#307 - Ana Fábrega - Edupreneur & Chief Evangelist @ Synthesis - Rethinking How We Educate Our Children

Chris Powers: Anna, thank you so much for joining me today. I've been excited to talk with you.

Ana Fabrega: Thank you so much for having me. 

Chris Powers: An excellent place to start, and I will start from a personal experience, would be around ADHD. It seems to me I've been one who's been diagnosed with it early in life. And as I look at the world today, it seems like everybody has ADHD, which makes me think maybe nobody has ADHD.

I would like to hear about your experience with this and how you look at the problem in America with every kid now having ADHD. 

Ana Fabrega: Yeah, so this is a kind of a controversial topic, and of course, I'm going to speak from experience, but it varies from person to person, but I do have a firm opinion on this because of my personal experience and then as a teacher working with kids that were quote unquote ADHD students.

So I've always had this lively personality, excited about everything, lots of energy, the typical kid. That's running around up and down, can't sit still, love to talk. And so these are the aspects of my personality that make me who I am today. But when I was little, I attended ten different schools in seven countries.

Repeatedly, my parents would hear from teachers that she was pretty disruptive. She talks a lot. It doesn't matter where we sit here. She's going to talk. She can't sit still. She's a good girl with good grades but would do better if you tested her.

She probably has ADHD. And so, again, a lot of people experience this. Many parents I talked to say, " Oh yeah, this sounds very familiar. And so I went to different doctors, and they were like, yep. She checks all the boxes. She has ADHD. Let's drug her. I was pretty young. I think I was like eight.

And so they put me on the pill, Ritalin at the time. And we went to like different ones. And what it did was it tampered with my personality. So all these aspects that I'm telling you that make me who I am today were tamped down. And so I was less disruptive but didn't feel good.

It didn't feel like I was the bubbly kid I always was, and everything I  loved to do made me numb. And I would hear repeatedly, and of course, my parents did this with the best intentions because that's what the doctors and teachers would tell them.

But really, they never questioned or went, and we talk about this a lot now that we're adults like I'm an adult, but they never really stopped to ask questions or do their research. They just followed through the motions. And so years went by, and they would keep bumping up the dose and the dose.

And every place I went to, they said, yep, she needs to continue taking this. But really, I went through so many years of my childhood. With this sort of mask on, it got to a point where I was old enough that I was like, I don't want to take this anymore.

But I did not only like its physiological addiction, cause as many of these drugs have this component, that's the same main component as cocaine. And so yeah, it's highly addictive, but not only that, I think for me, the most challenging thing was the psychological aspect of it.

I heard from parents and teachers that I was disruptive for many years. And if I didn't take this pill, then I would get in trouble, I would do impulsive things, my friends would get mad at me because I wouldn't let them talk, and like all these things over and over again. I even started to believe that it made me intelligent and that I could do everything I did because of the pill.

So, even when it got to the point where I could make my own decisions, it wasn't easy to get off the pill. And so primarily because of this psychological component. And then, finally, I was able to do it. It took a lot of work. It was very challenging, probably one of the most challenging things that I've had to do in my life to get out of this. 

And so once I did, I realized, wait a second, all these years, like all this energy I have, it's ubiquitous. Kids have a lot of energy, and yes, I was disrupting and standing up and doing all these things, but that's just what regular kids are meant to do, right?

The problem is that we can talk about the traditional school system, but it makes you, since you're tiny, have to sit down, not wiggle, be still for so many hours, and not talk or move. And, like, all those things are counterintuitive to what we know about kids and their development.

And so what happens is, of course, more and more you get kids like me. And probably, you are meant to avoid fitting into this mold of having to sit down, quiet, and pay attention for hours. That's just not congruent with what we know about how we perform, learn, and develop.

And so this kid easily gets labeled as ADHD so that it's easier to manage for the teacher. The parents have an easier time at home, but it doesn't mean we're ADHD, right? And so again, once I could leave and get off this medicine, I realized, wait, all these aspects of my personality that I was told were negative are positive.

It makes me have this passion to do what I do and talk about all these things in the way that I do and the energy and the wanting to work on this, as all this comes from just my personality. It is who I am, and I wonder what would have happened if I hadn't gone on this medicine when I was little; how would I have turned out?

What are some things I would have tried that I didn't because I was so focused on this other stuff? And then I became a teacher, and it got to me when I would get all these parents telling me my child was super disruptive. I'm like, not, they have a lot of energy, but it's just, yeah, but all the other teachers are complaining. And at home, he's super disruptive, and he's always moving, and we need to put him on the medicine. I need you to sign off. And I would be like, no, I'm uncomfortable with this because I don't think your child has ADHD.

I don't think we should medicate. And it would come back to me. And it happened a lot and isn't easy because parents are like the doctors say that this is what I'm supposed to do. And so I've realized that it's not like the doctors have bad intentions.

There is a whole market behind this problem. And again, it's controversial because some kids need it, but adults do. But it's like a small percent, and it's become mainstream, and this needs to be talking about how people use it.

In college for other purposes that haven't even been diagnosed. I'm just talking about those diagnosed when they were little. I think that is just part of what we will talk about today. Like this system that we have in place that enforces things that are not natural for kids and that hasn't changed in a long time and that kids have different personalities and different ways of learning and different ways of developing that, we have to find what's right for them instead of drugging them and then just making them go numb for all these years. 

So again, it's a complex topic, but that's my experience. And so I said no to many of these kids that wanted me to sign off on these papers. And I wanted to talk about this experience because, hopefully, some parents are listening to this before they go ahead. After all, again, a lot of parents get this request to medicate their kids.

We think about it twice before we unquestioningly trust the doctors before we trust the teachers; ask, is it that my kid has this, or is this their personality and they're just not in the right environment? If you question that, more kids would probably not go on this medicine, so it's tough to be off it.

Chris Powers: Do you have any thoughts on your mother of a son? Let's say a doctor told you and your son was brought up in your gifts and said, yeah, I think he might need some medication for his ADHD. Do you know where the line is? As a teacher and having watched so many kids where you go, maybe he does, or maybe this is something we're going to deal with, like, where do you draw your line for your son?

