn the states in the US? You're right, you know? So it's when they see that you have this approach and, you know, another answer could have been like, no, because you have to, and I'm the teacher, and you know what? You don't get to question this. Like, this is what you're learning. You can expect that they're not gonna learn at all. So, and it's, it's like really using your common sense and thinking about what you would have wanted as a kid in order to be, find learning appealing, right?

• 22:34Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, so we talked a lot about like the structure of learning, right? But what kids are learning, and I think what you're getting at here is there's this toxic school culture that you've talked about before, which essentially is just, I'm, as the teacher, gonna regurgitate all this information, you're going to do your best to retain it in your brain for a finite amount of time, the test is next Friday, don't forget it between now and Friday, but on Saturday, you don't have to remember anything, like you passed the test, you're good, move on. And it almost feels like we kind of wasted between now and Friday, memorizing something that you literally will never use or retain that information. So maybe talk a little bit about this like toxic school culture and kind of how you see those issues today.

• 23:16Speaker 03

  Yeah, so I find it, there's like a lot to unpack here, but I find it really interesting that when people, because it's, I mean, at this point, everyone knows that, to a certain extent, that there's very little learning going on, and the kids are not remembering things, and the kids are not retaining, and kids don't want to go to school, and they don't like learning or school. People know this, but the reaction of like those policymakers and the people who do the curriculum and this and that is, okay, kids are not learning, okay, let's, you know, we need to raise the bar, and we need to add more homework, and let's make the school day longer, and let's, you know, just more rigor, more rigor, more assessments, let's test them. And I'm like, what? Like, how did we get to this conclusion? Like, that's not, the problem is not lack of rigor, the problem is that kids don't care,

• 23:59Speaker 03

  and they don't have to because of the way that we're doing things, right? And if a kid doesn't care, it doesn't matter how many standards and how many tests and how much you try to drill information, they're not going to learn. So, since, you know, that was the approach, and since the no child left behind policy was put in place, like, we've had this obsession with like metrics and measuring learning and standards and high-stake testing, and to me, that has made everything absolutely worse. You know, just the environment in a school, when it's time for the, you know, high-stake testing, is just insane. Like, if anyone actually saw the inside of a school, they would be like, this is not humane, not for the teachers, not for the students, not for the parents, like, the whole thing is messed up.

• 24:43Speaker 03

  And it's exactly what you said. You see teachers quickly trying to like cram all the information before, you know, this big test. Like kids are stressed out. There's anxiety all over the place. And then right after the test, kids don't recall a thing. So it's like, we just wasted all this time, like prepping for a test and, and you know, getting kids, telling kids, quote unquote, this is a high stake test, like this is really important, like your, you know, school experience depends on this. Kids, how are they gonna perform well with all this pressure, right? And I've realized many things through this. One, that the grades don't really tell us much. Like you can have kids that do really well in a test because they figured out the way to do well and they've learned nothing.

• 25:28Speaker 03

  And then you have kids who actually know the material and you know, from having conversations with them and from seeing what they've accomplished, but then do really poorly on the test because they're not good test takers. I took the SAT three times. And oh my gosh, thank God I never thought like, Anna, you're dumb. No, I just, I always knew, like, I'm just not a good test taker. Like this whole thing doesn't work for me. Um, so I just think it's like, to be just perfectly blunt here, like our priorities are all messed up, you know, like, like all this, like when you remove all that testing and all that, you know, like standards and all this, then that's when you have more opportunity to start to see learning happen, right? And there's, I have a story with this. Um, so my first two years, I did exactly, you know, what I had to do, right?

• 26:12Speaker 03

  I would teach from the curriculum. I would deviate often, to be honest. Like I was never that teacher that taught everything from the curriculum, but the kids were happy, the kids were learning, parents were really happy. So it was working. But then by the third year, I was like, I'm done. Like I can't keep, you know, from day one, prepping kids for this test. Like we're just, no, this is not fun. Like I just don't see any relevance. So the third year I decided to rebel and I was like, I'm gonna do things my way. I'm gonna pull things from Pinterest. I'm gonna just, you know, if I see a unit that kids are not gonna use, I'm gonna just skip it and teach kids things that are not even in the curriculum, like personal finances, you know, things like that, you know? And I was with another teacher that had the same mentality. So we were able to do this together and it was awesome.

• 26:54Speaker 03

  But then it came time towards the end of the year for the big test, right? So in my school, we did something called the MAP test. And it's this, it's a standardized test that kids do in math, reading and writing. So they take it at the beginning of the year and they score a percentage. And then the program gives you like a projected growth that the kid needs to meet by the end of the year. What's interesting is that the teachers' evaluations are tied to student performance. So if your class doesn't perform well, or the kids, you know, the percentage of kids just don't meet that targeted growth, then you know, you can get fired, like it's, it's your job, right? Your job is in the line. So it was kind of a, you know, risky move that I was like, I'm just not going to teach these things. And then when the time for the test came, I was like, I'm not going to do test prep. Like I haven't been teaching these things throughout the entire year.

• 27:37Speaker 03

  I'm not gonna like mortify my kids for two weeks doing test prep. Like, let's just see what happens. Time of the test comes, the kids take the test. And when I go in for my end of the year evaluation, the principal, I was like, I didn't even know what to expect. I was like, oh my gosh, but I kind of knew that I was going to leave the school soon. So I was like, oh, well. Um, and then the, the principal was like, well, she, cause kids from kindergarten all the way to 12th grade, take this test. And she was like, Anna, your, your class scored the highest in your third grade class in reading and in math. So in two of the three categories out of the entire school. And I'm like, wait, what do you mean? She's like, well, your kids, most of your kids, like 90% of your kids either met or exceeded their targeted growth. So, you know, please tell me how, how did you do this test prep?

