What Is the Best Way to Crush Entrepreneurial Spirit? Force Children to Take an Entrepreneurship Class!
Gallup recently shared the results of their annual poll on entrepreneurial ambition among American students.[1] In the prior five years of polling, 33% to 35% of high school students indicated that they planned to start their own business. This year that number dropped to a lowly 27%. This drop would not necessarily be noteworthy, if not for the unending emphasis that educators, economists, and politicians have placed on the importance of cultivating an entrepreneurial spirit in the next generation.
The focus on entrepreneurship is well placed. We have entered a period of technological advancement that is unprecedented in the history of humankind, and it is accelerating at an exponential pace. Within the next few decades, it is predicted that half of the jobs on earth will become obsolete, and many futurists believe that we will hit technological singularity.[2][3] Most young people are not going to have the luxury of getting a degree or learning a trade, and settling into a job for the duration of their adult life. They are going to be forced to constantly evaluate their skillset and their place in the world, acquire new skills as necessary, and create opportunities that allow them to provide value to others in a rapidly evolving marketplace. In the past, an entrepreneurial mindset was a lifeline for those who could not stand to work for others, but in the future, it will become a necessity to survive.
While the interest in entrepreneurship among high school students hit a low, Gallup pointed out that a majority (55%) of middle school students plan to start their own business. Gallup suggested that the 2:1 ratio in entrepreneurial ambition between the groups may be a result of goals changing with age, although that would not explain the widening gap between the two groups. Gallup also posited that familiarity may result in decreased interest in entrepreneurship among students. On that point, Gallup is part wrong, part right.
Gallup is part wrong because there is evidence that being introduced to entrepreneurship at a young age increases, rather than decreases the likelihood that one becomes an entrepreneur. This is particularly the case for children of entrepreneurs, who are two to three times more likely to become entrepreneurs than their peers who were not raised in entrepreneurial households.[4] Therefore, the phenomenon of student interest in entrepreneurship decreasing as academic entrepreneurial offerings increase needs to be scrutinized.
Gallup is part right because the wrong type of familiarity breeds contempt. Gallup points out that high school students were twice as likely as middle school students to have access to classes on entrepreneurship. In line with the counterintuitive reality of education, the more that learning experiences are formalized into curriculum, tested, and graded, the less likely it is that students will want to engage in that experience once class has ended. If you want to crush the entrepreneurial spirit in students, force them to take an entrepreneurship class.
Furthermore, schooling, with or without entrepreneurship classes, impedes an entrepreneurial orientation in students because it produces a risk averse mindset.[5] By virtue of high school students having on average four more years of schooling than middle school students, they are less likely to be able to tolerate the ambiguity and uncertainty of an entrepreneurial existence.
As opposed to Gallup’s misguided proposals for more academic offerings, schools should immediately drop entrepreneurship classes, entrepreneur workshops, and startup fairs if they are interested in fostering an entrepreneurial spirit in their students. Instead, schools need to step aside and allow students to engage in self-directed learning experiences in real world contexts so that young people can experience the challenges and joys of entrepreneurship in a low risk setting.
1. US High School Students’ Entrepreneurial Ambition at New Low (Gallup)
2. For example, Thomas Frey has claimed that 2 billion jobs will disappear by 2030.
3. Kurzweil Claims That the Singularity Will Happen by 2045 (Futurism)
4. Like Father, Like Son? (Entrepreneur)
5. http://www.abrome.com/blog/2017/4/21/does-self-directed-learning-create-an-its-all-about-me-problem
Elon Musk Does Not Care Whether You Have a College Degree. Why Should You?
While the Abrome YouTube channel has only eight videos on it, we have over half a million views. 99.95% of those views come from a video of super-entrepreneur Elon Musk insisting that when it comes to hiring talent for his team, that he could care less where candidates graduated from college, much less if they graduated from college at all.[1]
In the clip, Musk is asked by the interviewer which colleges or universities he is most interested in hiring from. He responds that it does not even matter if a candidate has a college degree, or a high school degree. He acknowledges that a top university can serve as a signal that a candidate might be “capable of great things,” but clearly that is not sufficient to justify bringing one on his team.
