The foundational education model (for the 21st century)

Education, done right, makes itself unnecessary.

The goal of education should be to spark a lifetime of self-directed learning.

Traditional school has no incentive to align with that goal. Parents want to perpetuate their kid’s curiosity; traditional school wants to perpetuate itself.

"I went to school, and I turned out fine," you'll hear parents say. Or, "My kid has good parents; he'll be okay," as if the most we can ask of education is that it not do damage we can't undo. To get a different outcome, we have to think radically differently. 

It's time to ask the most basic questions. 

What exactly are we educating our kids for, anyway? 

How do we know what kids need to know?

We want our kids to be vibrant, independent, happy, and productive members of their communities. 

The details might look a little different for everyone, but there are simple truths we can all agree on.

We’re calling this place to start the “bootstrap educational model.” The model to create self-educating kids.

The principles are simple.

Those simple things are generally not taught in traditional schools.

Whether your kid wants to be an astronaut, software developer, or a master carpenter, they need to know how to be as effective as possible at the following: 

1. Where they come from

2. What information can be ignored

3. How to make money

4. How to plan a future

While this list isn’t exhaustive for every kid, it gives any kid a place to start that opens other educational roads.

1. Where they come from (history, philosophy)

“Those who do not understand history are doomed to repeat it.” 

Kids need to understand the context of their experiences. Without that, they are lost. 

Traditional schools do their best to erase our shared history, refusing to teach important ideas and historical moments. But kids need to know where Western shared norms and ideas come from. Why are they important? What hell would break loose if they suddenly went away?

Every kid has interests. Use those to guide them. Help them see that their world didn’t fall from the sky by pure accident but was yanked into existence by heroic people who carved reason and abundance out of the wilderness of the planet.

Like a GPS, we must know our present location to plan a route forward. Children need the wisdom of the past to guide their future, even if it's just the broad strokes. 

You can watch a few videos to get the gist of your shared history, take a short course for an overview, then dive deeper into the places that interest you and your kid. 

Don’t fall into the traditional school model–you don’t need to study dates and surnames for eight hours a day. A little context, and some meaningful conversation, go a long way. 

2. What can be ignored (logic, mental models)

“The problem with internet quotes is that you cannot always depend on their accuracy.” ― Abraham Lincoln, 1864

The internet is a fundamental shift in humanity. We are no longer starved of information–we are drowning in it. 

Kids need tools to reject most of the information that comes their way.

Here are a few mental models to help kids figure out what's worth paying attention to (and what thinking is faulty):

• 80/20 rule (Pareto principle)

• Occam’s razor

• First principle

• Second-order thinking

• Sunk cost

• Formal logic

• Ethics

With just a few YouTube videos on each principle (done over as little as a week) and some practice, our kids will understand that 99% of information can be safely ignored. 

That frees them up to think about their future.

3. How to make money (economics, finance)

"Money doesn't buy happiness - it buys freedom." – Naval Ravikant

Most people are in a state of learned helplessness about money because traditional school makes it seem so hard. You need certificates. You need permission. You need a decade of training. 

None of that is true. All you need is boldness, a willingness to work hard, and a desire to create value for others. 

The world is not zero-sum. Your kid making money makes everyone richer. It is a moral good.

There are plenty of books on making money. Teach your kid how. Show them by example. 

4. How to write a future (writing, self-development)

“When you can write effectively, you can do anything you want, and no one will stop you.” – Dr. Jordan Peterson

Once your kid knows where she is, what she can ignore, and how to make a living, give her tools for self-expression. 

Writing, especially in the age of information, is raw power. 

Show them how to write online, where they can outsource feedback from anyone on the planet. 

There is no reason to settle for traditional schools' tepid, mediocre outcomes. 

Formal education certainly does not take 20,000 hours. There is plenty of time to play and be a kid. If they learn these principles first, their path can be self-guiding for the rest of their lives. 

Give them a bootstrap education over a few weeks or months, then all there is to do is watch them shine.

Thanks for reading,

Taylor + rebelEducator team

Share this with someone who needs a place to start.

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P.S.

What we’re looking at:

Who to follow on Twitter for the future of education

Industrial schools vs. the future of school

This conference on education

Quotes we’re pondering:

“Virtue supposes liberty, as the carrying of a burden supposes active force. Under coercion there is no virtue, and without virtue there is no religion. … Even the sovereign has no right to use coercion to lead men to religion, which by its nature supposes choice and liberty.” — Voltaire

“The most valuable of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do, when it has to be done, whether you like it or not.” — Aldous Huxley

“I suppose there is no place in the world where snobbery is quite so ever-present or where it is cultivated in such refined and subtle forms as in an English public school. Here at least one cannot say that English ‘education’ fails to do its job. You forget your Latin and Greek within a few months of leaving school — I studied Greek for eight or ten years, and now, at thirty-three, I cannot even repeat the Greek alphabet — but your snobbishness, unless you persistently root it out like the bindweed it is, sticks by you till your grave.” ― George Orwell, The Road to Wigan Pier