• 28:21Speaker 03

  And I'm like, do you want to know the truth?

• 28:25Speaker 03

  Actually, this is the first year that I decided not to follow the curriculum, you know, like to the, you know, the, the way I usually do. And I did not do any test prep and I didn't even like mortify the kids. They just went in and, and they did clearly really well. So this tells you that it doesn't really like the, like cramming and teaching for a test, won't necessarily, you know, provide good results, right? My kids were learning plenty in different ways and they were able to do well in the test, even better than previous years. So that's just an example of that.

• 28:57Anthony Pompliano?

  It, it almost feels like, uh, there's a lot of studies now at this point about like, kids who are more well-rounded, whether it's in sports, in school, whatever. Rather than say to a kid like, hey, you're going to be a doctor at age two, right? And like every single thing you do in your academic career is geared towards you being a doctor, like. They actually end up not performing as well as doctors than the kid who most of their career learned all of these different skills, right, was interested in a bunch of different things, kind of explored it all, ends up being the doctor, but they're just pulling from a much more like vast information, uh, like database. It sounds like that's kind of what your kids were doing, right, is they were more well-rounded going into this rather than just trying to optimize for how do I get all the right answers on this test. That well-roundedness ends up being a greater advantage.

• 29:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, so absolutely. We were doing things that were more related to the real world, right? So they were learning actually because they could see the relevance and I was not teaching this skills, which is what was really interesting, but then it goes with what I believe, right? Like that was a perfect example. Like I wasn't teaching this hardcore skills. We were doing projects, we were going outside, we were exploring the things that they were telling me that they were interested in and the skills just kind of like come along, which is really interesting, right? Like there's, like you don't need to explicitly teach many of the things that we do in school, right? So here's what I've noticed. When a kid is interested in something and the kid wants to learn about something, they will figure it out, especially now with computers, like that you will see them like, oh, Miss

• 30:27Speaker 03

  Pop, I need to figure this out. They would go to the computer, figure out all the facts, then they would come the next and they're like, I read the entire history of World War II and I was like, whoa, okay. I didn't even ask you to do that, but you, sure, that's great. So when the kids are interested and, and they want something, they will figure it out. That's what I've noticed. So ironically, by like stepping back and kind of like open it up and leaving it to them, that's more productive and kids will actually get more done than if we try to intervene and tell them exactly what to do and how to do it.

• 30:59Anthony Pompliano?

  I, uh, one of my favorite videos on the internet is a, I think it's a mom and she's sitting in her kitchen and she's like recording her, what looks like maybe five, six-year-old son, uh, around the corner. He's at the dinner, uh, table and he's doing his homework and all of a sudden he says, Alexa, two plus two. And Alexa says back four, right? And of course, everyone on the internet's like, you can't do that, right? You get everyone like freaking out. And I'm like, that's the smartest kid in the class. Like, I love that.

• 31:27Speaker 03

  That is hilarious. I love that. I love that. That's when kids would be like, Ms. Fab, um, I, I need to look up this word. Do I, do I have to use a dictionary? I'm like, no. Like, no, please use the computer. And they're like, oh, because my previous teachers would tell me how to use the dictionary. I'm like, no. Who carries around a dictionary nowadays? Like, you have a phone in your pocket. You're gonna look these things up. Don't use a dictionary unless you want to, but no. You know?

• 31:50Anthony Pompliano?

  Absolutely.

• 31:51Speaker 03

  You, you, you just, you need to embrace the fact that kids have all these tools to their disposal. And this is a little bit of a threat to teachers because this means that teachers no longer have to be, you know, their role is no longer to deliver information, right? Especially with, when this information is available online. Like, the role of the teacher really now is to be a facilitator and to provide, you know, the space and the conditions for kids to create things, right? And to be a source of motivation. Really, that's the role of the teacher nowadays. But it's really difficult to make this transition. And teachers still want to just, you know, be the ones in charge of everything. The problem is that when you do that, the kids are just not learning because you're removing the learning from them, right?

• 32:34Speaker 03

  The more space and the more liberty you give them, then the more learning is going to happen.

• 32:39Anthony Pompliano?

  So, one of the things I love that you talk about is like, how do we raise kids to be creators, entrepreneurs, producers? Like, things or people who can create things, right? And so like, what is that solution? We talk about the problems, but like, what is the solution? Or what does that design look like for how kids can learn?

• 32:58Speaker 03

  Yeah, so, again, in school, a lot of what kids are doing for 12 years, like, that's a long time, is they are, again, following instructions and really like working through this worksheets and like made-believe projects and things that are just real in the school environment. Like, that's the reality, like- Very rarely do you see kids actually going out and solving a problem in the real world or things that are relevant, right? Um, so it's interesting because to me, a good education is one that where kids leave or they graduate, you know, being extremely aware of what they're good at, having had plenty of experience creating and building different things and failing and then trying again and getting feedback until they nail something.

• 33:41Speaker 03

  And then, you know, and having that desire to keep learning. And those three things are not happening right now. And the one, the one that we're talking about right now is like, how do you get more kids to create? Well, giving them the opportunity to create things. So I recently like sent out a tweet storm with David of Y Combinator. And how, you know, I just find it fascinating, that model, because that's how, kind of like how I envision kids, you know, a school nowadays, right? If you want to call it a school, but a place where, you know, kids go and they're put into teams depending on what they're interested in. They have this ideas, they bounce off ideas and they just start building things. And then every two weeks they have check-in points and they get feedback. And then, you know, they see what works, they test it and then they build again.

