August 26, 2025 • 57 mins
Dr. Yong Zhao challenges us to keep children at the center of education by acknowledging their uniqueness and building learning systems around that core idea. His approach aims to give kids the skills they need for meaningful future work instead of the synthetic tasks often imposed throughout traditional K-12 education.
• Education should build on student strengths, not force mastery of every weak spot
• Meritocracy fails by judging all kids with the same yardstick instead of honoring diverse talents
• Schools lost the race with tech by neglecting to prepare students to use it well
• “Personalizable education” means kids drive their learning journey, not just receive “personalized” lessons
• Real learning happens through solving authentic problems, not completing artificial assignments
• Humans are natural learners who need autonomy to discover strengths and interests
• Tech isn’t good or bad—what matters is how we teach kids to use it productively
• Systems should avoid one-size-fits-all and give schools more freedom
• Nothing works for every child—education must adapt to differences
• We should help kids create the future, not just prepare for it
About our guest
Dr. Yong Zhao is a Foundation Distinguished Professor in the School of Education at the University of Kansas. He previously served as the Presidential Chair, Associate Dean, and Director of the Institute for Global and Online Education in the College of Education, University of Oregon, where he was also a Professor in the Department of Educational Measurement, Policy, and Leadership. His works focus on the implications of globalization and technology on education. He has published over 100 articles and nearly 40 books, including: Duck and Cover- Confronting and correcting dubious practices in education, Teaching students to become self determined learners, What works may hurt -side effects in education, Never send a human to do a machine’s job.
Connect with Yong
zaolearning.com
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Then you use your ability, you solve the problem.
In a new age, learning is doing, doing is learning.
You do not learn in preparationfor something.
You actually learn to do andknowledge is right there.
That's what I'm hoping schoolswill do better.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Hi and welcome to the Candle Podcast.
Today we're talking to Dr YongZhao.
He is a FoundationDistinguished Professor at the
School of Education at theUniversity of Kansas.
He previously served as thepresidential chair, associate
dean and director of theInstitute for Global and Online
Education in the College ofEducation at the University of
Oregon, where he was also aprofessor in the Department of
Educational Measurement, policyand Leadership.
(00:38):
His work focuses on theimplications of globalization
and Technology on Education.
He has published over 100articles and nearly 40 books,
including Duck and Cover,confronting and Correcting
Dubious Practices in Education,teaching Students to Become
Self-Determined Learners.
What Works May Hurt Side Effectsin Education and Never Send a
(00:58):
Human to Do a Machine's Job.
Absolutely fascinatingconversation with Dr Zhao today
and my main take home is thatwhatever we do moving forward to
create educational learningenvironments or systems for kids
needs to keep the child at thecenter and to acknowledge that
every single human is adifferent human, and when we
(01:20):
believe that and when we buildlearning systems around that
idea, we're going to actually beable to get kids the skills
that they're going to need inthe future to do meaningful work
instead of fake, synthetic workthat often we force upon kids
for the 13 years of K-12education.
So let's get to ourconversation with Dr Zhao.
Dr Yong Zhao, thank you so muchfor joining the Kindle podcast.
(01:43):
We're super excited to get toknow you and learn from you
today.
Welcome.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Well, thank you, Katie.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
All right, so tell us a little bit about yourself.
Tell me, like, your personalstory.
You have a really incrediblestory and I just want everyone
to really understand who you areand where you're coming from
when you approach, like theeducational space.
You've done so much.
You're such a prolific author.
Just take us back.
Tell us the story.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
Well, I think my story probably will fit the
Pranda story quite well, in thatI am doing what I'm doing
because I was not good at what Iwas supposed to do.
You know, I grew up in a remote, rainy, mountainous area, in a
(02:27):
small, tiny village in China,southwest Sichuan province, and
in the 1960s you know, this ismy 60th, actually anniversary of
my birth, you know, so I'm 60years old.
So you know, when I was born?
So I'm 60 years old.
So you know, when I was born,that was during a cultural
revolution and there was no realschool, you know, and education
(02:49):
, and so I was really a badfarming kid.
So everybody was farming andMao Zedong, you know, the
chairman of Communist Party,decided to open schools in
villages in 1970s.
When a teacher came to recruitstudents, the teacher probably
was just recruited from the farmfield anyway, you know.
(03:10):
But at that time my father saidyou know, you're not very good
at farming, why don't you go toschool?
That was the good reason.
So I've always followed thatidea of if you are not good at
something, go try to findsomething you're good at and
follow that.
(03:30):
Then, of course, later on, chinaopened up and China has a
college entrance and I passedsome exams and went to college
and, trying to become an Englishlanguage teacher, taught
English and then, just asaccidents would happen, I've
always, you know, kind ofcredited.
(03:51):
You know, accidents,serendipity in my life.
I came to the US, I was avisiting scholar in Oregon,
oregon, and then went to gradschool in Illinois and then got
a job in various universitiesMichigan State University,
(04:17):
university of Oregon, universityof Kansas.
Also had jobs in the UK,university of Bath in Australia,
university of Melbourne.
So I've had a lot ofexperiences in many, many
different countries and I justgot back from Portugal, but all
my life has been around theissue about what is good
(04:37):
education.
I think you know we have atraditional view of education is
that we judge students based onwhat they do and what we think
they should do.
I think that's the big problem.
I was just writing an articlethis morning, and not finished
yet, about what I call the endof meritocracy.
(04:59):
Meritocracy as a term actuallywas first invented in 1956.
And then a book came up it'scalled 1958, called the Rise of
Meritocracy, as a term actuallywas first invented in 1956, and
then a book came up it's called1958, called the Rise of
Meritocracy.
But the book was really justmaking fun of meritocracy.
Meritocracy is a stupid idea buthas been adopted by society to
say, oh, this is great, we candetermine a person's merit based
(05:22):
on IQ plus efforts and thengive them resources, give them
social status, give thempositions.
But actually it does not work.
I mean, actually, the guy whowrote the book, michael Donald
Young, who is a sociologist anda politician in Britain and he
was predicting his book,actually said that in about 2034
(05:44):
, in his book actually he saidin about 2034, it's a satire
there will be a populist riseagainst the meritocratic elite,
which has happened right, I meanactually it happened earlier.
Anyway, because when you judgemerit, you judge based on the
traditional standards.
(06:05):
You know what is consideredmerit is IQ plus effort, but
then the merit is notnecessarily your independent
ability.
Your parents, your communityand your school and everything
determines what your merit is.
And also there are a lot ofpeople who might fail the IQ
(06:27):
test but do great on EQ.
You know the emotional quotient.
So, anyways, all my life hasbeen looking for opportunities,
looking for systems, looking forpolicies that would not
discriminate against people whohave different talents and
different passions.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
Yeah, that's interesting.
So what would you say?
Your big why is Like?
What change in the world areyou seeking to make through your
research, through your books?
Speaker 1 (06:53):
Well, I mean, I think you know there are the big
change I'm hoping to happen,which actually has happened, but
schools have failed to dealwith it.
Schools have lost the raceagainst technology.
I mean, look at today, theGeneration Z are suffering a lot
.
They're not living a betterlife than their parents, which
(07:15):
they should, but they're not.
And then we are complainingabout them, I mean basically
around.
You know, since 1970s, 1980s,education should have changed
and to meet the needs of thesociety.
And when technology changes sofast, we know we needed
different kind of talents but wedid not prepare them.
(07:36):
You know, technology is not agood or bad thing necessarily.
It can be both good and bad,but depends on the people.
If we had people who cansmartly utilize technological
advancement to create newpossibilities, it would have
been great.
But most people have beendisabled by technology.
(07:56):
Because when technology comesin to take jobs away, it creates
new opportunities.
But if people don't have theability or interest in
translating those potentialsinto newer jobs, newer economy,
we live a sad life.
And now the world is truly notoffering the best to our kids.
(08:18):
But I would not blame the world.
The world is made by people whowent to school and if the
school did not prepare them well.
And that's what we live, youknow, when people always
complain about extremepoliticians, you know horrible
business people, you know.
But I said, no, you can't justblame them.
The society endorses them andso we are the society, you know.
(08:44):
People say you cannot complainabout traffic jams, you are the
traffic jam.
So that's what I'm hopingschools will do better,
education will do better.
You know I care so much abouteducation.
Another reason is that you knowpeople always say, well, get
your kids ready for the future.
No, we'll get your kids tocreate the future, and their
(09:07):
future is my retirement.
I want to be careful about that.
I want kids to create a betterretirement for me.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
Yeah, you're invested in that.
I am too for sure.
I think that's an interestingway to look at it and I'm
wondering you've worked ineducational systems all over the
world.
Like what do you see that hasworked?
What do you see that does kindof future-proof kids?
We don't know what the futureis going to be like.
Right, like the jobs that we'redoing now could not have been
(09:35):
predicted by our parents orgrandparents.
So, like how do we, how do we,build systems, educational
systems that enable kids toadapt, to take advantage of
those opportunities that you'retalking about?
What have you seen that worksand what isn't working?
Speaker 1 (09:53):
Well, I mean in terms of systems themselves, I
haven't seen many systemsworking great.
You know I was.
You know I said the same thing.
I was in Portugal.
Portugal was hosting aneducation conference, which was
nice, you know, a media outlethosts that, and one of the
reporters interviewed me.
(10:14):
We talked a lot about this.
I said, you know, if you lookat education systems, there's no
good system Right now.
So far, for over the pastseveral decades, everybody was
reforming at the system level,trying to improve education, but
none of the reforms has mademuch difference, has changed
(10:35):
anything, and so I've beenarguing for devolution of power,
that I think schools shouldhave a lot more autonomy.
One of, if you know, one of thethings I would say is that you
cannot compare schooleducational systems across
different countries, becausethey have different needs, they
(10:55):
have different reasons, theyhave different communities,
different parents, differentstudents, different culture, all
kinds of different things.
You cannot use one, you know,like a test score to say, oh,
our kids are falling behind, ourkids are doing better, we are
more globally competitive thanothers.
That's like judging, you know,ranking restaurants based on one
dish globally.
(11:16):
You know you can't do that, butsystems like to do that and
then, once they do that, theycome out with again
one-size-fits all curriculum forall children, one size fits all
testing for all students, whichis probably the worst in the
age.
You know, some systems giveschools more autonomy, some
(11:48):
systems are more controlling,and so the controlling systems
seem to drive higher test scoresin comparison to other
countries, like East Asianeducation systems.
And then some systems seem tomore laissez-faire you know they
don't control education as much.
But then there's a danger.
(12:08):
We got to watch out becausesome systems to say, I think
actually the US, I know US, ofcourse has got more than 50
systems, you know, but in thiscountry and in the UK, because
some system leaders like to say,well, I don't care how you run
your school, but as long as youpass my test, then that is
(12:28):
actually very dangerous.
That is because you do not wantto monopolize the kind of
students you want.
You know you want Because Ithink now I go around I ask
policymakers, teachers, schoolleaders one question I said you
know, how do you know what youwork so hard to teach or to test
(12:49):
to want the students to havewhen they graduate from school
will be meaningful in five years?
How do you know?
You know like we've beentalking about 21st century
skills, reading skills.
We fight over reading, forexample, for a long time you
know whole language or scienceof reading, all those.
It's nonsense, you know, but wefight over them because there's
(13:12):
money, there's politics behindall of that.
But how do you know that youare helping kids learn or you're
forcing children learn will bevaluable in five or 10 years.
To learn will be valuable infive or 10 years.
Nobody checks on them, nobody,and then nobody is responsible.
But yet you look at schools.
We force kids to learn allthose things.
(13:35):
Actually, right now I'm runningsome experiments to say what's
worth learning.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
Do parents know?
Speaker 1 (13:42):
Do students know?
Do teachers know?
But when you force kids tolearn, is that truly valuable?
So I think that's really everyeducation system needs to
consider.
But, katie I, I would say Idon't expect systems to take
actions to innovate, becausesystems are more of the
(14:04):
stabilizer, not the innovator.
