You know, for the least as that I'm meeting you guys for the
very first time. What problems are you actually
solving? Yeah, I'll jump in.
So my name is Robbie and I'm the CEO and founder of Tech My
School. And essentially what Tech my
School does is we go into schools, we do an audit this
diagnostics of sorts, comprehensive package,
comprehensive process. And ultimately what we're trying
to do is we're trying to find gaps in schools.
So then we can then fill them with solutions that are 21st
century in nature and at the heart of it are focusing on
student skills that are going to empower them for today and
tomorrow. We're still growing.
We're we, we still just are scratching the surface.
This is our fifth school year. So not new in education, but a
relatively new new company. We found too that schools kind
of regardless of their funding level or their, their stature,
many of them are, are still modeled after a very like 19th
and 20th century model of educating kids.
And one of the things that we're really trying to do is help help
schools to address a skill set that is not being addressed very
readily in kids right now. And specifically in the schools
that are really struggling, the ones that really buy into what
we're doing. And they have a real growth
mindset, right? They're really thinking about
how they can grow and improve. Those are the ones that actually
end up doing the most amazing things with their kids.
And what's really cool about technology is if you can just
get, if you can get access to technology to places that don't
have it. A lot of times their mindset,
they're they're kind of ready for fresh thinking.
To Nigeria. Yeah, Niger boys.
So I went from California, where I was born, to Hawaii.
I worked in the inner City Schools of Hawaii back to
California and then I went overseas.
They're like the. UK, yeah, I've heard of Costco.
Yeah, yeah. So when you live in Nigeria,
you're you're missing some things.
You know, they've got great Joloff rice, but you, you know,
you miss some of your American goods.
I was like, let's go back to Puerto Rico, learn some Spanish,
go fishing, you know, do the boating thing.
And then, yeah, I put my boys in the local schools.
And I was just absolutely shocked because these schools
were so much like Nigerian schools, like, you know, African
schools. And I'm not saying that in a in
a derogatory way, but it was just that like America is the
wealthiest country in the world. And every school that I had seen
to that point in America, whether it's Hawaii or San
Diego, Florida, NY, there's a certain level of standard.
Let's just say where the facilities are big, there's
grass soccer fields, there's a canteen for all the kids to eat,
there's libraries, there's teachers who are getting paid a
certain level of pay. They have cays and medical and
health and all that kind of stuff.
There's programs. Before we dive back into today's
conversation, I want to share something important.
This episode includes a pay partnership with Better Help, a
platform designed to make starting therapy easier.
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life can sometimes feel overwhelming.
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facing clinical challenges. It's a space to reflect, grow,
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So if you feel like you're benefit from talking to a
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That's betterhub.com/kingjames to get 10% off your first month
of therapy. Once again, this is a paid
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it, sometimes the best investment you can make these in
yourself. Welcome to the King Dems
Podcast, where we share the stories of extraordinary people
and dissect hot, relevant topics that shape our world.
From visionary leaders to trailblazing creatives, we
uncover the mindset, strategy, and grit behind greatness.
Whether it's business, culture, or personal growth, we ask the
real questions. This isn't just conversation,
it's transformation. The Kingdom's podcast, your next
breakthrough starts here. Music licensing reimagined your
life. Ladies and gentlemen, you once
again welcome to The Kingdom's podcast.
And today there would be two very special guests in the
building introducing first fighting out of the blue corner,
introducing a fighter fighting out of Houston, TX pal Sombro,
and now fighting out of the red corner, a fighter fighting out
of San Diego by way of Puerto Rico Robbie Corps.
That would win. That's a bad You're welcome.
You're welcome. You walk over the port, right.
And yeah, I'll do other. Reach advantage in that fight,
but. You have the reach advantage.
Wow. So this is a room Beer Beach
challenge. Thinking, shopping, leadership
and explore how technology, mindset and intelligence systems
shape the future of business and society.
Today's conversation sits at the intersection of education, AI,
relation, and systemic impact. Our guests are Robbie Cobbs and
Kyle Sumrow, builders working on the frontline of educational
transformation. The work is not theory, it's is
execution. Real environments, real
constraints, real outcomes. They are helping schools move
from PS to clarity, from the active technology to strategic
systems, from outdated thinking to future ready leadership.
This conversation is for founders, executives, operators,
investors, educators, and anyone thinking seriously about how we
build systems for skilled intelligence rather than
suppressive. Robbie and Carl welcome once
again to The Kingdom's podcast. Thanks for having us.
Yeah. Thanks for having us in.
You're welcome. So I don't know who's going to
go first, right? You know, or the least as that
I'm meeting you guys for the very first time.
What problems are you actually solving?
Yeah, I'll jump in. So my name is Robbie and I'm the
CEO and founder of Tech My School.
And essentially what Tech my School does is we go into
schools, we do an audit this diagnostics of sorts,
comprehensive package, comprehensive process.
And ultimately what we're trying to do is we're trying to find
gaps in schools. So then we can then fill them
with solutions that are 21st century in nature.
And at the heart of it are focusing on student skills that
are going to empower them for today and tomorrow.
So Tech, my School, is a company that can serve, you know, the
best schools in the world, but then can also serve some of the
most struggling schools. And we started by working with
those struggling schools. We started here in Puerto Rico
and kind of from there, have branched off and have served
schools literally all around the world, from Kenya to Greece,
across the US And then obviously in Puerto Rico, we've served
about 50 schools so far. And yeah, we're still growing.
We still just are scratching the surface.
This is our fifth school year, so not new in education, but a
relatively new new company. We found too that schools kind
of regardless of their funding level or their, their stature,
many of them are, are still modeled after a very like 19th
and 20th century model of educating kids.
And one of the things that we're really trying to do is help help
schools to address a skill set that is not being addressed very
readily in kids right now. And specifically in the schools
that are really struggling, the ones that really buy into what
we're doing. And they have a real growth
mindset, right? They're really thinking about
how they can grow and improve. Those are the ones that actually
end up doing the most amazing things with their kids.
And what's really cool about technology is if you can just
get, if you can give access to technology to places that don't
have it. A lot of times their mindset,
their, their kind of, they're ready for fresh thinking.
Kind of like when, when I was living in Cameroon, they didn't
install, they didn't bother installing landlines.
They just gave everybody cell phones and put up cell towers.
It was like, like they skipped a step.
And some of the schools we work with are kind of like that.
That's like almost like they can skip a step if they've just
decided, hey, we're interested in this newest, most updated
skill set for kids. And they kind of let us in and,
and let them help. Let us help them build programs
works. It works really well for them.
Wow, interesting stuff. I don't know how to fit this for
I love it when I have guests that are very, very much aligned
with the philosophy of the forecast.
When you look at the name of the forecast, it is Kingdom's
podcast, Growth mindsets, leadership, AI and business
insights. And the walk of what you guys
have been talking about relates very much to growth mindset.
And if you've seen previous episodes of the podcast, I've
already said this, I have only two goals from the forecast to
educate and to motivate. And if I'm able to do that, you
know my goal is accomplished. The forecast is under the
education category one Spotify and Apple broadcast and the sub
category is self improvement. And you see what you guys are
talking about just it hits the nail on the head and a very big
philosophy that we have on this forecast is mindset, skill set
and tool set. And that is exactly what you
guys use in empowering this schools the educational C stand
right being sure that the people I crept with the right mindset.
I think a lot of times in the corporate world, people place
too much emphasis on the skill sets.
But we don't have to realize that without the right mindset,
you cannot even achieve anything.
Or when you have a close mindset and you are able to acquire the
right skill sets and you're enabled with the right tool
sets, there's no limit towards you can actually achieve.
So from me to you, it's a very big thank you.
You know, sharing your time, your expertise on the forecast
today. And of course, I like to say
this, anytime a person shares their time with you, they share
their life with you. Of course, the SI unit for
measuring life this time. So, you know, with that being
said, why does education system design matter to founders, to
executives, to investors that listen to the show?