• 34:22Speaker 03

  And, and, you know, they need more opportunities to do these things and just build and create and create. And we don't give them that space in school. In school, they're sitting down, learning from a curriculum. So I'm really interested in, in creating that space. And, and, you know, before COVID happened, like I was already thinking about doing it in the online space, just so that kids from different countries could just join. Um, and then it's a space for kids to create different things. They come in with a problem that they want to solve and I help them and I provide them with the resources so that they can work it through and come up with a prototype and solve a problem that they're interested in, a real problem. Um, and I feel like I've seen how through that process, they're learning so many, you know, so many things. They're learning how to do research, how to like, talk about their ideas, how to incorporate

• 35:07Speaker 03

  feedback and change things. And to me, that is the kind of learning that is going to be more valuable for kids in the future, right? Forget about what's going on in school. We've already talked about how that's like, we're not preparing kids for the future. But if we open more centers or, you know, creative studios or like I'm doing, online spaces for kids to just go. And execute their ideas and try them out. Two things are gonna happen. One, we I I do feel like we're gonna have more kids that are fifteen sixteen like with their own companies or with their own products out there because they're gonna have tried so many times. And I don't know if you've seen a kid when they're into something, they won't stop until they get to what they want to. So it's a matter of providing them the space and the resources to create and create and create and create.

• 35:52Speaker 03

  And and that's kind of like a maker's space, right, for kids. So that's kind of what I'm envisioning that kids need more nowadays. And hopefully more people start doing things like this.

• 36:01Anthony Pompliano?

  So one of the things I've always been fascinated by is I think a disproportionate amount of CEOs and founders of very large tech companies as kids went to Montessori schools. And I am definitely not an expert on these Montessori schools, but my understanding is that it's very much less rigid. It's more kind of this group project based type learning. It's a little bit self-directed by the kids. What are you interested? What are you not interested in? And also, one of the most fascinating parts I was reading about is like the way that they address the students, right? So your students were calling you Miss Fab, like they would just use first names. Right? And and almost treat the adult as a peer in some way.

• 36:41Anthony Pompliano?

  I think a lot of people get scared by that. They're like, oh, my God, how could you ever, you know, kind of break down the hierarchical structure? But also it looks like it works, like there's a certain type of person that comes out the other end of that process. And so it almost feels like what you're talking about is taking that type of more free flowing, less rigid structure, but focusing it specifically on like creation, right? Like, how do you build? How do you build? Is that a fair kind of assessment?

• 37:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So so I I'm a big fan of Montessori schools and of you know, there are other kind of approaches that are similar, that are very student centered and that the kid is doing most of the learning, like Reggio Emilia. You have Waldorf. So there are, I'm a big fan. And that's actually where I'm pulling, you know, many of my ideas from because it's around this idea that we want the kid to learn. So what can we do for the kid to want to learn? And I feel like it's, you know, it's a lot more fun. Kids enjoy going to these kinds of schools a lot more. What I fear, though, is, and which is one of the reasons why I'm trying the online space, is that the most privileged kids are really the ones who get access to this kind of educational experiences, right? And these experiments that are going on.

• 37:48Speaker 03

  And the ones that are at the least advantage are the ones who kind of like get stuck in this system. And and that's something that's constantly in my mind. I obviously don't have an answer for that. But one of the things that I was thinking is, well, I I I really believe that, you know, more and more people are going to have access to an internet connection in the future, right? Like, it's just becoming more and more common, even in remote areas. And of course, this is not to say everyone, but I feel like I I I'm really interested in exploring the online space because I I have a feeling that we can recreate this Montessori approached learning experiences in the online space and have access to more kids, right? And to kids that, you know, may not have a Montessori school close wherever they live. Um, but definitely, I think their mind is in the right place.

• 38:33Speaker 03

  And and I I'm I'm a big fan of all, you know, all the experiments that are have been done around that space.

• 38:41Anthony Pompliano?

  And help me understand how online education with like young kids works, right? So kind of two data points are, I got a bunch of friends who have young kids that are in kind of early elementary years. And all I keep hearing is like, there's no way that my kid can sit in front of this computer and zoom all day. Like, they're they're just not going to do it. They already have a hard time sitting in class, let alone on my couch where there's a TV and, you know, all sort of stuff going on. Then the second thing is, uh, it also feels like part of the value for young kids going to elementary school is like the interaction with the teacher, right? The teacher can be very kind of hands on with the kids, et cetera. So the little, it feels like that gets lost online. So how do you just think about like online education and children?

• 39:22Speaker 03

  Yeah, so there's a, there's an important distinction to make here, um, when it comes to online education. And, um, online education, when done right, it works beautifully. And it is not what we're seeing right now that schools are doing, right? Obviously, because of COVID, like from one day to the other, like teachers and schools have just had to like improvise and transition to teaching virtually. But to me, that's not online learning. That is remote online learning, which is very different. And I'll tell you why. Um, when you structure. A course that you wanna teach online, you do it with the frame of mind, you know, you keep in mind your virtual audience.

• 40:05Speaker 03

  And you you're not trying to recreate traditional schools in the online space. That's what we are seeing because of COVID, and that's what I call remote learning. But when online learning is done right, you design the entire course and the entire experience with the virtual audience in mind. And you use the technologies and you do this and you structure it very differently. And I I'll give you some examples of of people that are doing it really right and that I've seen how well it works. But what we're seeing commonly and what you're saying that your friends are telling you that if I were a kid, I don't even know what I would have done because I I cannot sit in front of the computer the entire day, no. Is that schools are just trying to recreate what they've always been doing online, right? So so that definitely doesn't work.

