BTC Sessions - School Kills Curiosity: Bitcoiners' Proven Fix | Kerry McDonald

Starting point is 00:00:00 The latest NAEP data showing record low levels of student achievement, historic lows. Young children come into the world burning to learn. That curiosity doesn't sort of magically go away. Stifled when at five or six years old, a child enters a conventional classroom. Obedience is more valued than originality, that compliance trumps creativity, evolution and emergence of this decentralized marketplace of education options, a robust free market and education. It's definitely not Lord of the Flies.

Starting point is 00:00:37 The original school really balances freedom and personal responsibility. I would say I have gotten into Bitcoin. Today we're joined by Carrie McDonald, bestselling author of Unschooled and the recently released Joyful Learning. In this episode, she breaks down why separation of state and education is just as important as state and money, how instead of trying to reform the education, education system, true innovators have gone completely around it, sound familiar Bitcoiners, and what separates human intelligence from artificial intelligence. Plus, Kerry shares one surprisingly

Starting point is 00:01:05 easy trick to reduce childhood anxiety and the chances of other mental health issues. You're growing your Bitcoin stack. Now it's time to make sure your kids have the mindset to handle it. Carrie, thank you very much for coming on. I'm a big fan of your work, and I've really been looking forward to this for quite a while. So just so you know, since this is a Bitcoin show, Let me just start by saying that low time preference is one of the concepts that greatly informs my life choices and a lot of other Bitcoiners. And many of my fellow bitcorners frequently find themselves issuing frivolous purchases of short-term amusements or displays of wealth in favor of thinking long-term and saving money for themselves and their family. But for me and I think from any others, that low-time preference isn't just limited to money. It also informs how I raise my kids, including where and how my kids might spend 35 to 40 hours of their week through.

Starting point is 00:01:59 12 of their formative years of their childhood. So that's one of the reasons a few years back. I bought and read your book Unschooled. I thought it was great. The ideas have really helped make better decisions or me make better decisions for my kids. So my question is, for our parents or potential future parents listening, can you explain to us the basic premise of unschooled and how you arrived at the conclusion that unschooling was best for your kids? Yeah, great to be with you, Gary. Thanks so much for having me on. So Unschooled, came out in 2019, and it really documented the growth and diversification of the modern homeschooling movement and sort of the nascent microschooling movement. I know we'll talk a bit later about my

Starting point is 00:02:42 newest book, Joyful Learning, that really goes into much more detail into education entrepreneurship and all of the sort of decentralized bottom-up education options available to families today. but unschooled really looked at my own family's homeschooling journey and why we chose self-directed education for our kids, meaning that they have always been sort of fully in charge of their education. And as adults, we kind of connect them to community resources and, you know, various programs and classes and mentors depending on their needs and their interests. and that started from kind of the earliest days and deciding to homeschool them. We live in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where we have access to a lot of wonderful museums and

Starting point is 00:03:29 libraries and historic sites. And it just seemed to us to be a great place to kind of be fully immersed in the people, places, and things of our community rather than having our kids kind of sit in a classroom all day with the same, you know, age segregated classroom and the same static handful of teachers and instead to really have that authentic learning beyond a conventional classroom. So that was why, you know, we chose homeschooling and ultimately unschooling, enabling them to really guide their own learning. And I sort of focused on that in unschooled, not only, again, our kind of family's personal

Starting point is 00:04:06 journey toward alternative education, but also, you know, showcasing all the other families, many of the other families that are kind of choosing the same pathway and many of the education entrepreneurs who are creating these new schools and spaces that embrace sort of alternative education philosophy. So what is so important about that? Because coming from a Bitcoin space before, in the early days of Bitcoin, anyway, a lot of people said, well, I have regular money. But that's the way it's always worked. What do I need Bitcoin for? So in the education space, I went to K through 12 public or government education. A lot of my friends did. They seem to have turned out, okay, fine, more or less.

Starting point is 00:04:49 Why do they need something different? Why do we need something different? Yeah, I think it's really just about promoting kind of choice, variety, and abundance in education that we enjoy in all other parts of our lives. But because K to 12 education is largely a monopoly, kind of controlled and funded through government means that we don't have that kind of variety and choice. in education that we have elsewhere. And so with homeschooling and microschooling and other kinds of alternative education options, it provides an opportunity for families to, to, you know, experiment

Starting point is 00:05:28 with different models of learning beyond a conventional classroom. Well, I tell you, one of the things that really tuned me into it, because as I sort of semi-sarcastically said, I turned out fine, in a lot of ways I don't think I did. And K-12 education, I'm sorry, it made me hate learning. It made me hate going to school. And almost every book I've read that was assigned to me in school, I didn't actually read in school. I read it later when it was something that I wanted to read on my own time, on my own. And I know in reading unschooled initially and now joyful learning, one of the things that's preamantly on my mind with my kids is I'm trying to think long term. I want education to always be something that they are constantly doing, especially in a world where

Starting point is 00:06:13 technology is advancing so quickly, I'd never, ever, ever want them to feel like learning is a chore, like learning is work. And I have them currently in a kind of a micro school where it's much more hands off. And even last year, they were sort of in a Sudbury model. I can tell you about that if you want. It didn't fully fulfill every parent's wishes and it kind of went by the side and the school kind of closed unfortunately. But they love going. It's not like, hey, we're just sitting here and being lectured at. I think a lot of my fellow bit corners who think outside the box a bit would really find that appealing. Can you speak to that a little bit?

