November 13, 2025 • 50 mins
We explore how to choose schooling with intention and build an “open education” that taps every resource that fits your child. Matt Bowman shares five building blocks that move families from one-size-fits-all to agency, community, and practical pathways beyond high school.
• partnering with parents as primary educators
• the myth of the average student and unique needs
• choosing your child over your reputation
• mapping interests, family needs, and resources
• giving kids a real voice in decisions
• two-week learner sprints and showcase nights
• play, limits, and latitude for engagement
• microschools and community as an antidote to AI noise
• flexible post–high school pathways including apprenticeships and certifications
About our guest
Matt Bowman is an innovator in education and technology and is deeply dedicated to transforming the way children learn. He and his wife, Amy, founded OpenEd together, and the Bowmans have spent over three decades championing personalized education, combining cutting-edge technology with an entrepreneurial spirit to help students thrive in a rapidly changing world. A former sixth-grade teacher and tech executive, Matt has been at the forefront of online education since the 1990s.
Connect with Matt
Open Education
OpenEd.co
Got a story to share or question you want us to answer? Send us a message!
About the podcast
The KindlED Podcast explores the science of nurturing children's potential and creating empowering learning environments.
Powered by Prenda Microschools, each episode offers actionable insights to help you ignite your child's love of learning. We'll dive into evidence-based tools and techniques that kindle young learners' curiosity, motivation, and well-being.
Got a burning question?
We're all ears! If you have a question or topic you'd love our hosts to tackle, please send it to podcast@prenda.com. Let's dive into the conversation together!
Important links:
• Connect with us on social
• Get our free literacy curriculum
Interested in starting a microschool?
Prenda provides all the tools and support you need to start and run an amazing microschool. Create a free Prenda World account to start designing your future microschool today. More info at ➡️ Prenda.com or if you're ready to get going ➡️ Start My Microschool
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_02 (00:00):
Being intentional.
If you if the there's one thingyou want to take away, people
listening, be intentional aboutwhat you're doing with your kids
because you love your kids morethan anything else.
You want what's best for them.
It's time to force yourselfthrough the discomfort of you
know all that pressure.
I I know what I'm doing and whyI'm doing it, and I trust that
this is gonna work out great.
So whatever, yeah, and I agreewith you, Matt.
(00:22):
Whatever you choose, as long asyou're choosing it and not just
sort of allowing it to happen toyou.
Hey, I'm Kelly Smith.
Welcome to the Prenda Podcast.
I'm excited today to be talkingto Matt Bowman.
Matt's an innovator in educationand technology.
He's deeply dedicated totransforming the way children
learn.
He and his wife Amy founded OpenEd together, and the Bowman's
(00:43):
spent over three decades goingall the way back to being a
teenager helping personalizeeducation for kids.
They've combined cutting-edgetechnology with an
entrepreneurial spirit to helpstudents thrive in a rapidly
changing world.
Matt's a former sixth gradeteacher and a tech executive,
and he's been at the forefrontof online education since the
(01:04):
1990s.
We're gonna talk all aboutMatt's journey, the principles
and guiding building blocks thatreally motivate him and drive
him.
And he's built this up overworking with a lot, a lot of
kids over a long period of time.
I think you'll find it superinteresting just to look into
Matt's brain and his soul inthis conversation and hopefully
(01:24):
take something away that canhelp you and your efforts to
empower kids and help otherpeople become learners.
So, with that, let's get intoit.
I'm so excited to be here withMatt Bowman.
Matt is the founder and CEO.
We'll talk about your backgroundspecifically here in a little
bit of open ed and what you'vedone before that.
But Matt, can you give us justlike a quick intro?
And I'd love to start as farback as you're willing to go
(01:47):
with your encounter with thisthing we call school.
SPEAKER_01 (01:52):
Well, it's great to be with you, Kelly.
Uh, so happy with everythingthat Brent has been doing, very
mission-aligned with your work.
So uh I'll go back to birth.
Uh, I was born to two educators.
So there you go.
That's that's the short story.
Um, I started actually my firsteducation company when I was 17.
(02:12):
I ran a summer sports camp forneighborhood kids and just loved
teaching kids stuff.
And then I ended up going tocollege and getting my degree in
elementary education, and justeducator is just in my DNA.
So I even looked up and like Ithink I had a grandma and a
great-grandma that wereteachers, so it goes a long way
(02:35):
back in education in my blood.
SPEAKER_02 (02:37):
And you were a teacher yourself at one point.
Can you talk a little bit aboutyour experience in the
classroom?
What were you hoping that wouldbe and and what was it like?
SPEAKER_01 (02:45):
Yeah, so I taught sixth grade up in Washington
State, loved it.
That age group is just one of myfavorite age groups, honestly.
It's just so exciting to seethat transition from young to
teen to, you know, intoadulthood.
So, you know, to answer yourquestion on what, you know, I I
jumped into teaching thinking I,you know, really wanted to
(03:07):
change the world and help kids,as teachers do, and educators
want to.
Um, you know, looking back, westifle so much of that energy in
the classroom.
Teachers aren't given thatfreedom to just excite and
inspire young minds.
We have turned teaching intotest preppers, and that's it.
(03:30):
And it just drives me crazy.
So, anyway, that was yeah, Ilove teaching.
I loved helping.
We did a lot of self-directedlearning projects.
I really saw that that can workif you give kids space to think
on their own instead of tryingto overly structure every minute
of their day, uh, especiallythat 10 to 14 year old age
(03:50):
group.
I actually got my master'sdegree during that time and
focused my research on the 10 to14 year old forgotten child
because we often treat them as,you know, oh, they're too old
for elementary school, butthey're too young for high
school.
And so it's like, what do you dowith this age group that is, you
know, research shows childdevelopment, they change more
(04:13):
during those four years than anyother time in their life, except
birth to three.
And if we think of birth tothree change, yeah, that's
massive.
And then 10 to 14 year olds,they change the that next most.
SPEAKER_02 (04:28):
Well, they're just crazy.
Wow.
So you were there.
I think it is a special type ofperson that can see the beauty
in that age group.
I you definitely hear, yeah,they they get a bad rap in the
teacher's lounge, let's justsay.
And uh my wife and I were justat a church camp.
We were volunteering with kidsaround that, you know, kind of
the upper end of that age group.
(04:50):
And it's uh it's fascinating.
I mean, you can see that it'snot the most natural thing in
the world to love them the wayyou know you want to scoop up a
baby and and hold them.
And yet, if you can see past allof the shenanigans, there's
something truly beautiful aboutit.
I mean, they're so scared andthey're encountering all these
changes, and that's that'samazing that you were able to
(05:10):
see that as a teacher.
Did you feel like you wereauthorized or allowed to do some
of the student-centered thingsthat you wanted to do?
I mean, tell tell more of yourstory because I think this is
gonna lead to what you've donesince.
SPEAKER_01 (05:22):
Yeah, so it was funny.
I realized that early on,teachers do have a lot of
control.
They have some outsidepressures, but at the end of the
day, depending on your principalor district or whatever, but we
had a really great principal, areally great team, and it was
kind of like just help helpkids.
(05:42):
And it was interesting.
I found myself more accountableto the parents in my classroom
than to the system or toadministrators.
And so as long as I was tryingto communicate well with parents
and say, here's what we'redoing, here's where we're going,
that was a really key learninginsight for me that the parent,
the most engaged parents werethe ones that really were
(06:05):
keeping me on track and makingsure that I was doing things
that were helping theirchildren.
SPEAKER_02 (06:10):
Now, Matt, let's just pause there.
How did that's really rare in atraditional classroom to get
that sense of accountability tothe parents and this idea that
these are my customers and Iwant them to be happy?
You didn't have to feel thatway.
I mean, how did that happen?
I I imagine there were people inthe same building as you running
classes that didn't feel thatway about the the parents.
(06:31):
So, where did that come from foryou and how did you get to that?
SPEAKER_01 (06:34):
Well, you're correct that I was a lone wolf in the in
that sense that not manyteachers shared that perspective
that I had.
And where it came from, I don'tknow.
I think just the generalprinciple, the DNA in me is
we're there to help families.
Like I had the perspective thatparents need help.
(06:57):
And so that's what I was doing.
I was providing a service topartner with the parent to help
raise this fun and energetic11-year-old, right?
And so, you know, it's a goodquestion.
I don't know where it came from.
My mom, her DNA is just helpseverybody.
She just, that is just who sheis, and I've got to give some
(07:17):
credit to her on that.
Just raise me as just always tryto help and and see where people
need help.
And parents, especially of11-year-olds, need help.
And so I wanted to be, you know,help a helpful person for that.
SPEAKER_02 (07:33):
It's interesting to hear you use this word help.
I mean, I think there's beendebate in recent years in
education about whose kids theseare anyway.
That that sort of question.
And, you know, I think there areeducators, and I think it's
well-meaning in in a majority ofcases, that really take primary,
they feel primaryresponsibility.
Like the parents don't know, Ihave to get them to this place.
(07:55):
But even embedded in what you'resaying, you're saying I'm
looking at these parents.
Implicitly, you're saying it'stheir responsibility to raise
the best versions of these youngpeople as they can.
And I see myself as a a helper,a servant to support that cause.
I mean, I would just want tolike, I'm dwelling on this a
little bit extra because I hopeour listeners are reflecting on
(08:17):
just the underlying assumptionsbehind what education even is.
It's not give us your childrenfor 13 years and we'll turn them
into something amazing.
It's let me help you.
And in each case, that'ssomething amazing that I think
everybody wants for theirchildren.
It could look different, right?
And and I will get into thepersonalization aspect of it as
(08:37):
well.
But I think that servantleadership and that desire to
help, like you're talking about,is really at the at the core.
So where did it where to go fromthere?
I mean, you didn't teachforever.
You you spent some time in theclassroom and then you you did
other things.
SPEAKER_01 (08:50):
Well, yeah, well, let me just cite something uh
because I'm I'm glad you wentdeep on that, on that principle
of partnering with families andnot saying that it's the public
school's role to do it all.
Right?
Because and in our book, my wifeand I, we have five children and
we're raising them, and part ofthat story we can get to.
But we I share this, or shewrites this in in the foreword,
(09:14):
assessed how many hours a daychildren are in a traditional
public school setting versus athome.
And we said, you know what,let's allocate ten hours a day
as potential learningopportunities, right?
On a very generous term of whatlearning is, right?
So we said, let's give tenhours.
(09:34):
That's still 14 hours that we'resaying non-learning, which is
probably not even accurate, butwe'll just give ten.
And if there's three hundred andsixty-five days a year, that's
an easy math, that's threehundred and you know, three
thousand six hundred and fiftyhours.
They're only in school, quoteunquote, the public school
setting for like twelve hundredof those hours.
(09:55):
The other thirty, what, uh,twenty thour hundred hours is at
home or under you know directcontrol and supervision of the
parent.
So that's I think what initiatedthat was that the what and and I
and we say this in the book too,I is whatever testing we do in
(10:18):
school, they're measuring what'shappening outside of school more
than what they're measuringinside of school.
And so when I realized that, youknow, 180 days for six and a
half hours or whatever, that'ssuch a small contribution to the
child's uh overall learningexperience that you've gotta
(10:38):
partner with parents.
And it is the parent's primaryrole of education of their
children and tap into all theresources that they can find to
help make their child besuccessful.
SPEAKER_02 (10:50):
Absolutely.
And it's it's so beautiful.
I I want to pause here just aminute and make sure readers
know this book is reallyfascinating.
I'm ordering my copy right now,so I I've just checked out the
intro work.
But the title of the book isOpen Education, and the subtitle
I think is just fascinating (11:04):
How to Reimagine Learning, Ignite
Curiosity, and Prepare Your Kidsfor Success.
Your kids, right?
And and I think getting back towhat we're talking about, I
think that's what parents want.