• 40:46Speaker 03

  Like, we're talking about how that didn't work in a brick and mortar school when kids are like sitting in front of a teacher. What do you think is going to happen when you put them in front of the screen? Like, most of my best friends are all teachers and I still keep in touch with them, all the ones that worked at my previous school. And it's just crazy to read that chat because the poor, you know, teachers are like trying to manage six hours a day of back to back online classes. Obviously, by the third hour, you get a group of kids that are up to zoomed out, like they don't want, they don't wanna pay attention. They're like first, second graders, like what? Like, that makes no sense, right? So the whole point of online learning is to concise the time so that kids are not in school for seven hours. Like, kids don't need to be in school for seven hours.

• 41:30Speaker 03

  They probably still are because it works like a daycare system at this point. But really, like, kids online should be just having direct instruction, one hour, one and a half hours, and then the rest of the time they should be learning in unstructured ways and have time to go out and socialize with other kids and go to music class and sports and this and that. The problem is that we haven't gotten to that point yet, especially because everything has to happen so quickly. So, um, two really good examples that opened my eyes to what a real good online course is, um, well, David Perel, who I know you know, um, he started this online cor- um, course called Write a Passage. And I also work with Tiago Forte, who has this thing called Fort Labs, and he, uh, And he teaches building a second brain, which is a productivity cost, but also with this like approach to online education.

• 42:14Speaker 03

  And I think that it works really well because none of them were educators before. And so they did not have this preconceived, you know, notions of what a lesson should look like and how to structure this. You know, for a traditional face-to-face environment. They just sat down and they said, okay, we want to create a course that's really engaging, that's going to be online. With a virtual audience in mind, how can we make it different? So they haven't grabbed something and put it online. They just created a whole new way to teach online. And it's structured very differently from what a course in person would be. And it works incredibly like I am impressed with how many people want to come back with the way like how everyone's learning and and it's incredible. So this really ties with this idea that I don't feel like like

• 42:58Speaker 03

  like there's no way to fix schools like I really don't think I think that we just have to like rethink the whole thing with you know, what what are our priorities right now? What do kids need to know nowadays? What are the kind of jobs that kids are going to have in the future? What technologies do we have available that we can use? And then using all that, come up with a new way to teach and learn. And that can be done online, but it's not what we're seeing right now. What we're seeing right now is outrageous, which is what you're saying, like having kids sitting in front of a computer. I am concerned. I don't even know what's gonna happen.

• 43:29Anthony Pompliano?

  How much of this do you think is uh for those online courses that they're teaching? Like the students are older, right? Meaning that they're just adults and like they are in a different place in their life and have a better base of knowledge than a nine-year-old or ten-year-old. Like, does that play into it as well? Or do you think that literally it's just a different way of teaching that actually gets different results?

• 43:53Speaker 03

  Well, I I had no idea how this course was going to be structured when I when I decided to enroll. Like, I just thought I was going to learn how to write for modern times. I had all these ideas about education that I wanted to put out there and I was like, sure, I want to take this. I was expecting a asynchronous, I think that's how you pronounce it. Kind of course where you know they just upload different videos you have to go through the modules and there's like a forum and this and that like that's what I was expecting and then I was like after the first session I was like whoa I need to think of a way to bring this to kids and that's exactly what I emailed David that day I was like this was incredible like I cannot believe the interactions how I I was put into breakout groups with different people and I actually felt like we were in real person talking and

• 44:35Speaker 03

  then you know he uses the flipped classroom approach which is that the videos or the lecture you watch a video in the afternoon or at any time that you can and then when you show up to class then you're just discussing what you learn you you come in with your writing you you get feedback you get to socialize and that's the way that we should be structuring this kind of thing that's really dynamic so that's kind of one I tried to replicate with our summer camp that's what we called it we started with a pilot just because we're testing all these ideas to see how it would work with kids um and I have for a week a group of kids that were nine through eleven and they would join this virtual space and I kind of tried to emulate that same structure that they were using and it worked beautifully like it was insane how the kids were totally engaged at first they were a little skeptical

• 45:20Speaker 03

  that I wasn't telling them what to do but by the second day they were doing you know they were all engaged working they had like the chat they were throwing in the comments we would put them in breakout groups and they were like giving each other feedback like it just you know it was incredible what they accomplished and this is not the kind of engagement that you see in online remote learning that's going on in schools right now and and I really think that I mean it works it works for kids the one component that I haven't been able to figure out is that the courses that they teach to adults they can be you know massive like you can have one hundred fifty people to five hundred people in a course and people are engaged because they're adults with kids I am not so sure I had twelve kids in my pilot right and I'm just still trying to figure out because

• 46:04Speaker 03

  I I do feel like they need that one-on-one and and that personalized attention so I'm still trying to figure out that component but it works like that method I saw that it works.

• 46:14Anthony Pompliano?

  How can adults cap like capitalize on this right meaning that uh there's a lot of people that are listening who say hey this is all great for my kid but like I'm still interested in learning myself how can they continue to learn as they get older given that they grew up in a system that you believe and and I tend to agree with you uh can and will be changed but for adults to kind of continue to learn how do they do that?

• 46:38Speaker 03

  Yeah, well, first, they need to be open to this idea of unlearning much of what they learned in school. For example, this course, "Write a Passage," that I took with David, basically made me unlearn the way that I learned to write and the way that I taught my kids to write in school, which was painful for kids and for me as I was following the curriculum. When I entered this class, it was like a completely different approach, like completely different. Robin, what they taught you in school, do the opposite. So, and it helped me, and hey, I am publishing, I am writing, I started voicing my thoughts, and it opened my eyes to this idea of being a citizen of the internet and having access to all these people and this idea.