They stabilize, you know, theyhave to keep everything the same
.
They can react to educationalinnovations, but I don't think
they can lead educationalinnovations.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
Interesting.
Yeah, that's an interestingconcept.
I think I mean systems.
When it comes down to it, it'sjust human decision right that
we've set up.
The teacher should say thesesentences when the students are
this like old and then give thistest.
Like we create, but like thatwas made by a human right.
Like trying and I mean Prendain and of itself is kind of like
(14:40):
a learning system.
So like I'm very interested inhow we can set up incentives and
programs and patterns and likebeliefs.
Honestly, that will keep thestudent at the center and help
us all stay focused on the goalof creating like not just a kid
that can pass a test, but a kidwho feels a certain way about
(15:00):
himself and learning and theircapacity to achieve and overcome
and figure things out, make abetter world, like what you're
calling us to, to take care ofyour retirement we're all very
focused on getting you theretirement that you deserve.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
Well, you know, I think what you said is quite
interesting is that educationsystems are man-made, yeah, and
also I literally meant man-madeWomen were not part of it in the
beginning.
You beginning, and I think thequestion is really in this Do we
treat students as individualhuman beings or do we treat them
(15:37):
as subjects to an emperor orking or a system?
Because right now, if you lookat schools traditional schools
very much as a prison, that is,we define what you do.
We judge you based on what youdo.
We lock you in a place in termsof what we think schools need
(16:00):
to be efficient.
We really do not allow a lot ofautonomy in students.
We don't value individuals.
We value what they producebased on what we want them to
produce.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
Something I've heard you say, I can't remember where.
I heard you say this wassomething to the effect of we
treat every student that is thesame age as if they're the same
person.
And if we can't treat them asthis same person, then we like
call them gifted and talented,or we call them like they need
special education.
There's like three buckets, butyou're calling the world to
something that is much morepersonalized.
(16:39):
You call it personalizableeducation.
Can you go into the differencebetween what Well, tell us what
personalized education is, andthen what is personalizable
education?
How are you kind?
Speaker 1 (16:49):
of reframing that.
I've read quite a lot aboutthat.
I think right now it's verypopular to say we have
personalized learning.
But mostly when they talk aboutpersonalized learning they're
talking about personalizing thelearning process.
That is, we define what youshould learn and when you should
(17:10):
finish that.
But then you know you canpersonalize.
You know you can learn this inthe day, you can learn this in
the evening, you can learn thistomorrow morning.
Or you can say okay, you can dothe test this way or that way.
But that's not reallypersonalized learning.
That kind of personalizedlearning following computer
systems is no different than theteaching machine.
(17:31):
You know a BF Skinner'steaching machine.
It's basically you.
You know I give you a question,you give an answer.
If it's correct, I give you,you know, a more difficult one,
or I will advance you.
If you don't, I will make yourepeat that more difficult one,
or I will advance you.
If you don't, I will make yourepeat.
That's not personalizedlearning.
In my mind, personalization oflearning should be driven by
(17:52):
students and learning, educationor schooling should be
personalizable.
So you offer all the potentialsto enable students to follow
their passion or interest and tosay you know like, for example,
you know, students today ingenerative AI, on chat, gpt, say
, okay, I really want to learnmore about electricity and I
(18:18):
don't care about electricity, Icare about the history of how
electricity has been developed.
You should, yeah, go for it.
You know, then you should say,okay, as teachers, you know I
will support that how much youwant to learn.
You remember, a student canlearn for 10 years about great
electricity and become verycreative about it.
You should let it go.
And if you want to read novelsabout electricity I'm sure
(18:39):
there's plenty of novels aboutthat, actually History,
biography they can do it.
If a student wants today, youknow, they want to deal with
dinosaurs, they can do a lotmore.
And dinosaurs, you know, it'snot only dinosaurs.
Dinosaurs has to do with a lotof, you know, evolution of the
world and environment,environmental impact, it can go
(19:02):
on.
So it's driven by students.
But you make learning, you makeeducation personalizable.
That means you allow thestudents to personalize.
I think that's a big difference, you know, because I'm very
tired of schools to say, oh,we're doing personalized
learning, they just buy somecomputer software and students
(19:22):
can, you know, punch this in.
That's not.
You know, that doesn't helpstudents at all.
You know that actually you'restill driving students who might
be slower in learning to do thesame thing.
You know, actually.
You know like in the US we talkabout reading.
Reading is a very interestingconcept and but there are all
(19:43):
kinds of different reading.
You know why American studentreading scores have not changed
so much since 1970s is becausethere's too many.
There are too many remediation.
You know we force kids to sayyou got to be able to read to
pass the reading test by thirdgrade.
If not, you cannot advance tofourth grade.
Who says that?
You know, I might just beplaying around hanging out, I'm
(20:06):
listening, I'm talking, I candrive AI using my natural voice.
Why what's so great aboutreading?
But I'm not against reading.
If you can read, go for it.
But if a child has readingissues and takes so long to
correct that reading problem, Idon't think we should do it.
It should be just like myfather.
(20:28):
You can't do farming, go toschool.
You know it's the same thing.
If you cannot read, go dosomething else.
And today you can actually dothat.
I mean, you were talking aboutneurodiversity.
That's just true.
Human beings are different inthe wild.
It's amazing, right.
And that different wild, youalways have something you're
(20:50):
great at.
Yes, schools have preventedchildren from discovering what
they're good at, and sopersonalizable education creates
the opportunity for students todo that.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
So I'm thinking like is there a subset of skills that
we can say almost certainly?
I mean it's a little hesitant.
I'm a little hesitant aboutthis now with AI, but I mean,
five years ago I would have saidno, there's a subset of skills
that, like I'm 90% sure thatkids need to be able to do
(21:25):
whatever they want.
And you've said that in orderto be creative, you need deep
knowledge right, and to be ableto like have a foundational,
have foundational skills to beable to interact with the world
and to learn.
If we're, you know, you give theexample of kids hopping on AI
and saying I want to learn moreabout electricity, they have to
want to do that, and then theyhave to know how to interact
(21:48):
with a robot.
You know which there's.
There's a learning skill setthere.
I'm trying to like builddifferent AI models and stuff
right now personally and throughwork.
I'm like this is a skill right,Like this is not just magic,
but how.
I mean I think I hear whatyou're saying and I actually
like agree with a lot of it, butI'm wondering if there are
listeners thinking like, no, mykids have to learn how to read
(22:10):
and I'm never going to send themto a school or trust them to a
system that doesn't likeprioritize reading and writing
and math.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
Are you saying like we should throw?
Speaker 2 (22:17):
all of that out or like.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
That's a fabulous question.
I get that question all thetime.
First of all, we got to thinkabout this.
Let's assume there are somebasic skills.
Are those basic skills part ofour education or not is
questionable.
You know, a lot of times humanbeings develop abilities without
(22:39):
being taught.
You know, that's something Ithink we sometimes forget about
that.
You know, human beings developabilities, and without being
taught, okay.
The second thing is that humanbeings do not necessarily learn
when you think you are requiredthem to learn.
You know that's not.
We need to accept that Totally.
(23:00):
They don't need to be proven,that's just a fact, right?
So when you think you'reforcing your kids to do
something, are they actuallydoing that?
Are they actually learning thatto do something?
Are they actually doing that?
Are they actually learning that?
And then the third question isthat how do we know what is
worth, what you need to require?
You know I mean.
Another example I learnedEnglish because I was bad at
(23:23):
math.
You think Chinese can be bad atmath too, so don't worry about
it.
I know people have thisstereotype.
I was horrible at math.
I got a three out of a hundredin my college entrance exam.
That's quite.
If you know math.
That's pretty bad, okay, andI've survived.
I've survived well.
I do statistics very well.
(23:44):
I was a teaching assistant forstatistics.
I do computer programming.
So is what you're judged by atest, truly judging your ability
?
So now I'm questioning am Ireally bad at math?
But there's so much math.
So which part of math algebra,calculus, statistics,
(24:06):
probability there's a difference.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
Or maybe you were just bad at sitting still and
like listening to a lecture,like learning that way.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
The test.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
So that's another thing.
How do we judge?
So that's why I've emphasizedhuman beings as human beings, if
they have a reason, if theyhave a purpose, they will learn
what's needed and today, in thisworld, they have resources to
do that.
So I'm not going to argue withany parents, argue with anyone.
(24:38):
I said what you should do isyou should follow your children,
believe most human beings aregenuinely good and social and
you need to support them.
I think a lot of times we getso-called bad kids because we
force them, because we pressurethem.
You know, from our perspectiverather than from their
(25:00):
perspective.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
Yeah.
So two things I'm thinking here.
One, the brain is unique.
The human brain is uniquelypositioned to solve real
problems, not fake problems, anda lot of the things that we do
to kids in schools we give themfake problems.
You have essentially 13 yearsof fake problems and your brain
is supposed to.
I remember learning math and I'mlike wait, so I'm moving all
these numbers around and you'retelling me that I'm moving them
(25:22):
in the right way and sometimes Imove them in the wrong way and
I have no idea why one way isright and one way is wrong.
It has no bearing on whether ornot, like, I'm happy or I'm
safe or I can provide for myselfin the future or any of this.
It's completely disconnected,right.
But then as soon as I get into,you know, like I discovered
that I'm very passionate abouteducation and like building
(25:44):
print and things like that, assoon as I have a real problem,
my brain becomes very good atusing numbers to like to build
the things that I care about, tosolve the problems, to solve
real problems, and not just tosolve my problems but to solve
the problems of others.
Right, and I think that you'vedone a lot of writing about this
, like giving, giving kids andadults real problems and doing
(26:07):
like problem-based learninginstead of fake.
I just feel like the whole worldwe created for kids is very
synthetic, and they know thatit's synthetic because they're
very, very smart, and it's likewe don't trust them enough to
invite them into the real worldto participate in solving real
problems, and we're kind of likebabysitting them for so long
that we miss the point wherethey can actually become very
(26:32):
effective and efficient andhelpful in solving the real
problems of today.
And maybe we're just worriedthat we don't have enough
problems for everyone to solve,but I can't imagine that that's
actually the truth, but we actas if that's true.
Well, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
I think you're absolutely right.
I think the popularproblem-based learning unless
it's a problem students foundinterested in, it's not a real
problem.
It's your problem, it's not myproblem.
My problem is to solve yourproblem.
You know, in schools I got todo this thing.
You know it's the idea.
(27:09):
So you know, a lot of my worknow is really about three things
.
One is personalization oflearning or personalizable
education.
Number two is teach studentshow to find the problems, find
meaningful problems for others,for the world.
And number three is trying tohelp people understand human
(27:30):
interdependence.
If you combine the three things, you have developed unique
abilities through personalizedlearning, unique.
Everyone can be uniquely great,and then you use that greatness
to find and solve problems forothers, then you'll be happier.
You know, because of purpose,you have reason and then that
(27:53):
when you solve problems forothers, you're creating
interdependence because you arehelping others, and then you
have weaknesses, others can helpsolve your problem.
So that's what I'm really rightnow thinking a lot about.
The HIP human interdependenceparadigm is that people cannot
be selfish.
(28:13):
They can be self-interested.
You know, in a traditionalschool we teach kids to be
selfish because the traditionalforces you to compete against
each other.
You know you have to be.
You know, remember in collegeadmissions?
Oh, you're the top 5% in yourclass top 10% but someone has to
(28:35):
be the bottom 5%.
What's going to happen to them?
That's why meritocracy is wrong.
You cannot do that.
You have to rank people.
Why do you have to rank people?
You can be top 1% in this.
That person can be top 1% inthat.
They can be different.
So when you are talking aboutuniqueness, that is where human
(28:58):
beings might have a hope ofdoing better in the future.
If everybody is unique and theyuse their uniqueness to solve
other people's problems, thatcreates human interdependence
instead of trying to competeagainst each other.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
So what are the ingredients then?
And like, I hesitate to say aneducational system, because we
know systems don't innovate orsolve problems.
