Teen at a high school with no teachers. Writing about education & how to help your kid thrive. I tell you what your teen is thinking so you don't have to guess.
I have a perfect, 1600 SAT score.
I also haven't had a teacher since the 4th grade.
For the last 8 years, I've learned exclusively through online, adaptive apps.
Education is changing.
Follow me to learn how.
What if you could put your kid in Y Combinator?
Y Combinator, the legendary startup incubator, has allowed thousands of founders to change not only their lives, but the world as a whole.
What if there was a school that could do the same for your child?
I propose that we…
Half of our graduating seniors score the EXACT same on standardized tests as the highest-performing 3rd graders.
Kids are literally wasting nine years of their lives.
For all of my new followers, this is my philosophy:
Our school system is outdated.
Kids aren’t learning and they’re wildly unprepared for this changing world.
This account exists to help parents discover a better way to educate their kids.
The worst thing you can do to your Kindergartener is…put them in Kindergarten.
Our 100-year-old education system will dramatically curb your kid’s potential.
But, there's another option.
This account exists to help parents discover a better way to educate their kids.
Is your child a “STEM kid”?
Do they excel in math but dread their English classes?
If this sounds familiar, I have an opportunity for you.
I created a course specifically for your child titled Equation-Based Writing.
This course uses the concepts your kid loves – logic,…
It's every high schooler's dream to get a perfect SAT score.
Only ~0.07% of students actually achieve this goal.
When I set a 1600 as my goal, all of my friends thought I was just setting myself up for disappointment.
But I worked towards it. Every day.
Today, I got a 1600.
When I was 10 years old, my parents pulled me out of school.
The next week, they took me to my "new school" – when we pulled up, I was shocked.
The "school building" was literally the garage of someone's house.
Little did I know, I was part of the biggest experiment in K-12…
For all of my new followers, this is my philosophy:
Our school system is outdated.
Kids aren’t learning and they’re wildly unprepared for this changing world.
This account exists to help parents discover a better way to educate their kids.
If you read George Orwell’s essay, Politics and the English Language, your writing will improve more than it did in 12 years of English class. [THREAD]
You're wasting your kid's time by sending them to school.
For over 40 years, educational experts have proven that kids only need to spend 2 hours/day on academics to master every subject.
So why do schools force kids to sit through 6+ hours/day?
It's because 2 Hour Learning…
Kids can learn all academic content in 2 hours every day.
And we’ve known how for decades.
In the 1960s, Benjamin Bloom had a series of amazing breakthroughs in understanding how kids learn–and how to help them learn faster.
But his methods were impossible to implement in a…
For over 40 years, educational experts have proven that kids only need to spend 2 hours/day on academics to crush every subject.
But to do this, you have to use schooling methods that aren’t compatible with the “teacher in front of a classroom” model, so no one implements them.
When I was 10 years old, my parents pulled me out of school.
The next week, they took me to my "new school" – when we pulled up, I was shocked.
The "school building" was literally the garage of someone's house.
Little did I know, I was part of the biggest experiment in…
Y Combinator, the legendary startup incubator, has given thousands of founders the opportunity to change not only their lives, but the world as a whole.
What if there was a school that could do the same for your child?
I propose that we create a high school modeled after Y…
Kids can do 50% of an ENTIRE GRADE LEVEL in TWO WEEKS.
The best educators in America think the key to increased learning efficiency is to make the content super engaging, but that’s totally wrong.
It’s WAY easier than that.
Sahil Bloom is perhaps Twitter's most sophisticated thinker.
But, his life-changing ideas don't reach teens.
So, I transformed Sahil’s thread on razors into 4 rules every teenager should live by:
"Fast learners" don't exist.
No one child learns faster than their peers – is naturally able to move through material quicker.
It just depends on their "starting point" – their previous knowledge bank.
Every child is capable of excelling, we just have to give them the chance.
Telling kids “don’t read ahead” belongs in the dustbin of outdated educational practices.
What a detrimental thing to teach children–that they should reign in their curiosity, and not run with it.
I'm 17 years old & I started writing online 2 years ago.
And I met Sam Altman yesterday.
Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine I could have these opportunities and this network because of my writing.