Ana Fabrega: I, again, I would get this request a lot from parents, and there was not one case that I was like, yep, this one, I do think that they have ADHD. Like, I don't think, I think it's against the minority. The problem is that it's become very mainstream at this point, and it's hard to convince parents about it, but there being kids for my kid, there's no way you can.

My child is very young; he's ten months old, but it would take a lot for me to say he needs medication. I want him to be active. I have the idea that I don't want him to be in a structured environment until he's seven or eight.

I want him to be out exploring, releasing all this energy that is part of his development. And so really, unless I don't even know, I don't even know what it would take for me to be like, yes, I need to medicate him. Cause I feel like there's so many avenues and so many different learning experiences that he can engage in if he's very active like me, which, there's a big possibility that he will, you can do more hands-on things you can do, learning through projects or being outside.

I love this idea of forest schools where kids are outside, running around almost all day, releasing energy. And I can guarantee that most of those kids are not diagnosed with ADHD; why? Because they're in an environment where they're supposed to be running around and moving all day and getting tired.

And so I don't know. I don't have an answer for this other than I would question things. And I encourage parents to do this, too. It's like being skeptical, like who observes your child. And yeah, I am still determining what your experience was like.

Do you think you had ADHD, or do you think you were also one of those people that was mislabelled? 

Chris Powers: No, it's a lot of what you said. Even as you say this, I still struggle with sitting down and being quiet. It's just not my nature. I don't think it'll ever be my nature.

And leaning into those gifts, there was a period where I thought, man, something is wrong with me. But then I know what we're about to talk about. The idea is that every kid's job on this planet is to sit down, shut up, and pay attention to the teacher and not move an inch. That seems almost like the military.

And I think we'll talk about how we got to this being the thing, but I know that taking that medication made me feel terrible. Afterward, it made me feel fidgety, and just in my head, thousands of thoughts and things that I hated, and I didn't eat well. There are so many side effects that have been made clear over time.

It isn't a good solution, either. 

Ana Fabrega: Totally. And in the amount of kids that go through that, it's just, it's unbelievable.

Chris Powers: And it's growing. 

Ana Fabrega: Yeah, it is because the environments are getting more and more restrictive with time, and kids have to release this energy.

It's just they have to find a way to do that. And there's this whole notion of school starting too early. And if you look at the research, it should be doing like playing outdoors and like doing exercise and moving first thing in the morning to be able to sit down then or not sit down, but then learn anything like if you want for their brains to wake up and actually to consume, they need to be moving a lot in the morning, particularly.

And so I feel like this will continue to become a problem if we continue to have kids sit down since 7 a.m. quietly trying to pay attention. Of course, more and more kids will be diagnosed with ADHD. 

Chris Powers: All right, let's talk about how we get to where; how did the current state of education become the current state of education?

I'm assuming you've done a lot of work on this. How did we even understand why this is the right way to educate kids?

Ana Fabrega: Yeah. So it's fascinating because education used to be the job of parents, churches, and one-on-one tutors. And then, 200 years ago, this started to change in a region of Germany called Prussia.

And the reason was that Napoleon's army had just defeated them. And so the government was like, we need to do something so this doesn't happen again. Let's educate the population to become loyal army soldiers ready to fight for war. 

And so this was like the first attempt to group kids and put them all through the same subjects, et cetera, to learn something in common. And again, the purpose was to train a generation for the military. And so this became the basis of our modern school system. They were the ones who came up with the idea of a building where you would bring everyone together.

You had a squadron leader which was the teacher. You had all those kids groups together, this idea of mandated attendance extended long days, and all this came from the Prussians, and then their model worked well because they were able to come up with one of the best-fighting armies in the world at that time.

And so this model spread across the globe because everyone wanted to copy this, right? And then, around the 1960s, World War II revealed the nation's manufacturing capacity and the need for that. And so the shift turned from training people for the military to training people to become men as managers of corporations and factories.

So this whole idea of the assembly line and then the United States led this second round of the history of education because they could produce more guns and more ships, and their assembly line was perfect. And so what happened was the theme became standardization and efficiency. 

So everything worked like a factory, right? Extend the school day so that you maximize output. You would put kids together by the same age. You would move them all through the same content. You would ring the bells, like all this notion. It worked like a factory, right? And so, again, the outcome was good. You were able to educate a whole mass of people simultaneously.

But the goal was never to produce citizens who would think for themselves and were creative. Like those were not the needs back then, you would think that with time, things would keep changing to adapt to our current needs, but that has yet to happen. There's a lot of bureaucracy.

There are a lot of stakeholders. There are a lot of people on the top that are creating this curriculum. So it works like a business. And so there's little that has changed since then. And if you look at the results. At the beginning, literacy rates would skyrocket. When you started to do this, you taught them how to read and write because you educated many people.

But then, since the 1960s, everything has gone down, and test scores. In the U.S. in particular, I'm talking about the U.S. in particular, but a lot of countries around the world have adopted the same model. But yeah, they've gone down in terms of standardized score tests.

In terms of people's confidence in the public school system, it is at an all-time low. If you look at the people who are succeeding and doing things like they're actually, a lot of them are college dropouts or the rebels and the troublemakers in school who did things differently, and that part Carved their path.

And so it makes us question, really, what are we doing? Like, why are we still doing things the way that we were doing them 200 years ago? Why aren't we adapting to the current needs? Our world is constantly changing. It's very chaotic. It's very uncertain. And we continue to train kids with these very straightforward curriculums from many years ago.

And cramming information that they have to memorize that they may or may not use in the future. So it's in case you need it instead of teaching kids how to learn for themselves. And, instead of the content like it is constantly changing, we should teach them how to think for themselves and figure things out.

Like they will be we are still determining what they will need. We have an idea of the general skills but not the content. And so if we focused on the shifting from cramming all this knowledge and all this information so that they all learn the same thing.

What if we taught them how to think differently and look at ideas from a different lens so that we're not all thinking the same thing? We should be teaching them not to believe everything that they were talking about at the beginning, not just to believe everything that your teacher tells them, but rather how to question things in a right, in an appropriate way and how to come up with your conclusions about the topics that you are discussing. 