Abrome Weekly Update: April 29, 2017
We are going to bring our supporters a brief weekly update whenever Abrome is in session. The first few updates have been pretty basic, but we expect that future updates will begin to hone in on particular aspects of Emancipated Learning, and how that plays out at Abrome. Please keep coming back to check in on us.
School Children Need Summer Camp, But Should Not Go
Now that the school year is winding down, many parents and their children are shifting their focus to a wide variety of camps to fill up the summer calendar. Some parents simply need daycare for their children when school is out. Others want their children to be able to finally relax and have fun around same-aged peers after a painful academic year. Other parents see summer camp as an opportunity to give children experiences that the schools do not provide, such as outdoor experiences. Many parents are eyeing up sports camps to give their children an edge on the athletic field. A growing faction of parents want the camps to provide their children with skills they deem valuable for the future, such as coding camps. And many parents see camps as opportunities for academic enrichment and training. We want to lay out some points of consideration for parents as they think through their options.[1]
The benefits of summer camp
Summer camps can be fun. Climbing mountains, building go-carts, playing basketball, and creating art or music are experiences that can bring pleasure to one’s life. Further, being placed in a new environment allows young people the opportunity to meet others and begin building new relationships.
Summer camps can be vital recharging opportunities for young people who are enrolled in high pressure, coercive schools. Students who are academic overachievers or come from families who put a lot of pressure on them to excel face high levels of stress that lead to long-term chronic health issues, decreased intellectual vitality, and mental health challenges. Students who are academic underachievers often see schools as centers of torture. Summer camps can allow them to temporarily make a clean break from school so they can attempt to heal.
Summer camps can provide a release for young people who feel trapped in school. Traditional schools are authoritarian, hierarchical environments with restrictive rules and guidelines that strip students of autonomy. Students who have a high sense of autonomy respond to schools as if they were prisons.
Summer camps broaden young people’s horizons. In new environments, freed from the many restrictions of school, young people are more likely to dive into new experiences and to enjoy them, particularly without the assessment and grading that is associated with schooling.
Summer camps help get young people moving. In school, young people are mostly confined to a desk during the day. Occasional recess, physical education class, or after school activities cannot undo a sedentary lifestyle. Scaling rock faces, canoeing down rivers, swimming laps, and kicking around soccer balls are great ways to get children to do what they do naturally—move.
Summer camps can allow young people to build relationships with those who are younger and older than them. At school, young people are often segregated by age, and the only people they get to interact with who are not their age are authority figures. Because summer camps are often comprised of young people from a variety of age groups, as well as camp counselors, summer camps are good environments for young people to more appropriately develop their social skills.
Summer camps can provide enrichment experiences that allow young people to develop in ways that they are not able to at school, or they can position them for future success in school by giving them a head start. Additionally, select summer camp experiences may provide some resume bullets or essay fodder for those who plan to apply to highly competitive colleges and universities.
The downsides of summer camp
Summer camps limit opportunities for self-discovery. Summertime is often an escape from school, where young people can take the time necessary to focus on themselves, and to process their life experiences. However, young people cannot do so if they are being placed in camps that eat away the summer.
Human beings benefit tremendously from unstructured free play. Unstructured free play increases creativity, permits young people to seek out new learning experiences, improves problem solving, and improves mental health. The optimal amount of unstructured free play is unlimited unstructured free play. Summer camps infringe upon the opportunity for unlimited free play, and many camps are so regimented and structured that free play is not an option.
Summer camps continue to segregate young people from society. Students spend all year holed away in a school where they do not have the opportunity to regularly interact with people three or four years older or younger than them, much less with the rest of society. By placing young people in summer camps during the summer, they are still prevented from taking their rightful place in society and having the opportunity to interact with people of all ages.
Summer camps are often captive experiences that the young person cannot opt out of, or does not have the freedom or ability to restructure. This can inhibit their sense of autonomy in school- or prison-like ways.
Summer camps only run during the summer. Acknowledging the potential benefits of summer camp, they have a very short shelf life, and then young people are sent back to school.