How far I've come.
@sama
@david_perell
Experts proved that kids only need to spend 2 hours/day on academics to crush every subject...
And they proved this OVER 40 YEARS AGO.
But to do it, you need schooling methods that aren’t compatible with the “teacher in front of a classroom” model, so no school uses them.
Our schools are broken.
We have so much new technology available that can radically change education, but we're not using it.
Here's what school should look like – and we have everything we need to make it happen today:
Y Combinator, the legendary startup incubator, has given thousands of founders the opportunity to change not only their lives, but the world as a whole.
What if there was a school that could do the same for your child?
I propose that we create a high school modeled after Y…
Sahil Bloom is perhaps Twitter's most sophisticated thinker.
But, his life-changing ideas don't reach teens.
So, I transformed Sahil’s thread on razors into 4 rules every teenager should live by:
Let's be honest: High schoolers are known to be poor decision-makers.
They, more…
Wow–this blew up. With reflection, this post doesn't represent me the way I would like.
First, it definitely comes across as too boastful, so I want to apologize for that. I never want to be that person.
Second, I realize it is not most high schoolers' goal to get a 1600 on the…
It's every high schooler's dream to get a perfect SAT score.
Only ~0.07% of students actually achieve this goal.
When I set a 1600 as my goal, all of my friends thought I was just setting myself up for disappointment.
But I worked towards it. Every day.
Today, I got a 1600.
I turn 18 today.
Here's an incomplete list of everything I did as a "child":
• made $30K from my writing
• gained 27K followers on X
• met Sam Altman, David Perell, Sahil Bloom, Ana Lorena Fabrega, and more
• worked at Write of Passage
• got into Stanford
We’re teaching kids history wrong.
History should be a story–an exciting, meaningful account of our past that we can learn from.
Not memorizing dates and last names and titles of wars.
The worst thing you can do to your Kindergartener is…put them in Kindergarten.
Our 100-year-old education system will dramatically curb your kid’s potential.
Here’s how kids can reach the 99th percentile on nationwide tests–all without a teacher 👇:
These tables clearly show the data from the catastrophe that is our educational system–especially high school.
The average (50th percentile) student learns next to nothing in FOUR years of high school.
It’s only the high achievers (99th percentile) who see growth.
My school doesn't have teachers.
We just got our testing results back (NWEA) and the average student learned 2.5x faster than at a standard school.
Some of our kids learn at 7.7x. Many jump from 10th percentiles of their grade to 80+
Adaptive, AI-powered apps are the future.
I just interviewed J.D. Martinez, one of the best hitters in baseball.
Here's how he went from being cut by the worst team in baseball to becoming an All-Star:
In the 1960s, Benjamin Bloom had a series of amazing breakthroughs in understanding how kids learn–and how to help them learn faster.
But his methods were impossible to implement in a traditional classroom, so they’ve been ignored. [THREAD]
High schoolers can do anything.
My classmates and I just spent 48 hours doing this:
• Creating a 4-week online course on how to have a 75% chance at getting into an Ivy League (with speaker scripts, exercises, breakout rooms, etc.)
• Making a 30-page Second Brain with all of…
Here's what high school SHOULD look like.
This is the story of a high schooler who learns academics in only 2 hours per day so he can do something real with his time:
"I'm creating the first world-class bike park in Texas and raising $350,000 from investors.
I wanted to…
ChatGPT: the revolutionary chatbot that gives high schoolers an insanely easy way to cheat–without getting caught.
I have no doubt thousands of kids have already turned in A+ papers without writing a single word.
So, what does that mean for education? 👇
More than ⅔ of students in America can’t read.
At least not at grade level.
A brief look into our country’s approach to reading instruction shows us why:
Imagine you're a teacher to a 6th-grade math class.
You’ve got a group of kids who are ahead and know 11th-grade math.
AND a group of kids who are behind and know little more past 2nd-grade math.
You have no choice but to teach to the middle, so class is pointless for most.
I haven't had a teacher since fourth grade.
I've gotten my entire education from online apps–and I score in the 99th percentile.
My spicy take: adaptive apps are the answer to America's education problems.
Schools lie to you.
Grades go up... and standardized test scores go down.