And so there's this whole notion of how we teach kids to problem solve and think critically. And I haven't been a student in 10 schools myself. And then, having taught several kids in different places, we're doing something other than just, we're doing this. And we need to spend our time correctly.

And it comes from a very outdated system. 

Chris Powers: Okay. And there's a lot of people that agree. And when you think of public education and the government involved in anything, you think you're trying to turn around the Titanic. Is there anything that gives you hope that this is going to change for the masses, or is this going to have to change by creating Montessori schools, satellite schools, synthesis schools, and things of that nature?

Or can this be changed? Is there anything you're seeing from your perspective?

Ana Fabrega: So this is an interesting question. So, the traditional school system will not go anywhere. That is because it works as a babysitting center. A lot of parents need to drop their kids off.

And many of the alternatives I will discuss more flexibility on the parent side right now. We're going to be changing that in the future. So schools are going to go nowhere. And also because a lot of parents, You know, they're like, they haven't stopped to think about it in a way that makes them change their mind.

So they're just like, Oh, it worked for me. I turned out fine. Yes, I didn't feel like I learned a lot. Yes, I was bored. Yes, my time could have been used more effectively during my most crucial childhood years, but it worked for me, and I turned out fine. So why change it? So a lot of people think like that.

So, the system should stay put. We need help to change the system. Many people are trying to add some stuff by adding technology and this and reforming and this and that, but I don't; we need to transform the system from the ground up.

And for that, we need to build an alternative system. And so I'm very convinced about that. I try to do things differently within the system, quickly realizing this will not go anywhere. There's a lot on top; it's hard for an individual to make a difference within the system.

And so I was like, I'm better off doing something outside the system that appropriately spends kid's time. And so what will happen is people will continue using the school system. Still, many people have realized, especially with COVID, how little kids learn in school how we're actually.

Spending their time and that there are other alternatives. And I'm not saying that the online learning we saw during COVID-19 was the right way to do it. That was just like a band-aid. We were trying to figure out what to do with all the uncertainty, but many good things came out.

This idea of learning pods and kids learning in smaller communities is more based on their interests. You can have a say in the curriculum and discuss those alternatives. But more and more we're trying to, we're starting to see with online education, with like micro-schools and with alternative programs from Montessori, from Regimilia, from different philosophies that are more alternative, parents are starting to incline for that.

And then now with school choice, like Florida, for example, is one of those states that parents are now having, being able to spend the money that they want for their kids education any way they want, whether it is, you enroll them in an online school, and then you enroll them in Synthesis for their problem-solving.

And then you enroll them like you can pick and choose how you want to use that money to educate your kids. I think that will be a growing trend as more and more states become pro-choice tests in that sense. And so that's like where we're heading. We, of course, need more people working in the alternative education space to expand those options, and we need more; I recently invested in this.

It's called Moonrise, which is like the physical space that you have. It's like a co-working learning space where you drop your kids off from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., you can drop them off whenever, and you have guides and facilitators and adults there that are watching the kids, but every kid comes in with their backpack, and they like working on different things.

Some are homeschoolers, and some get dropped off after school, so they work on their stuff. Some of them are world schoolers. Some of them are, like, go to micro-schools, and then they get dropped here. And that's an excellent concept because kids surround you; you're playing but working on your own thing.

And then you get to go home and go to after-school activities. So they're trying to expand across the U.S. When we have more facilities like that, it's easier to solve the babysitting problem. And that's what's going to happen. The system will still be there, but more and more people will opt out of this system and enroll in alternative learning methods.

Chris Powers: How do you, As a mother, gauge where the line is between listening to your child who's young and doesn't have a lot of experience and then knowing what's best for them and saying, no, I think, because a five-year-old will tell you one thing and there's probably a lot of truth in what they're saying, but there's also probably that line of as a parent, I probably need to enforce X like, where's your line with your child or the children that you've taught to where you're listening to them, but you're also giving them your best, wisdom. 

Ana Fabrega: Yeah. I love this question because I tend more toward this like progressive philosophers saying teachers and adults are facilitators.

So it's not the fountain of wisdom that knows everything, and that's directing the child and telling them what to do. And no, I don't believe in that. You provide suitable space, resources, and peers, and then you ask and prompt the right questions and guide them through whatever they're doing.

But the child is the one that, based on what they're curious about, they will decide where to go. And this works well, especially when they're younger. And there's another, like the extreme, you have these democratic schools, for example, the Sudbury schools.

And I admire many things from them, but they're like the child who always decides it's in charge of everything. And there's no place for an adult at all. I'm afraid I have to disagree with that. Adults are there to set boundaries and limits and guide kids.

And so there is that: when do you intervene and when do you not? So, for example, when they're little. Kids are curious, and they want to learn. That's like in them, right? We're born that way. We want to know about everything. That's why they're always asking why and asking questions about this and that.

And they are grabbing stuff and breaking stuff and trying things. And so they're like unstoppable. But then what happens is you start to see that fades, starts to fade down when you put them in a structured environment, whether it's pre-K or kindergarten or whatever it is, that suddenly somebody's telling you, what are the subjects that you're going to be learning about when you're going to be learning about them, to what extent, when you have to close it, even though you're super excited about it, you're like, Nope, this period is done.

It would be best if you closed it. We need to move on to the next thing. Now, I'm going to grade you on what you're learning. So now, you better do well on this; otherwise, I will give you a grade. And so suddenly, kids have no choices over this thing that came naturally to them.

So obviously, this curiosity, excitement, and all these things start to get weird and pessimistic. Oh, I no longer want to learn because they're forcing me to learn this, or I'm not interested in this, or I wanted to do a little bit more of that, or, Oh, now I need to focus on that grade, not really on the learning.

So all my focus goes there, and this natural thing gets squashed by putting them in these confined traditional spaces. And what happens is that. For example, in Finland, kids only attend school once they're seven. That's when they start the formal schooling.

And some parents in the U.S. are like, oh my god, those kids are probably super behind when they're seven. And if you look, it's no; many learn how to read independently. Why? Because nobody's forcing them to do this, like we all develop at different rates. We all have different ways of doing things.

And some kids can learn how to read at four. Some kids learn to read at 12, and the outcomes are the same. But if you force them to do something, what happens before they're ready? Some may not catch it on time, so they are in the remediation groups.