But how should we set up like,let's just pretend we're
building a school.
What would it look like if wewanted to do personalizable
education and we wanted to givekids real problems, help them
fall in love with problems andserving the needs of others and
(29:37):
not relying on competition.
What's it look like?
Speaker 1 (29:39):
I had a problem that does not work anymore with AI
Because before I was reallythinking a lot about you know
2018 or 19,.
I wrote a book aboutpersonalizable education.
So at that time, I was thinkingabout a lot more about how do
(29:59):
you offer a personalizablecurriculum, for example.
Right, I mean, you know schools, you have to teach the like you
said, basic, you have to offer,but you have to offer some time
.
We just wrote an article aboutthis, called Time Available for
Autonomy.
(30:22):
So I think today, in this newage with generative AI, with all
these new tools, the big thingis autonomy.
So a personalizable educationshould give students time to
make autonomous decisions, whatthey would like to learn and use
that autonomy.
You should always ask but whydo you want to learn this?
You know what problems you'regoing to solve, what problems
(30:45):
you will solve.
So the first one is really giveautonomy.
Second thing, teaching andlearning should always start
with finding problems, and we'rerunning a bunch of experiments
in actually, k-12 school andcolleges and undergraduate
school to say what problem doyou want to solve?
We spend a lot of time first tosay discover your strength,
(31:06):
discover who you are.
Second thing is really find outwhat problems you want to solve
and why.
So students spend a lot of timeto refine those problems.
You know problems can beobservation-driven, can be
theory-driven, you know, can bestakeholder-driven.
Right, and you observesomething.
Oh God, you know we don't havegood food.
(31:26):
Can our food taste better?
You know that's observation.
But then how does food tastebetter?
It can get into chemistry, itcan get into biology, it can get
in all kinds of things.
Stakeholder.
You know my mom wants a better,you know kind of dessert.
And then how do I meet that?
So then you use your ability,you solve the problem.
In a new age, learning is doing,doing is learning.
(31:48):
You do not learn it inpreparation for something you
actually learn to do.
And knowledge is right there.
And third is that you alwayswant to find out who cares.
You know you want to write anovel who cares?
You want to write a poet, whocares?
You want to write music whocares?
You always want to find.
You know, have anentrepreneurial thinking about
(32:10):
your audience.
You know, I mean even theaudience, even the greatest
painters, artists, they aretrying to learn to find out.
I'm painting.
But you've got to have a senseof audience.
You have to have a sense ofaudience.
Who does this?
My son works in the Chicago ArtInstitute.
He puts up exhibits ofphotographers.
(32:32):
He has a PhD in art history,you know, and he has to think
about why do people want to cometo watch it?
I'm putting this photo versusthis why.
So purpose matters.
So I think in new learning, youalways want to get children to
be the driver of the learning.
That's the most important.
(32:53):
And not all childrennecessarily want to do it,
especially after they've beeneducated in schools, and so you
need to cultivate thatconfidence.
You can do something, you cansolve real problems and, like
you said, you know, educationcan fake problems.
But in human society we have somany real problems and, trust
(33:17):
me, solutions get more problems.
You will never run out ofproblems.
Any solution gets new problems,and that's how human beings
develop right, and human beingsdevelop this ability, this
passion for solving problems.
I mean this is, I think, a lotof times we treat K-12,
(33:39):
especially early years, as, oh,you're a kid, you cannot do
something.
You know how many young peoplehave done amazing things already
, right?
I mean, if you give them thatopportunity, they are creative.
They might need your help, ofcourse, to better their work,
you know.
But they want to solve realproblems.
If you have young, you knowthree or four year olds would
(34:02):
love to wash your dishes for you.
You may not like it, but they'dlove to do it.
Love to prepare food, love tobake a cake.
You know they want to dosomething 100%.
Speaker 2 (34:12):
Yeah, that need for competence is strong in all
humans, right?
We all want to feel like we canparticipate in meaningful ways.
I was just.
I have four kids my youngest isalmost six and the other day I
let her help me make scrambledeggs, or like we were making
dinner.
Everyone else was gone, it wasme and her.
We were making breakfast fordinner and we were doing very
(34:34):
simple things.
But she came away from thatexperience with the story, the
narrative in her mind, that shehad made dinner for her family,
like independently, and that shewas now not only had she
mastered this meal, but she wasnow a chef.
And so when everyone came home,she was like I'm a chef now.
I is now a chef, and so wheneveryone came home she was like
I'm a chef now, I'm a cook, yeah, exactly, and she was just like
(34:54):
beaming, so exciting and likewalked back in the kitchen.
She's like what's next, mom?
Like I am here to like likehelp me become this right.
She's so like full of motivation, full of curiosity, and I think
sometimes as parents we worry,like we kind of.
You know, we paint this almostidealistic world of kids who
just want to learn things andthey're creative and they're
passionate and things like that.
But then we look at the kids.
(35:16):
We have to realize is that thatlack of engagement is actually
a product of forced learning,right there.
That's beautiful.
Speaker 1 (35:40):
Exactly I completely agree with.
I mean, everybody can playvideo games and then they get
tired of playing video games ifthey have autonomy.
You know kids actually get tiredof it.
You know, like, if a kid says Idon't want to watch TV, let him
watch how long.
You know it's very hard to stayconnected to something without
learning anything.
(36:00):
You know human beings arelearning machines.
If you don't learn anything,it's really boring.
And that's why some families dotimeout.
You throw them in the bathroom.
I mean, actually funny thing.
If you threw them in thebathroom for too long, they will
become inventive.
They invent something.
They will draw something on themirror.
They will do something Humanbeings cannot stop.
(36:21):
I mean we have to do something.
Speaker 2 (36:24):
Yeah, I think that we just haven't trust, like
parents and educators, we're soused to a system that engenders
mediocrity, yes, but it's amediocrity that we've accepted
because there's a safety in that, because it's like normalized
right, it's like well, at leastI did the normal, responsible
thing that got me these mediocreresults.
Or a kid that hates learningbut knows how to read at least,
(36:45):
or you know like.
But it's hard to get off ofthose train tracks when you
don't have a lot of societalmodels for like there being a
different way and that you cangive kids more autonomy and more
freedom and give them realproblems to solve, and that it
will work.
And so what would?
Speaker 1 (37:01):
you what's your I think that's another thing is.
I mean, you're right, it's thefaith.
Education is a faith business.
Right, Because you are, Becauseyou cannot get immediate
results.
You know, I'm sure parents havea very hard time looking at
their children watching TV orplaying video game without doing
.
They really want to interfere.
(37:22):
Right, Patience, but humanbeings now you live to 90s, 100
years old, my God, you know lifeshould be enjoyed.
Why do you want to force them?
You know, I've seen families oh, you can only play five minutes
of video game, so why do you dothat?
(37:42):
You know, let them learn tomanage their own, Let them make
mistakes as early as possible.
You know, like, you know, youknow, even like, if they're in
first grade, they make somemistake, they forgot to turn in
homework, they're playing toomuch video game.
They will learn.
They will say oh God, you know,could you help me control my
(38:02):
video game so I can do myhomework?
And also, is this homework thatimportant?
You got to really think aboutit.
You know what's more important?
I think a lot of times we needparents to have a better
understanding of the learningprocess, of the upcoming world,
the new one, the new future,what's like.
(38:23):
We also have to think aboutchildren as creators of the
future they create.
They do not just accept thepast, they have to enter the
future, and what are they goingto make of it is very important.
Speaker 2 (38:40):
Yeah, I think, going back to video games and screen
use, that's a very hot topicright now and we've been
thinking a lot about it atPrenda, because we do use
educational technology toprovide personalized learning.
I won't call it that piecepersonalized, but we actually do
both.
Half of our like our learningmodel is half mastery-based,
where we use educationaltechnology to drive those key
(39:03):
skills but we give kids.
They choose what programs theywork in.
They set their own goals, andevery time they set a goal they
have to define a purpose for howthey're going to use that math.
And so, funny, I'll go throughsometimes and read the purpose
statements of our kids and someof them are like I want to
master fourth grade math so thatI can do fifth grade math, and
(39:25):
I'm like nope, you've missed thepoint here.
What are you going to do?
They're so caught in this fakesynthetic world that they can't
even imagine a purpose outsideof just jumping through the next
hoop.
And so we have to do a lot ofintentional, like mentoring with
them to get them to reimaginetheir future and to reconnect
with who they are.
And that is the work I think ofthe future teacher right,
(39:48):
helping kids want to learn, liketo make that shift.
I'm like, oh, this is such agood story.
So in one of our very firstPrenda Micro Schools, kelly had
a kid.
We do this project calledExplain it to Future you, so all
of the kids make a little model.
You can draw it, you can sculptit, whatever you want, make a
model of your future self.
And this kid created a model ofhimself sitting on the couch
eating chips, playing videogames.
(40:09):
And Kelly, our founder and CEO,was the first guide.
He was like, oh, that's awesome, that's going to be such a cool
future.
Who pays for the chips?
And just that little questionthat he asked there, that, like
little nudge, got this kid torealize like I am going to grow
up and I am going to have toprovide for myself, and like
three like this kid was giventhe time and the autonomy to
(40:30):
spend his school time figuringout what he wanted to do, and he
landed on pediatric oncologyand he figured out what college
he wanted to go to and whatscholarships he needed to get,
and all of this as a fifthgrader Just because he went from
my future is playing videogames and eating chips to.
I have this like very meaningfulpassion to now when I, when I
turn around and I'm doing myfifth grade math, I have it has
(40:52):
a purpose and it's real to meand I think that when educators
get better at narrating that forkids and reflecting back, yeah,
we played a lot of video and soin my house, before I met Kelly
, our founder, I didn't evenallow my kids to play with toys
that had batteries.
I was like very, very low stimand I still, honestly, keep that
(41:14):
rule because mostly I just getoverwhelmed with all of the
beeping and the noises and stufflike that.
It's mostly a me thing.
But we also don't have videogames and mostly still just a me
thing.
But my kids are allowed to play, like when we go to our
cousin's house or a friend'shouse, like they can play video
games ad nauseum.
I don't I police, like what itis, because I don't think
violence is good for the youngbrain.
But they can play as much asthey want.
(41:36):
And then when we were cominghome, I'll reflect back with
them Like how was that, you know?
Like, should we get video gamesin our house and how do you
feel after you play?
And they're like blah, like wedon't like this, please don't
put this in our house.
Like you know, they're askingme to not provide video games
and I'm like all right, cool, sothis is a team decision to not
have video games in our housebecause you don't like how, you
(41:58):
feel it's hard to control andyou'd rather do other things.
And so when my kids come homefrom school, they're on screens
but they're like coding orthey're creating presentations
about things that they'reinterested in.
I'm like, okay, this isabsolutely possible if we play
our cards.
Right, like we can have kidsthat are curious and are
developing.
Still, they're still developingthe core skills, because those
(42:20):
are the skills of our society,right, if they want to
communicate something like rightnow in the world, like they're
going to write an email to theirfriend or they're going to make
a presentation in Canva, andthose they're using their
literacy skills and theirproblem solving skills and their
creativity skills and it's abeautiful thing to watch.
And I just I want to inspirethis next generation of parents
to lean into that instead oflike just continuing to beat the
(42:44):
drum of mediocrity and likefineness.
You ask parents how their kidsare and they say, fine, like new
goal, fine is not the goal.
Speaker 1 (42:51):
It's not OK to be fine, absolutely, and that's why
you know I've been, you know,writing about it, I've been
talking about you want your.
You want individual, uniquegreatness or you want mass
mediocrity.
You know traditional schoolsproduce mass mediocrity, when
education should be helpingindividuals grow to become
(43:11):
really great.
And in the age of AI, really,unless you're great, probably,
the value of mass jobs don'texist anymore, and the more you
do it, any kind of massive jobsdon't exist anymore and the more
you do it, any kind of massivejobs repetitive will be replaced
.
