We don't do the basics. We need to nail

the basics. Just like in sports, my

famous example I always use is if you

lose the ball 20% of the time going down

the court. The coach is not saying,

"Let's work on the dunks and the

alleyoops or the even the layups."

They're like, "Ball handling. We're

going to get ball handling. 20% isn't

acceptable. 15% isn't acceptable. You

can't be 85 80% accurate."

>> In America, we're like, "You getting a

B, man. Move on. We're moving on to

dunks. You just finished fourth grade at

80%, let's get you into that fifth grade

stuff. And the answer is no. No, because

then all those problems compound.

Welcome to the Hubberman Lab podcast

where we discuss science and

science-based tools for everyday life.

I'm Andrew Huberman and I'm a professor

of neurobiology and opthalmology at

Stanford School of Medicine. My guest

today is Joe Limont, the principal of

Alpha School, which is a novel approach

to education that strives to ensure that

every child reaches the frontier of

their knowledge and skill potential.

Kids in alpha school spend just two

hours a day, two hours a day, learning

what they need to in order to ensure no

gaps in their cognitive knowledge. Then

they spend the rest of their day

learning to and actually starting their

own businesses, learning financial

skills as well as communication and

interpersonal skills. The goal of Alpha

School is to tailor learning to the

unique needs of the child. But unlike so

many other non-traditional forms of

learning in schools, they don't let the

child pick what is easiest for them, nor

force all kids to learn at the same rate

across all subjects. So, it's a truly

unique approach. The data on alpha

school kids are astounding. K- through2

students from alpha school test in the

top 1% of students in the US and their

average SAT scores graduating from high

school is a nearly perfect 1530. In

addition, while still in school, many of

the alpha students start their own

businesses that are highly successful,

meaning they generate hundreds of

thousands or even millions of dollars.

During today's conversation, you're not

just going to hear about how alpha

students do all this incredible stuff.

It's really about how the ways in which

they learn will allow you, adult or

young, to learn better and why filling

in gaps in our basic knowledge that we

all have at every age is both possible

and can be done quickly with the correct

lesson plans and understanding of

neuroplasticity, the brain's ability to

rewire itself. So, some of today's

discussion focuses on that as well.

You'll also learn that no, Alpha School

is not just for wealthy kids. They are

changing education for students of all

backgrounds and income levels. and Joe

Lemont and his colleagues are striving

to teach educators the real data on how

kids and adults learn best in ways that

serve the student both in and after they

leave school. I have to say as a

university professor who lives in the

land of education, our conversation

today completely changed how I think

about learning in and out of the

classroom and it also provides tools

that I now use to learn more

effectively. And I'm confident that it

will do the same for you. Before we

begin, I'd like to emphasize that this

podcast is separate from my teaching and

research roles at Stanford. It is

however part of my desire and effort to

bring zero cost to consumer information

about science and science related tools

to the general public. In keeping with

that theme, today's episode does include

sponsors. And now for my discussion with

Joe Limont. Joe Leemont, welcome.

>> Thank you very much. Great to be here.

tell us about learning and education a

100 years ago because that sounds like a

long time ago but it wasn't that long

ago and then we'll use that as a

contrast point to where you're trying to

take learning and education and

schooling for young people now. So 100

years ago we were trying to say how are

we going to educate everybody universal

access to education 200 years ago was

not a thing. Every person on the planet

did not have access to education. 100

plus years ago, people said, "Let's

start educating everybody." And we're

talking K through 12. So they started

the industrialized model started over in

Prussia, right? And then was was

imported. And it was very controversial

actually if you look back of you have a

rural society and you're saying get off

the farms and get into schools. And the

best way to educate people back then was

let's put them in a room, let's teach

them how to read and write, let's have a

teacher in front of the classroom. And

that became the model. And that today is

actually one of the things that's the

most universal in the world is the the

education model. You can go to the

richest school district, you know, down

the street here or the richest private

school and there's a teacher in front of

a classroom of kids. And you can go to

the poorest school district, you know,

in India and there's the building's not

as nice, but there's a teacher in front

of a classroom. We have universal

access. What we are trying to do is

bring universal learning. So there's a

vast disparity in how much kids learn

during that 12 years that while they may

have access to it, learning is very

different. And so what we think is

because of new things that have become

available and things like AI and

technology for the first time in 50 and

100 years you can revisit and change

education. How we educate kids is going

to be radically different in 5 years and

10 years than the last 50 and 100 years.

And that's what we're out doing.

building that model, building the set of

schools around it and then figuring out

how we scale it and get it out to a

billion kids so that everybody can have

access to it.

>> It seems to me that we think in terms of

milestones. I mean, even before a child

is born, if they can have an ultrasound,

the parents are looking, are they

meeting milestones? Yeah.

>> And then we think of biological

milestones and cognitive milestones. How

much of the current schooling system is

based on milestones that make really

good sense? like by time you finish a

certain grade, you're supposed to be

able to read, you're supposed to be able

to write. What we decide is a critical

milestone can easily change, but I'm

guessing there are still some milestones

that are cemented in that don't make any

sense any longer.

>> Yeah, there's a whole set of milestones

that people have, especially the ones

parents understand and grandparents, is

whatever you went through are the

milestones that you understand. Kids

should read by third grade. It used to

be you memorized your multiplication

tables by third grade. You'd learn

cursive before that. And the standard

the books, right? You would read books.

There was a book list in in high school

and and you would read it and you'd

understand the content that was in that

books. And what has happened, you know,

and I think where a lot of the

unhappiness in education is is those

standards have gone down. They've pulled

those standards away around the

academics for a lot of different

reasons. And so when you think about

development, there's behavioral

standards. How should I behave? How much

should I know? And then what are the

nonacademic skills, whether it's

vocational or life skills that you need

to have, financial literacy, that have

changed from what were true 30 years ago

or 50 years ago to where they are are

today. And there's generally a view that

there's broad unhappiness that whether

it's the standard or the students

achievement of that standard and are

they actually even hitting the standards

that's causing this big demand for we

need to change our education system. And

that's sort of half of it. The other

half is people are looking at things

like AI and saying the world is really

different. The world that's coming is

really different. And it it does put in

parents heads

the educational system I went through

isn't going to get my kids ready for the

future one. We're building schools

everywhere and doing education. So I I

talked to lots of parents. When I have

like a 12th grade parent talking to me,

they're at the finish line. They're just

trying to get the kid into, you know,

get them out. And so they they're just

like whatever. Just I'm done. But when

you talk to the kindergarten parents,

they are forecasting forward 12 years.

and they sit there and say, "There's no

way the current system is going to get

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I hear some very polarized views out

there. Uh, one that you can get all the

education you need off YouTube. I don't

believe that's true. I think how one

forges through technology, especially

publicly available technology, is

critical, right? Because you can ruin

your life or you can potentially build

some of your life out by watching

YouTube videos. But that's a wide

divergence and and so I don't believe

that statement. The other thing that I

I'd like to just set as a as a context

for our discussion is I think there are

very divergent views on the notion of

doing what you love versus doing things

that are painful to learn. So in terms

of milestones and standards, the idea is

when I was growing up was that you have

to have at least a certain level of

aptitude in something if you want to

progress forward. But you might be much

more musical than you are whatever or

much more oriented towards the

engineering, science and math fields or

towards something else. And that's okay.