Starting point is 00:06:54 Yeah. I mean, I think, and I'd also encourage your viewers and listeners to check out the work of Dr. Peter Graves, a psychology professor at Boston College, wrote the book Free to Learn. I have that one too. And yeah, and he's just fantastic. He's been such a mentor to me. He wrote the forward to my unschooled book. And in his research, you know, in his writing, he talks about how young children come into the world burning to learn.

Starting point is 00:07:21 You know, they're so curious. They're so eager to explore and discover the world around them. And that, you know, he'll say that curiosity doesn't sort of magically go away when a child turns five or six years old. The curiosity can often be stifled when at five or six years old. or even sooner in some cases, a child enters a conventional classroom, where they sort of learn that obedience is more valued than originality, that compliance trumps creativity, that, you know, you sort of need to conform to the institutional norms. And in that process, that love of learning, that eagerness to read and to explore and to discover can be steadily,

Starting point is 00:08:13 eroded. And in fact, you know, research has shown, there's been Gallup polling on this and other research that shows that as students can go through K-12 schooling, that enthusiasm and engagement in learning steadily declined so that by the time many students are in high school, they are no longer, you know, engaged in their learning. It's sort of just checking boxes and going through the motions. And in some cases, they may really hate to spy school, but of course are required by under, you know, a legal threat of force and compulsory schooling laws to attend school. And it can be, you know, a painful process for some kids, particularly if they're being bullied or if it's, you know, not a nurturing environment for them. And so I think what more and more families are

Starting point is 00:09:01 recognizing certainly over the past five years is that there are ways to approach teaching and learning beyond an assigned district school, that homeschooling is often an opportunity to, you know, to explore these other education options like microschools and other kinds of alternative education approaches where you're kind of legally considered a homeschooler, but often your kids can attend a program up to five days a week, you know, full time as a low-cost alternative to a traditional schooling environment. Yeah. And you know, you even talk about in your book, it's not just not wanting to be eager to learn anymore. It's you even use the term learned helplessness, where you always feel like you have to wait to ask permission for something and you can't even

Starting point is 00:09:50 begin to try something on your own. And I feel like that really plays into our Bitcoin audience and also dovetails with something, an interview that I listened to you with Nadine Smith that you did about a month ago where she talked about permissionless education, which is not waiting around for the giant government apparatus to give her permission anymore. She stopped trying to improve the existing system and said, okay, we just need to step aside and create an entire new system, an entire new way of doing things. And I think that creative thinking really plays into it because here, Bitcoin was not something that said, well, let's try to improve our current Fiat, federal reserve system, let's tweak around the edges. Let's just go completely out of it,

Starting point is 00:10:36 outside the box, as cliche that is, and make an entire new thing, have you found, and I don't know if there's a way to measure this, but kids who have pursued microschools or Sudbury or alternative levels of schooling, is there a way to measure that they have greater creativity? Yeah, so a couple of things you said there. I just want to comment on. You mentioned Nadine Smith, one of my podcast guests on my liberated podcast, former public school teacher. who decided that she didn't want to fix systems. She felt like she couldn't fix systems. She had to build something different and better.

Starting point is 00:11:09 And that's the common thread in much of my work, that the vast majority of the founders that I interview, the vast majority of the 50-plus founders that are featured in joyful learning, my newest book, are former public school teachers who grew disillusioned with the standardization and regimentation, kind of one-size-fits-all model of traditional school. and left to build something new and better.

Starting point is 00:11:35 And so I think that that's what's so exciting about this entrepreneurial bottom-up movement. It's really folks, educators who love teaching, who love working with young people, but not eager to do that anymore within kind of a top-down institutionalized setting and want to create something different. So, you know, I think your question was about, remind me your question. Is there a way to measure creativity? I mean, is there a metric for that?

Starting point is 00:12:07 Yeah. So I talk a little bit about this in unschooled. Again, leveraging a lot of Peter Gray's research. He's looked at specifically for self-directed learners and young people who, you know, grew up in Sudbury model schools and other kinds of unschooling environments that as adults, they tend to be much more likely to be entrepreneurs. involved in work that's tied to their interests, including in many cases, interests that developed in childhood or adolescence because they had that freedom. They had that time and that autonomy to pursue their interests and their passions and then make a business around it.