And it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy where I'm not good at this. I don't want to do this. Kids develop negative feelings about the subject you're forcing them to read. And then they don't want to read for pleasure anymore, which is they would have been off way better if you didn't force them, but you exposed them to books. You read with them, and you have them in this literary-rich environment, and then they pick up on reading because they're curious about it, learn how to read without being forced, and then they want to read for the rest of their lives to keep learning. And so a lot happens when you let them explore their curiosities and go at their own pace when they're little.

There's a lot more learning than when you force them, but then it gets to an age like seven, eight, nine, where you need to start exposing them to different topics and subjects. How we do it in school is wrong, but they must be exposed.

So if a five or six-year-old tells me I don't want to learn math. Cause I don't want to learn math. You're like, you don't have a choice over that. I'm going to expose you to math. And then, after you've been exposed to the fundamentals of it and all this, if you decide that later on, you want to be a painter and you don't want to focus on math, that's fine, but you do need to be exposed to it.

And that is for many, especially the STEM subjects; you must expose them. And so that's where the role of the educator comes in, but to expand more on that. What I've noticed, like when I was student teaching in New York, was the first time I went to schools with mixed age groups.

And so it was the first time I saw that the teacher was not in the middle of the room telling kids what to do. In part, she just presented a lesson, gave them the resources, and then she could leave the room, and the kids were teaching and learning independently.

And what happened was that because you had younger kids and older kids, the younger kids wanted to do what the older kids were doing, right? Even if they were in first grade, they were doing things that third graders were doing because you were not giving them a speed limit, right?

They just wanted to copy what the older kids were doing, and they were able to do it. And that's what I've noticed happens most of the time when you don't stop kids and don't give them that limit and present them a problem. Sometimes, it's more challenging than you think they'll be, but most of the time, they can do it.

And then what also happened was that the older kids wanted to teach the younger kids so they would crystallize what they were learning. And the adult's role became irrelevant at that point, right? And that's where there's that line where it's okay, you're not there to teach everything and give them all the steps.

And no, you're there to ask the right questions, to determine when to intervene and when not to intervene, when to let them struggle, when to let them figure it out when to let them. You're also there to advise them and give them the reasoning behind things. Like when kids asked me, Miss Fabrega, why are we even learning this?

Sometimes I was like, I have no idea, like I don't know; up to this day, I've never used this information. Let's skip this unit or this lesson; let's go to the next one. If you need help understanding what you're asking them to learn, there's a problem, right?

And so it's a long-ended answer to say that the educator's role is to impart the right questions, give them the right environment and resources, and guide them, but not necessarily direct their learning. It should be way more student-centered. 

Chris Powers: Okay, you worked in the public school system.

And I've listened to the podcast and read enough of what you've done. Was there a moment where you finally, maybe it happened like the first day, where you were like, Oh, wow, I'm not jiving with this? Was there something that happened, or was it a series of events you had?

And then my follow-up to that is how does somebody work within the system but do things differently? Because a lot of teachers might want to do something differently. They're just not allowed to. 

Ana Fabrega: So here's the thing when I realized that there was a problem when I was student teaching because I had to observe kids in many different schools with different teachers, different grades, for an entire day, like for days.

And that's when I realized that these kids are not paying attention. They're not interested in doing things. They're learning to pass a test. They must figure out what to do with the content after the test. They need to learn how to solve a problem using that information. These things started to become very obvious as I observed from the back, like what was happening.

And I recognize that, like I talk about in my book, this is the game of school. Many kids learn how to pick up, what the shortcuts are, and what they must do to pass. To the next grade and get away with the school learning so that they can do the things that matter to them outside of school.

And that's like the learning game. And so I noticed this. I recognized it because I played this game ten times in all the schools I attended, but I was like, wow, what will I do? I NEED TO DO THINGS DIFFERENTLY because I want to be a teacher but can't. And I try to do things differently in my classroom.

And that, to a certain extent, I did. I created a very student-centered environment. I give my kids lots of choices. I tried to deviate from the curriculum as much as possible to learn about the things the kids were interested in learning cause they pick up, if they're curious about something, that's the moment where you need to introduce that or talk about that because they're already excited about it.

And so I would try to do that. Still, it got to a point, especially with standardized tests, and when it came the testing season, where you have to cram for a test because that defines everything for this kid, and teacher salaries are tight now to like the performance of the kids for many of this test.

And so what started to happen was that all the things I had worked hard on at the beginning of the year or through the middle suddenly went sideways when I had to focus 100% on teaching for the test. And that's where I was like, Whoa, this is so messed up that this becomes like what we're doing in school 24 seven, like prepping for a test.

And so that's when I started to become disengaged. And then this interesting, I did it for three years in this school. And then the fourth year, I knew I would leave because I didn't see all my kids. They seem to be very happy here in the classroom.

They love to read. They love to write and this and that. Most of them, and then they would go on to the following grades with great teachers sometimes, and they would come back to visit me, and they're like, they hate it writing. They no longer wanted to do this. They don't want her to read. And I was like, what's going on?

And so I realized that even if you have great teachers, as you keep going up in the system, things become even more rigid, more structured, less choice, less autonomy. Again, kids have a lot of gaps in their knowledge from previous years that were never addressed because a teacher can only address some of the needs of the 30 kids.

If some are behind, you can continue the class. And so kids become disengaged because the pace of everything keeps them going faster and faster. And a lot of them never catch up. And so they're like, what's the point of this? I will give up and go through the motions until I graduate.

And the fourth year, I knew I would be leaving soon. So I was like, I'm not going to; let's see what happens when I don't test. I'm not going to engage in this. I'm just going to keep teaching kids what they're interested in. I'm going to cover a lot of this material my way. The lessons need to be more relevant.

I'm just going to skip them. Let's see what happens. I was like, I'm probably going to be leaving soon anyway. What ended up happening was that this school used the map tests, which are like standardized tests for reading for math and literacy for writing. They're two to three hours long, and kids since kindergarten are taking this test in front of a computer or an iPad.

It's unbelievable, and there's a lot of stress over it. Like it, they take it at the beginning of the year to see where they are. And then there's a projected growth, and they take it at the end of the year. So I did not do test prep, and the principal called me to her office because she has to go over the results with you and your class and talk about it and this and that.