But everyone had to be above the bar in

order to move forward. I think nowadays

because of this battle basically between

whether we're coddling kids too much or

whether we're pushing them too much,

>> I feel like this the whole landscape is

a bit of a mess. So what is Alpha

School's philosophy with respect to what

kids like to do

>> versus what they absolutely should do

independent of whether or not they like

it. And I I came from the latter

category like you do you have to learn

stuff because you have to learn it and

then you find the things you love

>> and then you eventually try and create a

life right

>> you know

>> these are great so both of them we have

strong views on all of these the first

one of everything's available on YouTube

or you can get MIT online why doesn't

>> Khan Academy why doesn't everybody have

an MIT degree the open courseware is

available libraries have been here

forever every textbook you can just go

to a library and read school is much

more than just that and I believe and

just to be really

10 years from now, 20 years from now,

90% of parents are going to drop their

kids off at a building and in that

building are going to be other kids and

adults. That the way school that part of

school, school's socialization, right?

It's much more than I sat and watched a

YouTube video. It's motivation. The

materials available, the motivation

isn't, right? Or the structure isn't.

And schools provide a lot of that. And

so that's when we look at it. But we

believe motivation is 90% of learning

these days. Now our view back to the day

if we do our job right the six or seven

hours your kids in that uh building is

going to be radically different and 10

times better than what we went through.

Then the second part around standards

and love school do what you love wait

it's a grind. So this is a personal

story for me. So I didn't start alpha

I'm the principal going in my fifth

year. Uh, it was started by Brian and

McKenzie 12 years ago. And parents want

the to educate their kids the way they

were, even if they didn't like it that

much. I went to Catholic school. My I

have two daughters. They were in

Catholic school. Mackenzie starts this

school and she's like, "You got to come

to my new school." And I looked at it

and I'm like, "This is a totally weird,

janky school." Like, no way.

>> What did you see that led you to

>> There's no teacher in front of a

classroom. I'm like, "This is totally

crazy, right?" and oh, they're going to

learn on some apps the girls reciting

their vocabulary words while they were

doing handstands. And I'm like, you

know, I I grew up a standard standard

school system. It was weird. And it took

her 2 years actually of trying to

convince me. I actually saw, you know,

one of mine struggling in standard

school. And then what happened was St.

Gabriel got out at the end of May and

Alpha was still in session and my kids

were going to go to summer camp. And

McKenzie convinced my daughter. She's

like, "Well, why don't you come to Alpha

for a week before you go to summer camp?

You know, my daughters are there. It'll

be really fun." I'm like, "You want to

go to school in the middle of the

summer?" "Sure." So, they went for a

week and they came back at the end of

the week and they're like, "Dad, we

don't want to go to summer camp. We want

to go back to Alpha." And I thought that

was the craziest thing I'd ever heard of

the world that someone wanted to go to

school instead of camp. That was an

indicator to me where I'm like, they

have something here. And the kids are in

second, fourth grade. I'm like, let's

try it out. And that was, you know, 10

years ago. And it really worked out for

us. We can get to that later. But when I

put my daughters in, I talked to Brian

and I was like, "What do I not

understand as a parent?" He said,

"There's two things. First, your kids

must love school." And I was like, "Oh,

that's not true at all. It's like

spinach. You just grind it, right?

That's what it's like. It's spinach. You

grind it. I mean, sometimes it's okay,

but you just you grind your way through

it." He's like, "Nope. and someday

you'll figure this out and you'll see

with your daughters that kids must love

school. I was like, "Annything else?"

He's like, "Yes, your kids have so much

more potential than you expect than what

you think." And I was like, "Oh, that's

not true." I'm like, I'm sort of like a

tiger dad. Like, I think my kids are

going to do a ton of stuff. And, you

know, I have really high expectations.

And he's like, "They're going to blow

you away." And that's sort of the

dichotomy I think around alpha that

really confuses people is kids love

school like we make three commitments to

the kids and the first one is you will

love school and 90ome% of our students

we survey them right say I love school

we actually in the last year or so have

started asking a follow-up question

which is would you rather go to school

or go on vacation and depending on the

vacation the session and how good our

workshops were between 40 and 60% of

kids said I'd rather go to school than

vacation.

>> Wow.

>> As a standard, like loving school. And

when you engage kids and you think, I'm

going to put them in this system for 12

years.

>> As a parent, you want them to love it.

And so, there's that part. But now,

let's talk about doing hard things. Kids

want to do hard things. Kids have to do

hard things, which is, you know, when

I'm talking to parents who are worried

because we have such high achievement.

We're the number one academic school in

the country. Every grade level is top 1%

in every subject, right? My freshman

honors SAT score. You know, freshmen are

like at 1400, which is better than

almost every senior class in the

country.

>> Your freshman are at 1400 on the SAT

>> honors class. My honors track in

freshman is 1400 SAT. And so we have

great academics and parents are like,

"Wait, is this like this high stress,

high standard?" And we explained to

them, which is the key to your child's

happiness is high standards. And I can't

run a school that they love more than

vacation if I have low standards.

And it is that paradox, right? That

tension that is the magic of Alpha

School. And it's the magic that parents

need to understand because that's what

engages them is they want to do things.

Kids think they're awesome and they are

awesome, but they need to be put in an

environment where they get to go do hard

things with their friends and with that

they do the grind. They do hard things.

In America, we have a very different

view. We have sort of how you treat

academics and how you treat sports. And

if we took the sports ethos and the

athletic ethos in America and we applied

it to academics, we would fix every

academic problem in this country. For

example, Westlake High School football

team in Austin where I am going to win

the state championship, right? They're

great. Every parent's like, I want my

kid to be on that team because it's

going to be the hardest thing they've

ever done because they're going to have

to work harder. It's going to be crazy,

but it's going to be the most fun thing

they ever do and they're going to

remember it the rest of their life. And

we believe that about sports. You can

make education the same way. And that's

what we're building to do that. So we

believe on both which is high standards

right is what leads to loving school and

and happiness. I know you had Dr.