I happen to be at a conferenceright now.
I'm in Northern Californiameeting with a lot of you know
people thinking hard about thefuture, and it's mostly
(11:24):
technology and things like that.
A lot of these folks don't evenhave kids yet, and yet they're
being proactive, they're askingthemselves questions about what
they want for their kids andwhat kind of family culture do
they want to create, and whateducational opportunities and
you know, what are their valuesand their issues.
So what we're seeing is a ageneration that's coming up
(11:45):
really much more um, I don'tknow, empowered, much more
proactive as opposed to I thinkwhat you know, my parents were
amazing, but I think what theythought was, I'm gonna send my
kid to school and just make surethey do their homework and then
hope that the system does itsthing, right?
SPEAKER_01 (12:00):
Well, no, I mean we could unpack all those things
that you just said.
It's so powerful.
Uh yes, the next generation ofparents, uh even if they have
young kids now or they'rethey're about to have children,
are asking themselves, what isthe role of education, right?
And and and traditional publicschool system.
(12:21):
And I kind of have reflected onthat, you know, we things move
in in you know, let's say 10 oryou know, a couple of decades,
but only 20 years ago or or so,we barely had the internet,
right?
And so then you add in thatmobile phones, and then you
throw in COVID, and what I nowadd is kind of a a messy higher
(12:45):
ed is also then thrown intothat, and Michael Horn and Rick
Christensen predicted that 20years ago, right?
Higher ed would crumble a bit orconsolidate.
But then this last kind of nailin the in the coffin of what is
traditionally the the tr thepath to just be safe is AI.
(13:07):
It literally has within a yearmade everyone question now what
is the future of job, what isthe future of workforce.
That in and of itself is makingevery parent question high
school diploma to collegediploma to career to retire, a
promise that is even legit.
(13:29):
And it's not.
And so you have to startthinking differently about
education, and that's that'swhat's so fun about what we're
what we're involved in doingtogether.
SPEAKER_02 (13:38):
It is totally fun and it's totally interesting.
And I've been shocked to see howmuch of that conversation it
goes quickly from okay, AI'schanged the world and and
learning, and all the all ofthese fundamental things that
we've just assumed, theassumptions are shattered,
right?
And yet the the question and thediscussion becomes what does it
mean to be human?
(13:59):
And what does it mean to be in ahuman relationship and a human
connection?
And that's been one of myfavorite things about
microschools, is just being ableto create this little bubble for
a small group of people to formvery genuine human connections
facilitated by really coolcutting-edge technology, but
it's not about the technology,it's about what education in
some ways has always been about,way before Horace Mann, going
(14:20):
all the way back.
It's about thinking and beingand experiencing this life
together.
So not to get too philosophical.
SPEAKER_01 (14:27):
No, I th I think you'll like a conversation we
had around the dinner table lastweek, which was maybe AI is
going to return us all to ourcommunities because you can't
tell what's real or fake anymorewith AO3.
(14:49):
Like, and so all you can do islet's just return to our
communities.
And micro schools are a perfectexample of let's just connect as
a community, solve communityproblems, you know, rally
together as a community becauseyou just quite frankly can't
trust what you know you might beseeing from some video in
(15:11):
another country, like oranother, like so.
I thought that was reallyinsightful.
Our daughter-in-law shared itwas perhaps the globalization
and stress we've carried uponourselves will start to go away
when you can't trust anythingyou see, and you just got to
return to your friends andneighborhoods.
Super interesting.
SPEAKER_02 (15:30):
I want to say we met 10 years ago, Matt.
I mean, you and I, you were downin Arizona, you you had been
doing some great work in Utaharound in the homeschool
community and helping people getaccess to new resources, really
in line with this.
Can you talk about how My TechHigh started and then you know
how that's evolved?
I want people to understand whatyou're doing right now with open
(15:52):
ed, because I think there'ssomething truly powerful and
exciting about the work you'releading.
SPEAKER_01 (15:57):
Yeah, yeah.
I was down in Arizona.
We were, yeah, I was meetingwith charter schools, kind of
exploring that world, cameacross what Prenda was doing.
Super, always been a big fan ofthe micro school model of really
returning education to its rootsinside the home as the starting
point, but not ending there,right?
Always being able to take thenext, you know, the neighborhood
(16:20):
and then the community and justbranch out from there.
So it's it's fun to kind of gofull circle on that.
So my tech high started in 2009during the time when my wife and
I were raising our fivechildren.
And we were, you know, raisingour five children in a in the
exact same home.
We lived there the whole time.
(16:42):
We had the same cadences, familynights, you know, discussions,
expectations, chore charts onSaturdays, like everything was
very much the same.
And all five children weredifferent, right?
Go figure, right?
Every parent realizes afteryou've had one, the next one is
all you know, they're alldifferent from each other.
(17:04):
And so we started askingourselves, well, if they're so
different from each other,should we have them all do the
exact same schooling experience?
And the answer is no.
So we started saying, Well, whatdoes each child need for their
schooling experience?
Once you just ask that question,it unlocks all kinds of
(17:24):
emotions, right?
Insecurity, doubt, fear,excitement, you know, what's
possible.
So all those roller coasteremotions went, you know, went
through us.
And the a charter school wasjust opening in our town, the
first one, and our son came homeand said, Hey, I want to go to
that charter school.
My friend's going there.
(17:45):
It sounds interesting becauseit's different.
Yeah.
And we thought, no, you can't goto a charter school.
You know, I was a public schoolteacher, they're, you know,
anti-public school, but ofcourse they're not.
And so we looked into it andwe're like, this sounds like a
really good fit for our oldest.
And so we sent him and itstarted in seventh grade or
whatever.
And so then our next son, whenhe got to seventh grade, we sent
(18:08):
him and he liked it.
Our third son came and we senthim and he hated it.
And he said, No way am I stayingthere.
I'm going to the districtschool.
And so all of a sudden, we, youknow, we thought we were all
invested in this new charterschool.
We're everyone's gonna go.
But our third went there for ayear and said, No, thanks, I'm
(18:29):
out.
And we gave him a voice.
We let him say, Maybe that's notthe right fit for me, mom and
dad.
And we said, Oh, well, now we'regonna have to have carpools for
four different schools, right?
And we said, Well, let's justfigure it out.
So that's part of that story, iswe realize then I bet other
families are dealing with thedifferent children that need
(18:53):
something differently.
SPEAKER_02 (18:54):
It's so funny, and I think too often we're so
conditioned on one size fitsall, right?
It's like here's the here's theway this works, and everybody
does it, and there's comfort inthat.
Maybe humans are tribal,inherently tribal, that's part
of how we operate.
But we're scared to then get offthat assembly line and do
something different.
But then what's crazy is eventhe people who do that, and you
(19:15):
guys make this move to a charterschool, you can still get stuck
in one size fits all.
It's just it's a different size.
It's like not that size, thissize, right?
SPEAKER_01 (19:22):
And so Well, that's what that's what really open
education message is is nolonger be constrained by a box
of even the box ofhomeschooling, or oh, do you do
unschooling, or do you doclassical unschool?
Like there's all these boxesinside of homeschooling.
Yeah, and then there's the boxof public school or charters,
(19:44):
you know, district school orcharter school box.
And then there's private schoolbox.
So we're like, break down allthe boxes and just say open
education is tapping intoeverything that works for your
child, period.
Yeah.
You know, even microschoolinghas its own little subset,
right?
Absolutely, yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (20:02):
And it's not again, not for everyone.
There's kids that come and it'slike that's not the right fit
for me.
Maybe it's this micro school andthis culture, or it's like, I
really want to be around likelarge numbers of kids, which
isn't possible in a microschool.
SPEAKER_01 (20:16):
Well, you'll get this.
I was chatting with a with agroup of parents last week, and
one of them said, I felt badwhen my two oldest kids were
loving the microschool, and mythird wasn't.
Because when I moved him to adifferent micro school or a
different co-op or something,everyone said, Well, how why
(20:37):
would you leave your other twoif if you're leaving, it's bad,
it must be bad.
Right?
That emotion is real that if Iif I transfer one kid out, but
leave another kid where theyare, which one am I valu am I
valuing one over the other?
Right.
No, you're just saying what'sworking best for each one each
of them.
SPEAKER_02 (20:56):
Exactly.
And you see this, I mean,enlightened parents today, they
shop, they look into lots ofthings, they're well informed,
and they make choices.
I mean, unfortunately, you doget that drive around town.
I have too many friends that arejust spending their whole days
just driving kids everywhere.
But but to really ask themselveswhat's best for this child.
Give us the rundown.
(21:17):
Open education is kind of theextension or the evolution of
what you guys have been doingwith My Tech High and talk a
little bit about that.
And I I definitely want to getinto these five principles that
you guys have have written downand talked about for open ed.
So will you kind of share alittle bit more about that?
SPEAKER_01 (21:32):
Yeah, for sure.
So let me just end with our uhyounger children as they came,
they ended up doing much moreflexible of everything, right?
Including the final one, justworked on her associate degree
in the morning and then met herfriends for lunch, release time,
and ceramics, and was athree-sport athlete.
And so it was just like thetotal mix of everything we've
(21:55):
been talking about, we saw inour youngest finally come to
pass.
And so that was super cool.
And with my tech high, we'vebeen running it, you know, since
2009.
Last year, my wife and I, whohave been, you know, we
co-founded it together.
We've been pretty much, youknow, we're not business
management people by DNA.
(22:15):
We're educators.
And since COVID, the spike ofenrollment never went away
because people loved what theyfound when they got personalized
education.
We were really looking for ateam of experienced business
people to run it.
So last July, July 1st, so we'recoming on our one-year
anniversary, we hired anexecutive team to come in, and I
(22:35):
stepped down as CEO.
We hired an executive team torun it, and they have just been
phenomenal.
And it was funny.
The first thing that they saidafter they got into the business
a little bit said, My tech highdoesn't describe what you do.
That doesn't sound naturallywhat you're doing.
SPEAKER_02 (22:59):
Yeah, which there is a high tech high that people get
confused.
SPEAKER_01 (23:03):
They think it was the high tech high of San Diego.
Right.
They think you're, you know,just focused on tech and STEM,
and in fact, and and that you'rea high school, and in fact, our
average age is like nine.
So, you know, Matt, your brandis a little bit off.
And we said, Yeah, that's kindof been the sense since day one,
(23:25):
but we didn't know how to changeit, right?
Yeah.
And they came in and within amonth, they said, We're
rebranding as open ed.
Okay.
And and they're like, Matt, wewant you to write a book called
Open Education.
Document everything that you'vedone over 30 years working with
kids, write it down, and thatwill be the headline message of
(23:45):
open up your child's education,tap into everything that works
from microschooling tohomeschooling to districts to
charters to public to whatever.
Like, don't say, don't, don'tjudge any one category as
negative.
And so that's really what theopenness of it is.
And so that we rebranded from mytech high to open ed last fall,
(24:08):
uh, and it's just beenphenomenal.
And now they're growing a ton,and and the message is going out
there of people just takeadopting what we say, adopting
the open ed mindset.
Those are the five buildingblocks that you're referencing.
That yeah, I'd love to just kindof go through some of those and
help people.
SPEAKER_02 (24:28):
I think it's important help people begin to
do it.
Yeah, because you're gonna getpeople listening to this that
are thinking, yeah, sure, thesethese lofty ideas, but where
where do I actually you makechanges in my life?
So, yeah, can we can we gothrough these five building
blocks together?
I have them written down, or youprobably know them by them.
SPEAKER_01 (24:47):
I yeah, so you're right.
It can be so overwhelming andcause so much stress to try to
adopt an open-ed mindset.
But this book really breaks itdown to the very basics.
Like it is accessible, it'sreadable, it's not a textbook,
and it has some very practicalexercises any family can do to
(25:08):
just increase a little bit oftheir openness and start to see
what that feels like.