You know, for me, I think it's a little more personal.
You know, education is the foundation of society.
So there's a direct correlation between test scores and GDP.
High test scores, high GDP, low test scores, low GDP, right.
And for me, I grew up, you know, this poor kid in San Diego.
I was the poorest kid in school. I didn't have electricity at
home growing up, as crazy as that sounds.
And it wasn't because we didn't have electricity in San Diego.
It was just because my dad didn't pay the bill and they
don't give free electricity so and my only like food was at
school. So elementary school was a place
for me. It was a sanctuary is where
adults cared about me. It's where it gave me a chance
to have an opportunity to to make something of myself.
I think if I was born in so many other different countries, I
wouldn't have been able to accomplish nearly what I've been
able to accomplish now. So, you know, I'm very grateful
for that. I've traveled to 65 countries.
I've kind of seen it and and yeah, so coming to Puerto Rico,
I was coming in from Nigeria, the last place before Puerto
Rico, working at the Americas. To Nigeria.
Yeah, Niger boys. So I went from California, where
I was born to Hawaii. I worked in the inner City
Schools of Hawaii, back to California and then I went
overseas. So I was in Kazakhstan, I was in
Qatar, I was in Saudi Arabia, came back to California.
I was in Silicon Valley, got my master's in IT, and then
eventually landed in Nigeria where I was a remote learning
specialist during COVID times. Before COVID hit, actually, I
was preparing the school in case Ebola hit again.
You know, because of when Ebola hit, there was remote learning
and so I was kind of preparing the staff for that.
And then Covad hit and we were just ready to go.
So we were that class that had done the fire drill before the
fire. So we were organized, we were
ready to go, but we still that process.
We burned ourselves out and we were like, as soon as the
contract was done, we're like, hey, let's go on an island and
just enjoy our life. Just go for one year to take a
sabbatical, my wife and I, and then, you know, I'll write a
book on Ed tech, and then I'll get back out there to this very
comfortable life as an international administrator
working in these diplomat schools.
We had to make a decision between where we wanted to live.
It was going to be either Kosamui, Thailand.
We love Thailand. We've been there four times.
Zanzibar. Zan.
Yeah, Thailand's great. Zanzibar, which I think is
probably the most beautiful of the three places we were
choosing. Zanzibar beaches are just 2nd to
none. Love Stone Town and then Puerto
Rico. And so we landed on Puerto Rico
because we wanted our boys to kind of learn Spanish.
I'd study it in school, but I wasn't great.
So I really wanted them to give them a chance to be immersed in
it. And then also there's something
here called Costco. So if you know what Costco is,
Costco is essentially like Tesco or whatever.
It's just like a big supermarket where like the.
UK, yeah, I've heard of Costco. Yeah, yeah.
So when you live in Nigeria, you're you're missing some
things. You know, they've got great job
off Rice, but you, you know, you miss some of your American
goods. I was like, let's go back to
Puerto Rico, learn some Spanish, go fishing, you know, do the
boating thing. And then, yeah, I put my boys in
the local schools. And I was just absolutely
shocked because these schools were so much like Nigerian
schools, like, you know, African schools.
And I'm not saying that in a, in a derogatory way, but it was
just that like America is the wealthiest country in the world.
And every school that I had seen to that point in America,
whether it's Hawaii or San Diego, Florida, NY, there's a
certain level of standard. Let's just say where the
facilities are big, there's grass, soccer fields, there's a
canteen for all the kids to eat, there's libraries, there's
teachers who are getting paid a certain level of pay.
They have KS and medical and health and all that kind of
stuff. There's programs or sports.
There's just a certain, you know, equity that kids are
afforded as Americans that just doesn't exist in many other
countries. And so going from Nigeria, I was
working at a great school in Nigeria, the American School
Legos, but we did a lot of field work.
So we would work with just local Nigerian schools and we did a
lot of charity work. We donated computers.
We hosted a little conference for them.
I mean, even in my own personal life, I had my my own boys, we
went to the orphanages and we donated to the orphanages and
work with them. So I kind of had a somewhat of
an understanding of both worlds. And then to see Puerto Rico,
where everyone is an American citizen, it's an American
territory. They're not a state, they're a
territory. A lot of people don't know that,
but it's America. Like if you're born here, you're
American. You can move to New York or Los
Angeles tomorrow. Vice versa, you can move and
live and work here. So it's just like moving to any
other state. But the schools here are just
insanely low. And so there's kind of the eye
test of just like, OK, these, there's something's off here.
There's no libraries, there's no canteen, there's no fields.
It's just a concrete box with some fans and a chalkboard.
Like I've seen this before, but not in America.
So there's just the eye test. Then you look in the classrooms
and you're like, this is, this does not look like a 21st
century classroom. This is in the way they
practice, in the way they're talking.
And so you look at the research. There's a testing organization
called Pisa. Pisa, they do kind of a
standardized test across countries, right?
So across the world, and I think maybe 100 and some odd countries
participate. Puerto Rico scores last in math,
reading and science. They are the outliers of the
outliers. So there's kind of like this big
BLOB in the US fits somewhere in the middle.
You know, there's like 50-60 countries all right there.
You know, there's a little deviation between math, reading
and science, you know, left or right.
But it's all in that, you know, cluster.
And then you have on the far right, you have like, you know,
these outliers like Korea and Japan that are kind of like, you
know, highest scores. And then you start to go towards
the left. Yeah.
You start, you know, seeing countries that have lower scores
and they're countries you'd think of.
Then you get to this like, outlier that like way out, like
Pluto, you know, like way the heck out there.
And that's Puerto Rico, and it's crazy.
It's just so crazy. And so for me, you know, knowing
that my, you know, current state is at such gratitude and at such
a debt to American public school systems, seeing these American
kids not have that opportunity. Because honestly, if I'm in
Nigeria, if I'm in India, if I'm in Kazakhstan, I'm a guest and I
do what I can to help. But it's their country.
They have their own laws, their own ways, and I can add to it.
But it's like I can't make these big changes because it's, you
know, it's their country. And I mean, maybe I could, but,
but still, it's like I know in others, many countries
culturally, it doesn't matter if you know, you're this brilliant
person, if you're not the right tribe, you're not the right last
name, you're not the right, you know, religion, you're not the
right gender, not the right family or whatever.
It doesn't really matter. Your life is kind of
predetermined in a lot of ways, but the beautiful thing about
America is it's not like that. It doesn't matter where you
start with who you are or what you are.
It matters about who you are. So whether you're black, white,
Asian, whatever, if you work hard, if you have that growth
mindset, you will achieve. And that's why as frustrating of
a country as America is, it still stands at this as this
kind of beacon of light in the world is that anyone can come
there and restart themselves, reimagine themselves and make it
if you work hard, you know, and if you value education and if
you value, you know, that grit. And so seeing that, knowing
that, that that's what makes me proud to be from America is
because before I left America, I was always kind of like, I'm not
going to say there's any self hatred, but it was just kind of
like, man, we're such a racist country.
We're such a bad country, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Because that's what the media just constantly pounds in your
brain until you go to all these other countries and you're like,
man, we're actually like the least racist country in the
world. It's a place where, I mean, my
roommate was from Nairobi. He's got the thickest accent
you've ever heard in your life. And he came to America barely.
His dad was in government. So he kind of snuck him in.
His dad lost power, he lost his visa.
He stayed, he got his like kind of fake green card in LA.
He worked, worked at Costco. That's actually where he met
with Costco. And then he went to school,
ended up marrying this girl, finished his degree at OU, got a
patronum engineering degree. I mean, the guy's making like
whatever, 300,000 a year, He's crushing it.
His wife's a lawyer. They live this beautiful life.