Starting point is 00:12:47 And he's found that, again, in his work with adult unschoolers, as well as his extensive research on graduates of the Sudbury Valley School, the kind of flagship Sudbury Model school in Massachusetts, that students go on to all kinds of different career paths and colleges if they choose. And they don't have any difficulty in whatever path that they hope to pursue. That's cool. I do have a question that I wanted to ask you, but since you mentioned Sudbury model, could you kind of briefly explain for our listeners what the Sudbury model is? Yeah. And actually, my kids attend the Sudbury Valley School, the flagship Sudbury Model School in Framingham, Massachusetts. It started in 1968. So it's been around for well over a half century now,

Starting point is 00:13:35 really focused on self-directed, non-coercive education. So young people are fully in charge of their education. They're free to spend their days in whatever way they choose. Unlike a lot of the microschools that I spotlight and joyful learning and on my podcast, Sudbury Valley is a state recognized private school was from the get-go. So the sort of the downside of that, I suppose, is that there isn't that kind of freedom and flexibility around scheduling that homeschooling families might have or a homeschooled micro-school might have. But the upside is that it's, you know, kind of a state-recognized private school. So you're, you know, in that sense, you're kind of a part of a larger community of private education models, particularly in this state. It is focused around

Starting point is 00:14:26 Democratic decision making. So students and staff share decision making throughout the school environment. And since 1968, Sudbury Valley has inspired the growth of dozens of Sudbury Model schools around the world. There's now an international organization called Sudbury International that will connect families to Sudbury Model schools or microschools in their location and help them kind of create their own programs if they're interested in that. The kind of key tenets, though, are that young people are fully in charge. There's no kind of top-down mandated classes or curriculum, although young people can kind of choose to learn whatever they want in whatever way they want using, again, the people, places and things around them.

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Starting point is 00:16:29 You get white glove support and education, a rig performance guarantee. Plus, it's powered by 100% carbon-free energy prioritizing renewables. Ready to take control of your Bitcoin future? Visit SaaSmining.com by scanning the QR code or clicking the link in the description down below to book a free consult and start mining today. So I did think it was a really interesting thing. And when I had my kids in kind of an alternative school for a couple years prior, it was kind of more of a Montessori type model for a while. And it was the idea was basically, we're going to do academics in the morning. We're going to have lunch. And then in the afternoon, do whatever you want. You know, you want to go play chess with somebody. Go play chess. You want to do art, do art. You want to play piano. You want to run around outside and burn leaves with a magnifying glass. Have fun. Whatever. And then midway through the last school year, the people who ran the school said, you know, this is going pretty well. Everybody seems to like it. Let's see if we can up this a notch and try a Sudbury type thing.

Starting point is 00:17:25 Now, maybe this is something they should have reviewed with the parents before the school year started. But they basically just went, all right, we're going full Sudbury. I don't know if they did it the right way or not. But a lot of parents, unfortunately, took their kids out because they were thinking, what are we doing here? What is this? Lord of the Flies. The kid just going to show up and do whatever they want. I was willing to try it for a while.

Starting point is 00:17:44 And unfortunately, too many parents left that by the end of the school year, they shut down. But I do have to say one of the things that appealed to me about it was I remember reading it was either your book or Peter Gray's, how it might have been the original Sudbury school. I guess there was a junkyard nearby. And one of the kids just kind of decided, I'm going to go through the junkyard. And I'm going to just find parts in here and build something. And I think didn't he build it like a distillery or a beer making thing at one point? And I'm not advocating kids get drunk or anything, but just say like, oh, I'm going to use a. my brain and I'm going to try it and there's all these things here to do and why not pursue

Starting point is 00:18:18 this thing that I'm interested in from an engineering framework. That always stuck with me. I thought it was really cool. Am I wrong? Yeah, I don't I don't remember reading that. And there are no junkyards near Sudbury Valley today. But yeah, I mean, I would say that it's definitely not Lord of the Flies. That's not my experience. Again, I'm, you know, I'm mostly familiar with the original kind of flagship Sudbury Valley School. I know that there's been these spinoffs, some of which have succeeded and some of which haven't. But the original school really balances freedom and personal responsibility and this responsibility to yourself and to your community. There's lots of community rules that you need to abide by. And if you break those rules,

Starting point is 00:18:59 then you're held accountable by your peers again in this kind of decision, a democratic decision-making structure. You know, and I think that one of the things that I talk about in joyful learning a lot is this kind of evolution and emergence of this decentralized marketplace of education options. And one of the healthy signs, you know, one of the things that I would say is a positive signal of a robust free market and education is churn, you know, is the fact that there will be schools and spaces that will close, that will shut down because they're not satisfying consumer demand. And that was your experience with the school that your kids were in. that schools and spaces that are satisfying their customers where, you know, families are thrilled to be there

Starting point is 00:19:46 and students are happy to be there. Those schools and spaces will survive and thrive, and those that are not satisfying customer demand will shudder. And we seem to accept this dynamism and this market churn in other areas, you know, when it comes to restaurants or cafes, But I don't think we're so used to a marketplace in K to 12 education. And that's what's exciting now is we're starting to see that. And I think as a result of that, we'll have a lot more options for families. But we also have to recognize that with those options will come a need to be discerning about different programs and what's sort of aligned with a family's personal values and viewpoints and recognizing that, again, some schools will fail and some will will not. I do want to talk about that, but I do want to get back to this question before I forget it.

Starting point is 00:20:35 I know in your original book, Unschooled, which I've read the whole thing. I think it's great. I'm sorry to say, I'm only about a quarter of the way through joyful learning, but I do like it so far. I will finish it. All right. I'll get to it. Fine. You talked about in Unschooled how when you were a kid, the teacher threatened to throw you out the window when you were talking. And obviously, she didn't mean.