So, yeah, I'll just run throughthese real quick.
First one, embrace your child'suniqueness.
You know this.
How many children do you have,Kelly?
SPEAKER_02 (25:21):
I have four.
Yeah, they're all different,just like they're all different.
SPEAKER_01 (25:25):
So start there.
Start by saying, you know what?
Yeah, every child's different,and maybe their education should
be too.
Yeah, right.
That's the that's the firstbuilding block, is just
acknowledge they're notsameness, they're not identical.
And how in the world can onesingle system serve something so
(25:46):
unique as a human child?
Right.
Right?
So embrace that uniqueness.
Uh, and I love that.
And and part of one of thestories we share in that is the
Air Force back in the day did astudy of like 10,000 attributes
of pilots, and they designed aperfectly average cockpit seat
for pilots, and it increasedinjuries and even deaths because
(26:10):
nobody fit it.
SPEAKER_02 (26:12):
It was no one.
Todd Todd Rose tells this story.
We've had him.
SPEAKER_01 (26:15):
Yeah, no, that's that's what we cite.
We cite Todd Rose's story ofthat.
It's is that nobody fits it.
SPEAKER_02 (26:20):
Yeah, it's it's a powerful like illustration of
this idea that there is no suchthing as that one size that you
just designed the whole thing.
The myth of the average studentis what part of that beautiful
chapter is.
Beautiful.
All right, let's go to the nextone.
SPEAKER_01 (26:37):
Building block number two, this is a powerful
one.
Put your kids before yourreputation.
I can't tell you how many peopleI've talked to that says, Well,
if I tell my aunts and uncles atthe next family barbecue or
family reunion that I'm doingsomething different, they're
just gonna lay into me as a badparent.
(26:57):
Or I need to be able to say, Oh,Johnny's going to, you know,
this college or this university,or he's pre-med, or, you know, I
have to be able to say thesethings because of my own
reputation instead of sayingwhat's best for my child.
So we really hit that head onand say, this could be the
biggest stumbling block isputting you your children ahead
(27:18):
of your reputation.
Have you seen that?
SPEAKER_02 (27:21):
I absolutely have.
I mean, you can think of it atat so many levels, but yeah, I
think the the fear is sopowerful, you know, and we're
very attuned to think about whatother people are are thinking of
us.
And as I think parents, we getwe feel it even more acutely,
because I think the the realityis imposter syndrome is the
norm, right?
(27:41):
We we all have no idea whatwe're doing.
That first baby comes home fromthe hospital and you're just
looking at each other like, Ican't believe they let us take
this this child.
Exactly.
And it really is like we wedon't know.
There are people with goodideas, but you don't you don't
know anything, and and you knowthat.
And so then if someone comes atyou with I mean, this is a very
minor version of this story, butwe had our first kid in in
(28:04):
Massachusetts, it was a littlebit more, I don't know, like
hippie-ish, like the the ummedical profession just had
different ideas about somethings than maybe we had grown
up with.
And the pediatrician, she wasawesome, she saved our baby's
life, actually.
Who there were somecomplications, and I'll always
love her, but she was sodisgusted that we weren't that
(28:26):
our the diet didn't include goatcheese.
She she was like, You need to begiving goat cheese to the baby,
like as he got a little bigger.
And I remember being like, Wedon't eat goat cheese.
Like, I don't even know, I don'tknow anyone that eats goat
cheese.
Like, I remember these like youknow, podong kicks from out
west, and and it was like, Iremember being feeling so
(28:46):
judged, and and it was it wasweird.
Like, I'm sure she just meant itas an off-handed comment, but
for us, it was like we're doingeverything wrong.
Oh no, you're wrong, yeah.
And it doesn't feel good, likeso.
Your ego's screaming at you toplease not do the weird thing
because if these comments come,like your ego says, We can't, we
can't handle this, we gotta juststay in line, do what everyone
(29:07):
else does.
And I love that you're justgiving it a name and saying,
don't allow your your that fear,that rep reputational fear to
get in the way of what youinstinctively know to be right,
which is your child is I mean,you you do want what's best for
your child.
SPEAKER_01 (29:22):
Trust your instinct, yeah.
And part of that too is youknow, one of the stories, I'll
just share a quick story fromthat chapter, which is Isaac was
doing an apprenticeship programfor an alternative to college
and meeting with a mom with adaughter that was a college
graduate and a son that was hadjust dropped out of college.
And she said, Quote, I wish myson were more like my daughter.
(29:47):
And so Isaac dug deeper andsaid, Tell me about your
daughter.
And she said, Oh, she's alwaysjust gotten perfect grades, she
graduated from college, but now,you know, he's like, Well,
what's she doing now?
Well, she's has high anxiety,depression.
She has a big you know debt, andshe can't find a job in her
(30:08):
profession, so she's unemployedright now, just living in my
basement.
And he said, Okay, but she wasgreat, she followed all the
rules, right?
And he said, She's and Isaacsaid, Well, tell me about your
son that you're so concernedabout.
He took one semester college,dropped out, he's making five
thousand dollars a month runninga business that he started
(30:30):
himself, and he won't ever goback to college, and he's happy
as can be and thriving.
It's crazy.
But because she couldn't tellher grandma that he was in
college, she criticized hischoice.
Yeah, and it was just soeye-opening that that happens
over and over again.
Parents need to get past thatand be able to say, what I want
(30:53):
to answer is that my child isthriving.
Right.
It's not that they are justfollowing a prescripted path.
SPEAKER_02 (31:00):
Yeah, it's beautiful.
And the fear in that is I don'tknow if I trust myself to be the
judge of thriving.
And it's easier in some ways,feels safer to allow external,
you know, arbitrary standards,literal academic standards,
credentials, degrees, you know,career track, progression,
resumes, like all these thingsthat we've come to accept as the
(31:20):
scoreboard.
It's like at least I can pointto the scoreboard and say, well,
look, you know, doing great.
But not doing great, I think isthe whole point.
And so, yeah, I love this one.
It's it's so great.
SPEAKER_01 (31:31):
All right, building block number three, map the
learning landscape.
So this is where it gets reallytactical for families.
We invite families to do kind ofa what we call an interests,
needs, and resource analysis.
What that means is try to figureout what you or your child is
interested in.
So that takes some time.
(31:51):
You have to kind of detox themfrom a structured world and
environment to observe what theydo when they don't have to do
anything.
Start identifying what they'reinterested in naturally, and
also equally important, whatthey really are not interested
in.
Like make a list of both sidesis helpful sometimes.
Is and yes, things change andkids change, and so let it be
(32:13):
fluid, but identify some thingsthat they are naturally
interested in and things thatthey just aren't naturally
interested in.
And each child's different andkind of navigate that.
Once you kind of identify whattheir their interest lists are,
at least today, which couldchange tomorrow, but later on
we'll talk about the fifth oneis uh two-week learner-driven
(32:33):
sprint.
So only go two weeks out.
So that's and that's okay.
So, anyway, to identify the kidsas interests and then sync those
with family and community needs.
That's an important threshold.
You can't just say, oh, kid canexplore whatever they want that
they're interested in.
(32:54):
There's some sort of needs thatthe family and community have
that you need to sync with theirinterests.
Now, the better you can alignthe interests with needs, the
more learning occurs.
Like the magic happens whenthose work really well together.
When a family is all interestedin something and that there's a
need to go solve or to help orto contribute, that's where some
(33:17):
real magic occurs.
But then wrap around those needsand the the balance of your
interests and your needs withthe resources available to you.
And we start with free.
Like that's a great place tostart.
There's lots of resources thatare free and good quality.
So take it from free all the wayup to fee.
(33:39):
Wherever that scale goes foryou, decide do you need to make
financial adjustments in yourlife because some of those
fee-based resources are valuableenough that you want to give up
some portion of your budget tofund?
Or if not, figure out where thebest line of free resources or
really low-cost ones exist.
(34:01):
And there really are so many.
So it's like identify yourfamily's interests, your child's
interests, what are the needs,and then wrap around what are
the resources I have at myfingertips in the home, in the
neighborhood, online, in thecommunity, from mentors to you
know, business coaches to tutorsto AI support to Khan Academy,
(34:23):
everything along the line.
And you know, microschools, ofcourse, in that is a resource
and often a very low-cost,affordable, accessible resource
that you can access along thatspectrum of free to fee.
SPEAKER_02 (34:38):
That's beautiful.
Okay, so you've done all that.
The parents have sort of madethis map and they've tried to
figure out is now the time tojust sort of like hand it to the
kid, be like, hey, I've come upwith your personalized plan.
This is what you're doing.
SPEAKER_01 (34:52):
No, that's that's building block four is treat
them as an equal equity partnerin the in the boardroom, right?
Give your child a voice.
You'd just be surprised at howlittle will trust a voice of a
child and and just say, we knowbetter.
Yeah.
Now, yes, there's all the adultsneed to be adults in the room
and provide some structure, buteven our open ed, our open ed
(35:16):
logo is a parentheses, not an Ofor a reason.
You have to fill, you know,yeah, fill in the blank, but
there are some structures aroundthe edges.
Yeah, and we even like quoting aparent strategy that I learned
from BYU when I was there, whichis love, limits, and latitude.
Show a whole lot of love, givelimits and structure, but then
(35:38):
figure out the latitude amongstall that love and lit and
limits.
So the same thing with yourchild.
Give them a voice, let themagain.
This parent conversation I hadlast week, someone said, My
daughter just hates math.
Say, well, you know what?
It might be that she hasn'tfound a curriculum that has
clicked with her brain yet.
Ask her to go find the math thatsyncs with her brain and come
(36:02):
back and report to you.
And she's like 12, right?
Yeah.
And the parent said, Can they dothat?
Yes.
Is that allowed?
Yeah.
Have your 12-year-old goresearch and do demo, you know,
demo accounts for a bunch ofdifferent programs or get the
books and check them out of thelibrary, whatever.
Let her research the best mathprogram for her.
(36:26):
That's giving them a voiceinstead of just saying it's
adult, you know, adult imposed.
Just sit in this chair, we'regonna do math to you, right?
SPEAKER_02 (36:34):
Yeah, it's a very different experience.
Yeah, we we spend the firstcouple weeks of every student's
experience in apprenticeschoolreally saying, like, let's try
out some things.
Like, let's try this one on, trythat one on.
And then we don't wedeliberately hold off on our big
goal setting because we wantkids climbing a mountain and
staying focused, but we wait awhile to do that until they've
had a chance to, you know, justparticipate.
(36:55):
And then our our big meetingwhere that goal setting happens,
it's called our GPS meeting.
That's the guide, parent, andstudent sitting down together
and charting that course.
Really, it's incrediblypowerful.
And I know that's so awesome.
SPEAKER_01 (37:08):
That's exactly what exactly the future of education
looks like, Kelly.
Like it's seriously, that iswhere we all need to be.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (37:16):
Well, parents, if you're listening, you can do
this without being part ofPrenda or without being part of
anything.
You just, you know, do do whatMatt's talking about, like map
the landscape, try some thingsout, listen to your kid, and
then sit down together.
And you'd be surprised.
This is another thing that, youknow, I wasn't sure where this
would go, right?
People think, okay, you let thekids set the goal, then maybe
they're gonna set easy goals.
(37:37):
Like, I just want to eat pizzaand play video games.
Our average goal is 1.8 gradelevels worth of math.
So if you think of going toschool for a year, you would get
1.0 grade levels of content, butwe're measuring mastery, so it's
actually a different thing,right?
You're you're really learningthe full material.
So 1.8 means almost two fullgrade levels.
Almost two years, yeah.
(37:58):
And kids don't achieve that,they achieve 1.3 in the
microschools.
It's like they're shooting high.
And the fact that they'rewilling to do that says a lot
about these kids.
I think we just, like you said,we don't trust them to take that
ownership.