And it's like, that's America, you know what I mean?
And so that's why it's that's why it's such a special place.
And also why it's so unacceptable for an American
territory state, in my mind to not have a world class
education. And so that's kind of how tech
my school was born. It was like seeing my kids
coming from Africa, seeing my kids in this school and just
knowing immediately as a, you know, educator for 20 plus
years, like I need to, to, to help, you know, it's like this
call to action, this call to service.
I know I can help. I know technology's the avenue
to help these, these educators, these kids.
And then the service began. So that's kind of like the birth
of tech, my school. And Kyle has also been a big
part of that journey with me. And we work together in Saudi
Arabia and Jeddah. And I went to go work for him.
So I came in as his assistant tech director, the assistant CTO
of the school. And so I kind of learned a lot
about the position and just how schools operate under Kyle.
And then he went on to do his story.
But we've always kind of remained buddies.
And as I was seeing this, I was kind of talking with Kyle about
what I'm seeing and the processes of, you know what,
what tech my school became. So he's though he's not like the
founder. He's even before tech my school
began like him and I have always been thought partners and we've
always kind of worked together in that way.
So I'll I'm. A pre founder.
Yes, I'm going to pass the ball to Kyle and let him introduce
himself and talk about like how he kind of joined a tech, my
school and where he was at. Yeah.
So I have a similar story, not from the very beginning, but
excuse me, similar story of moving around the world and
working at international schools.
So I was in Cameroon and then in Saudi where Robbie and I met and
then I was in Switzerland after that and then Vietnam after
that. So I would say that so we, we
did so much learning along along the way, right.
I mean, I could have easily done that stint in, you know, four or
five different schools here in the States and I would have
learned a lot about the job and, and the role and whatnot.
But being able to do that internationally was kind of like
a double education for me. I got to kind of, you know, do
the on the job training and learn about what I was doing in
my profession for the same time. Got to know people from all
these different amazing cultures.
That was that was such a huge thing.
But Robbie and I started working together in Saudi and we started
working on essentially some of the conversations we had were
around like systematizing the skill set.
So you were asking about the structure of school and, and the
importance of the structures. And I think Robbie and I, one of
the things we agreed on from the beginning is that industry is
looking for something a little different than what we are
currently providing. I think this, this has become
exacerbated over time, probably because of technology more than
anything. But in, in industry, they're
looking for universities to train kids up in a certain way
to get them ready for the workforce, right?
But then there's K12 education where Robbie and I are, and
they're, we're trying to get kids ready for the college
landscape, right? And we're in a bit of a
predicament in the sense that colleges are not very vocal
about communicating the needs of kids in these newer ways.
So what we've always done and, and this is, you know, if your
listeners aren't listening from the States, maybe some of the
terminology is different, but the the thinking is the same.
And universities everywhere, which is that there are these
preparation pieces that kids go through in order to qualify for
university in the United States. It's two primary exams that they
take the SAT and the ACT and you can take take one or the other.
Some kids, a lot of kids will take both.
But those scores along with your grades from high school
essentially are the determining factors and whether you get into
school or not. That's gotten more, it's more
human, humanistic, humanized now in the sense that they're,
they're really do pay attention to like your essays.
You have to write essays. They'll give you a prompt.
Some of sometimes the, the prompts are kind of loony in
some ways they sound crazy, but they're really, they're really
looking for something from you. They want to know, want to know
about your mindset. You know, we were talking about
growth mindset earlier. But my whole point of saying all
of this is that universities are really the ones who should be
telling educators like Robbie and I what they need.
What do you want your incoming students to look like when they
come in? And what we get from them is not
messaging about this type of first we got 21st century, we're
getting a little further into the 21st century now, but we
would say like next Gen. skill set, right?
AI has been a really shined a light on this because there's a
whole new emerging skill set that is kind of on the horizon
for kids now that we are also not addressing very, very
adeptly. But part of our thinking is like
we kind of have to skip the middleman and we kind of have to
think about industry also, because industry is very clear
about what they want from the kids coming out college and
college is not very clear to us about what they want coming into
college, if this makes sense, right?
It's kind of like a three-step process of a young person
graduating into the workforce. And I think that what, what we
really tried to do is to pay homage to what the skill set
when they get out of college is really what we're kind of aiming
for more than, I mean, the universities.
Universities are still set up as kind of incubators for thought
and research. And, and that's, that's really
fantastic. And I think that's where they
really shine as in the research side of things.
But when it comes to like the skills that are required for
thinking like I'm talking about AI and understanding how AI
systems work and how if you put bad data into an LLM, you get
crap out the other side, right? Like the kids have to.
Understand garbage and garbage out.
Garbage and garbage out. Yeah, they have to understand
data quality. They have to understand
engineering like the yeah, prompt engineering and the
efficacy of the process, right? Like in order to, in order to
make this work, you have to understand what the machine is
actually doing. And so that's, that's part of
what we're it's not, I mean that that's just one small part.
So we're, we're also looking at the, the ability to like,
showcase their learning by, you know, multi modally, being able
to use traditional methods of presenting evidences of their
learning while at the same time being able to harness some of
the newer technologies, right, like podcasts and videos.
And like, what's the difference between someone writing an essay
and someone building a documentary to get the same
point across of their, of their learning, displaying their
understanding of a concept or content or showing off skills.
So what, what we're, what we're really working with schools on
is to help them to kind of rethink the narrative of, of
assessment, how we assess learning.
Because LLMS, they came on really quickly and very, very
quickly what we were doing at schools was saying like kids,
kids are teething. Now they're having them write
the, they're writing their essays.
Well, then maybe we should rethink what we're asking kids
to do to show us what they know. So this is a big part of our
thinking when we're working with schools.
Amazing, there's actually a whole lot to unpack.
What you said, 1 scene I very much believe in is another
force. He's time to work that you need
strong institutions and not just strong individuals.
You guys are strong individuals, but this a limit to what strong
individuals can actually do. But when you have strong
institutions and the institutions, you know, play
their role like the system would be in a good place.
So you have the schools, you know you have the universities
and of course you also have the policy makers, right?
The policy makers have a very, very big role to play in
ensuring that the administration of these schools right, are in
the right place. From your experience, what have
you seen first hand that you know most policy makers and
persons and leadership misunderstand about the school
system? You know, it's, it's interesting
because when you're talking about, you know, a system,
especially when you're in America, it's always comes back
to politics. And so that's a very convoluted
subject in itself. In the states mainland there,
you know, politics are, are very much a part of that system in
terms of how everything's built. What are kids being taught
there? There's a kind of a localized
set of, you know, Department of Education as a federal reach or
did have a federal reach. And then there's the the states
having their, their kind of more local reach and there's
corruption, there's certain elements to it that, you know,
inhibit the success or, or failure of education in America.
Puerto Rico has its own kind of subset of political strife and,
and control in the system. And so it doesn't fall under the
exact same purview as the systems in the mainland US.
So because of that, I'm not going to say it's the Wild West
out here, but it definitely has. There's a reason why we score
what we score. And so it's just such a
challenge to it's such a challenge.
And I mean, we have an MO U department education, We want to
work with them, but there's just so many components to it,
whether it's the people at the top who are constantly revolving
and then as soon as they leave, they fire everyone and then
bring in their people. So I'm if coming from Africa,
that was something that was kind of a this tribalistic governing
and every yeah. And I mean, happens everywhere,
you know, to a certain degree, coaching and sports, you know,
you get hired, you bring in your buddies or whatever.
But it's, it's more extreme, I would say here.
And then, you know, just sometimes it's a lack of follow
through with certain monies that could be allotted to schools and
other times it's, it's grift. And other times, you know,
people don't know where the money went.
So ultimately it's just such an uphill battle.