Starting point is 00:21:00 it, but it was just like, hey, sit in your place, do your thing. And when you talked about earlier, like, you know, kids, their biggest accomplishment being following orders, when I took my daughter to her first day of first grade, because before then she was in forest school. So this is her first time in government public school. I asked her when she came out, what did you think? What do you think about your first day? And she said, oh, I did such a good job sitting still and not talking. And I only raised my hand to talk and when the teacher called on me. And of course, immediately I'm thinking, what am I raising a fucking drone here? What, what are we doing? Sorry for swearing. That's the word that went through my mind. And I, I just, I couldn't believe it. So I guess my

Starting point is 00:21:39 question is, was there sort of, as we say in Bitcoin, an orange pill moment or come to Jesus moment where you were just like, wait a minute, this isn't for me, this isn't for my kids. I don't want them going through this. Was it as early as your experience yourself or was it something that happened to your kids? Yeah, it was something earlier. I mean, it was interesting. You brought up that anecdote. I was in the first grade and my teacher told me that if I didn't stop talking, she would throw me out the window and I believed her because I was six years old and I went home crying to my mom. And of course, my mom had to say, no, she doesn't mean it. It was just an expression. But of course, you know, those kinds of moments, like to your point of your child,

Starting point is 00:22:19 they change us. And, you know, very quickly I learned the rules of the game and I learned to sit quietly and regurgitate the information that the teacher wanted and to be very compliant and very passive and follow orders. And I think what's important now when we think about our existence or coexistence with artificial intelligence, we want to think about what separates human intelligence

Starting point is 00:22:47 from artificial intelligence. And it's things like creativity, curiosity, you know, persistence, an entrepreneurial spirit, right? These are sort of these essential human characteristics and human qualities, and those are often the very human qualities that are eroded in a standardized system of conventional schooling that values conformity and compliance and obedience over these other more essential human characteristics. So I think that's where, you know, these new emerging schooling models and different kinds

Starting point is 00:23:21 of homeschooling approaches are more and more sought after by parents who recognize that we need or a future-focused educational ecosystem. So to answer your larger question of when I became interested in alternative education, it was back as an undergraduate in the late 1990s. I was an economics major as an undergraduate, but I became increasingly interested in education. it's kind of through the lens of why is it that we have so much choice variety in abundance and all of these other areas of our lives but not in education. And that was when I realized, oh, it's because it's controlled by the government.

Starting point is 00:24:01 We have compulsory schooling laws and government-run schools that the vast majority of students are compelled to attend. And that's why we don't have this dynamic free market in education. So I found that to be just really perplexing. And that was sort of a question that stuck with me all throughout my career. I began to take more education courses, and it was in my senior year of college, that I was connected with a local homeschooling family because I was wondering, well, what are families who are thinking outside of the box doing, even in a world with very few K-12 education options?

Starting point is 00:24:34 And a classmate had a family member who lived nearby, and I was able to shadow that homeschooling family for that semester, and I was completely captivated by seeing education in this sort of authentic way, outside of an institutionalized setting. And that I was hooked. I mean, I went to K to 12 public schools. So I never, you know, kind of imagined that there could be a different way of approaching education until I saw this up close. And at the same time that I was shadowing this homeschooling family, I was also doing a student teaching practicum in a local public elementary school that was very similar to the one that I had attended as a child. But again, sort of seeing this contrast up close between this homeschool child who was learning outside of a

Starting point is 00:25:21 conventional classroom and then this sort of standardized traditional second grade classroom in this public school really stood out to me and really made me start to think about, you know, how can we expand choices for families? How can we encourage more innovation and choice in education that we have elsewhere? So then I went to graduate school and education policy at Harvard, became much more interested in school choice policies and education, innovation, all kinds of different ways. And then, you know, fast forward several years later when my husband and I had our own family, we decided on the homeschooling path for them.

Starting point is 00:26:00 That's fantastic. You mentioned a little bit earlier how you learned to play the game. And I know what you mean when you say game. Can you tell our listeners what you mean when you say learn to play the game in school? Yeah, I think it's what we've been talking. about, Gary, it's, you know, regurgitating information to the teacher and the test. It's coloring in the lines. It's doing what we're told, being a passive participant in our learning, not an active, engaged, you know, student. It's sort of putting aside our personal agency and autonomy

Starting point is 00:26:39 for a larger system. And I just think increasingly parents want more. personalization, want more autonomy for their kids because we enjoy so much personalization in other parts of our lives. We have so much more innovation around us, and yet education stuck in this kind of one-size-fits-all antiquated model that's a throwback to the 19th century, and more and more families are just saying, let's look for something new and different. Are you sick at the Fiat-funded fast fashion that falls apart quicker than the dollar? You know, the cheap stuff made to drain your wallet one inferior product at a time. Stop it. There's a better way.