And she was like, your class scored first place because you used this test to measure across the school and then with other schools in math and reading, what did you do? It is excellent for all your students like 70% of your students met or exceeded their targeted growth.

What did you do? And I was like, You want to know the truth. I did not test prep this year. I did not make my kids nervous. I did not send stuff home for parents to review with the kids. I did not stop my days to focus on these textbook problems and teach them for the tests. I covered the material more reasonably and didn't have to test prep, and the kids you're telling me did pretty well.

And she was shocked. And initially, she wanted me to talk about what I did in the professional development meeting next Wednesday. But when I said that, she was like. Oh, interesting. Okay. Let's leave it there. Why? Because that's not the case, it goes against what everyone's doing, right?

And so if it worked, and luckily, it worked with my class. I may have a high class. I don't know. But then the principal thinks, if it doesn't work, what will happen, the test and this and that? It is an example of something that made me say, okay, I'm done.

I can't keep doing this. It's just not rewarding anymore. I'm wasting my kid's time. There has to be a better way. And also, it was like a call of what's happening. And one of the main problems with education is that everything revolves around this standardized test.

It's like everything. And it's become the whole point of education. And that's what makes it go sideways. That's why a lot of it lacks purpose because of this obsession with metrics and standards, and it's become a big problem.

Chris Powers: I agree, and you see people that are regularly very smart that also have part of their DNA as they freak out when the big test comes; they almost can't pass it. It's like tripping a wire over and over. Are tests even necessary? Is there some degree of a test that's necessary? And if not, or maybe the answer isn't all or none, how would you know somebody is making progress if you didn't have tests?

Ana Fabrega: It's essential to find a way to assess people's knowledge, right? And what they're learning. Standardized tests are one of many ways. Standardized tests are only partially useless. They give us a baseline of some academic knowledge and the content the kids are learning.

But as you said, I had many students who would pass the test with flying colors, and then they had no idea how to apply what they had learned to solve a problem. So, what's the point? I was upset because I was like, wait, you got an A. So if your parents see this, they're like, Oh my, but you know nothing about it.

Like, you don't know. And then I had the kids who, like you very well said, they knew the content. I had been with them for an extended period. I knew they knew how to do this but needed to be better test takers. And so, the test did not reflect their ability, and they were penalized for that.

So how do I explain to parents, though? I know your kid got a bad grade, but your kid was very nervous, or this is not how they showcase their learning, but they know the material. That was very hard to convince parents about, especially colleges and whatnot because this goes in your transcript and affects you for the rest of your life.

And so the answer, and again, I don't have the correct answer. Still, an excellent place to start is by lowering the stakes of the standardized tests, not making it the whole point of education, but rather using it as a small way to assess some academic ability. But then, I love what homeschoolers do, right?

For homeschoolers who made a portfolio at the end of the year to the local school board where they have business plans, songs written, videos, and essays that were like, they have a combination of different things that show what they were learning, not just tests.

And that would be super interesting because, as I said, we all learn differently and have aptitudes for many things, but it doesn't mean we can all show what we're learning the same way. And so I think that if we focused on first, instead of spending so much time, we're trying to remediate kids' weaknesses, like if we tried to double down on the things that they're good at and trying to find a way, how can we show Chris, you're good at this.

Let me find a way for you to showcase this. It would empower you as a learner. It would. Make you more excited to keep going; everyone needs to feel a sense of competence and mastery. It would help out with that. And just lowering the stakes of standardized tests but also opening up the options and allowing people to showcase their learning.

That could be a promising starting point, not making it all about the grades but more about the process and the actual learning. 

Chris Powers: Some people say it depends on who you listen to. But if you follow the Enneagram or some of these personality tests, some say as early as you are who you are by the time you're two years old.

Some say it's four years old. Some say it's eight years old. Do you have an opinion? Are you who you are by a certain age? Are you constantly evolving? 

Ana Fabrega: You're constantly evolving. The more you get exposed to different things, cultures, people, and ways of doing, the more you're constantly learning and the more you're constantly evolving.

And, you can always stop and unlearn things that are not useful so that you can make room to learn valuable things. And you can always keep changing and growing and evolving. Like, I'm convinced about that. I don't think that you are the way you are. No, your environment has much to do with your formation, the people you get exposed to, and the attitude you develop towards learning growing up.

Chris Powers: All right. When we were born in our generation, we were not even that old when we wanted to learn, like our kids are, or we went outside and played; there were no iPhones, iPads, or screens. Nintendo had come out, and it was much different. I want to move into the age of screens, why they might be delicious, and where there's a negative impact. So, how do you think of teaching kids in a digital world? 

Ana Fabrega: Yeah. It is a very complex topic, and my thoughts have evolved as I learn more and keep an open mind.

So, at first, I was hesitant against screens because I would always look around and see everyone like this. I'm talking about adults not getting to kids, but people in restaurants in the street, walking around all the time people are staring at their phones.

It's insane, and then you have concerned parents thinking, "Oh, my kids are addicted to their screens and addicted to the technology, and like, all this is happening. And, of course, it's a legitimate concern. But if you look at the world that we live in, screens have become such a crucial like such a big part of our lives.

And they're going to stay somewhere. They will become a more significant part of our lives. So yes, in addition to realizing we need to do something about it, start with ourselves and set parameters and limits for ourselves because we model the kind of behavior that we want our kids to adopt.

They're watching us all the time. So, you cannot enforce something that you are not doing. If your kid doesn't understand that, they don't make the connection if you tell them not to use your phone but see you always use it. They don't understand. And so it doesn't make sense to them because it doesn't make sense.

And it's like, we need to model. One of the things I must do when I get home is grab my phone. And this is something new that I started doing. I put it inside this little box in the kitchen because otherwise, it's work stuff. But I'm like, I catch myself.

I'm with my baby, but I grab my phone occasionally to do something. And it's not like my kid is ten months old, but he's watching me. And this is what he's learning. And then, in addition to that, he's watching everyone around him with their phone all the time. So, first, we need to model the correct behavior.