And, and it's just such a shame that like, honestly, tech, my
school should not exist. The work I'm doing, though, we
love it, it shouldn't exist. Honestly, like they, they, the
schooling system should be, there's enough money to where
the schooling system should be so good that we don't need to be
around maybe in a consultancy way and in a minor smaller way,
but not to the level of extent that we're serving and the
impact that we're making. So, yeah, in short, you are a
product of the system in which you live.
A lot of times it's, it's difficult, but whenever you're
in a place where the system is less effective, more corrupt,
more negative, whatever you want to say, the bigger impact you
can make because there's such a wider gap between success and
failure. And we just happen to be in a
location where we can make up a pretty big impact.
I would say what Robbie's talking about really is very
zoomed out at sort of a macro structural level level.
We're talking about countries or governments, right?
And he's totally right. I mean, you don't have to do
much more than follow money. I mean the money money
ultimately is what will decide. I would say the way the money
flows rather than the amount, the way the money flows, I think
is, is what's related to efficacy.
Because a big, a bigger problem in, in Puerto Rico, it, it's not
the total amount of money going into the system.
The total amount of money is not the problem.
The, the amount that's getting to the classroom is really the
problem in the United States. The money gets to the
classrooms. I think the bigger problem is
that the system is so large, it, it operates in such a way that
it's very difficult to like in a state that doesn't give a lot of
control to individual school districts.
Like in Texas, I think there are what, 304 hundred school
districts or even more than that probably if, if the, if the
state has too much control, it's hard for the, the, the school
districts themselves to have very much nuance when they have
maybe very different populations to serve.
So the problems in Puerto Rico and the problems in mainland are
different, but they they have them what I would say zooming in
to the sort of individual district or school level.
In the process of zooming in, sorry to interrupt you.
In the process of zooming in, I want you to weave something into
that process, right? What?
What are the signals that you look out for?
When do you evaluate in these schools?
So I'd love for you to read that into the zoom in.
Sure. The individual school
leadership, this comes back to then.
That's why I think we're going to hit this over and over again.
It comes back to mindset. It comes back to whether or not
a school leader fundamentally or a district leader fundamentally
believes that every single person in the district, both
teachers and students, can grow. They have to have this mindset
that we're not just trying to manage the status quo.
We're not. Like in a car, you put it on
cruise control on the highway and the car kind of keeps you at
the same speed. There should not be a cruise
control button in education because education is not static.
The things that we're trying to teach kids in certain content
areas stay more or less static to some degree.
Like you could say history and math and those things are maybe
they're more static. But if you dig a little deeper,
history, the ways in which we view history, the research that
we're doing and make connections between modern and history from
before, this is also like technology, it's also changing
all the time, right? So like.
The. Fact that we create these huge
systems that sort of promote the continuation of the status quo
is very, very difficult. One, one of the things I
actually love this analogy that Robbie makes, he talks about
LeBron James. You could say this about like
Leo Messi or any sport. These athletes that are at the
top of their game, they still have coaches, they're still
being coached. They have this fundamental
understanding in athletics. We, we fundamentally believe
that we can always improve. Leo Messi, by all rights,
probably doesn't need a coach. If there's anyone that doesn't
need a coach, it's that guy, right?
But he's still coached and he's coachable.
Like coach ability. I think is, is a is a good way
to a good frame to to look at it.
So you're, you're asking for signals.
What can you, can you expand on that?
Can you say more about what you mean?
What do you mean when, when we're going into a school to try
and figure out how we can help? Is that what you're?
Exactly, exactly. You know, what are the signals,
what are the factors that you guys evaluate to make your
assessment? Probably you're muted.
Yeah. I think the what we do is we we
try to look at it from a systematic standpoint.
So we can create a model that can fit in any school.
And so we focus and we're looking through three different
lenses. So the first lens that we're
looking at is building and improving educational systems.
So everything that you can touch may create policy computers, you
know, software, all those kinds of things.
So we're looking at where is your school fit in terms of
those? How can we serve, how can we
help, how can we help improve that lens?
The next lens we look at is improving the educators
capacity. So we're looking at mindset,
we're looking at how professional learning happens in
the building. What is the philosophy of the
leadership and the school? What is the ethos and what is
the practice that reflects that? How does learning happen for the
adults and how are they self improving, reflecting,
collecting data, those kinds of things?
So the second lens is really focusing on the adults in the
building because they're the ones who are facilitating this
to students. And then finally, the third lens
is we look at student empowerment.
So what are the things that students are actually doing in
their classroom, outside of the classroom?
What skills are we actually teaching them and are they
showcasing in order to kind of signify this person who's going
to go out into the world to this AI and informational economy and
be a contributor or producer or creator?
And so by looking first at the systems, you know, things that
you can buy, looking at the adults, what do they feel
confident and what are they knowledgeable on?
And what do they think about teaching and learning?
And then we look at the kids because you immediately want to
go straight to the kids. Like what is the result of the
system? What does a product look like?
We don't start there, that we end there.
The first thing you got to do is look at the factory and say, OK,
how can we modernize this factory?
And then you look at the workers.
How do the workers, how are they learning?
How are they doing their thing? And then you can say, OK, now
let's look at the product because it always starts like
Kyle was saying at the top. And you know, regardless of the
school that we work with, we worked with every range of of
school. The leadership is going to
determine the success of the process of tech my school going
in or just really any, any process of a school going in.
If if a leader cares, the teachers are going to care.
If a leader is learning, the teachers are going to be
learning. If the leader is, you know,
conscientious and observant and you know, is putting there is,
is having follow through, the teachers are going to fall in
line and vice versa. And so we've worked in schools
that literally could could have been in Lagos like easily, like
if you went to the campus, you saw what was going on.
You're like, I'm in Nigeria, but it was it's in America.
And then we've been to other. Schools in America.
You're like this, this is like one of the top schools ever.
It's got everything money can buy.
And sure, they may have a lot of the systems component, but they
those other facets aren't there, or at least they're not as much
as they could be. They're not hitting their
potential because the leadership is, you know, either arrogant,
lazy, or just has a fixed mindset.
So we try to partner with people who have that growth mindset.
And even if they don't, I mean, at the end of the day, we work
to serve children. I will literally work with the
most difficult school because even if I can make that school
10% better, I know the future of those kids are going to be 10%
brighter. And so we're going to, we're
going to do everything we can to, to serve that school for
that reason. And so my wife who works with
me, she gets frustrated all the time.
She gets frustrated with teachers, she gets frustrated
with directors. She gets frustrated with our
donors because we're a nonprofit.
And I tell her I'm like, listen, you can't focus on these other
external factors. We're here for one reason, and
that's to serve kids. You work for them, you know what
I mean? So like, keep doing good things
because that will improve their lives.
And that's what it's all about. So at least for me, that's why I
cut tunnel vision myself to, to, you know, block off the, the
negativity that comes with working with various groups of
people, economic etcetera. Yeah, because we, we, we
pipeline a lot of our funding from, you know, some of the
wealthiest people in the world. And so we, we really want them
to care about what we're doing. And sometimes they do and
sometimes they don't. And so that's frustrating.
And then we serve schools that may be bought in and may be
working hard to improve their school and their kids.
And sometimes they don't, right. So sometimes you can get this
negative force on both ends from the donor side and from the from
the school side. And it can be discouraging.
But what keeps keeps us going is just focusing on that singular
goal of improving lives of kids. And because the kids don't
choose, they're just born. They're just born and their
parents, they go to this school and then you're just there.
And so they're other outcome is determined by that school.
And we, we do everything we can to empower them.
A lot of these kids are victims of circumstances.
You did not choose the family that you're going to be born, so
you do not choose the location. So it's it's a great thing what
you're doing at least giving them a better chance about
succeeding in life because the background matters.
Even the Bible says Eve the foundation be destroyed.
What kind of writers do? But I'd like for you to touch on
what a high functioning learning system looks like in practice
to. Tackle that one.