And and I think you and I haveboth seen it enough times to
say, hey, give these kids achance because they'll they'll
surprise you, even the ones thatyou've labeled already as a
(38:19):
problem or broken in some way.
SPEAKER_01 (38:21):
One and maybe especially.
Yeah, especially they justhaven't felt like they had the
reins to click their own way.
Yeah.
Yeah, no, I just love that.
And and just adding thattrusting them, you know, kind of
modeling for them, hey, this isyour life.
This is, you know, you'regrowing up yourself.
Like, how can we help you becomethe adult and future person you
(38:44):
want to become?
It's not just on me to make allthat happen.
Like, you know, this is a jointeffort together.
Incredible.
Let's let's solve that together.
I love it.
SPEAKER_02 (38:53):
Well, let's talk about the fifth building block.
We've got these sprints that youwere referring to.
Give us a sort of a picture andan example of what that might
look like.
SPEAKER_01 (39:00):
Yeah, it's once you identify need the interests,
needs, and resources, invite thechild to do a self-learner
project for two weeks.
What do you want to study?
What do you want to learn about?
Dinosaurs, the moon,entrepreneurship, rockets, like
whatever it is that they'reinterested in.
Just say, great, study that fora couple weeks.
(39:22):
We're the resources that we cancircle and feed you with and
prepare a presentation of somesort of showcase night in two
weeks of what you've learned andcelebrate it with food or pizza,
ice cream, whatever, and havethe the have everybody just
share what they've learned overthe last couple weeks.
SPEAKER_03 (39:41):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (39:42):
And it's not much more structured than that.
Like, don't go overstructured.
Yeah.
And what's fun is inviting themto figure out how they want to
present is also fun.
Uh do they want to create alittle card game or board game
or a Kahoot or a you know, uh,you know, a stop motion
animation film, or you know, ora poster board or a food, like
(40:05):
whatever it is, right?
You pick how you share it also.
SPEAKER_02 (40:10):
Wow.
Yeah, I can imagine.
I I I'm picturing myself in oneof those rooms with parents who
are genuinely interested andkids who feel high agency and
high autonomy and driven.
And then I think what the resultis is engagement through the
roof, but also learning thatwill blow you away.
You just again, I think weundersell what these kids are
(40:30):
capable of, and we think we haveto sort of overscript it all and
just push, push, push.
And we're in that tug of warthat's frankly unproductive in
so many ways.
SPEAKER_01 (40:38):
Well, it is.
We actually cite in our bookresearch, uh, a research study
around it.
Turns out the more we try tostructure learning, the less
learning occurs.
SPEAKER_02 (40:50):
Katie from our team does a demo with our guides
because we're training them onthis, and um, she'll have
somebody stand up and she'lljust start pushing against their
hands, you know.
And and if you if you're pushingon their hands, they push back.
It's like this instinctivereaction.
It's like then she pushes harderand harder, and she's not like a
super big, strong person, butshe's pushing really hard and
they're pushing, and then she'slike, Okay, now let's try it
(41:11):
again.
And she just sort of like letsgo, and they just kind of like
you know, it's it's just easy.
Like they they come in, and um,I think there's just so much
power in in doing that.
Now that sounds fluffy, andthere's ways of doing that.
What you're describing with loveand limits and latitude.
I it's not just the principle ofit.
There's some tactics and someadvice here that there really
(41:31):
are.
SPEAKER_01 (41:31):
And we spent a good chunk of the book talking about
the of this chapter, the valueof play and unstructured play,
and how our society has gone waytoo far away from unstructured,
uncontrolled by adults play.
Yeah.
There is so much learning thatcan happen both in the play
(41:52):
itself and the idea thatespecially young boys learn best
when they're physicallyexhausted.
And I I tell that to as manyparents of young boys as I can.
If you if they're havingstruggle, if if they're
struggling learning some mathprinciple, have them go run
around for two hours outside andcome back and they might get it
(42:15):
in five minutes.
But if you keep going for twohours on math, they're never
gonna get it.
Right.
Powerful.
SPEAKER_02 (42:23):
Well, I I love these building blocks.
I hope people check out the bookand find, you know, just ways to
apply this.
I know you guys have given a lotof really good examples, and I
just would love to see a worldwhere every parent feels one
that they're even allowed to askthese questions and think
differently.
It's just this permission idea.
But then once you're once you'vemade that leap, it's getting
(42:44):
over the fear.
And then how do I actually, youknow, turn our family culture
into a culture of learning?
Now that's whether you'rehomeschooling or choosing an
alternative path of some sort,or yeah, right.
SPEAKER_01 (42:56):
If you choose to go to your local public school as
the resource and solution,that's great.
Totally.
As long as you've started withthis is the right fit for my
child.
Like we don't we don't bash onone or the other.
Yeah.
Just conscientiously,intentionally choose it instead
of just have it be a default.
SPEAKER_02 (43:16):
Being intentional.
If you there's one thing youwant to take away, people
listening, be intentional aboutwhat you're doing with your kids
because this is, I mean, youlove your kids more than
anything else.
You want what's best for them.
It's just, it's time to andforce yourself through the
discomfort of you know, all thatthat pressure.
You hear stories from thehomeschoolers, right?
That you know, people willcorner your kid and start giving
(43:38):
them math facts just to see iflike you're really teaching
anything.
It's like people can be kind ofawful to each other.
You have to somehow allow thatto be their problem and you're
not worried about it, right?
I know what I'm doing and whyI'm doing it, and I trust that
this is gonna work out great.
So, whatever, yeah, I and Iagree with you, Matt.
Whatever you choose, as long asyou're choosing it and not just
sort of allowing it to happen toyou.
SPEAKER_01 (44:00):
And then we do wrap up the book with open education
pathways after high school.
Yeah, let's talk a little bitabout that.
Oh, well, you know, whatevertime, but I just wanted to point
out that sometimes we resistmaking changes in the K-12 world
because we're afraid of whatwill happen after high school.
(44:20):
Yes.
So just know that there are somany options, open education
pathways after high school, fromentrepreneurship to early
college, if you need it.
Start with your why, vocationalindustry certifications,
apprenticeships, internships.
You know, what we we say what'sold is new again, and that's
(44:40):
from learning from others whowho are in the business that you
want to be in already.
Go ask them for guidance,coaching, mentorship, and and
the old apprenticeship model isreal and alive.
Like you can do that, and youdon't have to just have one
singular four-year universitydegree, is no longer a promise
(45:01):
that fulfills for almostanybody.
SPEAKER_02 (45:04):
It's uh such a powerful point.
I mean, I look back at my firstmicro school in my house was
2018.
There were seven kids in thatclass, and the youngest of them
are now just graduating fromhigh school.
So I'm I'm I've followed thesekids, right?
One of them's married with ababy, one of them's off kind of
pursuing a fast-moving, likeEast Coast lifestyle, one of
them is doing uh very vocationalwork.
(45:26):
I just talked to one of the oneof the younger ones, um, is
doing an apprenticeship programin electrical work, and he's
really excited to do that.
Uh, and then there's another onethat's you know, my son just
graduated, he was in that thatclass, and he's planning on, you
know, going to college and andtaking a high finance world.
So they're all different, andyou could almost see it at the
time too.
(45:47):
Right.
It's fascinating to see how, butI think there's so much anxiety,
and it's almost like you want tojust invite everyone to breathe
together.
SPEAKER_01 (45:53):
It's like, let's take some breaths and just yeah,
I tell that story of I waschatting with a dad whose
daughter was miserable, and itwas April of that year, and I
said, just kind of to challengehim.
I said, Don't send her back therest of the school year.
Like there was five weeks leftor something, and see if you
know, see she see how she does.
(46:14):
And he said, Can I do that?
I said, Yeah, write an write anote, whatever your state
requires to excuse her.
And then he said, Okay, my otherconcern is will she get into a
good college still if I if Itake her out for the remainder
of the year?
And I was thinking she was ajunior or senior or something,
and so that's why he was worriedabout her.
(46:34):
And I said, How old's yourdaughter?
Like, who are we talking about?
And he said, She's eight.
And I said, friend, take her outtoday.
Don't ever carry the stress ofwill she get into a good college
right now?
Like, drop that and focus on herhealth, well-being, joy, love of
(46:56):
learning.
Like that will be the gift yougive her, better than pressure
to get into a good college in12, 13 years from now.
SPEAKER_02 (47:04):
Powerful advice.
Yeah, I think we we're trappedin this idea of like get on the
escalator and ride the escalatorto the right destination.
Well, Matt, this has been somuch fun for me.
And I just love your the way youthink about this, the way you
talk about this.
I know you've worked with, Ithink your estimate is 100,000
kids.
I mean, you you've been apresence in the world of of
parenting and education, and I'mlucky to know you and and be, I
(47:28):
feel like an ally and asupporter in in what you're
doing.
Can you actually I feel the sameway, Kelly?
You guys have been doing greatwork.
So let's keep up, keep it uptogether.
Let's do it.
As we wrap up, I like to askpeople this question of somebody
that's kindled a love oflearning for you in your life.
Can you can you give a shout outor think of somebody like that?
SPEAKER_01 (47:46):
Yes.
I had the great pleasure ofhaving being an experiment when
I was in kindergarten, first,and second grade.
I had the same teacher.
It was uh they called it aprimary family in this public
school.
Wow.
And she was my teacher for threeyears, and I just always loved
her.
And, you know, as you canimagine, just that age, and she
(48:08):
was so amazing.
So get get this, Kelly.
So her name is Mrs.
Lewis.
When I went to college and wasin education, I asked to go
student teach at that schoolwhere I went to school.
And I didn't, I wasn't with her,but I go to the I didn't even
know she was still there.
I go to the teacher's loungewith my student teacher advisor,
(48:31):
and she's in the teacher'slounge.
Mrs.
SPEAKER_02 (48:33):
Lewis is sitting there?
SPEAKER_01 (48:34):
Mrs.
Lewis is still there.
And because I was apparently oneof her first couple years she
was teaching, and we reminiscedon that cake environment.
She loved it and thought it wasso good for kids to have kind of
that multi-age group experiencewith which is I have a big
advocate for multi-age groups ofkids.
So we just reminisced on thatand how much he loved it, and
(48:56):
then the district moved awayfrom it because teachers didn't,
you know, some teachers didn'tlike it and wanted to have their
own set year, you know, it'sjust interesting.
What an experience.
But the story doesn't end there.
So we connected, you know, thatwas now 30 years ago that I was
in college and student taught.
I looked her up a few years agoand connected with her.
(49:17):
She had retired and she wasteaching at a micro school on a
farm uh in Heber, Utah.
No, and so I went and visitedher farm micro school where she
was kind of volunteering,teaching, you know, helping them
there.
And it turns out that several ofthe kids in that micro school
(49:38):
were enrolled through open ed.
So that's that full circle.
And then it actually is evencooler.
Last month, when open edge whenthe book launched, I texted out
and emailed out a bunch offriends and everyone, and she
was on the list.
She attended my book launch inMay 2025 of someone who I was in
(50:02):
class in 1975 with.
That's incredible.
So she is my inspiration forthat, Kelly, of someone who has
always cared about kids and me,and I love her uh more than I
can even describe.
SPEAKER_02 (50:17):
Well, this is you can't fake that kind of
connection.
You can't even really teach it.
I mean, you can point to it, butit sounds like a really special
person, and thank you forsharing.
Pretty special.
She's amazing.
Shout out to Mrs.
Lewis, wherever you are, HiverUtah.
Well, Matt, this has been adelight.
Thanks for taking the time, andI wish you all the best with
Open Ed and everything you'redoing.
Let's go ahead.
Lots of kids need this.
(50:38):
Appreciate it.
SPEAKER_00 (50:39):
The Kindled Podcast is brought to you by Prenda.
Prenda makes it easy to startand run an amazing microschool
based on all the ideas we talkabout here on the Kindled
Podcast.