• 47:22Speaker 03

  So, my best advice is for, and I kind of want to get kids into this, but I'm still trying to figure out the logistics and the security component, but to become a citizen of the internet, just become, you know, have your online persona and start finding the courses that you find interesting and then writing about these things and putting your thoughts out there or making videos or... But I really believe in this idea of publishing. You know, like by publishing, you get to meet other people, you get to put your ideas out there, connect with like-minded people, and organize your ideas, and you keep learning. Like, I'm addicted to learning at this point because I just keep finding things as I am writing and posting and reading. So, I think the best way is to use the internet and leverage the internet right now

• 48:04Speaker 03

  and find those communities of online people that are forming that I didn't really believe in before, but now I really do because I've seen how they work.

• 48:14Anthony Pompliano?

  So, one of the things you mentioned is like you took the course where there was kind of the exchange of information, and now you're putting it into practice, right? You're creating, you're writing, you're doing all this kind of stuff, and it feels like that's a common thread, whether it's a nine-year-old kid yourself, right? Or somebody who's 60 years old and still wants to learn. It's this creation piece of it. So, how do you feel like that fits in on the online learning side?

• 48:37Speaker 03

  You mean like, how do you learn? Like, rephrase that question. Like, how do you learn?

• 48:41Anthony Pompliano?

  So like, if you're a young kid or you're a 60-year-old, right? There's this whole idea of like, hey, I can go online, I can read all this stuff. But then I've got to actually go, and the creation part is a big part of the actual learning itself. And so how does that fit into just consuming information on the internet?

• 48:56Speaker 03

  Oh, oh, yeah, absolutely. So, so that's a big thing. Because now with all this, you know, information accessible, anyone, you can, you can, you can actually fall into the rabbit hole of just consume, consume, consume. But a big part of it is producing things. And there's so many ways to be a producer nowadays. You know, like, you can do videos, you can do podcasts, you can be a designer, you can write about it. So what I've been trying to incentivize the kids that I'm working with is, well, what do you like to do? Like, are you really passionate about taking photos? Like, photography? Are you really passionate about writing? Are you really passionate about, you know, talking? And based on their interests, then figure out how they can, you know, produce and, and, and put their thoughts out there in whatever medium that they like. And with computers, it's really, you know,

• 49:41Speaker 03

  it's, it's become a lot easier. So really getting, and adults can try this too. Like, what's the medium that you like? Like, what do you, I started with writing, which is still really challenging for me. But then I started to try a video, and it turns out that I really like doing videos. So exploring and putting yourself out there and encouraging the kids to do the same thing until you find what's the best way that works for you to share all the things that you're consuming.

• 50:03Anthony Pompliano?

  I have to imagine that kids especially, when you ask them, what do you like to do? There's some form of social media that is the answer. And then when you ask them, what do you want to be when you grow up? I'm assuming that, maybe not nine and 10, a little bit older, you start to get the like, I want to be an Instagram influencer or TikTok star or whatever. How do you kind of still help kids that, it doesn't look like to probably most adults, it's like, that's a job opportunity or a path to pursue in life? I think you, me, and many others on the internet, everyone's like, no, actually, those people are doing quite well for themselves. It's a kind of like, how do you deal with kids who want to pursue things that are just like more soft skill-based and more kind of content-related? More so than like, hey, I want to go and, and do something

• 50:48Anthony Pompliano?

  like a software engineer or something like that?

• 50:51Speaker 03

  My answer is go for it. To me, and this is something that, you know, for example, my husband, we're very different. And he's like, well, when we talk about, you know, when we have kids, how are we going to raise our kids? And this and that, I'm always like, whatever they tell us that they're interested in, we're going to drop everything we're doing and we're just going to say, yes, you want to learn about that? Let's go ahead and nurture that. Because here's what I've noticed, like if a kid is really interested in something, let's say becoming a YouTube star or becoming something and you encourage that. Obviously, we're talking about things that are good for them, right? But if they say that they're interested in something like, no. But so if you if you support them and you encourage that and you're there, like it's not like you're going to just drop them.

• 51:33Speaker 03

  You're there kind of like observing and being a guide, but you support their motion and you give them the resources, you will be surprised with the things they can accomplish. And that is one of the big things that's lacking in schools, that kids, we don't part from the kids' interest. And for example, if a kid is telling you like, oh, I want to learn about government. And you're like, no, no, we're going to learn about the Middle Ages because government, you're going to learn in eighth grade. It's like, wait, what? No, if the kid is telling you that they want to learn about something and they want to do something, you need to take advantage of that because that rarely happens. So whatever they say that they want to pursue, you you you help them. And then you you're there as a guide to show them what's the best way to do it and and make sure that they are, you know, doing something productive. But you go for that.

• 52:16Speaker 03

  Like I I am a firm believer that it doesn't matter if you want to, you know, create Lego blocks or be, you know, scientist or whatever, take photographs, whatever it is that you want to do, you should be able to try it out, right? And and and kids are very excited when they try things out. So give them the chance to do it.

• 52:33Anthony Pompliano?

  When I hear you talk, it sounds very similar to, rather than in the old model where a teacher, there is no kind of option as to how else you can learn. The teacher is going to give you the information in this format. And like, it's all about what you learn. Really, what it sounds like you're talking about is that evolution of the teacher's role to more of a facilitator and actually showing the kids how to learn, right? It's teaching them, here's how you use the computer. Here's how you actually go and and do research and all that kind of stuff. And the what is almost less important than how, is that fair?