A better alternative
The listed benefits of summer camp outpace the listed downsides of summer camp. However, the downsides are substantially heavier than the benefits. That is why young people should not be sent away to summer camp as some sort of medicine to offset the schooling experience, or as a supplement to schooling.
A temporary reprieve from the oppressive experiences of schooling is not sufficient for healing, nor does it allow young people to lead remarkable lives. A one- or two-month summer experience does not erase what happens during the schoolyear, and thinking of summer as a way to reset young people is a form of punting on the necessity of taking action to promote the health and welfare of children.
Young people need more than just an escape from school, or “better” enrichment activities than school offers; young people need to live lives of autonomy and freedom. Only when young people are freed from the burden of being subjected to schooling for 7 hours a day, 180 days a year, for 13 years of their lives will they have the opportunity to engage in and benefit from unlimited free play. And only when they have the opportunity to engage in unlimited free play will they also have the time to be with themselves to process, and to come to an understanding of themselves.
There are no shortcuts to leading a remarkable life. Free play and down time are not extracurricular activities. Being free from assessment, grading, and judgment some of the time does not undo the harm from being assessed, graded, and judged the rest of the time. Young people do not learn how to take control of their lives because they go to a summer camp, they learn how to take control of their lives when they are given the responsibility of making the decisions that are relevant to their lives. And that needs to be an all the time responsibility.
Summer camps can be beneficial, and worthwhile. But only as something that young people choose to engage in as a part of a broader self-directed lifestyle. Summer camps should be seen as learning experiences. But life is filled with learning experiences when one is not constrained to coercive schooling environments.
1. We chose not to attempt to create an exhaustive list of benefits or downsides of summer camp.
Does Self-Directed Learning Create an “It’s All About Me” Problem?
People often ask me what makes Abrome different than other schools. This allows me to turn virtually every conversation with someone I meet into a discussion of the merits of self-directed learning and Learner autonomy. Most people are unprepared to hear what I have to say because it is too far removed from a worldview shaped by society and 13 years in traditional schools. They instinctively reject Emancipated Learning because they were repeatedly told they needed to stay in school, buckle down, study, and go to college in order to get a good job. The notion that we live in a meritocratic society where schools are the great equalizer has become a cultural meme that has seeped its way into education, politics, philanthropy, and the home. I go into these conversations with an understanding that not everyone will agree with me; I am planting seeds for the future.
Participation trophies, not autonomy
Recently, a retired gentleman in Georgia asked me what I did for a living, and I told him that I run an “alternative school” in Austin. He probed. I explained that Abrome is a self-directed learning space that supports young people so they can take control of their educational experiences, and thereby take control of their lives. He immediately rejected the concept. First, he questioned how someone could learn chemistry if not required to, and then he moved on to asking how one could ever be an employee if they were not trained to follow orders. Finally, he came out and said it: “Doesn’t this self-directed learning create an ‘it’s all about me’ problem?”
He unoriginally posited that the problem with millennials and, by extension, current day school children, is that they all got ‘participation trophies’ growing up, and therefore thought far more highly of themselves, their capabilities, and their perceived value than they should. He continued by arguing that this exaggerated belief in their self-worth (or economic worth) resulted in young people who focused more on themselves than the organizations they worked for. He called them entitled. And allowing them to have control over their educational experiences would only amplify that entitlement.
It is not narcissism, it is necessity
It is common for older generations to dismiss younger generations by pointing out their narcissistic tendencies. Many of the generations that are so disappointed by today’s youth were often viewed as selfish loafers and slackers when they were young. While it is true that millennials and school-aged children are more narcissistic than gray-haired people, that is a function of youth, not of generational change. Across generations, younger narcissists tend to mature into older people who are less full of themselves.[1]
While labeling younger people as narcissists is unfair, if any generation deserves to be more focused on themselves, it is the youngest generation. Economically, they are facing a far more dynamic, disruptive, and uncertain future than their predecessors. Futurist Thomas Frey predicts that 2 billion jobs will cease to exist by 2030, while Ray Kurzweil argues that computers will achieve human levels of intelligence by 2029 and technological singularity will happen by 2045.[2][3] When that happens, the needs of the economy will demand competencies and skills that cannot be filled by the modern day worker. In fact, this process has already started. As of 2013, 18 of 30 major world economies are already experiencing talent shortages, and half of recent American college grads are unemployed or underemployed.[4] It is less a question of which industries are going to be disrupted or replaced, and more of a question of when each industry will be disrupted or replaced, and who will survive.