Don't forget to follow us onsocial media at PrendaLearn.
And if you'd like moreinformation about starting a
microschool, just go toPrenda.com.
Thanks for listening andremember to keep Kindling.
Being intentional.
If you if the there's one thingyou want to take away, people
listening, be intentional aboutwhat you're doing with your kids
because you love your kids morethan anything else.
You want what's best for them.
It's time to force yourselfthrough the discomfort of you
know all that pressure.
I I know what I'm doing and whyI'm doing it, and I trust that
this is gonna work out great.
So whatever, yeah, and I agreewith you, Matt.
(00:22):
Whatever you choose, as long asyou're choosing it and not just
sort of allowing it to happen toyou.
Hey, I'm Kelly Smith.
Welcome to the Prenda Podcast.
I'm excited today to be talkingto Matt Bowman.
Matt's an innovator in educationand technology.
He's deeply dedicated totransforming the way children
learn.
He and his wife Amy founded OpenEd together, and the Bowman's
(00:43):
spent over three decades goingall the way back to being a
teenager helping personalizeeducation for kids.
They've combined cutting-edgetechnology with an
entrepreneurial spirit to helpstudents thrive in a rapidly
changing world.
Matt's a former sixth gradeteacher and a tech executive,
and he's been at the forefrontof online education since the
(01:04):
1990s.
We're gonna talk all aboutMatt's journey, the principles
and guiding building blocks thatreally motivate him and drive
him.
And he's built this up overworking with a lot, a lot of
kids over a long period of time.
I think you'll find it superinteresting just to look into
Matt's brain and his soul inthis conversation and hopefully
(01:24):
take something away that canhelp you and your efforts to
empower kids and help otherpeople become learners.
So, with that, let's get intoit.
I'm so excited to be here withMatt Bowman.
Matt is the founder and CEO.
We'll talk about your backgroundspecifically here in a little
bit of open ed and what you'vedone before that.
But Matt, can you give us justlike a quick intro?
And I'd love to start as farback as you're willing to go
(01:47):
with your encounter with thisthing we call school.
SPEAKER_01 (01:52):
Well, it's great to be with you, Kelly.
Uh, so happy with everythingthat Brent has been doing, very
mission-aligned with your work.
So uh I'll go back to birth.
Uh, I was born to two educators.
So there you go.
That's that's the short story.
Um, I started actually my firsteducation company when I was 17.
(02:12):
I ran a summer sports camp forneighborhood kids and just loved
teaching kids stuff.
And then I ended up going tocollege and getting my degree in
elementary education, and justeducator is just in my DNA.
So I even looked up and like Ithink I had a grandma and a
great-grandma that wereteachers, so it goes a long way
(02:35):
back in education in my blood.
SPEAKER_02 (02:37):
And you were a teacher yourself at one point.
Can you talk a little bit aboutyour experience in the
classroom?
What were you hoping that wouldbe and and what was it like?
SPEAKER_01 (02:45):
Yeah, so I taught sixth grade up in Washington
State, loved it.
That age group is just one of myfavorite age groups, honestly.
It's just so exciting to seethat transition from young to
teen to, you know, intoadulthood.
So, you know, to answer yourquestion on what, you know, I I
jumped into teaching thinking I,you know, really wanted to
(03:07):
change the world and help kids,as teachers do, and educators
want to.
Um, you know, looking back, westifle so much of that energy in
the classroom.
Teachers aren't given thatfreedom to just excite and
inspire young minds.
We have turned teaching intotest preppers, and that's it.
(03:30):
And it just drives me crazy.
So, anyway, that was yeah, Ilove teaching.
I loved helping.
We did a lot of self-directedlearning projects.
I really saw that that can workif you give kids space to think
on their own instead of tryingto overly structure every minute
of their day, uh, especiallythat 10 to 14 year old age
(03:50):
group.
I actually got my master'sdegree during that time and
focused my research on the 10 to14 year old forgotten child
because we often treat them as,you know, oh, they're too old
for elementary school, butthey're too young for high
school.
And so it's like, what do you dowith this age group that is, you
know, research shows childdevelopment, they change more
(04:13):
during those four years than anyother time in their life, except
birth to three.
And if we think of birth tothree change, yeah, that's
massive.
And then 10 to 14 year olds,they change the that next most.
SPEAKER_02 (04:28):
Well, they're just crazy.
Wow.
So you were there.
I think it is a special type ofperson that can see the beauty
in that age group.
I you definitely hear, yeah,they they get a bad rap in the
teacher's lounge, let's justsay.
And uh my wife and I were justat a church camp.
We were volunteering with kidsaround that, you know, kind of
the upper end of that age group.
(04:50):
And it's uh it's fascinating.
I mean, you can see that it'snot the most natural thing in
the world to love them the wayyou know you want to scoop up a
baby and and hold them.
And yet, if you can see past allof the shenanigans, there's
something truly beautiful aboutit.
I mean, they're so scared andthey're encountering all these
changes, and that's that'samazing that you were able to
(05:10):
see that as a teacher.
Did you feel like you wereauthorized or allowed to do some
of the student-centered thingsthat you wanted to do?
I mean, tell tell more of yourstory because I think this is
gonna lead to what you've donesince.
SPEAKER_01 (05:22):
Yeah, so it was funny.
I realized that early on,teachers do have a lot of
control.
They have some outsidepressures, but at the end of the
day, depending on your principalor district or whatever, but we
had a really great principal, areally great team, and it was
kind of like just help helpkids.
(05:42):
And it was interesting.
I found myself more accountableto the parents in my classroom
than to the system or toadministrators.
And so as long as I was tryingto communicate well with parents
and say, here's what we'redoing, here's where we're going,
that was a really key learninginsight for me that the parent,
the most engaged parents werethe ones that really were
(06:05):
keeping me on track and makingsure that I was doing things
that were helping theirchildren.
SPEAKER_02 (06:10):
Now, Matt, let's just pause there.
How did that's really rare in atraditional classroom to get
that sense of accountability tothe parents and this idea that
these are my customers and Iwant them to be happy?
You didn't have to feel thatway.
I mean, how did that happen?
I I imagine there were people inthe same building as you running
classes that didn't feel thatway about the the parents.
(06:31):
So, where did that come from foryou and how did you get to that?
SPEAKER_01 (06:34):
Well, you're correct that I was a lone wolf in the in
that sense that not manyteachers shared that perspective
that I had.
And where it came from, I don'tknow.
I think just the generalprinciple, the DNA in me is
we're there to help families.
Like I had the perspective thatparents need help.
(06:57):
And so that's what I was doing.
I was providing a service topartner with the parent to help
raise this fun and energetic11-year-old, right?
And so, you know, it's a goodquestion.
I don't know where it came from.
My mom, her DNA is just helpseverybody.
She just, that is just who sheis, and I've got to give some
(07:17):
credit to her on that.
Just raise me as just always tryto help and and see where people
need help.
And parents, especially of11-year-olds, need help.
And so I wanted to be, you know,help a helpful person for that.
SPEAKER_02 (07:33):
It's interesting to hear you use this word help.
I mean, I think there's beendebate in recent years in
education about whose kids theseare anyway.
That that sort of question.
And, you know, I think there areeducators, and I think it's
well-meaning in in a majority ofcases, that really take primary,
they feel primaryresponsibility.
Like the parents don't know, Ihave to get them to this place.
(07:55):
But even embedded in what you'resaying, you're saying I'm
looking at these parents.
Implicitly, you're saying it'stheir responsibility to raise
the best versions of these youngpeople as they can.
And I see myself as a a helper,a servant to support that cause.
I mean, I would just want tolike, I'm dwelling on this a
little bit extra because I hopeour listeners are reflecting on
(08:17):
just the underlying assumptionsbehind what education even is.
It's not give us your childrenfor 13 years and we'll turn them
into something amazing.
It's let me help you.
And in each case, that'ssomething amazing that I think
everybody wants for theirchildren.
It could look different, right?
And and I will get into thepersonalization aspect of it as
(08:37):
well.
But I think that servantleadership and that desire to
help, like you're talking about,is really at the at the core.
So where did it where to go fromthere?
I mean, you didn't teachforever.
You you spent some time in theclassroom and then you you did
other things.
SPEAKER_01 (08:50):
Well, yeah, well, let me just cite something uh
because I'm I'm glad you wentdeep on that, on that principle
of partnering with families andnot saying that it's the public
school's role to do it all.
Right?
Because and in our book, my wifeand I, we have five children and
we're raising them, and part ofthat story we can get to.
But we I share this, or shewrites this in in the foreword,
(09:14):
assessed how many hours a daychildren are in a traditional
public school setting versus athome.
And we said, you know what,let's allocate ten hours a day
as potential learningopportunities, right?
On a very generous term of whatlearning is, right?
So we said, let's give tenhours.
(09:34):
That's still 14 hours that we'resaying non-learning, which is
probably not even accurate, butwe'll just give ten.
And if there's three hundred andsixty-five days a year, that's
an easy math, that's threehundred and you know, three
thousand six hundred and fiftyhours.
They're only in school, quoteunquote, the public school
setting for like twelve hundredof those hours.
(09:55):
The other thirty, what, uh,twenty thour hundred hours is at
home or under you know directcontrol and supervision of the
parent.
So that's I think what initiatedthat was that the what and and I
and we say this in the book too,I is whatever testing we do in
(10:18):
school, they're measuring what'shappening outside of school more
than what they're measuringinside of school.
And so when I realized that, youknow, 180 days for six and a
half hours or whatever, that'ssuch a small contribution to the
child's uh overall learningexperience that you've gotta
(10:38):
partner with parents.
And it is the parent's primaryrole of education of their
children and tap into all theresources that they can find to
help make their child besuccessful.
SPEAKER_02 (10:50):
Absolutely.
And it's it's so beautiful.
I I want to pause here just aminute and make sure readers
know this book is reallyfascinating.
I'm ordering my copy right now,so I I've just checked out the
intro work.
But the title of the book isOpen Education, and the subtitle
I think is just fascinating (11:04):
How to Reimagine Learning, Ignite
Curiosity, and Prepare Your Kidsfor Success.
Your kids, right?
And and I think getting back towhat we're talking about, I
think that's what parents want.
I happen to be at a conferenceright now.
I'm in Northern Californiameeting with a lot of you know
people thinking hard about thefuture, and it's mostly
(11:24):
technology and things like that.
A lot of these folks don't evenhave kids yet, and yet they're
being proactive, they're askingthemselves questions about what
they want for their kids andwhat kind of family culture do
they want to create, and whateducational opportunities and
you know, what are their valuesand their issues.
So what we're seeing is a ageneration that's coming up
(11:45):
really much more um, I don'tknow, empowered, much more
proactive as opposed to I thinkwhat you know, my parents were
amazing, but I think what theythought was, I'm gonna send my
kid to school and just make surethey do their homework and then
hope that the system does itsthing, right?
SPEAKER_01 (12:00):
Well, no, I mean we could unpack all those things
that you just said.
It's so powerful.
Uh yes, the next generation ofparents, uh even if they have
young kids now or they'rethey're about to have children,
are asking themselves, what isthe role of education, right?
And and and traditional publicschool system.
(12:21):
And I kind of have reflected onthat, you know, we things move
in in you know, let's say 10 oryou know, a couple of decades,
but only 20 years ago or or so,we barely had the internet,
right?
And so then you add in thatmobile phones, and then you
throw in COVID, and what I nowadd is kind of a a messy higher
(12:45):
ed is also then thrown intothat, and Michael Horn and Rick
Christensen predicted that 20years ago, right?
Higher ed would crumble a bit orconsolidate.
But then this last kind of nailin the in the coffin of what is
traditionally the the tr thepath to just be safe is AI.
(13:07):
It literally has within a yearmade everyone question now what
is the future of job, what isthe future of workforce.