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Starting point is 00:27:43 Naturally, you can pay with Bitcoin supporting the circular economy and building that parallel system. Simply scan the QR code or click the link in the description down below at hand to panties for Bitcoin.com and use promo code BTC sessions to save 10%. Snag yours and share your love for Bitcoin in a new peer-to-peer way. Yeah, and that really stuck with me when you were talking about the game. Because again, it's a Bitcoin podcast and my mind keeps coming back to it. I see so many similarities, so many people in life make a living by playing the game, by in the banking business or in government relations where it's like, I'm going to be close to

Starting point is 00:28:17 the money printer. I know how to do the things to manipulate that and get the money first. So I'll get it before inflation hits. And they're not actually producing anything. They're not actually innovating anything. They're just being close to the politicians and the bankers and the money printers. And that's how they're making their money. And I feel like so much of just standard education is learning to play that game within the school. But kids aren't necessarily learning how to be original creative thinkers to think outside the box to do a cliche. So yeah, I think that's, that's really important, especially like you've talked about in the dynamic, ever-changing world. I think that's great. Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, some of the similarities between,

Starting point is 00:28:57 you know, your Bitcoin audience and the work that I do, it's really focused on decentralization. It's kind of individuals deciding what's right for them and kind of creating new pathways. So it's looking at alternatives to existing often antiquated institutions and being more eager to embrace kind of bottom-up entrepreneurial solutions. Well, I'm going to give you a devil's advocate thing now because I'm on board with what you're saying. I love raising creative kids who were eager to learn. But what would you say to the parent who might say and maybe, maybe, you know, the tiger mom out there who might say, well, you know, creativity is great. I have no problem with creativity, but my kids need to learn reading, writing, arithmetic, and I want them learning it as quickly as possible and master as quickly as possible.

Starting point is 00:29:46 So these teachers need to hammer it in because I need to make sure my son or daughter is ahead of everybody else in the class. What would you say to that? Yeah, I don't know that that's sort of a devil's advocate. I mean, I say very clearly in unschooled and certainly in joyful learning that, you know, it's a parent's obligation to ensure that their children are highly literate and numerate. parents that are the ones that need to make sure their kids are being well educated. Often that's not happening in conventional schooling.

Starting point is 00:30:13 You know, we've seen, for example, the latest NAEP data, the nation's report card showing record low levels of student achievement for high school seniors, you know, historic lows. And these are, you know, kind of students learning in conventional government-run schools. So, you know, I think more and more families are recognizing that maybe the last local assigned district school is not providing the best education for their kids. Maybe their kids are not becoming highly educated in those environments. And instead, they're looking at these microschools, low-cost private schools, hybrid schools, homeschooling collaboratives, things like Sudbury Model schools, other alternatives to conventional schooling where their kids can become much more highly

Starting point is 00:30:59 educated, much more eager to learn, excited by learning, and have, you know, far better, outcomes potentially than in a traditional school. Can you talk about some of the impediments that you and other parents have faced in creating or trying to find microschools, aside from the obvious from a parent perspective of, hey, they're already taxing me for this government school. Why should I pay all that extra to send my kid to some other place when I'm already getting it, quote, unquote, for free? But, I mean, aside from that, are there any other just legal red tape impediments that you found? Yeah, so Joyful Learning. My newest book really is intended for families and founders seeking or building innovative schools and spaces in their communities. And we've seen a real surge in entrepreneurs, education entrepreneurs, again, mostly former public school teachers who are eager to create these low-cost schools in their communities, particularly over the past five years. So it's never been a better time for families to seek out one of the of these programs to kind of shop around and see what works for them, what kind of educational

Starting point is 00:32:08 philosophy or approach resonates. Unlike unschooled, which really just focuses on self-directed education, one particular type of educational philosophy and the one that I choose for my children, joyful learning looks at all kinds of different educational models and methods from classical education to Montessori and secular programs to faith-based programs, you know, progressive microschools and conservative microschools. There's really something for everybody. And I think that that's what's so exciting about this moment is that families really are able to find a school now that's aligned with their personal values and viewpoints in ways

Starting point is 00:32:48 that they may not have been able to before. And so the book really kind of details how to go about that process, how to connect with different organizations that can make it easier. to start a new school, if that's something that's appealing or to find one in your local neighborhood. Do you think, I'm in New Jersey. So I know one of the biggest helps in some other states are reforms in school choice laws where you can take a portion of the taxes that you pay and you can direct it towards an alternative learning experience for your child. We don't have that yet in New Jersey. I'm not sure we're going to have it anytime soon with how powerful the teachers union is.

Starting point is 00:33:25 But to what degree do you think that has impacted the propensity of parents to say, hey, let me try something aside from the traditional government schooling method? Yeah, this movement towards innovative, low-cost education options, these new schools and spaces that are emerging, is occurring all across the U.S. It's occurring in states with and without school choice programs, including in New Jersey where you are, Massachusetts, where I am, where there are no private. school choice programs and none on the horizon. There's no doubt that there are many, many more options for families and there's more of this kind of entrepreneurial activity in states that have robust school choice programs that enable a portion of education funding to follow students to their preferred educational environment. Now we have 35 states plus Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C., that have some version of private school choice, more than half of the overall K-12 school-age