Good grades don't mean what they used to.
Here's a quick way to see how much your kid really knows:
Kids need to learn a new set of life skills that aren’t taught in standard school:
- Learning to learn (& loving to learn)
- Mastery-based mindset
- Setting ambitious goals
- Giving and receiving feedback
- Writing for an audience
What else would you add?
Sahil Bloom created a journaling method that radically improved thousands of people's lives.
But, this transformative technique doesn't reach teens–who probably need it the most.
So, I reframed Sahil's 1-1-1 method into the most impactful journaling habit teenagers could have:
Kids need to learn a new set of life skills that aren’t taught in standard school:
- Taking ownership of their education
- Learning to learn
- Mastery-based mindset
- Daily habits
- Setting ambitious goals
- Mindfulness
What else would you add?
This 7th-grade teacher says his students are performing at a 4th-grade level.
And schools aren't doing anything about it.
They keep moving kids along.
There are hundreds of stitches of this video of teachers saying they're in the same situation.
Schools are failing students.
Our outdated education system is raising kids that:
• hate learning
• have had their creativity drilled out of them
• haven't developed problem-solving skills
This bodes poorly for our world.
We must fix this broken system–or the consequences will be dire.
Thousands of high schoolers dream of going to Stanford.
I’m no different.
Less than 4% of applicants actually achieve this goal.
But I worked towards it. Every day.
And it paid off.
We’re teaching kids history wrong.
History should be a story–an exciting, meaningful account of our past that we can learn from.
Not memorizing dates and last names and titles of wars.
Last week, I wrote a newsletter on how we can fix history classes 👇
We weren’t born understanding these complex concepts, we didn’t have a life-changing teacher, and we don’t spend 5X the amount of time studying.
Instead, we use online, adaptive learning software.
These online apps allow each student to learn at their own pace.
Sahil Bloom created a journaling method that radically improved thousands of people's lives.
But, this transformative technique doesn't reach teens–who probably need it the most.
So, I reframed Sahil's 1-1-1 method into the most impactful journaling habit teenagers could have:…
130 MILLION adults in the US can't read at a 6th-grade level.
Why aren't schools doing their jobs?
Why are the majority of students learning nothing?
Why are schools failing your kids?
The cheat sheet to the future of education.
For those who don’t have the time to read 80+ newsletters, here’s Austin’s Essentials Playlist:
On academics
• 2 Hour Learning:
• Austin’s App Analysis (the adaptive apps I’ve used and how to pick one for…
For those who are able to quickly understand the material, the apps allow the students to advance to a level that challenges them, and for those who are confused, the apps allow the students to be placed at a level to learn the foundations they are missing.
My school, Alpha High, gave all the students MAP tests this week-and I scored off the charts (in a good way).
It’s not just me, either. My best friends all soar past the 99th percentile numbers in all four subjects.
And because of the adaptivity, students can move through the content at a much faster pace because they aren’t waiting for another student to catch up, allowing them to improve at insane rates.
I'm seventeen years old.
Never did I imagine 148,000 people would read my writing.
Thanks to all of y'all who helped me get this far.
I'm truly blessed 🙏
Traditional school doesn't teach kids how to be successful.
So many kids graduate feeling lost, with no clue what comes next.
School should prepare kids for the real world, not just teach them how to pass tests.
“Mathematicians don’t come up with the proofs first. First comes intuition. Rigor comes later. This essential role of intuition and imagination is left out of high school geometry courses, but it is essential to all creative mathematics.”
-Steven Strogatz, Infinite Powers
I got to meet one of my idols today:
@SahilBloom
.
We had an incredible conversation about the value in being excited about and dedicated to something – and how this should be a central part of a child's education.
Sahil – so thankful to be able to learn from you today.
First off, what is MAP testing?
MAP is the nationwide Measures of Academic Progress test & it assesses K-12 students’ achievement and growth in academic content.
Great teachers are the key to a great school.
AI tutors just replaced all the teachers at my school.
And school is better than ever.
Our school is so fantastic because of the supportive adults guiding us through our day (we call them “Guides”).