Joerger on. So Dr. Joerger was actually

you know his book 10 to2 the science of

motivating kids is all about high

standards and high support and it is

that combination that you want from a

school and that's what we built. like he

created our guide training. Like all the

adults in our buildings follow that high

standards, high support, his mentor

mindset program. And most parents are

one of two things. They're either high

standards, low support. I'm just going

to throw my kid in and expect them to do

great, and that's not good. Or they're

low standards, high support. I never

want my kid to have stress. That's bad,

too. And the real answer is you do both.

And you, schools should do this. Schools

should have high standards and high

support. And back to my athletic

analogies, great coaches do that.

There's thousands of movies in America

of our sports team is in last place. And

a coach comes in and he's like, I know

we're in last place, but we're going to

win the state championship next year.

The whole movie is about how he turns

around the team by having high standards

and teamwork and hard work, and they do

it, and then they win.

Where are those on academics? I think

there's three. We know that's how you

develop kids. Child development experts

will sit and explain. The key to

developing a child is that they struggle

and fail on their road to success

supported by a caring adult. And you

just want to run that loop. If you talk

to most parents, they're like, "My kid

learns the valuable life skills in

afterchool sports." Parents are like,

"Yes, they're going to struggle. They're

going to fail. They're going to lose the

game. whatever is going to happen, but

it's going to be on the road to success.

And that coach, I picked the coach cuz I

know he cares about my kid achieving it

and he's going to be there to support

them. And that's what you should just do

in school for the other seven hours is

have those same loops. I will add one

thing uh that happens especially when

you start with kindergarten. Kids

struggle and fail

sometimes cry on their road to success

supported by a caring adult. And it's

really hard for parents as soon as the

kid cries obviously and that struggle

part and that's the lynch pin for

parents being like I don't want the

struggle cuz you hear this you're like

well why don't you just okay that sounds

all logical why don't you do it and

you're like well when you're a parent

your kids crying you want to go protect

them you want to make sure they're safe

and that's why you have to make sure

they're in an environment where you

think they're safe where the adult in

charge is making sure they're it's not

low standards and they're leaving them

hanging out. At Alpha, we have great

workshops where 85% of Alpha parents in

the last year said, "I saw my kid do

something that I literally thought was

impossible for their age." Back to high

standards. And one of them is our

kindergarteners

climb a 40ft rock wall. You know, at our

San Francisco campus, they rode their

bikes 5 miles, learned how to ride a

bike, rode it 5 miles across the Golden

Gate Bridge without stopping. And then

we have a we call them alpha tests for

these life skills. 10 weeks into school,

there's the kindergarteners and they're

climbing up and you know, sometimes they

do get halfway and they are stuck and

they sit there and they're worried and

the parents want to go rescue them and

we always tell them just watch cuz this

is what the school's about and their

guide is down at the bottom of the wall

and coaching them up. And then

eventually and maybe they have to wait

there and maybe they even whimper a

little you know the the while they're

struggling they then I can do it and

they climb to the end supported by their

alpha guide at the bottom and when they

come down after achieving it right they

ring the bell they come down I mean that

kid is beaming and their parents are

beaming and that's why we have such like

fanatical love of school and why we have

such evangelism and everybody talks

about alpha is because the parents go

through that experience and they see

their kids thrive and they see them

thrive via these things that are hard

and that's the environment we need to

build for kids because that is how you

develop kids. When you think of old

societies, right, every society had

rights of passage.

>> They were hard and it's what is the

struggle and fail on your road to

success supported by an adult. That's

what the educational system needs to be

and should be. And we do it a lot in

sports and not a lot on on education.

what you said is so rich with ideas. Let

me organize them the following way. I've

heard you say before and you sort of

touched on a bit a moment ago that most

of the way that we uh teach kids how to

navigate life in the United States

>> is in sports not in academics.

>> And I completely agree. And when I first

heard you say that in a prior

conversation with Patrick Oonessy, I

thought yes, absolutely. And the

contrast with academics is is really

striking because I think there's this

idea that kids are, you know, by the

time they're in high school, they're

going to be good at certain things and

other things not so much. And and the

words do the best you can

>> sounds like support, sounds like high

standards, but it kind of avoids both.

So maybe we could just drill a little

more specifically into what support

really looks like at the level of

parenting and maybe peers as well. So I

can imagine high standards could let's

take a like a 0 to 10 uh scale arbitrary

units and say zero is like you'll never

be anything. Everyone agrees that it's

not a good model. 10 would be you can do

and become anything you want. We believe

this in America and there are examples

to support the 10 model.

It's not totally true, right? It's not

totally true. I went to a very

competitive public high school and there

were some phenoms in my class at sports,

pair of twins, Joe and John Cannon.

People can look them up. One became a

goalie for the San Jose Quakes. The

other one had a 100 mile plus fastball

in high school. I forget who he played

for. Maybe it was the Mariners or

whoever. But anyway, he was a he was a

pro pitcher. Their younger brother, Colt

Cannon, picked up a skateboard. Eight

months later, he had a pro model or he

was on a team, then he had a pro model.

maybe wasn't 8 months to that, but

there's something going on in that

family. Okay. And they were good at

academics.

>> Yeah.

>> But none of them became, dare I say,

professors at Stanford, but they

probably could have, but we don't know.

So, we have this model that like in

sports, some genetics plays a role.

>> Yeah.

>> Family lines play a role. We're kind of

okay with that conversation now.

>> Yeah.

>> But you can become anything. That's

that's the highest standard. Somewhere

in between is probably what you'll tell

me is most effective because we have to

put reality into the picture sometimes.

>> But the support thing is the one that's

completely opaque to me because we know

what the zeros are, right? Figure it out

on your own. Make yourself breakfast.

Get yourself. That's not support, right?

And then the other one is I'm going to

try and get in there and do everything

for you. I'm going to climb the rock for

you. I'm going to do your homework for

you. We know that's not good. We haven't

really defined clearly what real truly

useful support is.

>> Yeah.

>> And standardized that.

>> So maybe you could enrich our thinking

about what it might look like or what

you think it looks like.

>> Great. And I I I think that's a great

framework. Let's let's do the athletic

side is and then we'll we'll throw it

over because that's one of the things

that's changed. How we provide support

or actually the training

i.e. educating the instruction is what's

dramatically changed which lets us get

athletic level in academics. So in

athletics, right, we do know we know

there are physical constraints. You have

your story. My my daughter in middle

school was like I'm going to be the

world's best volleyball player. I'm

going to start for Stanford and be

there. And it motivated her. It drove

her every afternoon she's practicing.