• 53:04Speaker 03

  You you absolutely nailed it. That's exactly right. And the problem is that, you know, many, many parents are scared to to to kind of like, they don't really know how to manage this whole like kids using the technology and wanting to do research. But the thing is like, I'm like, the parents have way more experience than the kids. So instead of being like the enemy or prohibiting them from doing, they're gonna do it anyway. So be an ally, like sit next to them and be like, oh, you wanna know how to research? Like, let me show you the right way to research. Let me show you why, you know, when kids ask me like, Ms. Fab, why do teachers hate Wikipedia so much? Like, what's so bad about Wikipedia? I'm like, there's nothing wrong about Wikipedia. Like, the thing about Wikipedia is that sometimes people will post things that are not correct. But hey, let's try it out. So you you don't, you don't just like disregard what they're saying.

• 53:49Speaker 03

  You teach them how to use the platform correctly. You teach them how to you do research. You teach them how to use Wikipedia. Like, you wanna, you just wrote an article about global warming. You wanna add it to the Wikipedia page that talks about global warming? Let's go ahead and do it. If they put it down, let's see why they put it down. Like, that's a learning opportunity, you know, so it's, you know, and and kids are encouraged, they're motivated because they're like, I can contribute to the body of knowledge that's out there that anyone can read. Like, what's more motivating than that? So instead of saying no and and like, help them with their curiosities, help them do their, you know, teach them how to do the research. And and because we want, they do need help in order to do things well, right? But but we're not really giving that help right now. So I feel like that's really important to kind of like walk them through the things that they're already exploring.

• 54:33Anthony Pompliano?

  What are the technologies that you think help facilitate all this? Obviously, we're doing this on Zoom. I'm assuming Zoom is is a big piece of a lot of it. But what are some of the other technologies or platforms that you feel like are gonna play a big role in helping all this online work?

• 54:47Speaker 03

  So at this point, I've I've wanted to keep it very simple because I I've realized that really, again, the online, like, the online space is just for interactions to share what you've created, to socialize and get feedback, right? So to me, that's the main purpose. So Zoom works really well, like this video conferencing. I feel like a lot of the rest of the learning gets done outside, you know. Of of the interactions here, um but I haven't explored that many softwares. The things that I if I had kids right now, I would get them a Mac and I would be like, okay, this comes with iMovie. Go ahead and explore this week. Explore iMovie. You know, you get to make trailers, you get to make movies and then learn how to edit. And you can learn how to edit by going on YouTube and figuring out with a computer,

• 55:30Speaker 03

  with a Mac, you also get like a garage band. Go ahead and explore like you can create your own music. You can write, you know, make a podcast, like try that out with that. You also get all these design things where you can try like if the kid likes to design, like all these things you get from just a computer, like you want to try blogging. Sure, let's go ahead and try blogging. So to me, it's not really about like softwares out there like I I'm I I haven't been trying that many. I don't feel like it's as relevant. I think it's just kind of like using the applications that you have accessible to create. The whole point is just to be making things and putting them out there.

• 56:00Anthony Pompliano?

  What do you think are the risks of um kind of changing the way that kids are learning? I've we've talked about a lot of the positives and you and I think are pretty convinced that like this is a good direction to head in. But what are the risks or the downsides to pursuing this type of education?

• 56:15Speaker 03

  You mean like the alternatives, right? So I'm not gonna have a lot to say here because every time I think of something negative, I'll do my research and I'm like, ha, I found a way to figure this out. So that's not a problem anymore. Um but many parents are like, okay, Anna, like I buy into it. I kind of want to try it out. But what if, you know, I realized later on that I do want to kid want want to put my kid into school or that I do want for my kid to go to college, you know, and and like, what am I gonna do? Well, here's what I realized with kids that, for example, go to Montessori elementary schools and then elementary school ends and then that kid has to transition to a more traditional school. It is true that you will see a little bit of, I mean, it's it's different, right? The kid is used to learning in their own way, unstructured,

• 56:59Speaker 03

  like, you know, follow their interests and suddenly like they transition to a place where they're telling you what to do, they're telling you what to learn, they're telling you how to learn that and how to show that you learned that. Obviously, you will see like a a little bump there and some parents get discouraged and they see that as, oh, Montessori schools did not prepare my kids well. And no, it's just that you're putting them back into a structure that is really challenging to learning. So, I mean, that's one of the things that I see, like if you start off with like, let's say, an online learning experience and then you try to put your kid into a traditional school, you may notice that. Um, so that's one thing. And then the other thing that they're like, well, what if? I want for my kid to go to college, right? Like, and, and I pursued this alternative path.

• 57:40Speaker 03

  And I, I did my research and colleges actually um are, you know, they accept homeschooled kids. They accept kids that have done some other forms of education. Um, I'm assuming that you do have to show some kind of like progress or, but I do know that my unschoolers, I don't know if you've heard of that term, like the unschoolers. So, yeah, you have like word schooling and homeschooling and unschoolers. So um unschooling is basically like you don't have a curriculum and you're homeschooled, but it's just what the kid decides, right? So it's very like the extreme, the other extreme. But even unschoolers can get into college if they want to. So um those are the two things that I see how those could be like little bumps.

• 58:19Speaker 03

  Um, and then also if a kid is home and doesn't have the support of a parent to be kind of like there, facilitating the experience, and you don't have to be one hundred percent involved, but kind of like there, then I do see that as challenging, right? Some parents like really have to go to work and have to deposit their kids somewhere, which is kind of the function of schools. And for that, I, that's also kind of like an issue with this kind of like alternative educational experiences.