Starting point is 00:34:25 population in the U.S. is now eligible for a school choice program. And in about 17 states, there's universal eligibility now since 2022. So only in three years, we now have 17 states where school choice eligibility applies to all K-12 students in the state. So this is just such a wonderful sense of momentum and excitement around expanding choices for families to be able to opt out of an assigned district school. But, you know, you mentioned these states without school choice programs. And again, these new schools and spaces are emerging there as well. In fact, chapter one of Joyful Learning begins with the story of Jill Perez in New Jersey. And Jill was a longtime public school teacher. She taught in the New Jersey public schools for over a decade and had shifted

Starting point is 00:35:18 into higher education, kind of supervising student teachers at Seton Hall University and Rutgers University in New Jersey, teaching introductory education classes to college students, that sort of thing. That's what she was doing in 2020 when COVID hit and schools shut down and including the schools that her four school-age children were attending. And so like so many parents across the country in 2020, Jill had to take matters into her own hands and figure out what she was going to do for her kids in the wake of prolonged school closures and remote learning. And so like thousands of parents across the country in 2020, Jill created a pandemic pod that year with her kids and others in her community. And word got around

Starting point is 00:36:08 because, you know, families were really excited by what they were seeing these pod kids do. They were outside. They were being social. They were continuing to learn, despite school closures. And so Jill had, you know, a lot of demand from other families in her community wanting to kind of get in on this pod schooling thing. So then in the fall of 2021, after she had been running her school for a year and there was still kind of continued education disruption in the wake of the COVID response, Jill opened a micro-school, tranquil teachings learning center in Monmouth County, New Jersey.

Starting point is 00:36:44 And it was a K-to-8 program. where she was able to recruit teachers from the New York City public schools who were burnt out from a year of pandemic schooling and remote learning and were, you know, so excited to be able to do something different. And her students are all legally considered homeschoolers in the state of New Jersey. It's very easy to be a homeschooler in New Jersey, despite efforts to kind of crack down on homeschooling. The homeschooling freedoms in New Jersey continue. Surprisingly so, actually, I didn't expect that. Yeah. Yeah. And so her students are technically homeschoolers, but they can attend up to five days a week at a more affordable cost than a traditional private school. They also can do part-time enrollment if they'd like. She now has over 100 students in her microschools. So the larger point is this momentum, this movement towards innovative education models is happening all over, including in places we may least expect it. Well, yeah, and for those in our audience who caught me say surprisingly so, who may not know much about New Jersey, although I get most of our audience probably has an idea of what New Jersey is like. I wouldn't have expected that in a state like New Jersey, which is very, quote unquote, blue state, high taxes, high government regulation.

Starting point is 00:37:59 because there are many states within the U.S. where in order to kind of take your kid out of the traditional government schooling system, you have to get permission from this board and have all these tests and sign off on this and that here in New Jersey, I just kind of sent a letter to the local school. I said, yeah, we're going to take my daughter out. We're going to do homeschooling. They're like, okay, cool, bye. Like that was it. So New Jersey, it's really easy. It's just going to cost you. But, you know, I mentioned something at the beginning, low time preference. And this is just something I'm going to put out to our Bitcoin audience. Low time preference, as I said, isn't just about money. For me, it's, yeah, I could be saving this money in Bitcoin for my kids. You know, after I go, they'll have it. But I feel like I'd rather be putting it to use now, helping them become better people. So when they end up getting that money later in life, they know what to do with it. They know what they're doing. They're not going to waste it. They're going to be creative thinkers. So to my Bitcoin people out there who say, just stay humble, stack sats, don't part with your money. Money's made to be spent sometimes. And an important thing like this, it might be worth, hey, trying something different for your kids. Because as you said, Carrie, every kid learns in a different way. And it doesn't have to be the, you know, the Sudbury model that you've chosen or the unschooled model. It could be whatever means something to you as a parent, whatever resonates with your kid instead of just the one size fits all classroom. Yeah. And I will say, I mean, there's a lot of homeschooling families who do kind of independent homeschooling very low cost and including families who might be single parents or two working parents. and they're able to kind of make that work through a lot of free or low-cost curriculum tools and kind of shared caregiving and that sort of thing.

Starting point is 00:39:36 So that's a possibility. But in terms of the new schools that are emerging and that are really the focus of joyful learning, the National Microschooling Center has done extensive research on sort of the fee structures of these new schools and spaces. And they find that the average cost of one of these microschools is about $6,500. dollars a year. More than, or roughly three quarters of these schools cost less than $10,000 a year. Only 3% cost over $20,000 a year, which is, these are not kind of what we think of as

Starting point is 00:40:11 traditional private schools that are just out of reach for most of us. These are, you know, very accessible. A third of the schools cost less than $5,000 a year. So these are programs that more and more families have access to. And then if you throw in an education savings account or some kind of school choice program, again, that's proliferating across the U.S., often these are tuition free for families. Yeah, totally. And people from all different backgrounds can jump into it, especially some different states where they have the school choice. I know that in the private school, you know, that Sudbury model where I sent my kids previously, they turned into Sudbury model, they were offering, you know, scholarships and discounts, you know, based on the ability to afford.