That in and of itself is makingevery parent question high
school diploma to collegediploma to career to retire, a
promise that is even legit.
(13:29):
And it's not.
And so you have to startthinking differently about
education, and that's that'swhat's so fun about what we're
what we're involved in doingtogether.
SPEAKER_02 (13:38):
It is totally fun and it's totally interesting.
And I've been shocked to see howmuch of that conversation it
goes quickly from okay, AI'schanged the world and and
learning, and all the all ofthese fundamental things that
we've just assumed, theassumptions are shattered,
right?
And yet the the question and thediscussion becomes what does it
mean to be human?
(13:59):
And what does it mean to be in ahuman relationship and a human
connection?
And that's been one of myfavorite things about
microschools, is just being ableto create this little bubble for
a small group of people to formvery genuine human connections
facilitated by really coolcutting-edge technology, but
it's not about the technology,it's about what education in
some ways has always been about,way before Horace Mann, going
(14:20):
all the way back.
It's about thinking and beingand experiencing this life
together.
So not to get too philosophical.
SPEAKER_01 (14:27):
No, I th I think you'll like a conversation we
had around the dinner table lastweek, which was maybe AI is
going to return us all to ourcommunities because you can't
tell what's real or fake anymorewith AO3.
(14:49):
Like, and so all you can do islet's just return to our
communities.
And micro schools are a perfectexample of let's just connect as
a community, solve communityproblems, you know, rally
together as a community becauseyou just quite frankly can't
trust what you know you might beseeing from some video in
(15:11):
another country, like oranother, like so.
I thought that was reallyinsightful.
Our daughter-in-law shared itwas perhaps the globalization
and stress we've carried uponourselves will start to go away
when you can't trust anythingyou see, and you just got to
return to your friends andneighborhoods.
Super interesting.
SPEAKER_02 (15:30):
I want to say we met 10 years ago, Matt.
I mean, you and I, you were downin Arizona, you you had been
doing some great work in Utaharound in the homeschool
community and helping people getaccess to new resources, really
in line with this.
Can you talk about how My TechHigh started and then you know
how that's evolved?
I want people to understand whatyou're doing right now with open
(15:52):
ed, because I think there'ssomething truly powerful and
exciting about the work you'releading.
SPEAKER_01 (15:57):
Yeah, yeah.
I was down in Arizona.
We were, yeah, I was meetingwith charter schools, kind of
exploring that world, cameacross what Prenda was doing.
Super, always been a big fan ofthe micro school model of really
returning education to its rootsinside the home as the starting
point, but not ending there,right?
Always being able to take thenext, you know, the neighborhood
(16:20):
and then the community and justbranch out from there.
So it's it's fun to kind of gofull circle on that.
So my tech high started in 2009during the time when my wife and
I were raising our fivechildren.
And we were, you know, raisingour five children in a in the
exact same home.
We lived there the whole time.
(16:42):
We had the same cadences, familynights, you know, discussions,
expectations, chore charts onSaturdays, like everything was
very much the same.
And all five children weredifferent, right?
Go figure, right?
Every parent realizes afteryou've had one, the next one is
all you know, they're alldifferent from each other.
(17:04):
And so we started askingourselves, well, if they're so
different from each other,should we have them all do the
exact same schooling experience?
And the answer is no.
So we started saying, Well, whatdoes each child need for their
schooling experience?
Once you just ask that question,it unlocks all kinds of
(17:24):
emotions, right?
Insecurity, doubt, fear,excitement, you know, what's
possible.
So all those roller coasteremotions went, you know, went
through us.
And the a charter school wasjust opening in our town, the
first one, and our son came homeand said, Hey, I want to go to
that charter school.
My friend's going there.
(17:45):
It sounds interesting becauseit's different.
Yeah.
And we thought, no, you can't goto a charter school.
You know, I was a public schoolteacher, they're, you know,
anti-public school, but ofcourse they're not.
And so we looked into it andwe're like, this sounds like a
really good fit for our oldest.
And so we sent him and itstarted in seventh grade or
whatever.
And so then our next son, whenhe got to seventh grade, we sent
(18:08):
him and he liked it.
Our third son came and we senthim and he hated it.
And he said, No way am I stayingthere.
I'm going to the districtschool.
And so all of a sudden, we, youknow, we thought we were all
invested in this new charterschool.
We're everyone's gonna go.
But our third went there for ayear and said, No, thanks, I'm
(18:29):
out.
And we gave him a voice.
We let him say, Maybe that's notthe right fit for me, mom and
dad.
And we said, Oh, well, now we'regonna have to have carpools for
four different schools, right?
And we said, Well, let's justfigure it out.
So that's part of that story, iswe realize then I bet other
families are dealing with thedifferent children that need
(18:53):
something differently.
SPEAKER_02 (18:54):
It's so funny, and I think too often we're so
conditioned on one size fitsall, right?
It's like here's the here's theway this works, and everybody
does it, and there's comfort inthat.
Maybe humans are tribal,inherently tribal, that's part
of how we operate.
But we're scared to then get offthat assembly line and do
something different.
But then what's crazy is eventhe people who do that, and you
(19:15):
guys make this move to a charterschool, you can still get stuck
in one size fits all.
It's just it's a different size.
It's like not that size, thissize, right?
SPEAKER_01 (19:22):
And so Well, that's what that's what really open
education message is is nolonger be constrained by a box
of even the box ofhomeschooling, or oh, do you do
unschooling, or do you doclassical unschool?
Like there's all these boxesinside of homeschooling.
Yeah, and then there's the boxof public school or charters,
(19:44):
you know, district school orcharter school box.
And then there's private schoolbox.
So we're like, break down allthe boxes and just say open
education is tapping intoeverything that works for your
child, period.
Yeah.
You know, even microschoolinghas its own little subset,
right?
Absolutely, yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (20:02):
And it's not again, not for everyone.
There's kids that come and it'slike that's not the right fit
for me.
Maybe it's this micro school andthis culture, or it's like, I
really want to be around likelarge numbers of kids, which
isn't possible in a microschool.
SPEAKER_01 (20:16):
Well, you'll get this.
I was chatting with a with agroup of parents last week, and
one of them said, I felt badwhen my two oldest kids were
loving the microschool, and mythird wasn't.
Because when I moved him to adifferent micro school or a
different co-op or something,everyone said, Well, how why
(20:37):
would you leave your other twoif if you're leaving, it's bad,
it must be bad.
Right?
That emotion is real that if Iif I transfer one kid out, but
leave another kid where theyare, which one am I valu am I
valuing one over the other?
Right.
No, you're just saying what'sworking best for each one each
of them.
SPEAKER_02 (20:56):
Exactly.
And you see this, I mean,enlightened parents today, they
shop, they look into lots ofthings, they're well informed,
and they make choices.
I mean, unfortunately, you doget that drive around town.
I have too many friends that arejust spending their whole days
just driving kids everywhere.
But but to really ask themselveswhat's best for this child.
Give us the rundown.
(21:17):
Open education is kind of theextension or the evolution of
what you guys have been doingwith My Tech High and talk a
little bit about that.
And I I definitely want to getinto these five principles that
you guys have have written downand talked about for open ed.
So will you kind of share alittle bit more about that?
SPEAKER_01 (21:32):
Yeah, for sure.
So let me just end with our uhyounger children as they came,
they ended up doing much moreflexible of everything, right?
Including the final one, justworked on her associate degree
in the morning and then met herfriends for lunch, release time,
and ceramics, and was athree-sport athlete.
And so it was just like thetotal mix of everything we've
(21:55):
been talking about, we saw inour youngest finally come to
pass.
And so that was super cool.
And with my tech high, we'vebeen running it, you know, since
2009.
Last year, my wife and I, whohave been, you know, we
co-founded it together.
We've been pretty much, youknow, we're not business
management people by DNA.
(22:15):
We're educators.
And since COVID, the spike ofenrollment never went away
because people loved what theyfound when they got personalized
education.
We were really looking for ateam of experienced business
people to run it.
So last July, July 1st, so we'recoming on our one-year
anniversary, we hired anexecutive team to come in, and I
(22:35):
stepped down as CEO.
We hired an executive team torun it, and they have just been
phenomenal.
And it was funny.
The first thing that they saidafter they got into the business
a little bit said, My tech highdoesn't describe what you do.
That doesn't sound naturallywhat you're doing.
SPEAKER_02 (22:59):
Yeah, which there is a high tech high that people get
confused.
SPEAKER_01 (23:03):
They think it was the high tech high of San Diego.
Right.
They think you're, you know,just focused on tech and STEM,
and in fact, and and that you'rea high school, and in fact, our
average age is like nine.
So, you know, Matt, your brandis a little bit off.
And we said, Yeah, that's kindof been the sense since day one,
(23:25):
but we didn't know how to changeit, right?
Yeah.
And they came in and within amonth, they said, We're
rebranding as open ed.
Okay.
And and they're like, Matt, wewant you to write a book called
Open Education.
Document everything that you'vedone over 30 years working with
kids, write it down, and thatwill be the headline message of
(23:45):
open up your child's education,tap into everything that works
from microschooling tohomeschooling to districts to
charters to public to whatever.
Like, don't say, don't, don'tjudge any one category as
negative.
And so that's really what theopenness of it is.
And so that we rebranded from mytech high to open ed last fall,
(24:08):
uh, and it's just beenphenomenal.
And now they're growing a ton,and and the message is going out
there of people just takeadopting what we say, adopting
the open ed mindset.
Those are the five buildingblocks that you're referencing.
That yeah, I'd love to just kindof go through some of those and
help people.
SPEAKER_02 (24:28):
I think it's important help people begin to
do it.
Yeah, because you're gonna getpeople listening to this that
are thinking, yeah, sure, thesethese lofty ideas, but where
where do I actually you makechanges in my life?
So, yeah, can we can we gothrough these five building
blocks together?
I have them written down, or youprobably know them by them.
SPEAKER_01 (24:47):
I yeah, so you're right.
It can be so overwhelming andcause so much stress to try to
adopt an open-ed mindset.
But this book really breaks itdown to the very basics.
Like it is accessible, it'sreadable, it's not a textbook,
and it has some very practicalexercises any family can do to
(25:08):
just increase a little bit oftheir openness and start to see
what that feels like.
So, yeah, I'll just run throughthese real quick.
First one, embrace your child'suniqueness.
You know this.
How many children do you have,Kelly?
SPEAKER_02 (25:21):
I have four.
Yeah, they're all different,just like they're all different.
SPEAKER_01 (25:25):
So start there.
Start by saying, you know what?
Yeah, every child's different,and maybe their education should
be too.
Yeah, right.
That's the that's the firstbuilding block, is just
acknowledge they're notsameness, they're not identical.
And how in the world can onesingle system serve something so
(25:46):
unique as a human child?
Right.
Right?
So embrace that uniqueness.
Uh, and I love that.
And and part of one of thestories we share in that is the
Air Force back in the day did astudy of like 10,000 attributes
of pilots, and they designed aperfectly average cockpit seat
for pilots, and it increasedinjuries and even deaths because
(26:10):
nobody fit it.
SPEAKER_02 (26:12):
It was no one.
Todd Todd Rose tells this story.
We've had him.
SPEAKER_01 (26:15):
Yeah, no, that's that's what we cite.
We cite Todd Rose's story ofthat.
It's is that nobody fits it.
SPEAKER_02 (26:20):
Yeah, it's it's a powerful like illustration of
this idea that there is no suchthing as that one size that you
just designed the whole thing.
The myth of the average studentis what part of that beautiful
chapter is.
Beautiful.
All right, let's go to the nextone.
SPEAKER_01 (26:37):
Building block number two, this is a powerful
one.
Put your kids before yourreputation.
I can't tell you how many peopleI've talked to that says, Well,
if I tell my aunts and uncles atthe next family barbecue or
family reunion that I'm doingsomething different, they're
just gonna lay into me as a badparent.