The second thing we need to know is that instead of making screens the enemy, kids need a lot of guidance to navigate this world they're entering, right? And for that, they need to have a good, positive, trusting relationship with their parents. And so if we get upset and see the screens as the enemy and like this horrible thing and this and that, then the focus goes there.

And the kids pick up on this energy, and then they don't want to talk to you about it. And so, instead of you being their guide, they hide this from you, and they will try to figure it out on their own. And that's when it becomes a real problem. Because, as I said, they need a lot of guidance to use technology appropriately.

The approach should teach them how to navigate information abundance, curate valuable content, and make ethical judgments about how to use the information they're consuming; all these skills are things that we, as adults, need to be teaching. I think schools should be teaching this, for God's sake, suitable.

But there are other focuses. And that's where it comes up, like the parent's role and how we can think about helping our kids. But when you look at screens, there's a huge positive component, right? If you use it in moderation, the problem is, where do you draw the line?

For example, if you look at video games, which is something that many kids are drawn to, I'm not saying that they should be spending their days playing video games like they should be outside; kids should be playing they should. But they want to engage in video games for an hour a day, and I cite all the research in my book about how much is too much based on everything I've researched.

And so they can learn many positive things from video games, right? Video games teach you how to teach yourself new skills. That's one of the first things. The other thing is it teaches you how to fail constructively. Like you often fail in video games. You pick yourself up, and you keep going.

You fail again. You pick yourself up. And kids don't see it as a negative thing. They're just like, Oh, I failed. What did I learn? So, they start to see that failure is part of the learning process. And then they need to pay attention to it because it will give them clues about what they need to do to keep moving up.

Imagine if kids developed this quality or this skill in school. In school, it's the opposite, right? You fail, you get a bad grade, you get penalized, and it's, oh, you're scared of it. You don't want to look at it again. And failure is it's super fundamental to keep pushing civilization forward, right?

That's how we make discoveries, and that's how progress happens. And so I love how video games teach you that. And it's not the only way, but those are some things I've started to see. Also, this ability to say Hey, I don't know what I have to do here, but I'm going to figure it out because you don't have somebody telling you what to do in the game.

Kids have to pick up the skills as they go. And this is also a fundamental skill in the real world, like the ability to figure things out for yourself. And so that's something else that I find interesting. But then also Schools have become so rigid that socializing in school is challenging.

So many parents say, "Oh, I send my kids to school to socialize. It's, have you seen how much socializing is happening in school? It's like constrained. It's like in the 15-minute recess they have because a lot has cut them down, or now lunch breaks are sometimes like science, quiet lunches, so there's no chaos in the cafeteria. It's why so many kids are not socializing that much. And then, suddenly, they get online, and they have all those opportunities to connect with kids from other countries from around the globe who have similar interests.

And so they're meeting this need of relating to other people. And when parents are like, why is my kid spending so much time online or on the screens? Have you stopped to try to figure it out? Have you tried to see what they're craving when looking for this experience they probably need in the real world?

And once you find that out, you can start brainstorming ways to get what they seek in the real world. And so having those open conversations, and instead of again, when you see your kid playing a video game or watching T.V. or whatever, instead of just like seeing, Oh, why are they doing this?

I am curious about it and interested in what they are seeking. Many parents complain about their kids using screens so much, but they're not providing them with other enriching opportunities. Like the parents are like, I don't know, like on their phones or working or doing this.

And then the only available thing is the screen or this and that. And I am figuring out if I am providing opportunities for my kids to want to engage in the real world. Or am I just? Otherwise, they're going to seek other stuff. And so it's like a limit.

It's like finding the right balance between how much is too much and how much is productive and providing those real-world fulfillment opportunities so that they also want to engage in the real world. And then embrace the fact that screens are here for the long run and have an open conversation with your kids about how you also struggle with this and how it's hard because screens are designed to feel like it's never enough.

And so the faster you understand this, the better you can explain to your kids like, yes, when you're playing this game, and I tell you to stop, it's time to stop. It's you're going to be frustrated. It's normal. You want to keep playing like. Skins are just; screens are designed that way, but you cannot keep playing all day because of this and this.

So, like having those open conversations and then finding that happy medium where they can agree with you on the boundaries that you want to have. 

Chris Powers: Your energy is the best. I love it, okay? You said something; you said failure. And you said when kids are playing video games, they're okay.

They are failing over and over again. Do you think that the reason why they're Unwilling to fail in other areas of their lives is because of the expectations that adults have put on them to where failure is scary? And then, I want to go down this failure road because we live in a world where nobody wants to fail or feels comfortable failing.

And everybody should have this straightforward life. There should be no trials and tribulations, which would be a good life. History has taught us that failure is what makes us great. It's what makes us learn. Let's go down this failure road because today's parents are so scared to see their kids fail that they go out of their way to ensure it doesn't happen.

And there's this balance of nobody who likes to see their kid fail, but you must let them. So let's start with why do video games; why are kids comfortable failing on video games but not in other areas of their lives?

Ana Fabrega: I love this topic. I find it fascinating. So, great questions when kids are playing video games. The stakes are low.

If they lose in the game, nothing will happen, right? Other than losing, you may have to start over again or lose a few points. But in terms of actual hard-core consequences, there are only hard-core consequences if you're playing, I don't know, professionally for money, which isn't usually the case for kids.

And so they normalize this idea of failure because they're not getting penalized by it. Again, if you look at what happened, like the whole point of failure, when you're kids, that is when you should be failing all the time. Because you don't know things, you're learning things, and you're not, you, we can't expect kids to pick up on something right away.

No, you won't be good at it at first. You're going to make lots of mistakes. You're going to fail. And then you need the confidence and the willingness to keep improving to get better. That's how you improve. It sounds obvious when we say it, but when you look at what we're teaching kids in school, we're teaching them from the moment they walk into your classroom. We're like, okay, we're going to learn about this. And on Friday, we're going to have a test. So you better learn to spell all these words correctly right away because otherwise, you'll get this lousy grade on Friday.

What happens with that lousy grade? It gets sent to your parents. It goes on your report card. And then, kids know that they're high stakes, right? That there are consequences. So they don't want to try risky things because they know there's a possibility that they won't get them right the first time, and I'll get penalized for it.