Speaker 2 (43:27):
So you've written a book called let's dive into this
for a few minutes.
Here You've written a bookcalled Never Send a Human to Do
a Machine's Job, which is suchlike a.
When I read that title I waslike, oh my gosh, I have to read
this book.
Talk to me a little bit and Iknow it was written a few years
ago, kind of before AI becamenormative but talk to me a
little bit about just that titleand what you're.
Speaker 1 (43:47):
Well, the title was really because it's really about
education of teachers is thatyou know human teachers.
You know we've been investing alot of them in school
technology, but if you look atschools, technology really has
not transformed a lot oflearning.
(44:08):
One of the reasons is thatteachers tend to do mechanical
jobs and they have to do it Like.
Now.
I'm sure a lot of teachers arenot doing that anymore.
They use AI to create homework.
They use AI to score homework,to grade homework, which is
great.
You know you don't need humanbeings involved.
(44:29):
Homework should not existanyway.
But so that's the.
I think the idea was at thattime to say if teachers allowed
machines to do what machines cando, they can become a lot more
human.
I mean, this is true today,right, this is true in the
future?
You know, we should always.
(44:50):
If a student can watch YouTubeto learn math, why do you want
to teach them?
There are so many differentways of learning math.
There are many different ways.
You know, I don't like peopleto say, let's send to Khan
Academy, khan Academy, just one.
There's so many ways oflearning math.
There are many different ways.
You know, I don't like peopleto say, oh, let's send to Khan
Academy.
Khan Academy just won.
There's so many ways oflearning math.
Let them do it.
You know, so you do not have torepeat what machines can do
(45:12):
already.
But if you go to classrooms nowI mean a lot of teachers still
you know teaching history.
They're still reading a historybook.
Why do you want to do that?
So I think that's the idea forthe book.
Speaker 2 (45:26):
And so we've talked a lot about educational
technology, Like would you sayyou're pro educational
technology or againsteducational technology if you
had to pick one?
Speaker 1 (45:35):
Well, I cannot pick one, because I'm both pro and
against.
I know me too I mean, like anytool, it's there.
If you make good use of it,it's wonderful, but you can
absolutely abuse it.
I think technology has beenabused and it can be abused all
(45:55):
the time.
You're like, actually this isanother big topic.
I'm sure your parents ask itSocial media.
Social media has beenvictimized, honestly, by a lot
of say well, it's bad because itteaches students, you know.
It depresses young girls, youknow.
I said you haven't done anyresearch about the positive side
.
Another thing is that no schoolhas taught kids how to deal
(46:19):
with social media.
You know you cannot blame, youknow.
But also you know at the sametime, like with artificial
intelligence, people say ithallucinates, has biases, isn't
it?
You know?
Human beings are born withbiases.
Human beings are born tohallucinate.
You know how many people tellyou lies, deliberately or
(46:40):
unintentionally, so you justhave to deal with it.
You know you deal with it andit evolves all the time.
So you know, like when I firststarted using GPS it's funny
thing like GPS, remember, Ithink, at 20, maybe 10, 15, 20
years ago GPS are not very good,so I always get lost.
(47:00):
I was not good at reading GPS.
I say well, you know, gettinglost is a good tool, very good,
so I always get lost.
I was not good at reading GPS.
I say well, you know gettinglost is a good tool, you know.
So you just treat itdifferently.
How do you learn it right?
You cannot blame it, you haveto rely on it.
So I think you know I'm not pro, I'm not against.
I'm really here for smart users.
Don't do what technology can do,but also keep thinking about.
(47:23):
Technology can do a lot morethan we think, because I mean
actually, for example,generative AI.
It all depends on how you useit.
You know people.
If you use it as an answermachine, it may not give you the
correct answer, but if you useit as a reasoning partner, you
might get much better answers.
You kept questioning it, youknow.
(47:44):
You kept playing with it.
You give it more data.
You know it's like aconversational partner, Even
like teachers can.
When you go ask a question,teachers can give you a wrong
answer, but if you keep probing,how often do you get an expert
to probe?
Allow you to probe like thatwithout getting emotional.
It's quite nice, right.
Speaker 2 (48:03):
Yeah, because educational technology is such a
hot topic right now and we douse this at Prenda.
So I'm kind of just in thisstate of like learning more and
just read something somewhere.
I think Jonathan Haidt, anxiousGeneration, that's like kind of
the big book right now.
Speaker 1 (48:19):
I think he's completely wrong.
Interesting.
Speaker 2 (48:21):
Interesting.
Okay, talk about that.
Speaker 1 (48:24):
Well, I mean, you cannot blame something that you
cannot change.
What are you going to like?
You know, let's say, 60 yearsago, you can't blame cars.
There are too many cars in God.
You know what are you going todo.
You know, like, 120 years, ahundred, uh, 20 years ago, uh,
we will blame horses.
(48:45):
They are they.
They carry horse poops in the,the, the pollute the city.
What are you going to do so?
So I don't think it's a solutionlike, oh, ban the phones ban.
I don't think that's the cause.
I think the real cause for ourdepressed generation is school.
Schools are meaningless, youknow so.
(49:07):
They have no purpose andtherefore, you know, when they
have a real purpose in school,if the school is a meaningful,
authentic life living experience, they're happy.
I mean, you know why do theyuse TikTok?
It's they used to relax ifthey're hooked, because they
have no time to check somethingelse.
(49:28):
You know, we used to readnonsense books and when I was
born and raised in my littlevillage, people were starving
but we were still having fun.
We never watched any violentmovie, but we're still using
like a corn stalk to to try topretend to kill each other.
We just you cannot blame the,you know, corn stalks.
Speaker 2 (49:47):
Ban the corn stalks.
Speaker 1 (49:49):
Yeah, I mean so, it's just so.
I just think you know it'spopular to think like that.
You know people's oh, now I canbuy my phone, I can put my
phone in this.
That's just, it's something youcannot do and I, in my mind, I
just you know kids should alwayshave phones and they need to
(50:09):
learn how to manage the use ofit.
I mean, if you ban their use,will they not use it?
Speaker 2 (50:15):
They just won't let you know that they're using it.
Speaker 1 (50:17):
They'll just try to invent ways to steal the way to
use it.
Right.
So I'm not protecting, I'm notarguing about to say you should
not be watchful.
You should, but you should notjust blame this device.
That's an easy excuse to have.
Speaker 2 (50:35):
Sometimes we get a lot of parents that come to us
like worried a little bit aboutlike how we use screens at
Prenda and worried that theythey just trust that a human
saying the same sentences totheir student is going to be
better than a screen deliveringthose same sentences.
And I totally understand likethere are dangers around screens
.
And the analogy we use atPrenda is like a computer is no
(50:58):
different than a stapler, right,but it's a tool that you can
use and you can use a stapler ina dangerous way and you can use
a stapler in a very productiveway.
It was made for productivityand we teach kids how to use
that stapler safely andproductively Like they.
Actually it helps theirexecutive function skills, like
(51:19):
I remember.
So my kids interesting kind ofcase study, like my kids have
never been to normal schoolbefore and they've always only
used educational technology tolearn.
They've never had a teacher.
And I have four kidskindergarten through.
My oldest is in sixth graderight now and we've always done
this and my kids have.
I've watched them struggle,I've watched them get really far
(51:39):
behind and I felt the panic asa parent to think like, oh, no,
like is my whole likeeducational philosophy or what
we're doing wrong.
And then I see them experiencethat, like they don't like
feeling behind and that they aregoing to, you know, carve out
some after school time topractice more or to like work on
their curriculum more, to likework on their curriculum more.
And they have, like my thirdgrader, my fourth grader, like
(52:02):
little kids.
These kids are nine, 10.
They are making betterdecisions for their future self.
One time my six-year-olddaughter said she was frustrated
with math.
She was okay, so I was afterschool, no one was making her do
math.
Right now she's after school.
There's no homework at Prenda.
She's independently choosing todo more math.
So that's the first thing she'sfrustrated.
She's independently choosing todo more math.
So that's the first thing she'sfrustrated.
She's like in tears, she's verystressed about this.
(52:23):
She cannot figure this out.
And I she's like mom, I can'tdo this.
And I give her the suggestionthat she quit, like why don't
you just quit, you know?
And I kind of meant like quitfor the day, like take a break.
I didn't mean like quit mathentirely, but she took that to
mean that I should, that sheshould give up on math.
And she looked at me appalledand she was like mom, that would
not be good for my future selfas a six-year-old.
(52:52):
And I'm like okay, if you letkids experience this, the weight
of owning their own educationand using this tool productively
, they can learn to manage it.
And that doesn't mean that wearen't like we have all of the
safeguards on those screens andthat we're.
You know.
Sometimes they're like can Iwork on my math after school?
And sometimes I'm like no, Ijust don't want you sitting down
.
The opportunity cost of yousitting down here at a screen,
even if you're learning, isn'tworth like I need you to just be
(53:13):
outside, go play, go like knockon neighbor's doors, start a
pickup game of baseball, likeyou know, just go outside, and
my kids are so happy to do thattoo.
But it really is possible to toraise well-rounded kids who can
manage the tools of today.
Just like you learned to managethose corn stalks and we've
somehow managed to learn how tomanage staplers in the world.
It's like, whatever the tool isof the day, like we need to
(53:35):
teach our kids how to manage it.
So, even from the perspectiveof like don't allow batteries
just just for my like very.
I feel like I have kind of anextreme position because I don't
allow battery toys in my house.
So it's like even from thatperspective, like I, I am
finding myself embracing more ateach them how to use it, kind
of mindset.
Speaker 1 (53:55):
I think every family can have their own style.
You know no battery poweredtoys, it's not a bad idea can
have their own style.
You know no battery, you knowpowered toys, it's not a bad
idea.
I mean I think every familychoose.
So that's why kids coming fromdifferent families have their
different uniqueness.
I mean families can decide, butyou know the learning
environments you create, caughtwith different kind of students.
(54:19):
I mean it's nothing wrong orright, I think it just.
But you know, like you said,your kids can go play video
games other places, but they maynot even want to play video
games.
Some kids just want to gooutside and play baseball.
I mean, I think again, I thinkwe need to understand children
are different.
You know there are children whodo not like video games.
(54:42):
There are children who do notlike social media.
I mean, children are verydifferent.
But I think what you said justnow, maybe 10, 20 minutes ago do
not make video games orsomething like, create that
escape for kids.
We force them too much.
They are looking for an escape.
(55:02):
If that is the case, that's forkids.
When you force them too much,they're looking for an escape.
If that is the case, that's theproblem.
Speaker 2 (55:07):
Yes, totally, 100% agree with that.
Let's create learningenvironments and childhoods that
don't need to be escaped from.
Speaker 1 (55:13):
Exactly, you want them to go to that place, but
not want to escape into thatplace.
Speaker 2 (55:20):
Love that I love video games.
Speaker 1 (55:21):
I sometimes can cultivate great friendship for
kids.
You know they play together,they exchange, they're
collaborating, You're definitelyproud to do it.
But again, whenever I saysomething, I want to really
caution every parent and everyyour parental guides to say
nothing works for all children.
(55:42):
Nothing works for all children.
I just finished a book.
When it's published you mightwant to talk to me again.
It's called improve the past orinvent the future.
For example, I look at data.
Does social and emotionallearning work for all children?
Of course not.
Does growth mindset work foreveryone?
No, sometimes growth mindset issimple stupidity.
(56:05):
You should give up instead oftrying to do more.
So you got to really rethinkabout nothing.
So whatever we're discussinghere, we're talking about
student autonomy, personalizableeducation.
Speaker 2 (56:18):
Love that.
How can people learn more aboutyour work?
Speaker 1 (56:23):
education, love that.
How can people learn more aboutyour work?
Well, I think the easiest is toread my articles, and you know
most of them.
I now choose to publish in onlyopen access places.
People can read them online.
And my books you know I've kindof written almost about 40
books and all of them arerelevant to actually parents and
education and take a differentperspective on this.