Further, the institutions and systems that we and our forebears have created and perpetuated are actively undermining younger generations from being able to prepare themselves for this uncertain future, much less lead remarkable lives. Despite the impressive social and technological progress that has occurred over the past few generations, we are leaving the younger generations with tremendous liabilities that may come due on their watch, ecological environments on the brink of collapse, and a cost of living that is difficult to meet given personal needs and societal expectations (e.g., healthcare, housing, college tuition). However, of all the institutions and systems that disadvantage the younger generations, perhaps the one that undermines them the most is the schooling system.
Education should be all about me!
Education should be a liberating experience that allows people to lead remarkable lives so they can positively impact society and improve the human condition.[5] However, schooling does the opposite. Schooling currently trains young people to bow to authority and to know their place in the hierarchy of society, as the gentleman from Georgia believed it should. It tells young people to wait their turn, and to jump through the hoops that have been established or protected by the incumbents in the hopes that these youngsters will eventually get their shot at lording over future generations. And while this approach was morally unjustifiable in the past, it is now also practically unviable for the future. The status quo will be displaced.
To continue to push young people into a coercive, standardized, and still industrialized schooling system is to prepare them to fail. Young people are going to have to become lifelong learners to be able to continually adapt and evolve in a world where institutions have no loyalty to their workers. Schooling undermines the love of learning. The longer that children are subjected to the practices and structures of schooling, the more likely they are to avoid voluntary learning experiences.[6] Creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurial competency are going to be vital to success moving forward, yet schools continue to shape a risk averse mindset in students through a demand for perfection on narrow and often meaningless academic tasks, an intolerance for experimentation, and a constant push toward college degrees as validation of competence and intelligence.
For these reasons, education must be all about the young person. It is time to move beyond the argument that the purpose of education should be to benefit the nation or the economy. Education needs to stop being about the adults. It needs to focus on the children: their wellbeing and their future. To do anything less is to fail them. When today’s young people are rightfully given control of their education, their chances of leading remarkable lives increase dramatically. And that benefits society.
1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3020091/
2. http://www.futuristspeaker.com/business-trends/2-billion-jobs-to-disappear-by-2030/
3. https://futurism.com/kurzweil-claims-that-the-singularity-will-happen-by-2045/
5. http://www.abrome.com/blog/emancipated-learning-vs-bells-whistles
6. There is ample research that highlights that people lose interest in learning something after they are praised, tested, or assessed in some way, even in activities they previously enjoyed. After years of assessments across various domains, it is unsurprising that many adults still experience school-associated anxiety, and that voracious reading is an anomaly amongst those who attended traditional school.
Abrome Weekly Update: April 19, 2017
This week at Abrome: social justice.
The Private School Tuition Criticism
American society has been trained to believe that schools are necessary vehicles of education. Without school, it is believed, one would not learn to read, write, find a job, or stay employed. And if we accept that schools are necessary for success in life, then we are left to ask, how would people of lesser means ever compete in a capitalist society without the benefit of schooling? The misguided conclusion that comes through generations of people being subjected to a monopolized and compulsory schooling system is that we need schools, and that those schools must be publicly funded.
@ecomentario IOW, there will be no legitimate will to fix all public schools as long as white, wealthy parents have an alternative for *their* child.
— Jenn Borgioli Binis (@JennBinis) April 13, 2017
This morning, a critic of alternative education reminded me that Abrome charges tuition, and lots of it. This was meant to be a trump card that should somehow lead to the false conclusion that we (and other alternatives to traditional school) are undermining education in society.[1] More specifically, this critic wanted me to blindly accept that the current institution of public schooling was inherently good for society, and that the real problems are that we criticize coercive schooling too much, and “white, wealthy parents” refuse to leave their children in district public schools (meaning they refuse to invest their children into the system to try to make public schools better, as opposed to investing in education for their children).