They don't want to ask questions anymore, which is one of the kids' best qualities. They're constantly curious. They ask questions because they're trying to deconstruct the world around them. They're trying to make sense of the things thrown at them. They're trying to think for themselves.

But when they quickly learn, Oh, if I have a question and it's a dumb question, I'm going to make a fool out of myself. Like I better not, it's risky. I don't want to look like that. Like I don't know in front of everyone. So we start to teach them you need to fear this idea of not knowing. I don't know, it is not a good thing.

That's what we're teaching them. In reality, saying, I don't know, is an opportunity to figure it out and learn about it. And so I'm always amazed by this idea that it should be now when kids are young, that we give them plenty of opportunities to fail productively when the stakes are low, when it doesn't matter.

What happens if they get things wrong, other than they get to try again? It's like a feedback. We're giving; in the real world, you get feedback on what you do to improve when you're older. And if you go all these years without practicing failure and being scared of failure and avoiding failure is part, like you said, of our lives, things that won't go our way will happen.

And we need to be prepared to navigate that. And how do you get ready for that? By having plenty of practice. But if we're not giving kids practice, they turn adults, and suddenly boom, failure means. Something catastrophic, right? The stakes are so high that it can mean a failed business or marriage, like a big problem.

And so I'm always like, why aren't we teaching? Like, why aren't we prioritizing this in school? Giving kids plenty of practice with this skill is essential for everyone along those lines. And again, video games are one way to practice that. It's not the only way, but it's one way that I've seen that.

I'm like, I love this. Like kids keep getting practice with this, but then there's this other side, wanting to figure things out. Kids also have become very risk averse because we figure everything out for them, right? Because, like you were saying, we're scared that they may feel bad or get confused, or they may fail, or they, we are like shielding them from all these opportunities to get stronger and learn the skills they will need.

Parents often say I want my kid to be happy. So I'm going to do everything for them to be happy. And I'm always like, if you want your kid to be happy, You need to teach them how to be sad. It would help if you taught them what to do when adversity comes. It would help if you stopped intervening when they're having all these conflicts with their peers.

I'm not saying disappear and not be in the equation. No, be there, but don't intervene. Try to see how kids give them the skills to handle things independently. Because Otherwise, you can't expect them. Parents are like I want my kid to be independent. I know I want my kid.

And then they don't give them independence. And then suddenly, when they turn 18, it's boom, I expect you to be independent. No, it's a skill that you need to learn. And so the more we expose kids, it's like germs, right? The more You know you expose yourself to different germs, the more you're building your immune system.

It's the same thing with hardship. You expose kids to sad situations, complex situations, challenges, and failure. And when things don't go their way, and the more you give them practice and exposure, the more comfortable they'll get with this, and they will learn how to navigate it independently.

So, it's evident that's what we need to do. And that's why I'm fascinated with Synthesis, the start-up I'm part of because we focus on giving kids. Plenty of practice with this is the whole purpose of the games and simulations we build. How can we make this scenario with real-world problems where kids are excited, not because of the extrinsic rewards, but because they're working on something that matters?

They have stakes in the game, and they get to fail a lot because things are not clear. We make them challenging on purpose. We don't give them instructions. Initially, kids are frustrated and don't know what to do because they're used to adults intervening and telling them what to do.

Failing is a negative thing, but we start to reshape that. And kids that go through the program, it's fascinating because they start to see failure as their friend, as Oh, this is just part of, what is it here to teach me? And I'm not just saying this. It's like your conversations with the kids after they've been through the program.

And I'm not saying Synthesis is the only thing, but it's something that I've seen we do well. The kids befriend failure in a way that they start to take more risks. They start to take on more challenges. They want to try new things. And these kids will go very far in life because that's what it takes to be good at whatever you want to be good at when you grow up: that ability to keep going when things get tough. 

Chris Powers: Okay. I'm asking this for myself, but there could be some parents here who think I have created a household with high expectations. My kids are scared to fail. They may be showing signs of doing it. And I want to change that. Do you have any practical advice or wisdom on if somebody left this podcast right now, the next best thing to go home and start changing the culture to where their kids weren't afraid to fail? 

Ana Fabrega: I have a chapter in my book with practical strategies and things you can do.

But a few simple things that you can try right away. The first thing is usually the problem starts with us, with the parents, because we were conditioned when we were little to be scared of failure for all the reasons we just talked about and how we do things in school. And so, the first thing you need to do is acknowledge that and reflect on your view of failure and how you feel about it.

Remember that kids are sponges; this is the biggest takeaway I took as a teacher for meetings. I would work with the kids and then meet the parents, and I'd be like. It makes so much sense, and this happens all the time. Like kids are literally, it's unbelievable.

They absorb everything and become little you until they're older and can break patterns and stuff. But, like when they're growing up, they're a mirror of their parents. So, if you are scared of failure and get something wrong, you make a big deal about it.

You're very harsh on yourself. The way you talk to yourself, kids pick up on this and model it regardless of what you want to teach them. If they look at you and that's what they see, that's what they will do. So the first thing you can do is reflect on your feelings and experience growing up with failure and then try to unlearn those unhelpful lessons and relearn how to deal with failure and model the kind of thing.

When you don't get something right, it's in front of your kids; oh, you know what? I didn't do this, right? What did I learn about this? What am I going to do better? Okay, it's not a big deal. And then you keep going. It sounds silly, but I swear, just modeling the right kind of self-talk when I get something wrong or the attitude of what I learned instead of, Oh, why did I do this? Like that, and then, Oh, I want to try this again. Like that, I am just giving those examples. The other thing is to start a conversation about failure, like talking to them, " Oh, I see that you were building that tower.

It felt like you felt frustrated. What is it about this that made you so frustrated? Can you try it again? Just talking to them and having them reflect by saying out loud what was going on and their feelings is super helpful. The other thing is reading books or stories or biographies.

If your kids are older or like looking at stories of successful people, because what tends to happen is in school, we talk a lot about all these people that made it and all these fantastic things that they achieved and this and that. But the most exciting thing about those people is what happened before they became famous and discovered this brand-new thing.