When she became a freshman in high

school, she's like, "I'm not tall

enough. I'm just physically not tall

enough. I can't play my position four

years from now. There's no way

Stanford's going to let me in on that

dimension. And so, while she had gotten

very good sort of the limit of her

frontier and so we believe there are

there are, you know, physical

limitations that map your frontier. But

in athletics, we actually know how to

get you to the frontier. That's the

delta. And that's why we do so much via

athletics in America because we have a

training system that gets kids there. We

don't say, "Hey, do your best. I hope

you become a good basketball player or

golfer." You don't watch YouTube videos

to be like, "Oh, I guess I'm the world's

best golfer now." You have coaches and

we have training that is going to get

you there and we know how to deliver it,

right? We know how to instruct it,

right? You wouldn't have your kid go on

a sports team where they're like, "Yeah,

we we do inquiry training here where we

don't teach you. We just let you

productively struggle and figure it out

yourself." Which is something we do a

lot in schools. That's not an effective

way to teach somebody, right? A sport.

You're like, "Show me how to block. Give

me the step by step. Give me the

instruction you need so that I can do

this better." So, I play this position

perfectly. Nick Saven is like, "Do what

I say. Play your position." On

academics, the difference was we have a

teacher in front of a classroom and the

teacher in front of the classroom has to

just give the median instruction to

everybody. Imagine all the different

players on your football team are all

getting exactly the same instruction.

You're like, "Well, the quarterback

needs something different than the wide

receiver." But the teacher just sits

there and has to give everybody 25, 30,

however many it is the exact same

instruction. And that's what's

different. Now, if you look at at why do

we have access to education but not

universal learning. We have universal

access but not universal learning. It's

because kids need individualized

instruction right down to the true

individual because at least in my high

school, we had honors track for certain

things. So it was tiered a little bit

that if people were really really

>> proficient at something, you'd you'd get

into honors English or honors math and

you would just kind of be among kids

that were better performing. So the you

know the mean shifted basically.

>> So individualized tutoring, think back

Plato and Socrates, Aristotle, Alexander

the Great. Individualized tutoring is

the best model. A one-on-one model is

the best model. A mentorship model, an

apprentice mentor, that is the best

model. It's not cost-effective. Which is

why a [clears throat] 100 years ago when

I have to get it to everybody, you're

like, why you can't give everybody an

individualized one [snorts] and so 30 to

one was like what societies could

afford. The number one thing parents

measure schools on is class size and

smaller is better because you're trying

to get to one and so 20 20 to1 is better

than 30 to1 10 to one is better than 20

to1. 5 to one is better than 10 and

1:1's the best.

>> In terms of homeschooling, because I

know there's a lot of interest in that

now, but not everyone can afford it.

Yeah.

>> What do the data say about the outcomes

for homeschooling? Do those kids do

well? And on I guess on what standards?

>> Homeschooling is totally biodal, which

is are they homeschooling them for high

standards

>> or not? And there's a lot of

homeschoolers who are like, I don't like

standardized tests. I don't like the

standardized curriculum. I reject that

whole system. And so those people do

very poorly on anything like that. The

level of academics that those students

know is very low because the parents

have basically abandoned that and said,

"I care all about the life skills." For

parents who really care about academics,

those kids crush it. You have ex-teers

homeschooling their kids in a one-on-one

environment, and they can do it

dramatically better. Now, there's still

value even homeschooling, socialization,

and because we have these high standards

and the life skills at our schools, we

actually have a bunch of homeschoolers

who come who say, "Wow, this is the

schooling system I was looking for

because I I get both the high standards

on the academic side, but then all the

afternoons of these life skills that I

thought I'd only get via homeschool."

you want to get to one-on-one and that's

the magic and so let's let's go on this

because we we haven't talked about like

the academic side and what is the

breakthrough that allows us to change

education from 50 and 100 years ago. So

learning science there's a whole field

of learning science right you can

cognitive load theory cognitive science

there's a famous paper from the 80s

Bloom's two sigma program where he's

he's like if you give an individual

tutor to mastery level kids can learn at

two sigma right two sigma it is top 2%

we could get everybody so when you talk

about the frontier

he's basically claiming you can get

everybody to the top 2% performance

today assume having high levels of

motivation.

>> Correct. Mastery is actually the part

everybody forgets about on that. If you

have a tutor that's not mastery based,

you won't get the top 2%. One sigma came

from the tutor. One sigma comes from

mastery, which once again we'll talk

about we all accept mastery in in

athletics, but we reject it explicitly

reject it in education. And you actually

need both. You need individualized

instruction at a mastery level to get

that performance. And now with AI tutors

at cost-effectively,

you can give every kid perfectly

tailored lessons at their level for them

at a mastery level. And that is the

magic that then allows kids to learn 10

times faster. In our schools, when we

talk about we're the best academic

performing school, we're top 1%. We do

it in two hours a day. Our average

student does not sit in class for six

and do homework. They sit at an AI app

and they spend two hours a day. The

average kid spent 121 minutes last year

in the apps and learned more than 2x

they what they would have in sitting in

class for six and doing homework. So

when you just look at those standards,

it's, you know, depending on the class

and stuff between 5 and 10x

normal speed because you have 6 hours a

day in homework versus two and you're

performing at a level that's exceeding

them the how much the average student

learns by 2x. Could you enrich the

picture in our minds a bit of of this

kid for 121 minutes? Just the the top

contour of what sorts of things they're

doing. Is it a is it a human face that's

teaching them or is it text prompts?

What does it look like? So the first,

just to be really clear on this, when

people think AI chatbots,

>> it's not chat bots. If you take a

chatbot and put it into a standard

school, 90% of the kids use it to cheat.

Doesn't matter what grade level you're

at. I can't remember which Ivy League

professor gave a final that he made in

person, right? He made an inerson final

and literally everybody like two people

failed the exam. They're just chatbing

their papers up. They're not reading

books. They're getting chatbt summaries

of them. And there's a whole push to ban

them and things like this. And you know,

while we're at AI school, used

incorrectly, just like any technology,

they can be bad. Here's how you want to

think about it. Is what you know is the

basis of what you can learn. And so

being able to have a foundation and then

building on that foundation is critical.

And so if I am in material that's too

hard and it's just too hard for me, you

can give it to me all day long and I'm

not going to learn it. Back in my world

or your world, if you gave me an MCAT, I

don't know the words on the page. You

can tell me to have grit or growth

mindset or you can tell me whatever you

want. I'm not going to pass that test.

And you need to roll me back to freshman

bio and say that's where you are and

then build me up from there to be able

to do that. And that's the problem in

our current education system today is we

are taking eighth graders and we are

delivering them eighth grade content

because that's what an eighth grade

teacher does by law. They need to stand

up and deliver the eighth grade content.