(56:47):
And they can find a list of mybooks and articles, my writings,
on my website is zaolearningcom.
Speaker 2 (56:57):
Love it.
Thank you so much for your timetoday and for coming on the
Kindle podcast.
Speaker 1 (57:01):
Thanks, Katie.
Speaker 2 (57:01):
The Kindle podcast is brought to you by Prenda.
Prenda makes for your timetoday and for coming on the
Kindle podcast.
Thanks, katie.
The Kindle podcast is broughtto you by Prenda.
Prenda makes it easy to startand run an amazing micro school
based on all the ideas we talkabout here on the Kindle podcast
.
Don't forget to follow us onsocial media at Prenda Learn,
and if you'd like moreinformation about starting a
micro school, just go toPrendacom.
Thanks for listening andremember to keep kindling.
Then you use your ability, you solve the problem.
In a new age, learning is doing, doing is learning.
You do not learn in preparationfor something.
You actually learn to do andknowledge is right there.
That's what I'm hoping schoolswill do better.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Hi and welcome to the Candle Podcast.
Today we're talking to Dr YongZhao.
He is a FoundationDistinguished Professor at the
School of Education at theUniversity of Kansas.
He previously served as thepresidential chair, associate
dean and director of theInstitute for Global and Online
Education in the College ofEducation at the University of
Oregon, where he was also aprofessor in the Department of
Educational Measurement, policyand Leadership.
(00:38):
His work focuses on theimplications of globalization
and Technology on Education.
He has published over 100articles and nearly 40 books,
including Duck and Cover,confronting and Correcting
Dubious Practices in Education,teaching Students to Become
Self-Determined Learners.
What Works May Hurt Side Effectsin Education and Never Send a
(00:58):
Human to Do a Machine's Job.
Absolutely fascinatingconversation with Dr Zhao today
and my main take home is thatwhatever we do moving forward to
create educational learningenvironments or systems for kids
needs to keep the child at thecenter and to acknowledge that
every single human is adifferent human, and when we
(01:20):
believe that and when we buildlearning systems around that
idea, we're going to actually beable to get kids the skills
that they're going to need inthe future to do meaningful work
instead of fake, synthetic workthat often we force upon kids
for the 13 years of K-12education.
So let's get to ourconversation with Dr Zhao.
Dr Yong Zhao, thank you so muchfor joining the Kindle podcast.
(01:43):
We're super excited to get toknow you and learn from you
today.
Welcome.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Well, thank you, Katie.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
All right, so tell us a little bit about yourself.
Tell me, like, your personalstory.
You have a really incrediblestory and I just want everyone
to really understand who you areand where you're coming from
when you approach, like theeducational space.
You've done so much.
You're such a prolific author.
Just take us back.
Tell us the story.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
Well, I think my story probably will fit the
Pranda story quite well, in thatI am doing what I'm doing
because I was not good at what Iwas supposed to do.
You know, I grew up in a remote, rainy, mountainous area, in a
(02:27):
small, tiny village in China,southwest Sichuan province, and
in the 1960s you know, this ismy 60th, actually anniversary of
my birth, you know, so I'm 60years old.
So you know, when I was born?
So I'm 60 years old.
So you know, when I was born,that was during a cultural
revolution and there was no realschool, you know, and education
(02:49):
, and so I was really a badfarming kid.
So everybody was farming andMao Zedong, you know, the
chairman of Communist Party,decided to open schools in
villages in 1970s.
When a teacher came to recruitstudents, the teacher probably
was just recruited from the farmfield anyway, you know.
(03:10):
But at that time my father saidyou know, you're not very good
at farming, why don't you go toschool?
That was the good reason.
So I've always followed thatidea of if you are not good at
something, go try to findsomething you're good at and
follow that.
(03:30):
Then, of course, later on, chinaopened up and China has a
college entrance and I passedsome exams and went to college
and, trying to become an Englishlanguage teacher, taught
English and then, just asaccidents would happen, I've
always, you know, kind ofcredited.
(03:51):
You know, accidents,serendipity in my life.
I came to the US, I was avisiting scholar in Oregon,
oregon, and then went to gradschool in Illinois and then got
a job in various universitiesMichigan State University,
(04:17):
university of Oregon, universityof Kansas.
Also had jobs in the UK,university of Bath in Australia,
university of Melbourne.
So I've had a lot ofexperiences in many, many
different countries and I justgot back from Portugal, but all
my life has been around theissue about what is good
(04:37):
education.
I think you know we have atraditional view of education is
that we judge students based onwhat they do and what we think
they should do.
I think that's the big problem.
I was just writing an articlethis morning, and not finished
yet, about what I call the endof meritocracy.
(04:59):
Meritocracy as a term actuallywas first invented in 1956.
And then a book came up it'scalled 1958, called the Rise of
Meritocracy, as a term actuallywas first invented in 1956, and
then a book came up it's called1958, called the Rise of
Meritocracy.
But the book was really justmaking fun of meritocracy.
Meritocracy is a stupid idea buthas been adopted by society to
say, oh, this is great, we candetermine a person's merit based
(05:22):
on IQ plus efforts and thengive them resources, give them
social status, give thempositions.
But actually it does not work.
I mean, actually, the guy whowrote the book, michael Donald
Young, who is a sociologist anda politician in Britain and he
was predicting his book,actually said that in about 2034
(05:44):
, in his book actually he saidin about 2034, it's a satire
there will be a populist riseagainst the meritocratic elite,
which has happened right, I meanactually it happened earlier.
Anyway, because when you judgemerit, you judge based on the
traditional standards.
(06:05):
You know what is consideredmerit is IQ plus effort, but
then the merit is notnecessarily your independent
ability.
Your parents, your communityand your school and everything
determines what your merit is.
And also there are a lot ofpeople who might fail the IQ
(06:27):
test but do great on EQ.
You know the emotional quotient.
So, anyways, all my life hasbeen looking for opportunities,
looking for systems, looking forpolicies that would not
discriminate against people whohave different talents and
different passions.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
Yeah, that's interesting.
So what would you say?
Your big why is Like?
What change in the world areyou seeking to make through your
research, through your books?
Speaker 1 (06:53):
Well, I mean, I think you know there are the big
change I'm hoping to happen,which actually has happened, but
schools have failed to dealwith it.
Schools have lost the raceagainst technology.
I mean, look at today, theGeneration Z are suffering a lot
.
They're not living a betterlife than their parents, which
(07:15):
they should, but they're not.
And then we are complainingabout them, I mean basically
around.
You know, since 1970s, 1980s,education should have changed
and to meet the needs of thesociety.
And when technology changes sofast, we know we needed
different kind of talents but wedid not prepare them.
(07:36):
You know, technology is not agood or bad thing necessarily.
It can be both good and bad,but depends on the people.
If we had people who cansmartly utilize technological
advancement to create newpossibilities, it would have
been great.
But most people have beendisabled by technology.
(07:56):
Because when technology comesin to take jobs away, it creates
new opportunities.
But if people don't have theability or interest in
translating those potentialsinto newer jobs, newer economy,
we live a sad life.
And now the world is truly notoffering the best to our kids.
(08:18):
But I would not blame the world.
The world is made by people whowent to school and if the
school did not prepare them well.
And that's what we live, youknow, when people always
complain about extremepoliticians, you know horrible
business people, you know.
But I said, no, you can't justblame them.
The society endorses them andso we are the society, you know.
(08:44):
People say you cannot complainabout traffic jams, you are the
traffic jam.
So that's what I'm hopingschools will do better,
education will do better.
You know I care so much abouteducation.
Another reason is that you knowpeople always say, well, get
your kids ready for the future.
No, we'll get your kids tocreate the future, and their
(09:07):
future is my retirement.
I want to be careful about that.
I want kids to create a betterretirement for me.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
Yeah, you're invested in that.
I am too for sure.
I think that's an interestingway to look at it and I'm
wondering you've worked ineducational systems all over the
world.
Like what do you see that hasworked?
What do you see that does kindof future-proof kids?
We don't know what the futureis going to be like.
Right, like the jobs that we'redoing now could not have been
(09:35):
predicted by our parents orgrandparents.
So, like how do we, how do we,build systems, educational
systems that enable kids toadapt, to take advantage of
those opportunities that you'retalking about?
What have you seen that worksand what isn't working?
Speaker 1 (09:53):
Well, I mean in terms of systems themselves, I
haven't seen many systemsworking great.
You know I was.
You know I said the same thing.
I was in Portugal.
Portugal was hosting aneducation conference, which was
nice, you know, a media outlethosts that, and one of the
reporters interviewed me.
(10:14):
We talked a lot about this.
I said, you know, if you lookat education systems, there's no
good system Right now.
So far, for over the pastseveral decades, everybody was
reforming at the system level,trying to improve education, but
none of the reforms has mademuch difference, has changed
(10:35):
anything, and so I've beenarguing for devolution of power,
that I think schools shouldhave a lot more autonomy.
One of, if you know, one of thethings I would say is that you
cannot compare schooleducational systems across
different countries, becausethey have different needs, they
(10:55):
have different reasons, theyhave different communities,
different parents, differentstudents, different culture, all
kinds of different things.
You cannot use one, you know,like a test score to say, oh,
our kids are falling behind, ourkids are doing better, we are
more globally competitive thanothers.
That's like judging, you know,ranking restaurants based on one
dish globally.
(11:16):
You know you can't do that, butsystems like to do that and
then, once they do that, theycome out with again
one-size-fits all curriculum forall children, one size fits all
testing for all students, whichis probably the worst in the
age.
You know, some systems giveschools more autonomy, some
(11:48):
systems are more controlling,and so the controlling systems
seem to drive higher test scoresin comparison to other
countries, like East Asianeducation systems.
And then some systems seem tomore laissez-faire you know they
don't control education as much.
But then there's a danger.
(12:08):
We got to watch out becausesome systems to say, I think
actually the US, I know US, ofcourse has got more than 50
systems, you know, but in thiscountry and in the UK, because
some system leaders like to say,well, I don't care how you run
your school, but as long as youpass my test, then that is
(12:28):
actually very dangerous.
That is because you do not wantto monopolize the kind of
students you want.
You know you want Because Ithink now I go around I ask
policymakers, teachers, schoolleaders one question I said you
know, how do you know what youwork so hard to teach or to test
(12:49):
to want the students to havewhen they graduate from school
will be meaningful in five years?
How do you know?
You know like we've beentalking about 21st century
skills, reading skills.
We fight over reading, forexample, for a long time you
know whole language or scienceof reading, all those.
It's nonsense, you know, but wefight over them because there's
(13:12):
money, there's politics behindall of that.
But how do you know that youare helping kids learn or you're
forcing children learn will bevaluable in five or 10 years.
To learn will be valuable infive or 10 years.
Nobody checks on them, nobody,and then nobody is responsible.
But yet you look at schools.
We force kids to learn allthose things.
(13:35):
Actually, right now I'm runningsome experiments to say what's
worth learning.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
Do parents know?
Speaker 1 (13:42):
Do students know?
Do teachers know?
But when you force kids tolearn, is that truly valuable?
So I think that's really everyeducation system needs to
consider.
But, katie I, I would say Idon't expect systems to take
actions to innovate, becausesystems are more of the
(14:04):
stabilizer, not the innovator.
They stabilize, you know, theyhave to keep everything the same
.
They can react to educationalinnovations, but I don't think
they can lead educationalinnovations.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
Interesting.
Yeah, that's an interestingconcept.
I think I mean systems.
When it comes down to it, it'sjust human decision right that
we've set up.
The teacher should say thesesentences when the students are
this like old and then give thistest.
Like we create, but like thatwas made by a human right.
Like trying and I mean Prendain and of itself is kind of like
(14:40):
a learning system.
So like I'm very interested inhow we can set up incentives and
programs and patterns and likebeliefs.