I cannot accept that the current institution of public schooling is an inherently good thing for society. As I have pointed out in the past, traditional schooling hurts students, their families, and society. Traditional schooling is inherently bad because it introduces coercion and illegitimate authority into the lives of children, it harms the current and future happiness and health of children, and it undermines the learning process. The practices and structures of traditional schooling were put in place for a variety of reasons, the bulk of which were nefarious (e.g., producing compliant industrial workers and obedient soldiers, promoting nationalism, destroying marginalized or oppressed cultures, sorting students to determine which ones received resources and opportunities, preserving class privilege, entrenching racial hierarchies). When the effects and history of schooling are highlighted to alternative education critics, they tend to double down on the funding mechanism of alternative schools as their proof of the superiority of traditional, public schooling.
Attacking progressive schools for charging tuition is an unfortunate but common tactic of alternative education critics. Like public schools, progressive schools need to be able to pay the bills (e.g., a living wage for educators, rent, utilities). How can anyone take seriously a public school advocate who believes that private schools should not be charging tuition, while also not being publicly funded? Their argument is less about funding and more about existence; they simply do not want viable alternatives to exist.
The one point this critic made that had some merit is that tuition-charging private schools are not an option for all families. But this critic took that to mean that unless every child has access to the same options, then no alternative options should exist. We fully agree that tuition charging private schools are not universally available to all students, but a non-coercive public school option is not available to any, much less all students. We acknowledge that there are disparities in access to educational options according to socioeconomic status (and geography). But because those disparities manifest themselves in both public and private traditional schools, it is left to progressive educators and radical communities to create alternatives in the here and now.
@JennBinis @ecomentario @korytellers Fortunately for parents, they don't have to wait for systems of oppression to reform themselves.
— Abrome Education (@AbromeEd) April 13, 2017
Abrome greatly values diversity within our learning space. Diversity strengthens the learning environment by way of promoting tolerance and empathy, increasing creativity and innovation, and reducing bullying. And we consider socioeconomic considerations to be central to our diversity efforts. Therefore, our full-pay families subsidize the cost of attendance for our lower SES families. But while alternative school critics feign indignation over our sticker price, they also make clear that even a $1 tuition would be too much, because they believe that giving “white parents of means” an alternative to coercive schooling is the reason public schools are not working.
While economic barriers to self-directed learning environments are unfortunate, it is worth pointing out that there would be no need for tuition funded alternative education options such as Abrome if public schools were non-coercive.[2] In fact, there are plenty of alternative education advocates who believe in public education, just not coercive public education.[3] But the only thing these critics seem to take offense to more than school tuition is the notion of self-directed learning. Perhaps that is because a belief in the need for publicly funded, coercive, compulsory schooling requires a belief in the superiority of those who work within the institution of schooling over what they believe are ignorant and incompetent children.
@JennBinis @ecomentario @korytellers Sacrificing your child to a system that refuses to reform itself is not honorable. It is stupid.
— Abrome Education (@AbromeEd) April 13, 2017
For those alternative school critics who argue that cost of tuition is problematic, I encourage them to expand their understanding of cost. The current cost of coercive schooling is a society that is filled with unhappy children and intellectually dead adults. A society that is deferential to authority and disdainful of those abused by authority. A society unwilling to learn from the past, live in the moment, or prepare for a complicated future. There is a mental health cost to coercive schooling, and it is paid in part through youth depression and suicide. There is an opportunity cost to coercive schooling, where young people forfeit their childhood and their future in order to participate in a race to nowhere. There is a social welfare cost to coercive schooling, where low SES families and people of color are repeatedly told that they are inferior, and where affluent, white families are convinced that they have a cultural or genetic right to the advantages that society unjustly provides them.[4] When all the costs of coercive schooling are compared to the tuition costs of progressive schooling, it becomes clear that coercive schooling is the one that produces a deadweight loss to society.
One final note: we do not criticize coercive schooling too much, but we are working on it.
1. Although we are not undermining education in society, we hope to undermine the status quo of coercive schooling.
2. Even the poorest families can provide their children with self-directed learning environments via homeschooling, unschooling, and cooperatives.