To me it's one of the main evidences.
Is teachers learning alongside kids An institution, it's high
functioning is one that is an institution of learning, right?
Teaching happens, but learning, learning is the non negotiable.
Everyone is learning all the time.
And one of the reasons why that's important, I mean, it's
important for any adult who's in a you know, it's to be to be
learning, I think, and and growing.
But as adults learn and they show their passion for learning
and understanding new things and.
Being humble enough to learn from the kids, the kids respond
to that, that that is how you develop kids who are lifelong
learners, kids who love learning.
That's really our goal. Our goal is less to teach kids
what to think, but teach them how to think.
Schools oftentimes will say that, but but what does that
really mean? What does how to think mean?
How to think really incorporates a lot of different things across
like an age appropriate continuum.
But the one thing that's continuous across that whole
thing is a love of learning. So curiosity, there's an amazing
quote, there's an author, a guy named George Kuros is this great
quote. He says, if if kids are less
curious when they leave us, then when they came to us, then we
failed. And so I think a high
functioning system involves a place where failure is
acceptable. They say, we like to say fail
fast and fail forward. And we say this, a lot of
schools will say this. They'll say we really want to
facilitate a place where be a safe place to take risks and to
fail. Yet we, we punish failure.
I mean, we, we really want to see schools that are building
systems that allow kids to really push their own limits and
fall and get up and learn right from that, that whole iterative
process. So I don't know, Robbie, what
would you say in terms of high functioning?
What? What am I missing?
I think you hit the nail on the head when it comes to the
academic component, you know, learning, failing forward
thinking, those kinds of things. I would just say that schools
are, you know, a community. And so part of a successful
school and a place that you want to go to is 1 in which the
community and really the people who are there are, are valued.
They're they're given a chance to express themselves freely
and, and just learn together. So I think what's different
between a school and maybe just opening a, you know, a business
is just the fact that schools are a community space.
You're dealing with people, you're dealing with their lives,
you're dealing with their problems, you're dealing with,
you know, all those kinds of things.
And so you want the school to have this, this we look at when
we break down our audit of a school, we, we kind of have two
different, I would say, frameworks that we build from.
So the first is 1. That's an internal framework
that kind of speaks more to what Kyle was talking about in terms
of, you know, structures in place and, you know, success,
failing, all that kind of stuff. We also look at how do the
educators at the school think of learning?
How do they think of themselves? How do they think like where,
where do they feel they fit and where do they, how do they value
themselves and how do they value learning?
And what is their purpose, right?
What is the point of being there?
And so we get that from Robert Dilt's levels of learning.
So he has these these kind of framework where it's just more
about, you know, kind of self identifying your purpose and
your point and who you are and being reflective on that.
So there is this technical side that we serve, but then there's
also this other component where we want schools to really define
themselves as learners, to define themselves as thinkers,
to define themselves as places where kids can come and have a
safe place to grow and, and to to nurture their passions.
And I think it comes down to leadership too.
I think, I think your leaders set the tone for what's allowed
to happen in a sense, right? The two another top.
So I'm, I'm actually almost done with a, I'm almost done with a
second program, a master's degree in educational
leadership. And I think out of all of the
study that I've done, really what what I see as a theme is
that a leaders role is to support people who support
people. And So what I see a lot of times
in schools is that leaders really try and micromanage
processes which they should actually be in a support role
more than a barking orders type of a role.
I think there's a misunderstanding from leadership
about what their purpose is. And, and, and honestly, your
teachers, you can think of like, if you think of this in a
corporate sense, you know, your teachers are really like your
middle managers. They're in charge of another
group of people, which are your students.
And your job as a leader is to support those teachers, to
support learning in the classroom.
And there's a million ways you can do that.
But like that, that's one of the things that I look at too, when,
when we're going into a school, I'm looking for the sort of
hidden signals from leadership on you.
You what One thing that's important is when we go into a
room and we're doing, let's say like a big kind of a corporate
training with teachers and the leaders are there too.
Some places you can, I mean, it doesn't take much, but you, you
can see the subtleties in the way that people's body language
is or the, the, the ways in which they're deferential to
leadership. I mean, you can feel the, the,
the company, the school's orchard more than you can see it
on paper. You can feel it.
And, and I think that that's, that's part of what we have
learned to identify kind of internally.
So that when we're talking about how we can help them, because
our job ultimately when we go into a school is to help them to
self identify where they're at and what they want to do based
on our framework. And we don't go in and tell them
what they should and shouldn't be doing.
It's not like that. It's a non judgmental sort of
assessment that we do with them. And when we get to the end of
that, how we know how to best help them really has a lot to do
with the ways that they interact with their leadership.
And there are certain things that we would do that are more
aggressive in terms of the types of interventions that we would
recommend. Only if their leadership won't
support it, we're not going there.
We're going to have to take a different, more grassroots
approach. Really focus on us intervening
with teachers more than intervening with leadership who
can intervene with teachers. There are subtle differences in
communication and signals that we pick up from leaders and so
the most high functioning places I would say are the places where
the leaders are passionate supporters of their teachers.
Interest and stuff. It's it's quite interesting.
It shows like you guys eavesdropped a conversation I
had with you and Youthang, Young Youthang is the head of
community, the school of mentors, and he was on this
forecast. I think we had a discussion, I
think was it last night? Yeah, last night.
And he was telling me about his experience in China.
He was born in China but grew up in the United States.
So we always make this joke about, oh, you're like Apple
were made in China but designed in the US, right?
But but he's always keeping in that the quality is good.
He's always bringing in that disclaimer.
So shout out to your new Fang. You need to see this one.
He was teaching English in a Chinese school.
And when he started the program, he was asking one of the Chinese
teachers that how can I teach these students effectively?
And guess what the teacher told him, Teacher told him instead of
you thinking of how you are going to teach the students, why
not think about what you can learn from these students?
It gives him a rethink. You know, learning is a two way
St. Just at communication, you can
impact knowledge and you can also learn from the people that
you're teaching. It's interesting myself speaking
to you, right? It's quite interesting that we
have connecting dots. I've worked in the NGO space of
the charity space, and I've also been a teacher myself.
I used to teach professional accounts and students.
I'm a target account of what you guys call ACPA in the US.
So I used to teach the students writing the professional exams.
And I realized something that the best students, that the best
teachers are the best students. The best teachers are the
teachers who adopt that lifelong learning approach, who adopts
curiosity, because when you have the humility to learn and to
keep learning, you're like a sponge.
You keep absorbing information and you can help to what I say,
communicate that information in the best way possible.
And it's interesting that you guys adopt that approach.
You know a lot and massive respect to you guys for that
approach because that is the way it should be.
It's interesting how some people feel like maybe because they are
older or more experienced, they feel like they cannot learn from
other people and it's taunts your growth as a person.
Learning is a two way St. You can learn from a toddler,
right? But how do you try to what I say
has that right orientation to leadership and of course to the
teachers, because it starts with leadership, right?
And of course the teachers determine the future of these
future champions that we have in our custody, basically.
So how did you work around the orientation?
Orientation of. Yes, you know, the orientation
for the teachers and of course, the orientation for leadership.
It's interesting that people have certain mindsets, right?
You either have a group mindset or a fixed mindset.
Whatever mindset you have is a function of your orientation.
If you are a person who believes in the principle, the philosophy
of being a lifelong student, you're likely to have a growth
mindset. But when you have a fixed
mindset, it's difficult. And for me, I feel like one of
the things that is difficult to teach people is mindset.
But. There's a psychological path to
it. If you keep passing on a message
to people in a particular environment, at some point, you
know they pick up on what you are passing on the message,
right? So we need that be orientation
of the community of leadership or the community of teachers and
that way it cascades to impact on the students.
Yeah. I mean, for us it's it's more of
on the practical level sometimes, like Kyle saying, you
can see that work chart through body language immediately.