Honestly, that will keep thestudent at the center and help
us all stay focused on the goalof creating like not just a kid
that can pass a test, but a kidwho feels a certain way about
(15:00):
himself and learning and theircapacity to achieve and overcome
and figure things out, make abetter world, like what you're
calling us to, to take care ofyour retirement we're all very
focused on getting you theretirement that you deserve.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
Well, you know, I think what you said is quite
interesting is that educationsystems are man-made, yeah, and
also I literally meant man-madeWomen were not part of it in the
beginning.
You beginning, and I think thequestion is really in this Do we
treat students as individualhuman beings or do we treat them
(15:37):
as subjects to an emperor orking or a system?
Because right now, if you lookat schools traditional schools
very much as a prison, that is,we define what you do.
We judge you based on what youdo.
We lock you in a place in termsof what we think schools need
(16:00):
to be efficient.
We really do not allow a lot ofautonomy in students.
We don't value individuals.
We value what they producebased on what we want them to
produce.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
Something I've heard you say, I can't remember where.
I heard you say this wassomething to the effect of we
treat every student that is thesame age as if they're the same
person.
And if we can't treat them asthis same person, then we like
call them gifted and talented,or we call them like they need
special education.
There's like three buckets, butyou're calling the world to
something that is much morepersonalized.
(16:39):
You call it personalizableeducation.
Can you go into the differencebetween what Well, tell us what
personalized education is, andthen what is personalizable
education?
How are you kind?
Speaker 1 (16:49):
of reframing that.
I've read quite a lot aboutthat.
I think right now it's verypopular to say we have
personalized learning.
But mostly when they talk aboutpersonalized learning they're
talking about personalizing thelearning process.
That is, we define what youshould learn and when you should
(17:10):
finish that.
But then you know you canpersonalize.
You know you can learn this inthe day, you can learn this in
the evening, you can learn thistomorrow morning.
Or you can say okay, you can dothe test this way or that way.
But that's not reallypersonalized learning.
That kind of personalizedlearning following computer
systems is no different than theteaching machine.
(17:31):
You know a BF Skinner'steaching machine.
It's basically you.
You know I give you a question,you give an answer.
If it's correct, I give you,you know, a more difficult one,
or I will advance you.
If you don't, I will make yourepeat that more difficult one,
or I will advance you.
If you don't, I will make yourepeat.
That's not personalizedlearning.
In my mind, personalization oflearning should be driven by
(17:52):
students and learning, educationor schooling should be
personalizable.
So you offer all the potentialsto enable students to follow
their passion or interest and tosay you know like, for example,
you know, students today ingenerative AI, on chat, gpt, say
, okay, I really want to learnmore about electricity and I
(18:18):
don't care about electricity, Icare about the history of how
electricity has been developed.
You should, yeah, go for it.
You know, then you should say,okay, as teachers, you know I
will support that how much youwant to learn.
You remember, a student canlearn for 10 years about great
electricity and become verycreative about it.
You should let it go.
And if you want to read novelsabout electricity I'm sure
(18:39):
there's plenty of novels aboutthat, actually History,
biography they can do it.
If a student wants today, youknow, they want to deal with
dinosaurs, they can do a lotmore.
And dinosaurs, you know, it'snot only dinosaurs.
Dinosaurs has to do with a lotof, you know, evolution of the
world and environment,environmental impact, it can go
(19:02):
on.
So it's driven by students.
But you make learning, you makeeducation personalizable.
That means you allow thestudents to personalize.
I think that's a big difference, you know, because I'm very
tired of schools to say, oh,we're doing personalized
learning, they just buy somecomputer software and students
(19:22):
can, you know, punch this in.
That's not.
You know, that doesn't helpstudents at all.
You know that actually you'restill driving students who might
be slower in learning to do thesame thing.
You know, actually.
You know like in the US we talkabout reading.
Reading is a very interestingconcept and but there are all
(19:43):
kinds of different reading.
You know why American studentreading scores have not changed
so much since 1970s is becausethere's too many.
There are too many remediation.
You know we force kids to sayyou got to be able to read to
pass the reading test by thirdgrade.
If not, you cannot advance tofourth grade.
Who says that?
You know, I might just beplaying around hanging out, I'm
(20:06):
listening, I'm talking, I candrive AI using my natural voice.
Why what's so great aboutreading?
But I'm not against reading.
If you can read, go for it.
But if a child has readingissues and takes so long to
correct that reading problem, Idon't think we should do it.
It should be just like myfather.
(20:28):
You can't do farming, go toschool.
You know it's the same thing.
If you cannot read, go dosomething else.
And today you can actually dothat.
I mean, you were talking aboutneurodiversity.
That's just true.
Human beings are different inthe wild.
It's amazing, right.
And that different wild, youalways have something you're
(20:50):
great at.
Yes, schools have preventedchildren from discovering what
they're good at, and sopersonalizable education creates
the opportunity for students todo that.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
So I'm thinking like is there a subset of skills that
we can say almost certainly?
I mean it's a little hesitant.
I'm a little hesitant aboutthis now with AI, but I mean,
five years ago I would have saidno, there's a subset of skills
that, like I'm 90% sure thatkids need to be able to do
(21:25):
whatever they want.
And you've said that in orderto be creative, you need deep
knowledge right, and to be ableto like have a foundational,
have foundational skills to beable to interact with the world
and to learn.
If we're, you know, you give theexample of kids hopping on AI
and saying I want to learn moreabout electricity, they have to
want to do that, and then theyhave to know how to interact
(21:48):
with a robot.
You know which there's.
There's a learning skill setthere.
I'm trying to like builddifferent AI models and stuff
right now personally and throughwork.
I'm like this is a skill right,Like this is not just magic,
but how.
I mean I think I hear whatyou're saying and I actually
like agree with a lot of it, butI'm wondering if there are
listeners thinking like, no, mykids have to learn how to read
(22:10):
and I'm never going to send themto a school or trust them to a
system that doesn't likeprioritize reading and writing
and math.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
Are you saying like we should throw?
Speaker 2 (22:17):
all of that out or like.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
That's a fabulous question.
I get that question all thetime.
First of all, we got to thinkabout this.
Let's assume there are somebasic skills.
Are those basic skills part ofour education or not is
questionable.
You know, a lot of times humanbeings develop abilities without
(22:39):
being taught.
You know, that's something Ithink we sometimes forget about
that.
You know, human beings developabilities, and without being
taught, okay.
The second thing is that humanbeings do not necessarily learn
when you think you are requiredthem to learn.
You know that's not.
We need to accept that Totally.
(23:00):
They don't need to be proven,that's just a fact, right?
So when you think you'reforcing your kids to do
something, are they actuallydoing that?
Are they actually learning thatto do something?
Are they actually doing that?
Are they actually learning that?
And then the third question isthat how do we know what is
worth, what you need to require?
You know I mean.
Another example I learnedEnglish because I was bad at
(23:23):
math.
You think Chinese can be bad atmath too, so don't worry about
it.
I know people have thisstereotype.
I was horrible at math.
I got a three out of a hundredin my college entrance exam.
That's quite.
If you know math.
That's pretty bad, okay, andI've survived.
I've survived well.
I do statistics very well.
(23:44):
I was a teaching assistant forstatistics.
I do computer programming.
So is what you're judged by atest, truly judging your ability
?
So now I'm questioning am Ireally bad at math?
But there's so much math.
So which part of math algebra,calculus, statistics,
(24:06):
probability there's a difference.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
Or maybe you were just bad at sitting still and
like listening to a lecture,like learning that way.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
The test.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
So that's another thing.
How do we judge?
So that's why I've emphasizedhuman beings as human beings, if
they have a reason, if theyhave a purpose, they will learn
what's needed and today, in thisworld, they have resources to
do that.
So I'm not going to argue withany parents, argue with anyone.
(24:38):
I said what you should do isyou should follow your children,
believe most human beings aregenuinely good and social and
you need to support them.
I think a lot of times we getso-called bad kids because we
force them, because we pressurethem.
You know, from our perspectiverather than from their
(25:00):
perspective.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
Yeah.
So two things I'm thinking here.
One, the brain is unique.
The human brain is uniquelypositioned to solve real
problems, not fake problems, anda lot of the things that we do
to kids in schools we give themfake problems.
You have essentially 13 yearsof fake problems and your brain
is supposed to.
I remember learning math and I'mlike wait, so I'm moving all
these numbers around and you'retelling me that I'm moving them
(25:22):
in the right way and sometimes Imove them in the wrong way and
I have no idea why one way isright and one way is wrong.
It has no bearing on whether ornot, like, I'm happy or I'm
safe or I can provide for myselfin the future or any of this.
It's completely disconnected,right.
But then as soon as I get into,you know, like I discovered
that I'm very passionate abouteducation and like building
(25:44):
print and things like that, assoon as I have a real problem,
my brain becomes very good atusing numbers to like to build
the things that I care about, tosolve the problems, to solve
real problems, and not just tosolve my problems but to solve
the problems of others.
Right, and I think that you'vedone a lot of writing about this
, like giving, giving kids andadults real problems and doing
(26:07):
like problem-based learninginstead of fake.
I just feel like the whole worldwe created for kids is very
synthetic, and they know thatit's synthetic because they're
very, very smart, and it's likewe don't trust them enough to
invite them into the real worldto participate in solving real
problems, and we're kind of likebabysitting them for so long
that we miss the point wherethey can actually become very
(26:32):
effective and efficient andhelpful in solving the real
problems of today.
And maybe we're just worriedthat we don't have enough
problems for everyone to solve,but I can't imagine that that's
actually the truth, but we actas if that's true.
Well, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
I think you're absolutely right.
I think the popularproblem-based learning unless
it's a problem students foundinterested in, it's not a real
problem.
It's your problem, it's not myproblem.
My problem is to solve yourproblem.
You know, in schools I got todo this thing.
You know it's the idea.
(27:09):
So you know, a lot of my worknow is really about three things
.
One is personalization oflearning or personalizable
education.
Number two is teach studentshow to find the problems, find
meaningful problems for others,for the world.
And number three is trying tohelp people understand human
(27:30):
interdependence.
If you combine the three things, you have developed unique
abilities through personalizedlearning, unique.
Everyone can be uniquely great,and then you use that greatness
to find and solve problems forothers, then you'll be happier.
You know, because of purpose,you have reason and then that
(27:53):
when you solve problems forothers, you're creating
interdependence because you arehelping others, and then you
have weaknesses, others can helpsolve your problem.
So that's what I'm really rightnow thinking a lot about.
The HIP human interdependenceparadigm is that people cannot
be selfish.
(28:13):
They can be self-interested.
You know, in a traditionalschool we teach kids to be
selfish because the traditionalforces you to compete against
each other.
You know you have to be.
You know, remember in collegeadmissions?
Oh, you're the top 5% in yourclass top 10% but someone has to
(28:35):
be the bottom 5%.
What's going to happen to them?
That's why meritocracy is wrong.
You cannot do that.
You have to rank people.
Why do you have to rank people?
You can be top 1% in this.
That person can be top 1% inthat.
They can be different.
So when you are talking aboutuniqueness, that is where human
(28:58):
beings might have a hope ofdoing better in the future.
If everybody is unique and theyuse their uniqueness to solve
other people's problems, thatcreates human interdependence
instead of trying to competeagainst each other.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
So what are the ingredients then?
And like, I hesitate to say aneducational system, because we
know systems don't innovate orsolve problems.
But how should we set up like,let's just pretend we're
building a school.
What would it look like if wewanted to do personalizable
education and we wanted to givekids real problems, help them
fall in love with problems andserving the needs of others and
(29:37):
not relying on competition.
What's it look like?
Speaker 1 (29:39):
I had a problem that does not work anymore with AI
Because before I was reallythinking a lot about you know
2018 or 19,.
I wrote a book aboutpersonalizable education.
So at that time, I was thinkingabout a lot more about how do
(29:59):
you offer a personalizablecurriculum, for example.
Right, I mean, you know schools, you have to teach the like you
said, basic, you have to offer,but you have to offer some time
.
We just wrote an article aboutthis, called Time Available for
Autonomy.