(26:57):
Or I need to be able to say, Oh,Johnny's going to, you know,
this college or this university,or he's pre-med, or, you know, I
have to be able to say thesethings because of my own
reputation instead of sayingwhat's best for my child.
So we really hit that head onand say, this could be the
biggest stumbling block isputting you your children ahead
(27:18):
of your reputation.
Have you seen that?
SPEAKER_02 (27:21):
I absolutely have.
I mean, you can think of it atat so many levels, but yeah, I
think the the fear is sopowerful, you know, and we're
very attuned to think about whatother people are are thinking of
us.
And as I think parents, we getwe feel it even more acutely,
because I think the the realityis imposter syndrome is the
norm, right?
(27:41):
We we all have no idea whatwe're doing.
That first baby comes home fromthe hospital and you're just
looking at each other like, Ican't believe they let us take
this this child.
Exactly.
And it really is like we wedon't know.
There are people with goodideas, but you don't you don't
know anything, and and you knowthat.
And so then if someone comes atyou with I mean, this is a very
minor version of this story, butwe had our first kid in in
(28:04):
Massachusetts, it was a littlebit more, I don't know, like
hippie-ish, like the the ummedical profession just had
different ideas about somethings than maybe we had grown
up with.
And the pediatrician, she wasawesome, she saved our baby's
life, actually.
Who there were somecomplications, and I'll always
love her, but she was sodisgusted that we weren't that
(28:26):
our the diet didn't include goatcheese.
She she was like, You need to begiving goat cheese to the baby,
like as he got a little bigger.
And I remember being like, Wedon't eat goat cheese.
Like, I don't even know, I don'tknow anyone that eats goat
cheese.
Like, I remember these like youknow, podong kicks from out
west, and and it was like, Iremember being feeling so
(28:46):
judged, and and it was it wasweird.
Like, I'm sure she just meant itas an off-handed comment, but
for us, it was like we're doingeverything wrong.
Oh no, you're wrong, yeah.
And it doesn't feel good, likeso.
Your ego's screaming at you toplease not do the weird thing
because if these comments come,like your ego says, We can't, we
can't handle this, we gotta juststay in line, do what everyone
(29:07):
else does.
And I love that you're justgiving it a name and saying,
don't allow your your that fear,that rep reputational fear to
get in the way of what youinstinctively know to be right,
which is your child is I mean,you you do want what's best for
your child.
SPEAKER_01 (29:22):
Trust your instinct, yeah.
And part of that too is youknow, one of the stories, I'll
just share a quick story fromthat chapter, which is Isaac was
doing an apprenticeship programfor an alternative to college
and meeting with a mom with adaughter that was a college
graduate and a son that was hadjust dropped out of college.
And she said, Quote, I wish myson were more like my daughter.
(29:47):
And so Isaac dug deeper andsaid, Tell me about your
daughter.
And she said, Oh, she's alwaysjust gotten perfect grades, she
graduated from college, but now,you know, he's like, Well,
what's she doing now?
Well, she's has high anxiety,depression.
She has a big you know debt, andshe can't find a job in her
(30:08):
profession, so she's unemployedright now, just living in my
basement.
And he said, Okay, but she wasgreat, she followed all the
rules, right?
And he said, She's and Isaacsaid, Well, tell me about your
son that you're so concernedabout.
He took one semester college,dropped out, he's making five
thousand dollars a month runninga business that he started
(30:30):
himself, and he won't ever goback to college, and he's happy
as can be and thriving.
It's crazy.
But because she couldn't tellher grandma that he was in
college, she criticized hischoice.
Yeah, and it was just soeye-opening that that happens
over and over again.
Parents need to get past thatand be able to say, what I want
(30:53):
to answer is that my child isthriving.
Right.
It's not that they are justfollowing a prescripted path.
SPEAKER_02 (31:00):
Yeah, it's beautiful.
And the fear in that is I don'tknow if I trust myself to be the
judge of thriving.
And it's easier in some ways,feels safer to allow external,
you know, arbitrary standards,literal academic standards,
credentials, degrees, you know,career track, progression,
resumes, like all these thingsthat we've come to accept as the
(31:20):
scoreboard.
It's like at least I can pointto the scoreboard and say, well,
look, you know, doing great.
But not doing great, I think isthe whole point.
And so, yeah, I love this one.
It's it's so great.
SPEAKER_01 (31:31):
All right, building block number three, map the
learning landscape.
So this is where it gets reallytactical for families.
We invite families to do kind ofa what we call an interests,
needs, and resource analysis.
What that means is try to figureout what you or your child is
interested in.
So that takes some time.
(31:51):
You have to kind of detox themfrom a structured world and
environment to observe what theydo when they don't have to do
anything.
Start identifying what they'reinterested in naturally, and
also equally important, whatthey really are not interested
in.
Like make a list of both sidesis helpful sometimes.
Is and yes, things change andkids change, and so let it be
(32:13):
fluid, but identify some thingsthat they are naturally
interested in and things thatthey just aren't naturally
interested in.
And each child's different andkind of navigate that.
Once you kind of identify whattheir their interest lists are,
at least today, which couldchange tomorrow, but later on
we'll talk about the fifth oneis uh two-week learner-driven
(32:33):
sprint.
So only go two weeks out.
So that's and that's okay.
So, anyway, to identify the kidsas interests and then sync those
with family and community needs.
That's an important threshold.
You can't just say, oh, kid canexplore whatever they want that
they're interested in.
(32:54):
There's some sort of needs thatthe family and community have
that you need to sync with theirinterests.
Now, the better you can alignthe interests with needs, the
more learning occurs.
Like the magic happens whenthose work really well together.
When a family is all interestedin something and that there's a
need to go solve or to help orto contribute, that's where some
(33:17):
real magic occurs.
But then wrap around those needsand the the balance of your
interests and your needs withthe resources available to you.
And we start with free.
Like that's a great place tostart.
There's lots of resources thatare free and good quality.
So take it from free all the wayup to fee.
(33:39):
Wherever that scale goes foryou, decide do you need to make
financial adjustments in yourlife because some of those
fee-based resources are valuableenough that you want to give up
some portion of your budget tofund?
Or if not, figure out where thebest line of free resources or
really low-cost ones exist.
(34:01):
And there really are so many.
So it's like identify yourfamily's interests, your child's
interests, what are the needs,and then wrap around what are
the resources I have at myfingertips in the home, in the
neighborhood, online, in thecommunity, from mentors to you
know, business coaches to tutorsto AI support to Khan Academy,
(34:23):
everything along the line.
And you know, microschools, ofcourse, in that is a resource
and often a very low-cost,affordable, accessible resource
that you can access along thatspectrum of free to fee.
SPEAKER_02 (34:38):
That's beautiful.
Okay, so you've done all that.
The parents have sort of madethis map and they've tried to
figure out is now the time tojust sort of like hand it to the
kid, be like, hey, I've come upwith your personalized plan.
This is what you're doing.
SPEAKER_01 (34:52):
No, that's that's building block four is treat
them as an equal equity partnerin the in the boardroom, right?
Give your child a voice.
You'd just be surprised at howlittle will trust a voice of a
child and and just say, we knowbetter.
Yeah.
Now, yes, there's all the adultsneed to be adults in the room
and provide some structure, buteven our open ed, our open ed
(35:16):
logo is a parentheses, not an Ofor a reason.
You have to fill, you know,yeah, fill in the blank, but
there are some structures aroundthe edges.
Yeah, and we even like quoting aparent strategy that I learned
from BYU when I was there, whichis love, limits, and latitude.
Show a whole lot of love, givelimits and structure, but then
(35:38):
figure out the latitude amongstall that love and lit and
limits.
So the same thing with yourchild.
Give them a voice, let themagain.
This parent conversation I hadlast week, someone said, My
daughter just hates math.
Say, well, you know what?
It might be that she hasn'tfound a curriculum that has
clicked with her brain yet.
Ask her to go find the math thatsyncs with her brain and come
(36:02):
back and report to you.
And she's like 12, right?
Yeah.
And the parent said, Can they dothat?
Yes.
Is that allowed?
Yeah.
Have your 12-year-old goresearch and do demo, you know,
demo accounts for a bunch ofdifferent programs or get the
books and check them out of thelibrary, whatever.
Let her research the best mathprogram for her.
(36:26):
That's giving them a voiceinstead of just saying it's
adult, you know, adult imposed.
Just sit in this chair, we'regonna do math to you, right?
SPEAKER_02 (36:34):
Yeah, it's a very different experience.
Yeah, we we spend the firstcouple weeks of every student's
experience in apprenticeschoolreally saying, like, let's try
out some things.
Like, let's try this one on, trythat one on.
And then we don't wedeliberately hold off on our big
goal setting because we wantkids climbing a mountain and
staying focused, but we wait awhile to do that until they've
had a chance to, you know, justparticipate.
(36:55):
And then our our big meetingwhere that goal setting happens,
it's called our GPS meeting.
That's the guide, parent, andstudent sitting down together
and charting that course.
Really, it's incrediblypowerful.
And I know that's so awesome.
SPEAKER_01 (37:08):
That's exactly what exactly the future of education
looks like, Kelly.
Like it's seriously, that iswhere we all need to be.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (37:16):
Well, parents, if you're listening, you can do
this without being part ofPrenda or without being part of
anything.
You just, you know, do do whatMatt's talking about, like map
the landscape, try some thingsout, listen to your kid, and
then sit down together.
And you'd be surprised.
This is another thing that, youknow, I wasn't sure where this
would go, right?
People think, okay, you let thekids set the goal, then maybe
they're gonna set easy goals.
(37:37):
Like, I just want to eat pizzaand play video games.
Our average goal is 1.8 gradelevels worth of math.
So if you think of going toschool for a year, you would get
1.0 grade levels of content, butwe're measuring mastery, so it's
actually a different thing,right?
You're you're really learningthe full material.
So 1.8 means almost two fullgrade levels.
Almost two years, yeah.
(37:58):
And kids don't achieve that,they achieve 1.3 in the
microschools.
It's like they're shooting high.
And the fact that they'rewilling to do that says a lot
about these kids.
I think we just, like you said,we don't trust them to take that
ownership.
And and I think you and I haveboth seen it enough times to
say, hey, give these kids achance because they'll they'll
surprise you, even the ones thatyou've labeled already as a
(38:19):
problem or broken in some way.
SPEAKER_01 (38:21):
One and maybe especially.
Yeah, especially they justhaven't felt like they had the
reins to click their own way.
Yeah.
Yeah, no, I just love that.
And and just adding thattrusting them, you know, kind of
modeling for them, hey, this isyour life.
This is, you know, you'regrowing up yourself.
Like, how can we help you becomethe adult and future person you
(38:44):
want to become?
It's not just on me to make allthat happen.
Like, you know, this is a jointeffort together.
Incredible.
Let's let's solve that together.
I love it.
SPEAKER_02 (38:53):
Well, let's talk about the fifth building block.
We've got these sprints that youwere referring to.
Give us a sort of a picture andan example of what that might
look like.
SPEAKER_01 (39:00):
Yeah, it's once you identify need the interests,
needs, and resources, invite thechild to do a self-learner
project for two weeks.
What do you want to study?
What do you want to learn about?
Dinosaurs, the moon,entrepreneurship, rockets, like
whatever it is that they'reinterested in.
Just say, great, study that fora couple weeks.
(39:22):
We're the resources that we cancircle and feed you with and
prepare a presentation of somesort of showcase night in two
weeks of what you've learned andcelebrate it with food or pizza,
ice cream, whatever, and havethe the have everybody just
share what they've learned overthe last couple weeks.
SPEAKER_03 (39:41):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (39:42):
And it's not much more structured than that.
Like, don't go overstructured.
Yeah.
And what's fun is inviting themto figure out how they want to
present is also fun.