Starting point is 00:40:55 I feel like a lot of people in the space, again, similar to Bitcoin, aren't necessarily out there to make a quick buck. They genuinely want to see change. And if it means not making as much money on their school in the interest of trying to bring more families in and give them the opportunity, at least I've encountered, they're willing to do that. Yeah, although I would say it could be a cautionary tale because you mentioned that your program is no longer around. And so I think that that's, you know, one of the things I try to make the point of in joyful learning is these are small businesses. and you are educational entrepreneurs who are running these programs. So, you know, the founders of these programs, they, you know, may be doing this out of the goodness of their heart. They really want to help kids. They want to approach education differently. But at the end of the day, they're running a small business.

Starting point is 00:41:38 They have to be responsive to the market, to what their consumers want and be very, very focused on covering their costs. I think in some cases, you know, schools that have gone out of business, it's often because they're giving away too much. They're not charging enough. They are, you know, offering too many discounts because they want every child to be able to attend. And then they lose sight of the fact that they can't cover their own costs and then they'll shut down and now they're not serving anybody. So I think having that kind of business acumen is such a key piece to not only being a founder of one of these schools, but also something that prospective families looking at new schools and spaces need to be aware of is what is the sort of financial sustainability of these new programs. When you look at your kids compared to their peers, their age, what differences do you see? What differences do you other parents see? Like, oh, your kids speak so well for somebody at their age or they seem so independent. I get that sometimes with my kids, but do you get any of that? Yeah. So my oldest daughter is currently a freshman in college studying math. This was a passion of hers that developed through years of homeschooling, unschooling, self-directed education. She began taking, you know, college level classes as a high schooler, my 16-year-old, same thing.

Starting point is 00:42:59 He'll finish up his Sudbury schooling with an associate's degree at the same time as he gets his high school diploma. So, you know, I think there's all kinds of different ways now of approaching education that's much more flexible, much more customizable and really enabling us to kind of allow each child's interests and, abilities to shine. I'd like to touch on something. I don't know if you can speak to this at all, not just from an academic perspective, not just from a creative thinking perspective, both of which are obviously incredibly important, but also from just an ability to socially interact. And this kind of dovetails, I'm sure you're familiar with Lenore Skinaezy and free range kids. And I sort of have a general philosophy with my kids. You know, if they're in a situation where somebody's getting bullied day in and day out, yes, parents step and intervene. If they find

Starting point is 00:43:53 fell off the swing and they cracked their skull open or broke their leg. Yes, parent, intervene. But if it's two kids sitting at the top of the slide arguing about who gets to go down first, don't come to me with that. Go figure it out yourself. And I feel like, and I don't know, maybe I'm just the old man, get off my long, but I feel to a degree that that's been missing in modern society where everybody feels they need immediately to go to an authority figure. And they can't kind of figure out and resolve their differences and interact with their people by themselves. And that was one of things that appealed to me about. the more of the hands-off model, whether it was kind of the Montessori with some free time or the Sudbury model.

Starting point is 00:44:29 Can you speak to that at all? Yeah, I mean, Lenore Skenezy and Peter Gray are sort of the two prominent voices on this topic. They both wrote back cover blurbs on Joyful Learning for me. So I love their work, huge fans. Yeah, I mean, I think it's about, you know, kind of checking our impulses as parents and recognizing that, you know, kids are really capable of kind of doing things on their own, that they don't always need to be supervised. They don't always need kind of top-down structure. And in fact, you know, when I think about when I grew up in the late 70s, early 80s, you know,

Starting point is 00:45:10 we had a lot more opportunity to be free and kind of learn and grow and be in our neighborhoods without cell phones even, you know, kind of riding our bikes across town and just that sense of independence and autonomy is increasingly lost in our culture as we kind of hover over kids today. So I think it requires parents being really thoughtful and really intentional about providing opportunities for our kids to have independence. That's why, you know, I gravitate towards Sudbury Model schooling and unschooling because I think it provides that, that opportunity for free play and independence and autonomy. and personal responsibility that is increasingly dwindling in modern childhood.

Starting point is 00:45:57 Yeah, totally. And that's something that I think about. You mentioned riding bikes. I'm in a nice suburban neighborhood. I feel totally safe since the kids were three or four. Go out in your scooter. Go out on your bike. Obviously, don't go far, but go within a couple blocks.

Starting point is 00:46:10 I trust you. And there's not a lot of cars anywhere where we live. And my biggest fear was somebody calling the police on me. I wasn't scared of anything happening to them from anybody else. I was scared of somebody being like, oh, this is a bad parent. We needed to call the police. And yet, like you said, when we grew up, that's what we did. We just kind of went out.

Starting point is 00:46:28 Now, hey, am I not accounting for the kids that got hit by a car? Heaven forbid, or the kids that got kidnapped? I mean, maybe that happened more. I don't know. I mean, according to Lenore, it's really, really rare to have your kid end up on the side of a milk carton. Like, I remember reading something she said where the kid would have to, like, stand at the corner by himself for like 17,000 hours before some stranger kidnapped. Because nobody wants your screaming, crying kid. I barely want my screaming crying kid.

Starting point is 00:46:52 So I don't know why somebody else would. I love you. I love you kids. If you're listening to this, Daddy loves you. But yeah, I feel like that's lost. And if you can find a place where there's not a lot of hovering, it's not a lot of, all right, you're going to do this class and you're going to do this class. And we're always managing your schedule to have free time to create a game.