You know if you look at the stats we

have people who need to be in seventh

grade in that classroom, sixth grade,

fifth grade because of COVID. You even

have some who need to be in fourth and

third grade because of all that learning

loss that happened. They never learned

it right. We have kids who didn't learn

how to read in third and fourth grade.

Oh my goodness.

>> And so now we're wondering why all the

the curves are going down. It's like,

well, because they're in eighth grade

and they're being told eighth grade

content and no one ever taught them how

to read or other things when you talk

about lower standards. They took away

memorizing your multiplication tables

and science of reading, teaching

phonics, taking they took away some of

the basics [snorts] that as you get into

higher level grades as a kid, it just

kills you.

>> What was the rationale behind doing

that? that it gets into a lot of a lot

of debate around why that happened.

>> I don't think there's a clear answer. I

believe at the end of it,

>> they didn't realize how important it

was. Like the science of learning, if

you talk to your average, you know,

teacher and you look at what's it taught

in schools of education, cognitive load

theory, right, and cognitive science and

how all this works is not a main part of

what the curriculum is. And so these

teachers don't know like you know we

just had our staff days before school

starts. So I have hundreds of teachers.

These are the best teachers in the

world, right? We're the employer of

choice for for teachers around the

country. And I was like how many of you

guys like learn direct instruction which

is one of these concepts. You know 5%

raised their hand. There's this project

followth through a big project in the '

70s that was like the largest

educational study ever about effective

ways to teach kids. I was like, "How

many of you guys like read Project

Follow Through Like when you're getting

your masters?" And like none. And so

there was uh she was she was a big

teacher uh in Houston School District

and she came and uh she's an alpha guide

now and she I saw a Twitter post after

the staff day. She's like, "I learned

more in listening to Joe's 6-hour

presentation, which I have the world's

best learning science team who, you

know, helps educate me as well. I

learned more in six hours of listening

to Joe about how kids learn than I did

getting my masters or even my PhD. And

just that curriculum, we don't have that

knowledge and we need to we need to fix

that. We it's not there. Is there an a

textbook for for teachers? I mean like

if somebody wants to become a

neuroscientist or even just get a

neuroscience degree, they read the book

Principles of Neurobiology by Leechin

Low or Principles of Neuroscience which

used to be by Kandell Jesselyn Schwarz.

I think there's someone else on there,

but like everyone gets those books. You

learn electrophysiology from Bird Hill,

you get the biochemistry book from

Strier. Like these are the books used

everywhere. So that it doesn't matter if

you're in a, you know, state university

and wherever um or you're at Stanford,

pretty much everyone is educated at the

front end from the same textbooks.

Correct.

>> So you can go to a big international

meeting and like everyone understands

more or less the action potential.

>> Education is not that. So, our

educational system is not fact-based,

>> which seems crazy, but uh there's

there's a dean of a school of education

for one of the best schools in the

country who when was talking about the

state the status of facts in education

put up a picture of Galileo's trial

where he's like, "This is a religious

war. This isn't a fact-based trial about

these things." There's a lot of evidence

behind it. Like, take the UC system.

There's a huge debate on whether the UC

schools should use standardized tests or

not and do standardized tests help and

are they good things

>> to get in or to progress through

>> to get in? Like should you Well, there's

whole things of should kids have a

standardized test to get out of high

school to graduate high school. Should

you be able to pass a test or not? And

that's a debate. That's not like a fact.

Now, when you're letting someone into

your university, there's a view of,

"Should we require standardized tests?"

2,000 professors, I think, I don't know

exactly what it was, but 2,000

professors are like, "Yeah, we should

use these." But the board of regents

voted, "Yeah, no, we're not going to

take them." Whatever decisions are being

made around this stuff is not a

fact-based decision. It's an opinion.

It's I care about different goals. I'm

trying to optimize on something besides

academics. The goal of a school is not

academics. When you look in education,

it's a really complicated thing and

right what is the purpose of a school?

What is developing a child? Does

academics matter? So when you think of

these basic things like well the kid was

struggling on his multiplication tables

and I was worried about his mental

health so I just told him don't worry

about it you know and you're like well

that's really going to hurt him to learn

algebra. He's not going to do well at

algebra. It's like the homeschoolers

like I don't care about academics or

there's parents at schools and one of

the things I've learned in education

especially in being uh principal of

school is first of all I have massive

empathy for everybody running these

schools. So you know I I was watching in

Austin we're like closing a bunch of

schools right a lot of public schools

are closing and and it's being closed

because it's not hitting academic

standards. Five years in a row it's

failed. It just literally is not

teaching these kids. These are eighth

graders who can't read at a third grade

level. And so the state and the school

district's like, "We we need to close a

school and put the kids in a school

that's, you know, teaches them." And

there's a mom who's just furious, right?

And she's at the meeting and she's like,

"I don't care about that. What I care

about is my older daughter in seventh

grade had teacher ABC, right? Had this

great teacher who changed her life. And

I want my younger child to have that

same teacher. And if it means they're

not good at math, whatever. And the

rules of the government, right, the

government school system is we are

funding this to educate them on

academics. Parents demands are very

different. If you're the head of, you

know, school, your parents are saying,

well, I don't I don't care about that.

Now, I believe you can do better and do

it all and and those kind of things. But

fundamentally, why is the regents at UC

saying, "Yeah, I don't know. We're not

going to we're not going to take

standardized tests." 2,000 professors

say it. There's also a bunch of

professors say don't do it. In you get

into all these debates on what the role

of school is and then that's in the air

and then the even the learning science

inquiry learning versus direct

instruction is a huge huge religious war

around education on which is better. And

so those kind of things are why it's not

obvious. It's also part of being new

into the space as coming in. Part of my

magic is and part of why alpha is

getting all this, you know, hype and

talk is we're teaching kids five to 10

times faster. There is a set of the

learning science that the results are

the results are there. And there's a set

of learning science that we're proving

that hasn't been able to be implemented

before that people are like, "Wow, if

that's really true." And so why we're

all these great learning scientists are

coming and working with us is they're

looking at this data and they're like,

"Holy cow, this data is breakthrough

level that we couldn't do before."

>> Mhm. Yeah. [clears throat]

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to get up to 27% off. When you think

about science and the development of

sciences, chemistry, biology, physics,

they had times which I'd call like

education where there's debates and

it's, you know, it's the it's Galileo's

trial, right? It's it's unsure. They're

doctors are bloodletting, you know, and

leeching people. This is really a good

idea, right? And you're just like, oh,

right. No, like that's the best guy and

he's saying to do it the same way you're

>> there's a little bit of that going on

now. Still

>> it's unsettled. Now in each of those

there was the invention

of an instrument and a technology or an

instrument that radically changed and

inlected those sciences. So the

microscope, right, the light microscope,

the telescope, chemistry, the analytical

balance, you didn't blow yourself up.