They don’t teach academics…
Most educators will tell you that there are two things you need to educate a kid:
1. A motivated learner (by far the most important)
2. Lessons at the correct level of difficulty for said student
Schools fail at both of these things.
New data from
@AlphaSchoolATX
shows that to master ALL of K-12 math, it only takes the AVERAGE kid (not even the SMARTEST kid) 871 hours – compared to the 2340+ hours spent in traditional school (1 hour per day at 180 days per school year).
Through online learning, it’s possible for anyone to reach the 99th percentile and grow at least twice as fast as they would in the education system.
All you have to do is try.
Kids grow up believing they can become world-famous pop stars, millionaire doctors, and magical fairy princesses.
When they hit college, they're told to aim for a stable 9-5.
Why do we teach kids to stop dreaming?
Teenagers need to sleep more.
Schools are actively sabotaging them by making their mental health worse, decreasing their ability to focus and remember things, and so much more because of their too-early start times.
Teenagers' circadian rhythm is different – we fall asleep…
Kids have two choices:
• Memorize for a test (pointless)
• Learn for themselves (valuable)
Guess which one they're taught how to do?
Something needs to change.
This post received lots of negative reactions. Here are my thoughts:
There are learning speed differences between kids, but using AI tutoring apps dramatically reduces those differences – and eliminates learning speed as a major component of K-8 learning.
The paper's main point…
"Fast learners" don't exist.
No one child learns faster than their peers – is naturally able to move through material quicker.
It just depends on their "starting point" – their previous knowledge bank.
Every child is capable of excelling, we just have to give them the chance.
I'm turning 17 tomorrow.
I'm so proud of what I've done as a 16-year-old:
• wrote over 50 editions of my newsletter
• got an A+ in Calculus BC
• started working with
@david_perell
• gotten 4K Twitter followers
• had the best relationship with my parents and sister yet
The two largest districts in America are WRONG for banning ChatGPT.
Here are the five ways you can use it to help your kid get far ahead of their peers:
"An investment in knowledge pays the best interest." – Benjamin Franklin
Kids need to learn that learning has value and meaning – beyond studying for tests.
For all of my new followers, this is who I am:
I got a 1600 SAT score.
But I haven’t had a teacher since the fourth grade.
Our outdated education system is failing students. Kids are falling further and further behind in their academics – over 50% of students can’t pass their…
What’s more–our growth percentile is absolutely crazy.
The average high school student at Alpha is growing their score at 5X the rate of a normal school. (Ex. instead of improving by 2 points, they improve by 10.)
"AI is replacing teachers."
"EdTech software removes the need for teachers."
Right? Wrong.
Yes, AI is changing the role of teachers. But it's changing for the better.
Let’s be real: teachers didn’t become teachers to grade exams and create lesson plans.
They did it to…
A grand total of ZERO students were proficient in math in an Illinois school district.
Zero students can do math at their grade level.
The schools ALSO happen to have a 63% graduation rate.
How?
Our education system is a failure.
Teenagers are often told to “follow their passions.”
This is useless advice because no one knows what passion means.
So, let’s redefine “passion.” [THREAD]
For 3 years, I've had one main academic goal: to score a 300 on the nationwide MAP test.
All of my friends thought I was crazy–that I was setting myself up for disappointment.
Even the best seniors only score 291.
But I worked towards it. Every day.
Yesterday, I scored 302.
77% of 12th-grade students are NOT proficient in math.
87% is the average graduation rate in the US.
The numbers aren't adding up.
Why are we graduating students who don't know math?
Big news: the best names in transforming how we learn will be coming together to talk at my virtual event: The Future of Learning.
Mark your calendars and join my Space this Thursday and Friday.
Speakers include:
@rebelEducator
@Austen
@david_perell
@JeremyTate41
@cboyack
…
"Anyone who stops learning is old, whether twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing you can do is keep your mind young."
-Mark Twain
I’m not saying we should be graduating kids after 3rd grade. I’m saying that if we efficiently teach kids rather than wasting their time, there is tons of room in the school day for your kid to do things that actually matter: learning life skills, exploring their passions, etc.
Every parent wants their kid to read, but it's hard to find books that will hold their attention.
Here are 5 fascinating books I couldn't put down (AND learned a lot from):