And those at the top who have that fixed mindset or, or just a
complacent mindset 1 where they feel like their title determines
their outcomes. So they sit back and you know,
their patron, their Hefe, the boss and these other people
learn and I'm good. We we work with them for a time,
we try to do everything we can to improve the school, help the
kids, help the teachers. But ultimately success and
failure does ally a lot with the leadership.
And if the leadership is not in compliance to what our missions
doing or just having a growth mindset, there are times we have
to let schools go. And that's an unfortunate thing.
But not everyone respects free, not everyone of values things
that are given to them in charity.
So, and everyone wants free because they're like, oh, I want
something free, but are you going to value it?
Are you going to take care of it?
Are you going to follow through? And so our work is service
based. So we will go to a school, do
this audit, we'll create this detailed plan for their school
for a year and then we get to work.
So we'll follow through. We go and we do an all staff
for, you know, provisional training for the teachers and
then the next day we're on campus doing classroom
observations, doing instructional coaching.
And his Internet just died I. Think so.
I think that's what happened. So yeah, I'm sure he's going to.
I was on a roll. You were on a roll.
Yeah, was was he fuzzy when you were talking as well?
Yeah, a little bit. I think he's probably just got
a. Maybe he's a slower connection.
Essay. Yeah, it sounds like he's
usually in the UK, so it probably would have would be
better, better Internet if he was in the UK.
I liked it. He's added the questions to the
chat. I found that to be really
helpful actually. That's great, I even noticed
that. There we go.
It's cool that they keep the keep the feed going though, even
when the host drops. Yeah.
Like if it was a zoom meeting, I think it doesn't shut the
meeting off if the if the host dropped out.
Also I found out as I was waiting in the waiting room
today that there's a downloadable.
There's a Mac version of this. I don't have time to set it up
but. You can.
It's got extra features. There's like a Riverside app for
Mac. I'm going to try that, make it
so I can blur my Vietnam painting.
You're very familiar with that painting, aren't you?
Yeah, I like it. I didn't know it was from
Vietnam, actually. You brought that in.
You can't probably appreciate from the angle about how big
that picture is. I mean, the picture is probably
5 feet across. A guy delivered that.
This will be unsurprising to you.
A guy delivered that on a scooter.
He was like hanging off the back of the scooter with this giant
painting. This is delivered into us.
We, we, I think we paid him like a dollar $2.00 delivery fee,
something like that. He he show.
He shows up this giant painting. What did you that in Ho Chi
Minh? That was in Ho Chi Minh.
Yeah, we, there was a, it was about a mile from our apartment
kind of on in our little pocket of the town where we lived and
was this little art studio where this guy is.
All he does is all day long. He probably takes him a couple
of days to churn out one of these paintings, but he's just
prolific. He's hundreds and hundreds of
these original paintings. And we we went in there one day
and we're like, these are so cool.
We've got to get one of these to take home with us.
I think the painting costs like 100 bucks that like it wasn't a
lot, but then it probably costs us like 500 to ship at home.
Yeah. You know, what sucks is that
after traveling to all these different places, I've always
gathered artwork, Knick knacks, statues, just all these
different things. And I have them.
They're they're in storage. But we bought this house that
has this beach theme where every space was, like, tastefully
designed by that Facebook lady. And so I just feel like it's
somewhat wrong to mess with it. Yeah, it would just be out of
place if I put like, an Egyptian, you know, whatever a
pharaoh's face where the beach painting is.
So they're just sitting in my box.
There's just there's a ton of just artifacts like have yet to
put up. So one, one thing I was thinking
about when Robbie was talking is that there's a there's a
research he's he's famous among educators, guy named John
Hattie. And he did very, very long like
a 20 year study on 10s of thousands of students.
And he was looking at these different ways that we
intervene, like different facets of educational programs and how
they to what degree do they move the needle forward in academics,
right. And in terms of student
achievement and student learning.
And the number one item on there actually wasn't wasn't a
physical intervention. It wasn't one of these things
that we talked about as educators, scaffolding learning
and differentiation. And it wasn't something that we
do. It was actually a mindset piece.
And it was called, he calls it a collective teacher efficacy.
And what it, what, what he was getting at is essentially that
if in an organization, if the, the learners actually, and I, I
started thinking about this when, when you mentioned, I love
the way you frame that too, when, when you said that the
best teachers are the best learners, right?
Are the best students. So to that point, so his
findings were essentially that if everybody in the building has
this collective mindset of growth, that they believe that
every person can learn in the building, that is actually the
number one defining factor in terms of pushing academics,
academic output further. And that I think is, is also
kind of goes back to the question you were asking about
structure, right? And what is a, what is a high
functioning structure look like? Well, collective efficacy and
this collective mindset of growth is actually now through
research is is is proven to be one of the most important parts
of a high achieving school research.
Research is very, very important, right?
And I think research actually utilizes ethical thinking,
problem solving mindset, which is very important because for
me, I think about it, why are you going to school?
Why are you getting educated? If you're not going to turn out
to become a solution provider, then I think it's it's a waste
of everybody's time. But Speaking of providing
solutions, right, Technologies are the hearts of providing
solutions in this modern day world.
So many organizations actually buy technology, but the skill
change outcomes. Why is this the case?
You know, for us, especially in classrooms of various ages
groups, because not just these more adult learners, we work
with five year olds, we work with four year olds.
And so when we say technology, we're technology centered, but
we're learning driven. And so sometimes the best
technology you can use is a pencil or a book or a crayon, or
even just how you're using proximity in the classroom.
In terms of your stance, what we're trying to do is we're
trying to find the best tool to serve the best purpose for that
student, for that learner. And so we're really flexible in
that sense. But conversely, technology in
that, you know, I guess layman sense is it's compounding in
terms of its ability. And we've seen that over the
past five years, especially with these large LLMS that have come
out and and have really there's I'm not going to say dystopian,
but there's just a lot of outcomes in the near near future
that could happen. And I in my ex feed is just
filled with these people who are just like you're not going to
have to work in five years like work is going to be taken care
of. Tesla optimist.
All these AIS platforms are going to get so good and then
once AGI happens, it's like it's going to be so transformative
that you're going to really have to rethink your life and
everyone's going to rethink their life.
So there's a part of me that's like, let's stick to these tried
and true things and let's just find the best tool, whether it's
a tattoo BT model or if it's, you know, a ball versus do I
just need to just hold on for the next three to four years
here until I can buy this robot that just does everything for
me? And, you know, what are we
teaching kids for if they're going to be, you know,
everything's going to be taken care of for us.
So I don't think that's going to be the case.
Part of me thinks I hope not. But at the same time, it's a,
it's a very, very curious time to live in because there is this
future that can go so many different ways.
And honestly, I think even the leaders of in the industry don't
know how it's going to end, which is both sad and
frightening at the same time. Because I think there is, if you
get it wrong, it could be, you know, one of the dystopia models
that there's a percent chance of this happening is that there's
some sort of extinction event, as they call it the paper clip
model, where it's like to, to maximize the shape of the paper
clip or the efficiency of the paper clip, they have to
eliminate this, which leads to eliminating this.
And then eventually the robots kill all humanity or something.
You man, we got to keep you off of Reddit.
Well, I'm just something that leading AI people in the world,
you talk about the Elon Musk, you talk about the Sam Altmans,
you talk about these people who are driving society.
And with. Technology right now they are in
the driver's seat they're they have the thoughts I'm not
listening to some Spooks on Reddit.
It's like these are mainstream figures who have a deep fear of
AI, of the future, of technology and and they've yeah, they feel
like we know this is dangerous. We're playing with a grenade
here. But whoever gets to the finish
line first is going to be the take all winter winner.
So if I don't stop pushing the ball forward, they're going to
keep pushing the ball forward and I'm left in the dust.