3. We believe in voluntary, community education; not government funded, monopolized, compulsory education.
4. It is ironic that the people who recognize the privilege that rich white families have in society are unable to acknowledge that the institution of coercive schooling compounds that privilege.
Abrome Weekly Update: April 12, 2017
The problem with apprenticeships, internships, and mentors
What could possibly be wrong with a school that offers students their pick of apprenticeships, internships, and mentors?
One of the fundamental problems of schooling is that it takes away agency from the student. Young people come into the world eager to learn, but when they are placed in schooling environments, that love of learning is put down. Students are expected to speak only when spoken to. Questions may be asked, but only at the appropriate time. “You want to talk about dinosaurs? Too bad, we’re talking about the color wheel.” “You want to play with the microscope? Too bad, this is core skills time; get back to your Khan Academy math.” Students become convinced that knowledge comes from above, and that adults know best what students should be learning.
Students become reliant on their teachers and the rules of the institution to inform their actions and guide their intellectual development. Many of them even come to believe that they would not learn how to count or read if not for the institution of schooling. Of course, they also would learn to count and read if they were sent to a nursing home for 7 hours a day, 180 days a year, for 13 years of their youth and adolescence—and then society would ask, without nursing homes, how would the children learn?
Because it is such a simple way of looking at the world, and because it is reaffirmed endlessly through cultural norms and rituals, society fully buys into the belief of schooling as the means of learning. Instead of asking how to help their children lead remarkable lives, parents ponder where they can move to so they can get their children into schools that will provide them with the best learning opportunities. In the past, this may have been limited to AP classes, extracurricular clubs, and athletic facilities. But more recently there has been an uptick in schools offering their students apprenticeships, internships, and mentors.
For the parent who is trying to game the system so that they take on minimal social risk while positioning their child to get into a top college, these school offerings sound like safe ways to differentiate their child’s schooling experience. Unfortunately, like everything else in the schooling world, this becomes part of the college admissions arms race, where parents and schools try to provide students with experiences and essay fodder that allow them to stand above the competition. Seeking to capitalize on parental anxiety, schools now tout their special partnerships with organizations that their students can intern at, or list the professionals their students can call on as mentors. “Come to our school,” they say, “and we will get you an internship with a venture backed startup!” “Come to our school, and we will give you a world class mentor!” A parent who is trying to game the system tends to appreciate a school that tees up opportunities for their children to opt into.
However, by offering structured apprenticeships, internships, and mentors, schools undermine the learning process while also limiting the potential for students to leverage those experiences into remarkable lives led.
Numerous studies have highlighted how choice and agency impacts learning. In one study, researchers provided one group of young people with a toy to play with as they saw fit. In the other group, they instructed the young people on how the toy worked, and how to manipulate it. The young people who were free to play with the toy were more engaged and had more fun than the group that received instruction. The free play group developed a deeper understanding of how the toy worked, to include the tasks that the other group received direct instruction on. In another study, students who received clear-cut instructions on how to solve chemistry problems underperformed relative to students who were not given such instructions. And in another study, students in underperforming schools had tremendous competency gains after the schools provided them with the opportunity to decide what topics to engage in. Whereas choice can sometimes be paralyzing (see The Paradox of Choice), it seems in education that the more choices students get to make, the more they thrive.
So, what is wrong with schools giving students options of apprenticeships, internships, and mentors to choose from? Is not an à la carte approach better than not offering options at all? The answer is no. More options are better than less options. But the best option is not to limit young people to any number of options at all.
When young people are given the freedom to pursue their interests in a safe environment, they have an unlimited number of potential learning experiences. Unlike students at traditional schools, Learners in an emancipated learning environment are not required to take core curriculum classes with the opportunity to take some additional elective courses. Their “extracurricular” activities are not limited to nine sports or twelve clubs. And they are not stuck choosing from a list of ten companies to intern at or twenty coaches to receive mentorship from.