Those inlected those sciences.

And now for the first time with

education

AI allows us to get it allows that finer

measurements. What those allowed was

finer grain measurements right the

microscope it let me see cells right I'm

like oh I'm starting to understand this

of how this works

AI because it's on a onetoone basis is

giving us a data loop that nobody in

learning science no one in education has

ever had and we have it. It's a closed

loop and that magical data loop is

what's allowing us to get the five to 10

times improvements in education because

it's our microscope. It's our telescope.

Now, it's not a chatbot that's not

getting you that. But if you generate a

personalized lesson for every kid, let's

step back and say what what's a teacher

in front of the classroom? The problem

with teacher in front of classroom is

it's so dirty, right? your data, your

effect size is driven by random

classroom elements, not the learning

science. So if I come up with a learning

science idea and I give it to a teacher

in front of a classroom, first of all,

do they even teach it the way right? Is

the instruction done the right way? It's

going to 30 people. Prere matters. If I

don't know algebra, you don't give me a

chemistry lesson. And do the students

have the prerequisites needed. Second,

are the students motivated? Are they

spinning in their chair, not even paying

attention? The effect size is dominated

by all of that, not actually the

learning science concept. And in our

world, right, where we have kids super

engaged for 2 hours in the app, I know

when I give a lesson, I can measure

their engagement. I can see if that

lesson was good because I know how they

did on the questions right afterward. I

can then test them later because I'm

getting space repetition. I'm getting

recall later. I can say whether that

really was transferred to long-term

memory and I can say wow that really

works. So there's different theories of

of learning science. You have there's

concepts of direct instruction like

should you have the kids struggle or

should you just teach them directly? How

can you teach them directly without

struggle? I mean my understanding of

neuroplasticity which is an area I come

from but not specifically in the in the

context of education is that if a brain

or a body can execute a particular thing

a movement or a cognitive process a math

problem there is no reason for it to

change that the error signal is what

actually drives the opportunity for

change and so without errors there's no

struggle and therefore without struggle

there's no learning so I don't see a

world where you can teach without a kid

or an adult feeling some degree of like

mild agitation. They might learn to

think of that as excitement and

curiosity, but there's got to be some

level of arousal like I have to think,

right? You know, got to be brought to

Yes. Engagement and attention, right?

You have to have engagement and

attention. Exactly what you're talking

about. And errors definitely do matter

and we we can talk about that side, but

let's just take take an example which is

>> I'll give you a math problem.

no instruction, figure it out. That's

one way to try to learn. The better way

to learn, the faster way to learn is to

give you them a worked example where you

show them and then you progressively

remove the parts of the example where

they're having to progressively go up

and then by the end they can solve the

problem with no scaffolding. It's a

question of scaffolding and

>> that's a faster way to teach kids than

just saying good luck. So it's in in

some sense incremental learning with an

example at the front end

>> and and so that's that would be a worked

example is a good example. Then you have

space repetition which is everybody has

a forgetting curve and they're different

by person back to that frontier curve.

Uh and so how often and right before

you're going to forget it you want to

remind them and if you do that over a

few times then it gets your recall

>> from long-term memory. It will be there

when you need it in the future. And so I

have worked examples and then spaced

repetition. Now there's a debate and

there has been a debate about do you

need some drill and kill known as

initial mastery that you have to hit it

with initial mastery the first time

you're learning it or can you

not learn it to mastery but because of

spaced repetition over time by the third

or fourth time you'll get the equivalent

of mastery right

>> and you're defining mastery as like 95%

or better

>> correct And so that's been a debate

>> around it.

>> You you can't measure that in a school.

That that's too fine grained. We

actually measured it over the last year

and our learning scientists actually

because of the papers that's published

is very much you don't need initial

mastery. You can do it with space

repetition. And what's what's

interesting is at the end of the year,

we were looking at our scores and

basically in 8th through 12th, we

crushed it with just worked examples and

spaced repetition because once you get

into algebra, the multi-line problems,

worked examples really matter. But in

fourth through 7th, it wasn't as

effective because the problems are

easier. And so what you lose is you want

more initial mastery because the worked

examples aren't as important. And so

like this year when we saw the scores go

down, we then just added initial mastery

back to it. So you get the worked

example, you get the initial mastery and

then space repetition. And that data set

between those two things, that's a data

set that doesn't exist out there. And it

seems to me that data set would be very

valuable for schools outside of alpha

school just to understand that for

whatever it is that kids are generally

taught in the curriculum of you said

fourth to 7th that they need to get to

95% or better proficiency. English

literature, calculus, things like that.

If they're learning those things, you're

saying if they don't need to get to

mastery, where do they need to get to?

>> They need to get to mastery all the

time. Initial mastery always matters.

Just it always does. And so whether it's

learning your vocabulary words to, you

know, to that example, reading

comprehension is a is a function of

vocabulary. Like we can measure now, you

know, today the best way to do well on

SAT English or, you know, to know

English is just read lots of books and

look up the words you don't understand

and you'll kill the verbal. You'll just

like with a verbal GRE, it's always a

little tricky with people in the

sciences. You're like, I'm worried about

the verbal GRE and you just go

>> read a book

>> under a good book and underline every

word you don't understand. Look it up

and then have a vocabulary. I still have

those vocabulary list and you and

everyone ends up in like the 90th plus

percentile if they actually do that.

>> Correct.

>> That's why good schools, right, who do

well on the SAT have a great lit

program, right? They have a great great

books program. And here look at our book

list. This is what all the kids read

because that's what's going to drive

vocabulary which which drives those

scores. It drives knowledge acquisition

as well. You know we're in our apps. We

can literally determine okay well we can

we can teach you the vocabulary words.

We've actually learned the problem that

you have is when you take a vocabulary

word and it's just like a flashc card

like vocabulary word. You don't know its

limits. Like what's the difference

between happy and ecstatic? And if you

just are flashc carding, you really

can't tell the range. That's what you

get from reading books. When you read

10,000 pages, you then are like, "Ah, I

now understand the difference between a

static and happy, right? Where are the

boundaries of the vocabulary words and

that's how you build a rich vocabulary,

right? And a rich reading comprehension

and capability." That's one of the

things like in our apps now we can just

be like oh we can give you vocabulary

words and show you the limits and help

educate you directly where it's it's a

more effective way than read the book

and go look it up when you don't know

it. And so back to all these different

things initial mastery matters just on

everything. Let's even go further.