(30:22):
So I think today, in this newage with generative AI, with all
these new tools, the big thingis autonomy.
So a personalizable educationshould give students time to
make autonomous decisions, whatthey would like to learn and use
that autonomy.
You should always ask but whydo you want to learn this?
You know what problems you'regoing to solve, what problems
(30:45):
you will solve.
So the first one is really giveautonomy.
Second thing, teaching andlearning should always start
with finding problems, and we'rerunning a bunch of experiments
in actually, k-12 school andcolleges and undergraduate
school to say what problem doyou want to solve?
We spend a lot of time first tosay discover your strength,
(31:06):
discover who you are.
Second thing is really find outwhat problems you want to solve
and why.
So students spend a lot of timeto refine those problems.
You know problems can beobservation-driven, can be
theory-driven, you know, can bestakeholder-driven.
Right, and you observesomething.
Oh God, you know we don't havegood food.
(31:26):
Can our food taste better?
You know that's observation.
But then how does food tastebetter?
It can get into chemistry, itcan get into biology, it can get
in all kinds of things.
Stakeholder.
You know my mom wants a better,you know kind of dessert.
And then how do I meet that?
So then you use your ability,you solve the problem.
In a new age, learning is doing,doing is learning.
(31:48):
You do not learn it inpreparation for something you
actually learn to do.
And knowledge is right there.
And third is that you alwayswant to find out who cares.
You know you want to write anovel who cares?
You want to write a poet, whocares?
You want to write music whocares?
You always want to find.
You know, have anentrepreneurial thinking about
(32:10):
your audience.
You know, I mean even theaudience, even the greatest
painters, artists, they aretrying to learn to find out.
I'm painting.
But you've got to have a senseof audience.
You have to have a sense ofaudience.
Who does this?
My son works in the Chicago ArtInstitute.
He puts up exhibits ofphotographers.
(32:32):
He has a PhD in art history,you know, and he has to think
about why do people want to cometo watch it?
I'm putting this photo versusthis why.
So purpose matters.
So I think in new learning, youalways want to get children to
be the driver of the learning.
That's the most important.
(32:53):
And not all childrennecessarily want to do it,
especially after they've beeneducated in schools, and so you
need to cultivate thatconfidence.
You can do something, you cansolve real problems and, like
you said, you know, educationcan fake problems.
But in human society we have somany real problems and, trust
(33:17):
me, solutions get more problems.
You will never run out ofproblems.
Any solution gets new problems,and that's how human beings
develop right, and human beingsdevelop this ability, this
passion for solving problems.
I mean this is, I think, a lotof times we treat K-12,
(33:39):
especially early years, as, oh,you're a kid, you cannot do
something.
You know how many young peoplehave done amazing things already
, right?
I mean, if you give them thatopportunity, they are creative.
They might need your help, ofcourse, to better their work,
you know.
But they want to solve realproblems.
If you have young, you knowthree or four year olds would
(34:02):
love to wash your dishes for you.
You may not like it, but they'dlove to do it.
Love to prepare food, love tobake a cake.
You know they want to dosomething 100%.
Speaker 2 (34:12):
Yeah, that need for competence is strong in all
humans, right?
We all want to feel like we canparticipate in meaningful ways.
I was just.
I have four kids my youngest isalmost six and the other day I
let her help me make scrambledeggs, or like we were making
dinner.
Everyone else was gone, it wasme and her.
We were making breakfast fordinner and we were doing very
(34:34):
simple things.
But she came away from thatexperience with the story, the
narrative in her mind, that shehad made dinner for her family,
like independently, and that shewas now not only had she
mastered this meal, but she wasnow a chef.
And so when everyone came home,she was like I'm a chef now.
I is now a chef, and so wheneveryone came home she was like
I'm a chef now, I'm a cook, yeah, exactly, and she was just like
(34:54):
beaming, so exciting and likewalked back in the kitchen.
She's like what's next, mom?
Like I am here to like likehelp me become this right.
She's so like full of motivation, full of curiosity, and I think
sometimes as parents we worry,like we kind of.
You know, we paint this almostidealistic world of kids who
just want to learn things andthey're creative and they're
passionate and things like that.
But then we look at the kids.
(35:16):
We have to realize is that thatlack of engagement is actually
a product of forced learning,right there.
That's beautiful.
Speaker 1 (35:40):
Exactly I completely agree with.
I mean, everybody can playvideo games and then they get
tired of playing video games ifthey have autonomy.
You know kids actually get tiredof it.
You know, like, if a kid says Idon't want to watch TV, let him
watch how long.
You know it's very hard to stayconnected to something without
learning anything.
(36:00):
You know human beings arelearning machines.
If you don't learn anything,it's really boring.
And that's why some families dotimeout.
You throw them in the bathroom.
I mean, actually funny thing.
If you threw them in thebathroom for too long, they will
become inventive.
They invent something.
They will draw something on themirror.
They will do something Humanbeings cannot stop.
(36:21):
I mean we have to do something.
Speaker 2 (36:24):
Yeah, I think that we just haven't trust, like
parents and educators, we're soused to a system that engenders
mediocrity, yes, but it's amediocrity that we've accepted
because there's a safety in that, because it's like normalized
right, it's like well, at leastI did the normal, responsible
thing that got me these mediocreresults.
Or a kid that hates learningbut knows how to read at least,
(36:45):
or you know like.
But it's hard to get off ofthose train tracks when you
don't have a lot of societalmodels for like there being a
different way and that you cangive kids more autonomy and more
freedom and give them realproblems to solve, and that it
will work.
And so what would?
Speaker 1 (37:01):
you what's your I think that's another thing is.
I mean, you're right, it's thefaith.
Education is a faith business.
Right, Because you are, Becauseyou cannot get immediate
results.
You know, I'm sure parents havea very hard time looking at
their children watching TV orplaying video game without doing
.
They really want to interfere.
(37:22):
Right, Patience, but humanbeings now you live to 90s, 100
years old, my God, you know lifeshould be enjoyed.
Why do you want to force them?
You know, I've seen families oh, you can only play five minutes
of video game, so why do you dothat?
(37:42):
You know, let them learn tomanage their own, Let them make
mistakes as early as possible.
You know, like, you know, youknow, even like, if they're in
first grade, they make somemistake, they forgot to turn in
homework, they're playing toomuch video game.
They will learn.
They will say oh God, you know,could you help me control my
(38:02):
video game so I can do myhomework?
And also, is this homework thatimportant?
You got to really think aboutit.
You know what's more important?
I think a lot of times we needparents to have a better
understanding of the learningprocess, of the upcoming world,
the new one, the new future,what's like.
(38:23):
We also have to think aboutchildren as creators of the
future they create.
They do not just accept thepast, they have to enter the
future, and what are they goingto make of it is very important.
Speaker 2 (38:40):
Yeah, I think, going back to video games and screen
use, that's a very hot topicright now and we've been
thinking a lot about it atPrenda, because we do use
educational technology toprovide personalized learning.
I won't call it that piecepersonalized, but we actually do
both.
Half of our like our learningmodel is half mastery-based,
where we use educationaltechnology to drive those key
(39:03):
skills but we give kids.
They choose what programs theywork in.
They set their own goals, andevery time they set a goal they
have to define a purpose for howthey're going to use that math.
And so, funny, I'll go throughsometimes and read the purpose
statements of our kids and someof them are like I want to
master fourth grade math so thatI can do fifth grade math, and
(39:25):
I'm like nope, you've missed thepoint here.
What are you going to do?
They're so caught in this fakesynthetic world that they can't
even imagine a purpose outsideof just jumping through the next
hoop.
And so we have to do a lot ofintentional, like mentoring with
them to get them to reimaginetheir future and to reconnect
with who they are.
And that is the work I think ofthe future teacher right,
(39:48):
helping kids want to learn, liketo make that shift.
I'm like, oh, this is such agood story.
So in one of our very firstPrenda Micro Schools, kelly had
a kid.
We do this project calledExplain it to Future you, so all
of the kids make a little model.
You can draw it, you can sculptit, whatever you want, make a
model of your future self.
And this kid created a model ofhimself sitting on the couch
eating chips, playing videogames.
(40:09):
And Kelly, our founder and CEO,was the first guide.
He was like, oh, that's awesome, that's going to be such a cool
future.
Who pays for the chips?
And just that little questionthat he asked there, that, like
little nudge, got this kid torealize like I am going to grow
up and I am going to have toprovide for myself, and like
three like this kid was giventhe time and the autonomy to
(40:30):
spend his school time figuringout what he wanted to do, and he
landed on pediatric oncologyand he figured out what college
he wanted to go to and whatscholarships he needed to get,
and all of this as a fifthgrader Just because he went from
my future is playing videogames and eating chips to.
I have this like very meaningfulpassion to now when I, when I
turn around and I'm doing myfifth grade math, I have it has
(40:52):
a purpose and it's real to meand I think that when educators
get better at narrating that forkids and reflecting back, yeah,
we played a lot of video and soin my house, before I met Kelly
, our founder, I didn't evenallow my kids to play with toys
that had batteries.
I was like very, very low stimand I still, honestly, keep that
(41:14):
rule because mostly I just getoverwhelmed with all of the
beeping and the noises and stufflike that.
It's mostly a me thing.
But we also don't have videogames and mostly still just a me
thing.
But my kids are allowed to play, like when we go to our
cousin's house or a friend'shouse, like they can play video
games ad nauseum.
I don't I police, like what itis, because I don't think
violence is good for the youngbrain.
But they can play as much asthey want.
(41:36):
And then when we were cominghome, I'll reflect back with
them Like how was that, you know?
Like, should we get video gamesin our house and how do you
feel after you play?
And they're like blah, like wedon't like this, please don't
put this in our house.
Like you know, they're askingme to not provide video games
and I'm like all right, cool, sothis is a team decision to not
have video games in our housebecause you don't like how, you
(41:58):
feel it's hard to control andyou'd rather do other things.
And so when my kids come homefrom school, they're on screens
but they're like coding orthey're creating presentations
about things that they'reinterested in.
I'm like, okay, this isabsolutely possible if we play
our cards.
Right, like we can have kidsthat are curious and are
developing.
Still, they're still developingthe core skills, because those
(42:20):
are the skills of our society,right, if they want to
communicate something like rightnow in the world, like they're
going to write an email to theirfriend or they're going to make
a presentation in Canva, andthose they're using their
literacy skills and theirproblem solving skills and their
creativity skills and it's abeautiful thing to watch.
And I just I want to inspirethis next generation of parents
to lean into that instead oflike just continuing to beat the
(42:44):
drum of mediocrity and likefineness.
You ask parents how their kidsare and they say, fine, like new
goal, fine is not the goal.
Speaker 1 (42:51):
It's not OK to be fine, absolutely, and that's why
you know I've been, you know,writing about it, I've been
talking about you want your.
You want individual, uniquegreatness or you want mass
mediocrity.
You know traditional schoolsproduce mass mediocrity, when
education should be helpingindividuals grow to become
(43:11):
really great.
And in the age of AI, really,unless you're great, probably,
the value of mass jobs don'texist anymore, and the more you
do it, any kind of massive jobsdon't exist anymore and the more
you do it, any kind of massivejobs repetitive will be replaced
.
Speaker 2 (43:27):
So you've written a book called let's dive into this
for a few minutes.
Here You've written a bookcalled Never Send a Human to Do
a Machine's Job, which is suchlike a.
When I read that title I waslike, oh my gosh, I have to read
this book.
Talk to me a little bit and Iknow it was written a few years
ago, kind of before AI becamenormative but talk to me a
little bit about just that titleand what you're.
Speaker 1 (43:47):
Well, the title was really because it's really about
education of teachers is thatyou know human teachers.
You know we've been investing alot of them in school
technology, but if you look atschools, technology really has
not transformed a lot oflearning.
(44:08):
One of the reasons is thatteachers tend to do mechanical
jobs and they have to do it Like.
Now.
I'm sure a lot of teachers arenot doing that anymore.
They use AI to create homework.