At Abrome, we fully endorse the notion of apprenticeships, internships, and mentors as accelerants to creating deeper and more meaningful learning experiences. We believe that they are worth pursuing when the time is right. But we refuse to dictate when that time is, or to package them in a turnkey manner for our Learners. Instead, we encourage Learners to create their own opportunities based on their unique needs, interests, and goals, and cognizant of the resources they have at hand. It would be naive for us to believe that we could identify appropriate organizations and mentors for each of our Learners better than they could themselves. And it would be foolish for us to believe that Learners would benefit more from us providing them with these opportunities than they would from creating them for themselves.
By removing the limitations of choosing from a menu of internships and mentors, Learners are able to transcend from participating in something someone else has imagined to pursuing something that is personally meaningful. They go from absorbing content in a structured way to deeper learning through the development of connections with people who share their interests. They transition from engaging in experiences for external validation to embracing experiences for personal joy.
The benefits of leaving the responsibility of finding apprenticeships, internships, and mentors to the Learner extend far beyond gaining more meaningful apprenticeships, internships, and mentors. When Learners develop a list of organizations or mentors that they will then pitch themselves to, it helps create in them a mindset where they feel responsible for their own education and lives. They develop agency through the process of creation. They fear failure less because failure becomes a common occurrence for those who take on the responsibility of leading remarkable lives. When they are no longer given a list of options, a world of possibilities opens up before them. And because this happens at a young age, they are not trained to be helpless in the face of uncertainty.
How Abrome Differs from School: Emancipated Learning versus Bells and Whistles
When people ask us what type of school Abrome is, or how we differ from other schools, we remind them that we are not a school. Abrome is an alternative to school. Abrome is Emancipated Learning.
Every public school in America is fundamentally the same, as are 99.8% of private schools. They operate on a coercive model of command and control schooling that prioritizes conformity and obedience over learning. They believe students are incompetent learners that need to be taught by knowledgeable adults. They rely on standardized curriculum. They believe that students must be constantly assessed, tested, and measured against same-aged peers. They believe that competition is the appropriate way to distinguish the intelligent and hardworking students from the stupid and lazy ones. They value students for the dollars they bring in, either seat-time revenue or tuition, as opposed to the value young people can provide to society.
Of course many of those schools will insist that they are different from the failed traditional schools that most young people are subjected to. Some are charter schools. Some are private schools. Some are even alternative schools! Instead of restrictive, standardized curriculum, those schools might claim that their students get to engage in personalized learning, meaning students are allowed to rearrange or stretch out certain aspects of their standardized curricular requirements. Or perhaps they will give lip service to peer learning and flipped classrooms as a way to suggest that they do not have an authoritarian, adult-directed schooling environment. Some schools may even eschew quantitative assessments for seemingly more compassionate qualitative assessments. But these efforts are nothing more than attempts at articulating differentiation (in name only) of the commodity known as schooling.
If schools cannot distinguish themselves with an educational fad (e.g., personalized learning), and because schools are all largely the same, they are left relying on and promoting superficial differences to convince families that they are better than other schools. These are called bells and whistles. Bells and whistles can be the promise of personalized learning, peer learning, flipped classrooms, or qualitative assessments. It can be technology in the classroom, with online academic support at home. It can be the promise of access to mentors and internships. It can be programing classes or maker labs. It can be an award winning yearbook club, robotics club, debate team, or science Olympiad team. It could be a 30,000 seat football stadium, an Olympic sized pool, or a 9-hole golf course. But what does not change with these bells and whistles are the underlying structures and practices of schooling.
Abrome is often described by what we are not. We are not a school. We do not replicate or perpetuate the structures and practices of schooling. We do not have teachers, classes, instruction, curriculum, testing, homework, grades, or age-based segregation. And there is good reason for us not replicating what is happening in school—schooling harms children. Schooling convinces most students that they are incompetent, stupid, untrustworthy, lazy, and inherently flawed. These students’ lives are substantially altered for the worse because of schooling. From a societal perspective, schooling destroys more human capital than any other institution. A small minority of school students do not become convinced that they are damaged goods, and instead fall into the trap of believing that they are inherently better than everyone else. This is also harmful to society, as students with a belief of superiority often assume positions of power and make decisions with little regard or understanding for the general public.