I don't think we should be doing this, but I can't allow these
other guys to to win and take over the world, let's say.
So I'm going to keep pushing the ball forward as fast as I
possibly can without. The guardrails in time to really
process what we're doing. And so it's like, in a sense, we
are monkeys playing with fire in the sense that we could build
something that ultimately has a dystopian outcome.
And anyway, it's kind of scary to think of, but I'm not saying
it's going to happen. But there is a realistic chance
that this possibly could. Hans is whether it's 5% or 50%,
no one really knows. But when you're talking about
thoughts, creativity, because I mean, what separates us from the
animal Kingdom is just our brains and our ability to have
these conversations into to think and to work collectively.
And if you're building something that can do that exponentially
better than we can, there's no telling what it could end up
doing. I think we're thinking, hoping
for the good. I'm thinking I get a robot.
I'm hoping for a robot that just does all my dishes and cleans
the laundry and I don't have to do any chores anymore.
What's my YouTube? So my my issue with.
Kyle, get this man off just. Backing up a little bit and.
Get him off Reddit. Yeah, I know.
I feel like people like this, people like this who think about
the dystopian outcome have seen too much sci-fi.
Over to you. Kyle OK, here's here's something
that foundationally we believe at Tech my school, we believe
that technology has the power to level the playing field between
the haves and the have nots, right?
Absolutely. We have a system set up,
unfortunately right now where capitalism has created this
environment where the the rich keep getting richer and the poor
keep getting poorer, right? We're we're expanding that gap.
Technology has the ability to bridge that gap.
Let's let's look at your dystopian model.
Let's call this the best case scenario where everybody gets
that robot in their house that does all the work and right,
does everybody get the robot or do just the rich people get the
robots? Because I have a sneaking
suspicion that the rich people get the robots and the poor
people continue to do their own dishes and clean their own
floors. I'm thinking that what what we
want to do and what we're trying to do, the model that we operate
on is essentially, and I don't know if you knew this because we
didn't really say this before, but the schools that we serve in
Puerto Rico, we serve them for free.
Almost all of them, some of them, the school that means do
pay for our services, right? Like we serve a couple of
schools that are wealthy private schools that that they can pay
us. And that's part of how we
generate revenue. But we we do this, the way that
we do this is fairly socialist. And the reason we do it is
because we believe in education so strongly.
And we believe also that technology in education, when
leveraged properly, can be an absolute game changer for Wow.
Keep going. Again, just keep going.
My, my point is just that we operate in a way that is is the
opposite of what I think is actually going to happen.
What keeps happening is that we keep coming up with this amazing
tech. Like you look at the large
language models as a simple, like there's a free version of
them, but the version that does all the things is unaffordable
for people who are in poverty, right?
So like even something as simple as a large language model, and I
get it, it's a business and they have to pay for it.
It's not cheap to be burning these tokens constantly.
I don't know if I see this idea that you don't have to work
anymore and like the machines are going to take care of you
and do all the things. They're not going to take care
of the poor. They're going to take care of
the people who can currently afford to be taken care of.
That's what I think. And I'd love to get.
I'd love to get an economist's view, you know, like someone who
is steeped in the tack but also understands the history of the
patterns of how technology has has helped.
I mean, like, think back to the cotton gin, right?
Eli Whitney comes up with the cotton gin.
Who did the cotton gin really help?
The cotton gin did not help the people who were out in the field
picking cotton except for that it took their job away, right?
I mean, like, it made the job easier, you say, Yeah, it helped
them, but then what are they doing now?
Now they don't have a job. And yes, like, this was a
horrible time in American history where those people were
probably enslaved people anyway. But the large part.
But my point is just that, like, whenever we come up with new
technology, we're like, it's so helpful.
But who is it so helpful for is my question.
Yeah. I think also, too, that there's
like, there's only one penthouse.
Not everyone can live in the penthouse.
And so they're still going to. They should.
Even if there's robots doing many things, there's still going
to be a differentiation between wealth and income.
And you know, yeah. Because we're not going to be
sharing that wealth. Whatever, whatever efficiencies
have created more wealth or it's not, it's not shared wealth.
If wealth belongs to whoever created the efficiency and
whoever owned the process that just now became more efficient,
they make more money. But I think it's actually going
to continue to exacerbate the problem because while the rich
get richer, they create those efficiencies.
It means they need less people. Yeah, No, I mean, I what's scary
about the AI component of it is just that if it does subtract
that just swaths of jobs, that's the fear, right?
It's like, what are people going to do?
I mean, we're going to invent new jobs, I'm sure things that.
I don't think we're going to invent them at the pace that
we're going to be. Reject.
Yeah, that. Crushing other jobs.
I mean, we're, there's going to be a lot of scuba instructors,
you know what I mean? There's going to be a lot of
scuba. So I think one, one of the
things we brought up while you were gone was the idea that like
if we create these efficiencies and you know what, you know,
like you don't have to work anymore, the world has become
easy for you, who is actually benefiting from that?
And, and I, I don't think that will be a benefit across the
board. I think it will be the same sort
of stratification that we currently see.
I don't think that changes. I think the people who were
already the haves will continue to just have more.
Exactly exactly because I see AI as an assistant AI as a tool for
transformation, for efficiency, but it's really amazing to to
get to the take of the extremists or an AI, right.
Why are we afraid of AI? Humans created AI right
artificial intelligence and if humans if the world is going to
get destroyed right it's as humans that are going to destroy
the world. We are still in charge of this
thing right AI robotics who initiates the prompt who the EC
works with electricity that's there's a lot of limitation to
what you can possibly do with AI in terms of thinking of you from
a destructive perspective. We can only wait to see what
what happens in the world, but people thinking about not having
to work I don't see that happening.
I stand to be corrected, but I. Think only a few people will
realize that. Yeah, maybe people are Robbie.
Especially another Reddit. I've learned that I can't be
that person. So I came to Puerto Rico to be
on sabbatical to go shooting and relaxing and, and you know,
because I was overworking when I was in the, in the, in the
schools. So very, very quickly, you know,
within a few weeks I had gone from new, new parent on vacation
to training all staff and, and helping them improve systems and
then going from one school to, you know, 50.
So I've learned that about myself is that even when given
some time off, I go very stir crazy quickly.
I suck at vacation too. You're not alone.
Yeah, and so I do. Worry about.
How that will affect mindset if that dystopian happens where
like everything is taken care of.
You can't create anything because robots do it better and
they do it more efficiently and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
You know what? What will we do with our time?
But I think it'll be more creative.
I'm more of an optimist personally.
So I'm I'm going with the utopia.
Everyone gets to hang out and we can all just be buddies.
You know what I mean? Do it.
Let's see how that goes, you know, But talking about the
schools, if you compare working with these schools, like scaling
up an organization. So what would the leaders need
to think of differently? I think that are you talking
about schools specifically? Are you talking like industry?
The schools, the schools specifically, they are basically
an organization. What do they need to change?
Yes. So what do you really need to
change in order to achieve that scale up?
So for businesses, if you want to scale up a business, you're
talking about efforts to improve the revenue, you want to cut
costs, right, in order to make the profit line, you know,
bigger. What is it with schools that you
need to put in place in order to ensure that the schools are
improving? Of course, you guys are in the
business of improving the schools basically.
Yeah, I think they need to. So in the classroom, one of the
things that teachers generally do is they use this idea called
backwards design, where you think about the, you think about
the goal and you work towards the goal, right?
You work backwards to plan how you get.
To the engineering. In yeah, but in learning, you'd
say here, here are the KUD. These are the things I want kids
to know, understand to be able to do.
And that's at the end, right? And so how do I, how do I make
that journey to get to that endpoint?
I think that schools need to zoom out and use the same
technique and try and figure out their why.
Why are we here and what are we trying to build?