There's sort of concepts which is have

you solved it once? Have you done it

enough to mastery? Which is, you know, I

can do three easy problems or I can do

10 hard ones. The 10 hard ones is

mastery. And then even if I can do the

10 hard ones, can I do it a month later?

Right? Did I cram the night before?

Because cramming is bad. Can I do it

month one month before, two months

before? Spaced repetition covers that.

There's a third dimension that really

matters and this is back to cognitive

science which is you know the way the

brain works is you have a certain number

of working memory slots and then you

have long-term memory and your working

memory slots are limited you have

limited attention and you're that's

right that's computing right that's

where you're thinking and the concept is

though of fluency

is this magical concept about brain

science right it's magical which is if

you memorize something to fluency when

you use it. It doesn't take a working

memory slot. And working memory slots

are function of IQ. It's like the best

way to be farther on your frontier curve

independent of you know whatever your

brain chemistry is which is if I have

memorized something to fluency and

here's the example to think about it.

Let's take multiplication tables and why

is algebra hard if I haven't memorized

my math facts. If I know 7 * 8 is 56,

that takes nothing, right? I you just

know it. I have it to fluency. If I have

to calculate 7 * 8, I'm actually using

my working memory slots. The problem is

I only have a few of them. So, when I'm

in algebra, I'm in a multi-step word

problem and I'm using my slots up for

something that I can't because I need it

for other things. And that's why when

kids get to algebra and they start to

struggle, the issue is not the algebra.

The issue is the third grade math facts

they didn't learn. And the way to fix

the problem is not pound them with more

algebra. It's to go fix the third grade

problem. If you want the most crazy

example we have is we had a girl who's

low 700 math SAT. She kept taking the

test and kept getting careless errors.

Like focus, focus. You need to focus.

And then we figured out you don't know

your math facts. So we had her go back

and learn right memorize your

multiplication tables. And first of all,

back to like changing education. You

can't convince

someone with a 710 that the problem is a

third grade lesson. You definitely can't

convince their parents. Right? That took

a lot of motivational pushing on our

guides to do that.

>> What about the student? What was her

attitude toward

>> her attitude's like, I can't I don't

need to do that. Look, I'm good in math.

I'm in advanced math. 710 is not a bad

score. It's not 800, but it's it's But

she's like, it can't be that I need my

multiplication tables. And she's like,

and you know, everybody's telling her,

"It's careless. You're being careless."

She was just running out of working

memory slots. And so she went back,

memorized her multiplication tables, and

she got a 790 SAT, which speaks

beautifully to what we know about

neuroplasticity of learning. I mean,

like, like you're saying, I mean,

memories, people always go, "Oh, it's

like the hippocampus passed to the

cortex." The fluency piece. I think that

this notion of freeing up working memory

slots. Maybe we just double click on

that for a second. I think people assume

well you even if it would take this this

young woman a little bit longer to do

the multiplication then she could then

move to the next step of the problem.

There are two issues there right as I

understand and you'll you'll you'll tell

me that there's probably more. One is

that there's a a time pressure

>> on the test and

>> the other piece is that we know that

ability to focus is also constrained by

the things that you're not consciously

thinking about like we know this from

the phone for example. I'm curious how

Alpha School treats phones. We know that

if the phone is upside down on a table

based on a good study in a bag under the

chair,

>> performance drops. But if it's out of

the room, performance is rescued. It

doesn't get better. And we know that in

every case, the student can focus or the

person can focus. I believe this was

done in adults. But the issue is they

don't have enough cognitive space to be

able to elaborate on ideas, come up with

novel solutions and things like that.

So, it's not really a focus issue. It's

that the brain is computing consciously

and unconsciously. So my guess is that

she could iterate but that there's some

higher order concept is not coming

becoming clear.

>> Yeah, correct. The number of working

beverage spots slots is the number of

unique you know chunks that you can

think about and I'll give a different

example and maybe this this also helps.

you just have a limit and you run out

and if you're using them for something

you can't use it for something else and

a certain math problem takes a certain

number of slots like so I can predict

are you going to struggle with this math

problem and is it too hard for you based

on whether you have fluency or not even

if I know you know the problem even if

you've taught the material and you know

how to do it I can tell whether you're

going to struggle you can take gifted

kids as an example they have the most

working memory slots but every gifted

kid goes through this in math which is

they do everything in their head. They

never write down their work. And

everybody's always like, "You're going

to have to write down and show your

work." And they're like, "Whatever. I

just do everything in my head." And then

every gifted kid at some point in their

education hit their wall because there's

some math that you just can't do in your

head and you have to start writing down.

And they haven't learned it. They've

learned all the bad habits. They haven't

learned the good habits, the good traits

of actually how do I do a multi-step

problem where I'm working it down and

they hit a wall and for the first time

they're like I can't do a math problem.

Is that one of the reasons why child

prodigies don't continue on a linear

trajectory to hyper performance? I mean

I was once told by a child prodigy

because he was referred to as a child

prodigy and and had performed done

something incredible. I don't want to

reveal who this was and he corrected me

immediately. He said former child

prodigy. I was like okay get it. Yeah,

>> but he said you should look up the data

on child prodigies. The outcomes are not

super impressive.

>> I mean sometimes, yes, within a very

narrow domain, but the outcomes are

usually not that impressive as adults.

>> We should go into that on that on that

whole thing. So, we have a school that

we're building for gifted kids.

>> A lot of the problems that we have in

our current school system is we're not

challenging and we're boring these child

prodigies

>> and we're teaching them the worst habits

in the world. And so we're giving them

12 years of the worst habits and then

even their capability can't overcome

that. That it's the super gifted athlete

who literally has every bad habit in the

book and then you're like, "Oh, now in

the MLB you're doomed." And that is what

we do with most of our gifted kids. And

we're not teaching. We're not they're

not challenged, right? they sit there in

their board and they can answer every

question like this, you know, through

the program versus giving them the

challenging problem when they're in

third grade and fourth grade and then

they're having to learn all the right

skills so that they can progress

through. And we also in our culture, we

highlight gifted athletes, you know, a

hundred times more. It's it's better to

be the quarterback on the Westlake

football team than it is to be the the

number one academic kid at that school

>> in the US. In the US, yeah, we were in

foreign very different for sure, but in

the US that so one of the things we're

going to do with that program and we can

talk about later is just find the

100,000 smartest kids in this country

and turn them up to 11.

>> Like if these kids can learn 10 times

faster,

>> let's get it to everybody. We started

this program, Texas has a voucher

program. We have, you know, rural Texas

kids who their school, they just don't

have access to it. They're joining up

this program and they are crushing

through it. And so we're going to get

that out broadly across America. There's

this always been the dream like like

where's the next Einstein like maybe

this Einstein kid she or he is like I

don't know they don't even know that

they have this capability.