• 58:45Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, and it feels like uh I've got a couple of friends who that they're definitely feeling the pain of that right now, where they're like, oh, man, this like uh dealing with a six-year-old all day is like really tough. Uh, and, and kind of this idea of like, hey, the teacher is actually the one taking care of them uh for, for some period of time. Um, and, and I guess the other piece of it too then is like, if you think of it from like a socioeconomic status standpoint, right? People who work service jobs, a kind of lower socioeconomic status, are the ones that are more likely to need the childcare that school provides, because both parents are working, both parents are going um to a, to, to a job and stuff like that.

• 59:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, one of my favorite um forms of a like alternative education is something called the microschools. Have you heard of microschools? They're becoming to, you know, they're becoming more popular nowadays. And I really think that this is kind of like the model of education that has a lot of potential to take off. So microschools are a form of homeschooling that's done by one parent or one educator in different neighborhoods. So let's say that we live close by and I, I say I'm a teacher and I want to teach. So I open a microschool in my house and it's like five to six kids. And your kid comes over and the, the other neighbor comes over and then we create a curriculum. And it can be either, so it's kind of like a homeschooling, but with more kids and facilitated by one person, right?

• 1:00:07Speaker 03

  Like either a teacher or a parent that has the time and wants to do it. Um, and what I love about this is that you can either do it your way. Like you create your own curriculum based on the needs of the community. You know, if it's like a Spanish community, you can add Spanish to the curriculum and so on and so forth. Um, and it's in a very nurturing space because it's at a home. And you have, you know, you're not by yourself being homeschooled. You are have other kids that you're interacting with. But also like there, this company is like, I know there's like Wonder Schools and there's Prenda Learn. And there are a few others that they're micro school centers that they help you set this up. And they provide the resources in case a parent or a teacher wants more guidance, right? And I feel like this enterprise obviously is nothing compared to an elementary school.

• 1:00:52Speaker 03

  I feel like this way is a way more organic way for kids to learn. It, it, it gives parents the ability to be able to go back to work and knowing that your kid is at a safe place with someone in your neighborhood. Um, and, and it's, you know, kids are more engaged because it's only a few hours and they're doing things that they find exciting. It's a lot more personalized. So this trend is growing and, and I feel like it's easy to replicate in anywhere, right? You just need a home, someone willing to do it. And then either you do it on your own or you ask for the resources from this company. So I feel like that is probably more sustainable than let's say homeschooling for parents that cannot afford, you know, to stay home or.

• 1:01:30Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, that, that, that makes a lot of sense. Actually, it sounds pretty cool. As we go to wrap up, uh, what is your one piece of advice for parents that are looking at kind of these alternative ways of, of learning for their kids?

• 1:01:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, so um to me, the the whole point why I'm doing all this is because I feel like a lot of these things, people kind of have in the back of their mind, because we've all been through some form of schooling, and we've all experienced all these things. Um, but unless we bring them up, people don't quite think about them. A lot of parents don't think about them, but when we do bring them up, and this is the feedback I've been getting from people who read my content, is that it starts to kind of light up something, right? And you start to think about your child's education in a new way. And even if you cannot pull your kid out of the traditional school system, which is very likely that many parents are not going to be able to,

• 1:02:26Speaker 03

  you can at least start to wait the learning that happens outside of school even more than the learning that's going inside school, right? You can start looking at the grade and knowing like, oh, this doesn't really mean that my kid is learning. You can start using the time after school to create, you know, maybe some learning experiences where they can, you know, work on their creative side. Um, if your kid tells you that they're interested, or ask your kid, what is, what are you interested in? Let's explore that, you know, kind of like, like explore this creative side of kids. Because if you've heard this conversation, you already know that that schools unfortunately are not digging into that. They're not digging into kids' creative side, they're not digging into kids' interests. So try to find a way to compensate for that when they come back home, right?

• 1:03:09Speaker 03

  Or, you know, try to find alternative, maybe online experiences where kids can have like that complementary side and nourish that side. So hopefully, like, that's something that people who listen to this are going to start considering.

• 1:03:21Anthony Pompliano?

  I ask the same two questions, uh, to end each episode, then you get to ask me one to finish up. But the first one is, what is the most important book that you've ever read?

• 1:03:30Speaker 03

  Oh, that's a challenging one. Um.

• 1:03:35Speaker 03

  So probably um the war on art. Have you heard that book by Steven Pressfield? Um it just talks about resistance and and I feel like this is something that I I came into it. You know, thinking of students and how I could help them, you know, kind of battle this resistance that they have every day in order to raise their hand because we've conditioned them not to and to say the things that come through their mind. And then I ended up just learning a lot of things myself from the book and and I, you know, it's kind of like those books that I just revisit all the time and I bought multiple copies and give it to my friends. So so that book is just really, really good. I could I could mention more, but anyway.

• 1:04:14Anthony Pompliano?

  The war on art.

• 1:04:16Speaker 03

  Yeah, the art, the art of war. Wait, let me, I'll I'll tell you in a second. Let me just check.

• 1:04:21Anthony Pompliano?

  OK, uh, the art of war, I think, is Sun Tzu. So it's a different book.

• 1:04:31Anthony Pompliano?

  She's quick, she's quickly Googling.

• 1:04:33Speaker 03

  Duh. Yes, the war of art.

• 1:04:36Anthony Pompliano?

  The war of arts. OK, got it. Um, second question, more fun one. Aliens, believer or non-believer?