Right. And one of the, the the ways
that they do that is that they have curriculum.
And so those first two things that the K and EU the the no,
that's content. What do kids need to know?
And then the EU is understanding that's concepts.
They generally know what kids should know and what they should
understand. The last part is what they
should be able to do. That's the skills, right?
The skills, I think, are the part where most schools have
failed to basically say, hey, when a student graduates from
high school, this is the skill set that they need.
They already know what they need to know, but they don't
necessarily know what skills they need.
And if they do, they need to update that skill set.
So I would say that that would be my first, my first reaction
to the school needs to say who do we want these graduates to
be? They call up, they call it a
graduate profile, right? You, you, you build, you build
the product. So this is backwards from what
Robbie said earlier. With a factory model, the idea
you you do actually need to know what the intended widget is that
comes off the end of the factory line before you can build the
factory essentially. Interesting.
So basically we are about to round up, but I want you to
attack this improvement from three perspectives.
That is the philosophy on British podcast is built
mindset, skill set, tool sets. So in order to achieve the
improvements in the schools that you work with, what is the right
mindset? What is the right skill set and
what are the right tool sets? So for us, it's again, we're
working with people, working with, with educators who are in
power, who have positional power and they're in control of the
futures of many, many people, both the teachers and the
students and sometimes even the parents.
And so really we're just looking for leadership to be open
minded, to learn to care about their kids, to work through
challenging things in a, in a, in a way that they're
comfortable with the uncomfortable.
Because we're going to bring in a lot of different ideas,
different tools, different structures.
And when you're in that position of leadership where you feel
like I've got it and things are good and stir this, we're not
optimal, but I'm safe. I'm safe in the bubble that I'm
in. Why change?
I just need to make the paychecks coming in.
The power's there. I get to do what I want.
Why, why mess this up? I, I could be bringing these
guys in and they bring a philosophy in or a tool or a
mindset or whatever. And that disrupts my little safe
bubble. So there is a, a sense of risk.
So these, these leaders need to be a bit, they need to be
willing to risk their personal comfort for the greater good of
children and their future. And sometimes parents want that,
that same methodology that they had when they were kids.
So like I was taught in a certain way in 1980 and 1990,
and my kids should be being taught in that exact same way.
And if it doesn't look like that, I'm going to complain.
I'm going to cause a ruckus. I'm going to make life
uncomfortable for leadership because I want it to be like it
was for me. And so we have to combat those
those mindsets with parents with leadership, like, hey, I know
that things have gone a certain way, but the world's different.
And so we need to prepare appropriately.
So that's kind of the, the first thing the, the skill set really
is one that's adaptive because there's just so many things that
are coming at us. We're being bombarded with, with
various very, you know, different software strategies,
ideas, all these different things are coming at us.
So I think adaptability is and almost survivability is is kind
of the name of the game, especially with the speed of
these tools and how they're built, I mean.
It's verbal skills. You can build yeah, soft skills
are so important, learner mindset, being adaptable because
there's just so many things being thrown at us.
And. And it's going to come to the
point it almost says now that the layman can develop software
where if even if you're not a programmer, you can work with
these language models to build really comprehensive, really
impactful, really powerful goals.
And so when the masses can create, you're going to just get
so many great things coming out of that and you have to be ready
for the for, for change. It just has to be part of your
DNA of like I am going to use the best possible tool or my
kids, whatever that may be. And today it might be this and
tomorrow it might be that. And we have to be ready for
that. So I think the soft skills,
malleability and having the adaptability to, to take on
these different things that are being pushed at us almost on a
daily, daily level our daily basis rather.
And then when it comes to tool, it's just, I mean, I, I hate to
say, but it's like, what's the best tool today?
What is the best tool that we can use today to help our kids
for tomorrow? And so today it might be, you
know, a spreadsheet tomorrow could be an amazing software
called relief roster that helps you, helps you coordinate and
manage your, your substitute teachers.
So I think those it's less about the tool, it's more just more
about mindset. Yeah.
And I think that that tool set like to your, to your point,
like there's a, there's a foundational piece.
I'm sitting here looking at my computer, right and thinking it
is still important that kids have access to whatever the
whatever the hardware sort of modality is of the of the
current day. Right now it's mobile devices
and laptops or tablets or, you know, whatever.
I think that beyond that, I don't know that it matters that
much what the tool that the tool set to me is the least important
of all of them. I think really the more
important part is kids learning how to learn, right?
So like for you and I, we, we were old when we've grown up
learning all these years and we both love learning.
And so I think the LLM, the best part about the LLM wasn't like,
let the machine do my work for me.
The biggest benefit to it is like, I have AI have a free like
university level, you know, learning possibility here.
This thing can help me learn new skills and that's how I've used
it. It's been like the best thing
ever for someone who loves learning because it's it's just
basically wired for you to. Ask for all the questions, yeah.
Asking all the questions, how do I build that piece of software?
And to me, every single kid should be building software, not
because I, I think software is particularly the answer, but
because it's easy to do it now and, and like it's, it's
possible. It's still complex, but it's a
process that's so worth it. Because if, if we're living our
lives based around these digital tools, I think kids should be
able to create their own, you know, their their own apps,
their own software to run on these tools.
Yeah, yeah. It's and not just for
entertainment. I mean, like for productivity.
You talk about relief roster. I mean, like I created that as a
productivity tool to solve a problem.
And that's what software should be.
It should be solving problems. You know, one of the things I
used to go into schools and say I had this pyramid and it was
like the pyramid has these. It was almost like back in the
the dark ages, it was like the masses were illiterate, but at
the very top you have the clergy that could read and write,
right? And there was almost this
mindset of like, they're too common to need to know how to do
this. They just need to work in the
fields and let us smart people, us intelligent people, we're
going to be the ones controlling them and telling them what they
need to know, basically. And then eventually we all
learned how to read and write. And it's a good thing we're all
not going to be, you know, New York bestseller authors, but we
should all be able to write for our own personal use.
I'm writing a letter to my mom, I'm writing a letter to a
friends, or I'm writing a short story for my kid.
We should all be able to do that.
And I think it's the same thing now.
It's like there was this pyramid of creators and consumers.
The creators at the top being the Mark Zuckerberg who comes
from the sleep family where his dad paid for his special tutors
to teach him how to program. And then he was just born at the
right time and was able to create Facebook.
And now he's this multi billionaire, whereas everyone
else is kind of like like I just consume the software they make
and that's good enough for me. Whereas now, like you're saying
it should be, everyone should be creating software, you know,
because we can make cool things can.
Make our mindset I. Can make a birthday present for
you about some stupid memory that we had back in you know
what I mean about XYZ where we used to cat attack if you
remember that software I made you know and so it's.
OK, I'm going to be able to catch up with you.
So from me to you guys, it's a very, very big thank you.
And of course, I'd like to see one person shares the time with
you this year, the likely to be because the SI unit commercial
and like this time, of course, love and our respect to you
guys. Of course.
I wish you guys the very best and hope that you guys make
massive, massive positive impact.
It's goodbye for me. Do you want to give a shout out
to anybody before you leave? Yeah, I was going to say for any
of your listeners who's interested in and who's an
educator or who has a kid in a school who can, you know, wants
improvements for their schools, go to techmyschool.org.
We'd love to serve. We serve schools around the
world. We have software schools.
Yep. We do it in the, we do it in the
in person or or virtually. We can help your school.
We'll go in and we do it for free.
Reach out to us. Great deals on software too for
schools. We we get huge discounts because
we're a nonprofit and we act as a philanthropic arm for a lot of
Ed tech software companies. So hit us up if you want to talk
about software discounts too. Yep.
Interesting, interesting. I think I have somebody for you
guys now. We'll talk about that behind the
cameras. Goodbye, guys.
Always go for something in your life, conceive, believe, strive
to grind and achieve. Thanks for having us.