>> Exactly. Our goal is to get these

100,000 kids academically MIT eligible

by middle school. That's 1580 SATs fives

on you know calc BC physics C AP Langlet

those kind of things where we're like

these kids have all this potential we

are wasting it. we're boring them and we

should just turn them up. But we think

it's every kid is like that. I, you

know, I don't think every kid back to

the frontier, every kid can't get to MIT

eligible by middle school, but the ones

who can, we should. But we can get every

kid in America dramatically better than

where they are today in academics.

>> Well, we can get them to their frontier.

>> Correct.

>> We can get them to their frontier. And

so, and that's what this system does

where you're like, well, get them to the

frontier, which is reading is just

fluency, right? If you're when you're

learning how to read, you're struggling

because you don't know the words. And

then eventually it becomes fluency and

then you don't have to think about it

and you can crush through it and then

reading becomes much more fun, much more

enjoyable. And so a lot of this is just

we don't do the basics. We need to nail

the basics. Just like in sports, my

famous example I always use is if you

lose the ball 20% of the time going down

the court, the coach is not saying let's

work on the dunks and the alley oops or

the even the layups. They're like ball

handling. We're going to get ball

handling. 20% isn't acceptable. 15%

isn't acceptable. You can't be 85 80%

accurate.

>> In America, we're like, "You getting a

B, man. Move on. We're moving on to

dunks. You just finished fourth grade at

80%. Let's get you into that fifth grade

stuff." And the answer is no. No. Cuz

then all those problems compound. And

let's go the other way. If you're

struggling in chemistry, I can give you

an algebra test and tell you how you're

going to do in chemistry. Because

chemistry is basically algebra with cool

word problems. And if you don't know

algebra, the time to try to learn

algebra is not in the middle of a

chemistry problem. You need to know it.

And so algebra, I can give you a

fraction test. Algebra is basically, can

you do fast manipulation of fractions?

And so what's your fluency on fractions?

Fractions are just, have you memorized

your multiplication and division tables?

You know, math more than anything, but

even reading on stuff with vocabulary

words, it's all just a layer. And if you

don't have the foundation and you just

keep pushing kids higher, that's the

learning curves in this country slow

down. If you take our learning curves

relatively,

you know, kindergarten by the time you

get to middle school and high school,

high school, the median student in

America doesn't learn anything. There's

a test, there's a bunch of them, but you

can use this one, which is NWA MAP test.

It's a 300point scale. The average

eighth grader to 12th grader goes up one

point from a you know it depends on the

subject but 233

to 234 four years later they don't learn

anything. And the reason is because if

I'm in the advanced math I'm like I

don't know my multiplication tables and

if I don't know it and I don't know it

to mastery I'm not going to able to

progress and it's going to eventually

catch up with me. The same way in

basketball, if you said, "I have a

player who's a B player 80% across every

function," they're not going to score

one point in a basketball game

>> cuz they're going to miss the pass.

They're going to lose a dribble. It's

just there's too many things you have to

put in sequence. And you put all those

things in sequence, right, around

education, and that's it. And before we

just didn't have the system. Now an an

AI tutor can sit there and be like, I

know exactly what you know, right? I can

give you an assessment. I I can know

exactly what you know, what you don't

know. I can give you a lesson

personalized to you that says you need

this lesson and then I give it to you

and then I'm going to hit you to

mastery. I'm going to keep you in that

loop

>> to mastery and then your mastery. Now

I'm like I'm going to let you go on to

the next one. Last year, right, we

starting open lots of campuses and you

know, we're high-end private school. So

we had, you know, these are kids coming

from $50,000 private school. These are

our best schools in the country. They're

coming from the average student when

they transferred into alpha and took our

assessment test were 2.2 grade levels

behind. And what does that mean? I got

in front of all the parents, you know,

and I'm like, look, two, this means two

things. First, don't freak out. You are

going to freak out cuz we're about to

send you the scores. And it's going to

show that your eighth grader can't

answer some sixth grade questions, some

fifth grade questions even. And when it

got to writing, like it was even lower

because everybody's been using chatbt to

write their papers. And so you're going

to freak out because you're like, "Oh my

god, my kids two grade levels behind or

three grade levels behind." But you're

thinking that takes like 200 hours, 180

school days, right? And all this. Our

average student can do an entire grade

level, one subject between 20 and 30

hours in K through 8. 20 to 30 hours.

Back to the 10 times.

>> So they can catch up.

>> Do an hour a day of homework to catch

up. and you're 3 years behind. That's 90

days. The most positive use case if you

said, you know, what's the number one

thing we could use AI for? It's not

giving kids chatbots that's going to

work. It's giving them an individualized

lesson plan based on their level to

catch them up to grade level. And that

would be the single best thing we could

do to fix education in America. Let's

talk about motivation and why it

matters. And if you take an eighth

grader, you can't go put them in third

grade classes,

>> right? And if you leave him in an eighth

grade class, he can't learn. She can't

learn.

>> And so we have this system where it's

it's not the teacher's fault. Like I I

have to teach eighth grade material. I I

I'm not teaching the third and fourth

grade stuff and the fifth grade stuff.

And so this is where if we gave these

person individualized lessons, right? AI

could generate individualized lessons

for everybody in America. And we could

then go catch them up because it's not

that hard. It doesn't take that many

hours. It takes lots of hours when

you're teaching years ahead of their

capability. It it's 20 to 30 hours per

grade level if they're motivated. And

that's the problem with edtech when we

talk about that of when we talk about

motivation's 90%.

>> When [snorts] we design our schools, we

are like we need to design a school that

they love so that even when it's hard

and they don't like the subject, look

when you love a subject it's all easy,

right? Like we don't have to worry about

those problems, right? They solve

themselves. You're like, "What about the

STEM kid who doesn't want to read the

book, right, and doesn't like it?" Or

vice versa, I have the arts theater

middle schooler who's like, "I can't do

math." How do we get them to do that?

And that's why we say motivation is 90%

of the problem or the solution because

you have to be able to motivate the

person to engage with these personalized

lessons to learn it. And the first step

that we do on that is we show them it's

tractable. When you're like, I'm three

years behind, you're like, I'm out. It's

too far. I'm a year behind. I'm too It's

too much work. When you're like, you're

22 hours behind. It's 22 hours a day.

Totally different message.

>> It's just a completely different

message.

>> We are taking kids who are years behind

>> and catching them up because they see it

and say, "I can do an hour of homework a

day to go to go fix that problem."

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