While eliminating the structures and practices of schooling is necessary, it is not sufficient to create a society where everyone is able to lead a remarkable life. Abrome goes beyond eliminating the harmful aspects of schooling by leveraging our Emancipated Learning model. Emancipated Learning is not an adornment, it is a fundamentally different approach to education based on the axiom that young people are competent and active knowledge seekers. We trust young people to take charge of their educational experiences and their lives.
The Abrome logo provides a visual representation of how the Emancipated Learning model works. The Abrome logo is an adaptation of Borromean rings, which are an arrangement of three interlocked circles, with no two circles being interlocked. This is a form of a Brunnian link. If one were to break one of the rings in a Brunnian link, the other rings would fall away. Borromean rings show strength in unity, as the whole is much stronger than the sum of its parts.
The Abrome logo consists of a triangle, a square, and a circle, all in different colors, as opposed to three symmetrical rings. This was done to emphasize the importance of diversity in the Abrome space.
Well-being:
The circle in the Abrome logo stands for well-being. The circle is the best representation for a focus on the whole child. The circle has no end and no beginning, but it is reflective of the iterative or cyclical aspects of life such as personal growth and understanding. The circle draws people toward the center, just as we want Learners to look inward.
At Abrome, the well-being of Learners comes first. We recognize that in order for Learners to engage in deep, meaningful, and enduring learning experiences, they must first be happy and healthy.
Self-directed learning:
The square in the Abrome logo stands for self-directed learning. The square is the most flexible of the three shapes, which comports with the agile and adaptive approaches one must take to learning and discovery. The square is the best way to visualize the construction of knowledge using multiple dimensions. Whereas a circle draws you inward, a square invites you to investigate it from end to end.
Abrome Learners choose for themselves the activities and experiences they engage in. They embrace the responsibilities of learning and life.
Learning community:
The triangle in the Abrome logo stands for the learning community. The triangle is a rigid object that does not easily buckle under stress. The triangle symbolizes how the learning community provides strength to individuals in times of need. The triangle also makes space for an individual to choose to be surrounded by others or to find themselves in a more acute and solitary position, all the while still being supported.
An Abrome Learner’s learning community is comprised of intellectually curious Learners, committed Learning Coaches, and a personal network that is standing by ready to lend their support.
Psychological Safety:
The overlap between well-being and the learning community represents psychological safety.
Abrome is a psychologically safe space where young people feel free to engage in unlimited free play, and take intellectual and personal risks without fear of being assessed, judged, or ridiculed. The ability to remain vulnerable in the pursuit of growth is an extension of our focus on well-being coupled with a learning community that values diversity.
Learning and Inquiry:
The overlap between self-directed learning and the learning community represents learning and inquiry.
At Abrome, self-directed Learners leverage a dynamic and diverse learning community to engage in deep, meaningful, and enduring learning experiences. Connection with others is valued. Collaboration, debate, and peer learning are outcroppings of a culture that values mentorship and dialectical inquiry.
Meaningfulness:
The overlap between self-directed learning and well-being represents meaningfulness.
Given the time and space to focus on their well-being and engage in self-directed learning, Abrome Learners come to understand themselves and how they fit into the world. They find significance in creating connections with others and contributing to something beyond themselves. Abrome Learners develop lives that have purpose, value, and impact.
Emancipated Learning:
The interplay between psychological safety, learning and inquiry, and meaningfulness represents emancipated learning.
Abrome Learners feel comfortable taking risks and diving deep in pursuit of knowledge in their fields of interests, rather than skimming them at the surface. Learners construct knowledge by leveraging resources that are directly available to them, to include their learning community, or by acquiring necessary resources in the process of exploration and discovery. This process is unique for every Learner as they link various resources, in pursuit of their own purposes, according to their own needs. Like any two distinct individuals, no two Learners or educational pathways are the same; only in retrospect will a learning pathway become fully defined. When an individual is able to marry such educational experiences with a life of meaning, the result is a remarkable life lived.
Education should be a liberating experience that allows people to lead remarkable lives so they can positively impact society and improve the human condition. Education fads and supplemental experiences do not unwind the oppression of schooling. Emancipated Learning, however, allows anyone to leverage their education so that they can lead a remarkable life.