Uh do they want to create alittle card game or board game
or a Kahoot or a you know, uh,you know, a stop motion
animation film, or you know, ora poster board or a food, like
(40:05):
whatever it is, right?
You pick how you share it also.
SPEAKER_02 (40:10):
Wow.
Yeah, I can imagine.
I I I'm picturing myself in oneof those rooms with parents who
are genuinely interested andkids who feel high agency and
high autonomy and driven.
And then I think what the resultis is engagement through the
roof, but also learning thatwill blow you away.
You just again, I think weundersell what these kids are
(40:30):
capable of, and we think we haveto sort of overscript it all and
just push, push, push.
And we're in that tug of warthat's frankly unproductive in
so many ways.
SPEAKER_01 (40:38):
Well, it is.
We actually cite in our bookresearch, uh, a research study
around it.
Turns out the more we try tostructure learning, the less
learning occurs.
SPEAKER_02 (40:50):
Katie from our team does a demo with our guides
because we're training them onthis, and um, she'll have
somebody stand up and she'lljust start pushing against their
hands, you know.
And and if you if you're pushingon their hands, they push back.
It's like this instinctivereaction.
It's like then she pushes harderand harder, and she's not like a
super big, strong person, butshe's pushing really hard and
they're pushing, and then she'slike, Okay, now let's try it
(41:11):
again.
And she just sort of like letsgo, and they just kind of like
you know, it's it's just easy.
Like they they come in, and um,I think there's just so much
power in in doing that.
Now that sounds fluffy, andthere's ways of doing that.
What you're describing with loveand limits and latitude.
I it's not just the principle ofit.
There's some tactics and someadvice here that there really
(41:31):
are.
SPEAKER_01 (41:31):
And we spent a good chunk of the book talking about
the of this chapter, the valueof play and unstructured play,
and how our society has gone waytoo far away from unstructured,
uncontrolled by adults play.
Yeah.
There is so much learning thatcan happen both in the play
(41:52):
itself and the idea thatespecially young boys learn best
when they're physicallyexhausted.
And I I tell that to as manyparents of young boys as I can.
If you if they're havingstruggle, if if they're
struggling learning some mathprinciple, have them go run
around for two hours outside andcome back and they might get it
(42:15):
in five minutes.
But if you keep going for twohours on math, they're never
gonna get it.
Right.
Powerful.
SPEAKER_02 (42:23):
Well, I I love these building blocks.
I hope people check out the bookand find, you know, just ways to
apply this.
I know you guys have given a lotof really good examples, and I
just would love to see a worldwhere every parent feels one
that they're even allowed to askthese questions and think
differently.
It's just this permission idea.
But then once you're once you'vemade that leap, it's getting
(42:44):
over the fear.
And then how do I actually, youknow, turn our family culture
into a culture of learning?
Now that's whether you'rehomeschooling or choosing an
alternative path of some sort,or yeah, right.
SPEAKER_01 (42:56):
If you choose to go to your local public school as
the resource and solution,that's great.
Totally.
As long as you've started withthis is the right fit for my
child.
Like we don't we don't bash onone or the other.
Yeah.
Just conscientiously,intentionally choose it instead
of just have it be a default.
SPEAKER_02 (43:16):
Being intentional.
If you there's one thing youwant to take away, people
listening, be intentional aboutwhat you're doing with your kids
because this is, I mean, youlove your kids more than
anything else.
You want what's best for them.
It's just, it's time to andforce yourself through the
discomfort of you know, all thatthat pressure.
You hear stories from thehomeschoolers, right?
That you know, people willcorner your kid and start giving
(43:38):
them math facts just to see iflike you're really teaching
anything.
It's like people can be kind ofawful to each other.
You have to somehow allow thatto be their problem and you're
not worried about it, right?
I know what I'm doing and whyI'm doing it, and I trust that
this is gonna work out great.
So, whatever, yeah, I and Iagree with you, Matt.
Whatever you choose, as long asyou're choosing it and not just
sort of allowing it to happen toyou.
SPEAKER_01 (44:00):
And then we do wrap up the book with open education
pathways after high school.
Yeah, let's talk a little bitabout that.
Oh, well, you know, whatevertime, but I just wanted to point
out that sometimes we resistmaking changes in the K-12 world
because we're afraid of whatwill happen after high school.
(44:20):
Yes.
So just know that there are somany options, open education
pathways after high school, fromentrepreneurship to early
college, if you need it.
Start with your why, vocationalindustry certifications,
apprenticeships, internships.
You know, what we we say what'sold is new again, and that's
(44:40):
from learning from others whowho are in the business that you
want to be in already.
Go ask them for guidance,coaching, mentorship, and and
the old apprenticeship model isreal and alive.
Like you can do that, and youdon't have to just have one
singular four-year universitydegree, is no longer a promise
(45:01):
that fulfills for almostanybody.
SPEAKER_02 (45:04):
It's uh such a powerful point.
I mean, I look back at my firstmicro school in my house was
2018.
There were seven kids in thatclass, and the youngest of them
are now just graduating fromhigh school.
So I'm I'm I've followed thesekids, right?
One of them's married with ababy, one of them's off kind of
pursuing a fast-moving, likeEast Coast lifestyle, one of
them is doing uh very vocationalwork.
(45:26):
I just talked to one of the oneof the younger ones, um, is
doing an apprenticeship programin electrical work, and he's
really excited to do that.
Uh, and then there's another onethat's you know, my son just
graduated, he was in that thatclass, and he's planning on, you
know, going to college and andtaking a high finance world.
So they're all different, andyou could almost see it at the
time too.
(45:47):
Right.
It's fascinating to see how, butI think there's so much anxiety,
and it's almost like you want tojust invite everyone to breathe
together.
SPEAKER_01 (45:53):
It's like, let's take some breaths and just yeah,
I tell that story of I waschatting with a dad whose
daughter was miserable, and itwas April of that year, and I
said, just kind of to challengehim.
I said, Don't send her back therest of the school year.
Like there was five weeks leftor something, and see if you
know, see she see how she does.
(46:14):
And he said, Can I do that?
I said, Yeah, write an write anote, whatever your state
requires to excuse her.
And then he said, Okay, my otherconcern is will she get into a
good college still if I if Itake her out for the remainder
of the year?
And I was thinking she was ajunior or senior or something,
and so that's why he was worriedabout her.
(46:34):
And I said, How old's yourdaughter?
Like, who are we talking about?
And he said, She's eight.
And I said, friend, take her outtoday.
Don't ever carry the stress ofwill she get into a good college
right now?
Like, drop that and focus on herhealth, well-being, joy, love of
(46:56):
learning.
Like that will be the gift yougive her, better than pressure
to get into a good college in12, 13 years from now.
SPEAKER_02 (47:04):
Powerful advice.
Yeah, I think we we're trappedin this idea of like get on the
escalator and ride the escalatorto the right destination.
Well, Matt, this has been somuch fun for me.
And I just love your the way youthink about this, the way you
talk about this.
I know you've worked with, Ithink your estimate is 100,000
kids.
I mean, you you've been apresence in the world of of
parenting and education, and I'mlucky to know you and and be, I
(47:28):
feel like an ally and asupporter in in what you're
doing.
Can you actually I feel the sameway, Kelly?
You guys have been doing greatwork.
So let's keep up, keep it uptogether.
Let's do it.
As we wrap up, I like to askpeople this question of somebody
that's kindled a love oflearning for you in your life.
Can you can you give a shout outor think of somebody like that?
SPEAKER_01 (47:46):
Yes.
I had the great pleasure ofhaving being an experiment when
I was in kindergarten, first,and second grade.
I had the same teacher.
It was uh they called it aprimary family in this public
school.
Wow.
And she was my teacher for threeyears, and I just always loved
her.
And, you know, as you canimagine, just that age, and she
(48:08):
was so amazing.
So get get this, Kelly.
So her name is Mrs.
Lewis.
When I went to college and wasin education, I asked to go
student teach at that schoolwhere I went to school.
And I didn't, I wasn't with her,but I go to the I didn't even
know she was still there.
I go to the teacher's loungewith my student teacher advisor,
(48:31):
and she's in the teacher'slounge.
Mrs.
SPEAKER_02 (48:33):
Lewis is sitting there?
SPEAKER_01 (48:34):
Mrs.
Lewis is still there.
And because I was apparently oneof her first couple years she
was teaching, and we reminiscedon that cake environment.
She loved it and thought it wasso good for kids to have kind of
that multi-age group experiencewith which is I have a big
advocate for multi-age groups ofkids.
So we just reminisced on thatand how much he loved it, and
(48:56):
then the district moved awayfrom it because teachers didn't,
you know, some teachers didn'tlike it and wanted to have their
own set year, you know, it'sjust interesting.
What an experience.
But the story doesn't end there.
So we connected, you know, thatwas now 30 years ago that I was
in college and student taught.
I looked her up a few years agoand connected with her.
(49:17):
She had retired and she wasteaching at a micro school on a
farm uh in Heber, Utah.
No, and so I went and visitedher farm micro school where she
was kind of volunteering,teaching, you know, helping them
there.
And it turns out that several ofthe kids in that micro school
(49:38):
were enrolled through open ed.
So that's that full circle.
And then it actually is evencooler.
Last month, when open edge whenthe book launched, I texted out
and emailed out a bunch offriends and everyone, and she
was on the list.
She attended my book launch inMay 2025 of someone who I was in
(50:02):
class in 1975 with.
That's incredible.
So she is my inspiration forthat, Kelly, of someone who has
always cared about kids and me,and I love her uh more than I
can even describe.
SPEAKER_02 (50:17):
Well, this is you can't fake that kind of
connection.
You can't even really teach it.
I mean, you can point to it, butit sounds like a really special
person, and thank you forsharing.
Pretty special.
She's amazing.
Shout out to Mrs.
Lewis, wherever you are, HiverUtah.
Well, Matt, this has been adelight.
Thanks for taking the time, andI wish you all the best with
Open Ed and everything you'redoing.
Let's go ahead.
Lots of kids need this.
(50:38):
Appreciate it.
SPEAKER_00 (50:39):
The Kindled Podcast is brought to you by Prenda.
Prenda makes it easy to startand run an amazing microschool
based on all the ideas we talkabout here on the Kindled
Podcast.
Don't forget to follow us onsocial media at PrendaLearn.
And if you'd like moreinformation about starting a
microschool, just go toPrenda.com.
Thanks for listening andremember to keep Kindling.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Ruthie's Table 4
For more than 30 years The River Cafe in London, has been the home-from-home of artists, architects, designers, actors, collectors, writers, activists, and politicians. Michael Caine, Glenn Close, JJ Abrams, Steve McQueen, Victoria and David Beckham, and Lily Allen, are just some of the people who love to call The River Cafe home. On River Cafe Table 4, Rogers sits down with her customers—who have become friends—to talk about food memories. Table 4 explores how food impacts every aspect of our lives. “Foods is politics, food is cultural, food is how you express love, food is about your heritage, it defines who you and who you want to be,” says Rogers. Each week, Rogers invites her guest to reminisce about family suppers and first dates, what they cook, how they eat when performing, the restaurants they choose, and what food they seek when they need comfort. And to punctuate each episode of Table 4, guests such as Ralph Fiennes, Emily Blunt, and Alfonso Cuarón, read their favourite recipe from one of the best-selling River Cafe cookbooks. Table 4 itself, is situated near The River Cafe’s open kitchen, close to the bright pink wood-fired oven and next to the glossy yellow pass, where Ruthie oversees the restaurant. You are invited to take a seat at this intimate table and join the conversation. For more information, recipes, and ingredients, go to https://shoptherivercafe.co.uk/ Web: https://rivercafe.co.uk/ Instagram: www.instagram.com/therivercafelondon/ Facebook: https://en-gb.facebook.com/therivercafelondon/ For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iheartradio app, apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com