Starting point is 00:47:10 Make up a game. Even after school sports, not everything has to be regimented by the parents. Like make up a game, figure it out. I think there's really something to that. Yeah, Gary, and there's also some good research about the kind of link toward the lack of childhood free play and increased childhood anxiety and adolescent mental health issues. That because young people, young children into their tweens and teams don't have as many opportunities as potentially we did to have that independence, have that free play, develop

Starting point is 00:47:48 resilience kind of out in our community without adults hovering, it leads to, it can lead to mental health issues and higher rates of anxiety and depression among today's teens. Oh, yeah, I definitely have read about that. All right. Well, Carrie, I feel like I've just been fawning over you for the past 45 minutes just because I love your work. I feel like I need to do some objective job now as a podcast host. So I have to ask you this because I know you haven't really been into Bitcoin. And if I'm not mistaken, you made your first four. into the crypto world back in 2021 when you bought some Bitcoin cash, which is not Bitcoin. It's something different. So I am forced to wonder because I've been asked, you know, tell me you're a

Starting point is 00:48:30 bitcorner without telling me you're a Bitcoin. Like, oh, I'm a male who's in his 30s and 40s. I'm a libertarian and I have my own podcast. Oh, of course, you're a Bitcoiner. So what's up, Gary? Like, is it just, is it a man-woman thing? Because you're kind of libertarian-oriented. You're really smart. You have your own podcast. Why haven't you gotten into Bitcoin? No, I would say I have gotten into Bitcoin. It's definitely part of our family's overall investment portfolio for sure.

Starting point is 00:48:58 Oh, great. Okay. So that's old news that I read from back in 2021. Like, you've gotten in since then. Yes. Yeah. Well, good. Do you see any parallels with decentralized permissionless money and decentralized

Starting point is 00:49:11 permissionless education? Yeah. I mean, again, I think that my work focuses on. on the latter, decentralized permissionless education, but there's so many, I think, themes that your audience would resonate with in this world. It's that we can kind of look outside of existing institutions. We can create our own paths. We can be creative and not rely on the status quo. And we can look for, you know, more personalization in education, again, the way we enjoy in other parts of our lives.

Starting point is 00:49:47 You're a North Star. The world kind of unfolds in a decentralized, permissionless way, and maybe Bitcoin contributes to that, and we kind of get rid of this old Fiat education system. In your dream world, what does childhood education or learning, even in an informal way, what does that look like all across the country and all across the world?

Starting point is 00:50:06 I think we're seeing it. I've been in education, education policy for over 20 years. I've never been more excited or energized than I am right now. now because we have these individual education entrepreneurs, parents and teachers, creating these new schools and spaces that their communities want. They are, you know, creating programs that they, that kind of are aligned with their individual founder visions of education and seeing if there's market demand for that. And if there is, then they're growing. And I would say,

Starting point is 00:50:38 you know, more often than not, what I'm seeing is a lot of success. I'm seeing a lot of these new schools and spaces quickly fill up and have wait lists because families are clamoring for something different for their kids' education. So that's a signal for more entrepreneurial parents and teachers to jump in and take their own enterprising weeks into this world. So, you know, I feel like we're here now. That's sort of my future vision or my ideal utopia around education is emerging all around us. And it's, again, this kind of decentralized, entrepreneur-driven marketplace of education options for families. And that's great. And like you said, your new book, I'm going to hold it up again, joyful learning can give parents insight on how to go about creating microschools,

Starting point is 00:51:28 alternative learning, how to find ones that fit their family. So it's definitely a great reach for that. I think a little more practically speaking than the theory behind unschooled. So yeah, that's fantastic. Before we go, I want to offer my services. Do you have any Bitcoin questions while we're here? I don't have any right now, Gary. I'll let you know. Well, if you have some, you just feel free to hit us up any time with Bitcoin mentor at BTC sessions. We're happy to give you any insight we can. We just want to spread the good word. Where can people find you and your work, social media, all that jazz. Yeah, so you can find my books wherever books are sold. You can go to liberatedpodcast.com. There you'll find all of my episodes, over 350 podcast episodes, interviews with founders of these new schools and spaces. You can also buy my books there. And you can find me on X at Kerry underscore EDU. Hey, you. Yes, you watching the Bitcoin price movements and the latest exciting news.

Starting point is 00:52:30 It's awesome to stay informed, but the real power of Bitcoin comes from taking control. Don't just watch, take action. Head over to btcsessions.ca slash learn for free step-by-step tutorials that guide you through every major skill you need to know, plus full video playlist for deeper dives on any topic you like. And if you're ready for the ultimate fast track, scroll to the bottom and check out Bitcoin Mentor.com. for premium one-on-one experience with my team of Bitcoin experts to ensure you get it right the first time. Don't wait, secure your Bitcoin future today. Hit the link in the show notes or scan the QR code on the screen. If you enjoy this episode with Carrie McDonald's,

Starting point is 00:53:19 please do like and subscribe and check out the previous episode with Tom Longo unraveling the mysteries of geopolitics.

BTC Sessions - School Kills Curiosity: Bitcoiners' Proven Fix | Kerry McDonald

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