• 1:04:44Speaker 03

  On aliens?

• 1:04:46Anthony Pompliano?

  Yes.

• 1:04:47Speaker 03

  My husband's gonna be like, what? I I do not, I do not. He he's been, I do not believe in aliens.

• 1:04:53Anthony Pompliano?

  Why?

• 1:04:54Speaker 03

  I just don't, I just don't. I feel like if there were aliens, they would have already kind of like invaded or or done something about it.

• 1:05:02Anthony Pompliano?

  How do you not know they're here?

• 1:05:03Speaker 03

  Um, no, no. I mean, if there are aliens, they're probably like, what in the world? Like, like, what's going on right now? Like, all this is happening because of a bat? Everyone's stuck home like that, I do think often, like, they're probably like, oh, my God, this humans.

• 1:05:19Anthony Pompliano?

  But but your husband believes and you don't.

• 1:05:21Speaker 03

  Well, he's been kind of, you know, sensing, giving me the sense that he does that that there are few things that point out. And I'm like, I don't even want to engage, like, absolutely not. I can tell you do believe in them because of your reaction.

• 1:05:33Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, I, to me, it's a mathematical thing, right? It's just like the world is so big, or the galaxy and kind of the space and everything is so big and expansive that like, the probability is that there's aliens. Uh, the big question is, are we here at the exact same time they are? In terms of, you know, let's say humans, we've got a nice couple million of year run, uh, existing on earth, like, are aliens here or did they come before us, after us? Who knows, but there's gotta be intelligent life somewhere.

• 1:06:00Speaker 03

  Okay, wait, that's a different question. Yes, I do feel like there are other living creatures out there. I just wouldn't categorize them as aliens, but for sure, for sure. I do feel like there are other living things out there.

• 1:06:10Anthony Pompliano?

  All right, you're forgiven, you are forgiven. Uh, you could ask me one question to finish up. What do you got for me?

• 1:06:17Speaker 03

  Oh, okay, only one? Let's see. Um, what do you think that kids should be learning nowadays? Like, what's something that you didn't learn in school that you're like, I, I, I think kids should be learning this instead of all the other stuff?

• 1:06:33Anthony Pompliano?

  There's two things, uh, and they're somewhat related. Uh, no, not Bitcoin, actually. Uh, personal finance, though, for sure. Uh, I feel like, uh, a lot of the societal issues that we have are built on the premise that 50% or more of the population doesn't understand how money works, how, uh, the financial industry works, uh, simple things like why you should pay off your credit card at the end of every month, right? That isn't so much like, uh, this is gonna change society, but like, it will have a material impact on kids specifically. Uh, also, the damage of taking on hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt to go to college and like, very simple things that once you understand them, you're like, oh, that makes sense, but we just don't really educate people on.

• 1:07:15Anthony Pompliano?

  Uh, and the second thing is, um, I do think that we should do a better job of like, teaching entrepreneurship and with the idea being kind of similar to what you're talking about, like the creation and, and all that, but it's, uh, you learn so many things other than just business, right? You learn leadership and how to manage people and interact with people in the business setting. You learn negotiation, you understand marketing, the operations, right? Like, all of these different aspects that go into trying to build, uh, a Company or like a product that it doesn't matter if you end up actually wanting to own businesses when you get older or you go and you work at a business like you will be a better employee because of it and you will also be a better business owner because of it.

• 1:07:55Anthony Pompliano?

  And so it just feels like it's like one of those well-rounded skills that exposes somebody very quickly to a lot of different aspects of uh of kind of the world. And so, uh, you know, a lot of people are like, why would you force kids to start businesses? I don't think this is so like start a business as much as it's like, what do you want to build, right? I think kind of your, your point of like being a creator, um, I, I definitely agree has, has a lot of positive impact to it.

• 1:08:18Speaker 03

  Awesome. Well, I'll make sure to include something like that in my future school. So when you have to bring them over.

• 1:08:24Anthony Pompliano?

  Awesome. Where, uh, where can people find you on the internet? And where do you want to send them, uh, any webpages or, uh, places where you're writing or anything?

• 1:08:31Speaker 03

  Yeah. So, um, I have my personal website. It's ana lorenafabrega.com. That's where I write, you know, I have a blog there. Um, I send a weekly newsletter, which you can also subscribe, um, there. And the link is afabrega.com. Um, it's called Fab Fridays. It goes out every Friday on childhood education, but really I cover like education overall. Um, I recently started a YouTube channel with some of the tips that you gave the other day, um, in the conversation with David Prell and, um, and I'm very active on Twitter. So, so yeah, those are the places where you can find me.

• 1:09:02Anthony Pompliano?

  What's your, uh, Twitter username for people?

• 1:09:04Speaker 03

  Yeah. Anna Fabrega eleven.

• 1:09:07Anthony Pompliano?

  What, where, all right, I gotta ask eleven, what's the eleven for?

• 1:09:10Speaker 03

  My birthday is February 11th and I wrote like, my name is Anna, my sister's name is Anna and my mom's name is Anna. So we're all Anna Fabrega. So I just added the eleven. So we could be something different.

• 1:09:21Anthony Pompliano?

  I love that. I love that. I feel like, uh, Twitter names with numbers in them always have some kind of meaning, right? So, but you gotta ask what the, what the number's for.

• 1:09:30Speaker 03

  Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. Just my birthday, February 11th.

• 1:09:33Anthony Pompliano?

  Awesome. All right. Well, thank you so much for doing this. I think people are going to learn a ton and we'll have to do it again in the future.

• 1:09:38Speaker 03

  Um, thank you for having me. This was a great conversation.