They use AI to score homework,to grade homework, which is
great.
You know you don't need humanbeings involved.
(44:29):
Homework should not existanyway.
But so that's the.
I think the idea was at thattime to say if teachers allowed
machines to do what machines cando, they can become a lot more
human.
I mean, this is true today,right, this is true in the
future?
You know, we should always.
(44:50):
If a student can watch YouTubeto learn math, why do you want
to teach them?
There are so many differentways of learning math.
There are many different ways.
You know, I don't like peopleto say, let's send to Khan
Academy, khan Academy, just one.
There's so many ways oflearning math.
There are many different ways.
You know, I don't like peopleto say, oh, let's send to Khan
Academy.
Khan Academy just won.
There's so many ways oflearning math.
Let them do it.
You know, so you do not have torepeat what machines can do
(45:12):
already.
But if you go to classrooms nowI mean a lot of teachers still
you know teaching history.
They're still reading a historybook.
Why do you want to do that?
So I think that's the idea forthe book.
Speaker 2 (45:26):
And so we've talked a lot about educational
technology, Like would you sayyou're pro educational
technology or againsteducational technology if you
had to pick one?
Speaker 1 (45:35):
Well, I cannot pick one, because I'm both pro and
against.
I know me too I mean, like anytool, it's there.
If you make good use of it,it's wonderful, but you can
absolutely abuse it.
I think technology has beenabused and it can be abused all
(45:55):
the time.
You're like, actually this isanother big topic.
I'm sure your parents ask itSocial media.
Social media has beenvictimized, honestly, by a lot
of say well, it's bad because itteaches students, you know.
It depresses young girls, youknow.
I said you haven't done anyresearch about the positive side
.
Another thing is that no schoolhas taught kids how to deal
(46:19):
with social media.
You know you cannot blame, youknow.
But also you know at the sametime, like with artificial
intelligence, people say ithallucinates, has biases, isn't
it?
You know?
Human beings are born withbiases.
Human beings are born tohallucinate.
You know how many people tellyou lies, deliberately or
(46:40):
unintentionally, so you justhave to deal with it.
You know you deal with it andit evolves all the time.
So you know, like when I firststarted using GPS it's funny
thing like GPS, remember, Ithink, at 20, maybe 10, 15, 20
years ago GPS are not very good,so I always get lost.
(47:00):
I was not good at reading GPS.
I say well, you know, gettinglost is a good tool, very good,
so I always get lost.
I was not good at reading GPS.
I say well, you know gettinglost is a good tool, you know.
So you just treat itdifferently.
How do you learn it right?
You cannot blame it, you haveto rely on it.
So I think you know I'm not pro, I'm not against.
I'm really here for smart users.
Don't do what technology can do,but also keep thinking about.
(47:23):
Technology can do a lot morethan we think, because I mean
actually, for example,generative AI.
It all depends on how you useit.
You know people.
If you use it as an answermachine, it may not give you the
correct answer, but if you useit as a reasoning partner, you
might get much better answers.
You kept questioning it, youknow.
(47:44):
You kept playing with it.
You give it more data.
You know it's like aconversational partner, Even
like teachers can.
When you go ask a question,teachers can give you a wrong
answer, but if you keep probing,how often do you get an expert
to probe?
Allow you to probe like thatwithout getting emotional.
It's quite nice, right.
Speaker 2 (48:03):
Yeah, because educational technology is such a
hot topic right now and we douse this at Prenda.
So I'm kind of just in thisstate of like learning more and
just read something somewhere.
I think Jonathan Haidt, anxiousGeneration, that's like kind of
the big book right now.
Speaker 1 (48:19):
I think he's completely wrong.
Interesting.
Speaker 2 (48:21):
Interesting.
Okay, talk about that.
Speaker 1 (48:24):
Well, I mean, you cannot blame something that you
cannot change.
What are you going to like?
You know, let's say, 60 yearsago, you can't blame cars.
There are too many cars in God.
You know what are you going todo.
You know, like, 120 years, ahundred, uh, 20 years ago, uh,
we will blame horses.
(48:45):
They are they.
They carry horse poops in the,the, the pollute the city.
What are you going to do so?
So I don't think it's a solutionlike, oh, ban the phones ban.
I don't think that's the cause.
I think the real cause for ourdepressed generation is school.
Schools are meaningless, youknow so.
(49:07):
They have no purpose andtherefore, you know, when they
have a real purpose in school,if the school is a meaningful,
authentic life living experience, they're happy.
I mean, you know why do theyuse TikTok?
It's they used to relax ifthey're hooked, because they
have no time to check somethingelse.
(49:28):
You know, we used to readnonsense books and when I was
born and raised in my littlevillage, people were starving
but we were still having fun.
We never watched any violentmovie, but we're still using
like a corn stalk to to try topretend to kill each other.
We just you cannot blame the,you know, corn stalks.
Speaker 2 (49:47):
Ban the corn stalks.
Speaker 1 (49:49):
Yeah, I mean so, it's just so.
I just think you know it'spopular to think like that.
You know people's oh, now I canbuy my phone, I can put my
phone in this.
That's just, it's something youcannot do and I, in my mind, I
just you know kids should alwayshave phones and they need to
(50:09):
learn how to manage the use ofit.
I mean, if you ban their use,will they not use it?
Speaker 2 (50:15):
They just won't let you know that they're using it.
Speaker 1 (50:17):
They'll just try to invent ways to steal the way to
use it.
Right.
So I'm not protecting, I'm notarguing about to say you should
not be watchful.
You should, but you should notjust blame this device.
That's an easy excuse to have.
Speaker 2 (50:35):
Sometimes we get a lot of parents that come to us
like worried a little bit aboutlike how we use screens at
Prenda and worried that theythey just trust that a human
saying the same sentences totheir student is going to be
better than a screen deliveringthose same sentences.
And I totally understand likethere are dangers around screens
.
And the analogy we use atPrenda is like a computer is no
(50:58):
different than a stapler, right,but it's a tool that you can
use and you can use a stapler ina dangerous way and you can use
a stapler in a very productiveway.
It was made for productivityand we teach kids how to use
that stapler safely andproductively Like they.
Actually it helps theirexecutive function skills, like
(51:19):
I remember.
So my kids interesting kind ofcase study, like my kids have
never been to normal schoolbefore and they've always only
used educational technology tolearn.
They've never had a teacher.
And I have four kidskindergarten through.
My oldest is in sixth graderight now and we've always done
this and my kids have.
I've watched them struggle,I've watched them get really far
(51:39):
behind and I felt the panic asa parent to think like, oh, no,
like is my whole likeeducational philosophy or what
we're doing wrong.
And then I see them experiencethat, like they don't like
feeling behind and that they aregoing to, you know, carve out
some after school time topractice more or to like work on
their curriculum more, to likework on their curriculum more.
And they have, like my thirdgrader, my fourth grader, like
(52:02):
little kids.
These kids are nine, 10.
They are making betterdecisions for their future self.
One time my six-year-olddaughter said she was frustrated
with math.
She was okay, so I was afterschool, no one was making her do
math.
Right now she's after school.
There's no homework at Prenda.
She's independently choosing todo more math.
So that's the first thing she'sfrustrated.
She's independently choosing todo more math.
So that's the first thing she'sfrustrated.
She's like in tears, she's verystressed about this.
(52:23):
She cannot figure this out.
And I she's like mom, I can'tdo this.
And I give her the suggestionthat she quit, like why don't
you just quit, you know?
And I kind of meant like quitfor the day, like take a break.
I didn't mean like quit mathentirely, but she took that to
mean that I should, that sheshould give up on math.
And she looked at me appalledand she was like mom, that would
not be good for my future selfas a six-year-old.
(52:52):
And I'm like okay, if you letkids experience this, the weight
of owning their own educationand using this tool productively
, they can learn to manage it.
And that doesn't mean that wearen't like we have all of the
safeguards on those screens andthat we're.
You know.
Sometimes they're like can Iwork on my math after school?
And sometimes I'm like no, Ijust don't want you sitting down
.
The opportunity cost of yousitting down here at a screen,
even if you're learning, isn'tworth like I need you to just be
(53:13):
outside, go play, go like knockon neighbor's doors, start a
pickup game of baseball, likeyou know, just go outside, and
my kids are so happy to do thattoo.
But it really is possible to toraise well-rounded kids who can
manage the tools of today.
Just like you learned to managethose corn stalks and we've
somehow managed to learn how tomanage staplers in the world.
It's like, whatever the tool isof the day, like we need to
(53:35):
teach our kids how to manage it.
So, even from the perspectiveof like don't allow batteries
just just for my like very.
I feel like I have kind of anextreme position because I don't
allow battery toys in my house.
So it's like even from thatperspective, like I, I am
finding myself embracing more ateach them how to use it, kind
of mindset.
Speaker 1 (53:55):
I think every family can have their own style.
You know no battery poweredtoys, it's not a bad idea can
have their own style.
You know no battery, you knowpowered toys, it's not a bad
idea.
I mean I think every familychoose.
So that's why kids coming fromdifferent families have their
different uniqueness.
I mean families can decide, butyou know the learning
environments you create, caughtwith different kind of students.
(54:19):
I mean it's nothing wrong orright, I think it just.
But you know, like you said,your kids can go play video
games other places, but they maynot even want to play video
games.
Some kids just want to gooutside and play baseball.
I mean, I think again, I thinkwe need to understand children
are different.
You know there are children whodo not like video games.
(54:42):
There are children who do notlike social media.
I mean, children are verydifferent.
But I think what you said justnow, maybe 10, 20 minutes ago do
not make video games orsomething like, create that
escape for kids.
We force them too much.
They are looking for an escape.
(55:02):
If that is the case, that's forkids.
When you force them too much,they're looking for an escape.
If that is the case, that's theproblem.
Speaker 2 (55:07):
Yes, totally, 100% agree with that.
Let's create learningenvironments and childhoods that
don't need to be escaped from.
Speaker 1 (55:13):
Exactly, you want them to go to that place, but
not want to escape into thatplace.
Speaker 2 (55:20):
Love that I love video games.
Speaker 1 (55:21):
I sometimes can cultivate great friendship for
kids.
You know they play together,they exchange, they're
collaborating, You're definitelyproud to do it.
But again, whenever I saysomething, I want to really
caution every parent and everyyour parental guides to say
nothing works for all children.
(55:42):
Nothing works for all children.
I just finished a book.
When it's published you mightwant to talk to me again.
It's called improve the past orinvent the future.
For example, I look at data.
Does social and emotionallearning work for all children?
Of course not.
Does growth mindset work foreveryone?
No, sometimes growth mindset issimple stupidity.
(56:05):
You should give up instead oftrying to do more.
So you got to really rethinkabout nothing.
So whatever we're discussinghere, we're talking about
student autonomy, personalizableeducation.
Speaker 2 (56:18):
Love that.
How can people learn more aboutyour work?
Speaker 1 (56:23):
education, love that.
How can people learn more aboutyour work?
Well, I think the easiest is toread my articles, and you know
most of them.
I now choose to publish in onlyopen access places.
People can read them online.
And my books you know I've kindof written almost about 40
books and all of them arerelevant to actually parents and
education and take a differentperspective on this.
(56:47):
And they can find a list of mybooks and articles, my writings,
on my website is zaolearningcom.
Speaker 2 (56:57):
Love it.
Thank you so much for your timetoday and for coming on the
Kindle podcast.
Speaker 1 (57:01):
Thanks, Katie.
Speaker 2 (57:01):
The Kindle podcast is brought to you by Prenda.
Prenda makes for your timetoday and for coming on the
Kindle podcast.
Thanks, katie.
The Kindle podcast is broughtto you by Prenda.
Prenda makes it easy to startand run an amazing micro school
based on all the ideas we talkabout here on the Kindle podcast
.
Don't forget to follow us onsocial media at Prenda Learn,
and if you'd like moreinformation about starting a
micro school, just go toPrendacom.
Thanks for listening andremember to keep kindling.
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