These people usually went through hell, right? It was a period where things did not go right; they failed a lot, they struggled, there was a lot of hardship, and usually, that doesn't get as much attention or highlighted. But that's where the learning happens. When you talk about all the struggles that this person went through, and they never gave up. They kept picking themselves up even when things were super hard and kept going, which made them successful.

And that's why they end up where they are. And then you can talk about what they're doing now but focus on that trenches like the process. That's fascinating. Then there's this excellent talk, and I summarize it in the book Like The Super Mario Effect by Mark Robert, this NASA engineer who now is a YouTuber. Still, he talks about how we should help kids. Like in Super Mario, kids are focused on the end goal and not necessarily like the pits and the failures, and that's just part of the process, right? So if we focus on what you want to achieve, then no, the process is just what it takes you.

Like it, it doesn't, like you, you stand up, you keep going and that, but what matters is let's try to achieve what you want to achieve and then not focus so much on all the different pieces. That's super important, and that's like a mind shift. Like when we start to, when we stop penalizing failure, kids want to stand up and keep going.

And several experiments have been done that prove this, that when you don't make them lose points for not getting things right, or give them that back grade or this and that, kids are actually like, oh, you know what? Let me try this again when you give them that back grade. Frequently, they want to avoid looking at it again.

How are they going to get better at it? The whole point of telling you what's wrong is to give you feedback so that you can improve. And so if we start to reframe failure as something positive, I think that, as parents, we can do this at home. Cheating them on and like the kind of like attitude that you have when things don't go right and the kind of encouragement, or even say okay, we're going to try this thing.

It's going to be super hard. And that's why it's exciting. You need to get it right because it's not even fun if you do get it right. And that's part of it. And that's fun. I would like to know what you learned, like all these kinds of mental exercises are so good to try to befriend that one.

And then the last thing I will say is trying to find opportunities. Whether it is enrolling your kid in a sport they've never played before, where they're going to be, not good at first, most of the kids, unless you're a natural, and then incentivize them to stick to it for a little bit.

If they don't, they play for a while and don't want to do it anymore, then let them quit. That's fine. But enroll them, engage them, or put them into something like Synthesis or whatever you want to do where they can be wrong at something and improve over time.

And encourage them along the way. That's super important. Whether it's playing an instrument, like whatever it is, I think the more practice they get with this skill, and again, they're not getting practice with this at school, so it's your job as a parent to give them this, the better. And there is always time to change this, right?

It's just a matter of reflecting on it, realizing it, and then addressing it at home.

Chris Powers: On the nature versus nurture topic, and some kids gravitate towards some things, how much is the educator or the parent part of that versus it being nurtured like you see some people that become so good at one thing and everybody's we have no idea how this happened when you see kids that have latched onto something, whether that be a sport or math or writing or whatever.

Is a lot of that how they were brought up? Is some of it just nature? Like, how do you think about when you see a student that you can tell is going deep into something? Why has that occurred?

Ana Fabrega: Yeah, I love this question, too. And again, I'm going to generalize because there are exceptions.

Chris Powers: Nuance.  

Ana Fabrega: Yes, nuance, exactly. So here's what I've noticed. I've noticed that some kids are born with exceptional abilities for certain things. Of course, that's true. And there are some exceptions. But most of the time, kids are good at something, but then.

Because you tend to gravitate to things you're good at, right? And so when suddenly kids get a taste of playing a sport or trying something, they realize, Oh my God, I'm good. They feel they want to keep going. And the number one factor I've seen for people who get good at stuff is the parent's support.

And I have got a lot of because I'm super interested in all this, like entrepreneurs that made it and that became successful, not just entrepreneurs, but people in general that got to where they are by doing things differently and not the traditional, right path and like the convent.

No, I mean people who like made it grinding and this and that. I've noticed that the one factor they all have in common is that they had parents who believed in them, supported them, and gave them plenty of exposure to the things they were interested in, leading them to like them.

Spend time on the things that they were obsessed over. And that's what makes people great at something when you can spend lots of time and devote to doing something you're obsessed with. And so there's something obviously with the genes; you're born with specific preferences and natural talents towards certain things. Still, it's how much happens if your parents enroll you in this thing so that you can practice with this if they support you, or if they're like, no, this is different from what I want you to do.

It depends on the environment and your exposure to that thing. 

Chris Powers: Got it. Okay. I have a six-year-old, a four-year-old, and a one-year-old. And in my day job, I negotiate with people all day. And I sometimes like to pat myself on the back and say good job. Then I go home, and I try and negotiate with my kids.

And I feel like that small because sometimes I win and know you have some thoughts. How should we negotiate with kids, or should we even negotiate with kids? 

Ana Fabrega: Yeah, this is one of those challenges I love. I've learned much about it by working with kids and realized that kids don't necessarily want.

And again, it's essential when kids ask you a question, you need to give them an explanation, explain why they want to know why they're going to use this, why they're, it's super important that you talk to them, and you talk to them like adults. They don't like to be talked down to that.

Even if they're young, they don't want you to talk to them as if they were little. No, you like bend, you look at them in the eyes, you explain things. I talked to my ten-month-old as if my son were five and understood what I said. I don't know how much he's picking up on it, but I'm convinced that by doing this, they want to listen to you because you're taking them seriously. 

So that's one thing. The other thing is kids are interested in something other than something. Remember that they have different skills you and I had when they were young. They cannot reason the way you and I reason.

They cannot and don't have the self-control you and I have. They are learning that. So much of it comes from the emotion, like breaking out and this and that. So when the adult tries to be rational with them when they're not being rational, they don't want you to give them a rational answer. What they want is for their feelings to be validated. And I've learned that has been a game-changer in my relationship with students. Don't try when they're having that meltdown or when you're trying to reach; don't go for that logical argument.

You may be right. And there's a lot, there's a reason why you cannot be up at 9 p.m., but they don't want to listen to that. They want their feelings to be validated. So you say, you know what, I know this sucks. You don't want to go to sleep like you want to be up, and I know this doesn't feel good.

And I know that this is unfair. It feels unfair. But it is my job as a parent to keep you safe. And that means you need to get your hours of sleep. So right now, we're going to go to sleep. But I know it doesn't feel good. It doesn't feel good. But focus more on addressing, and then something magical happens when you address their feelings.

They're like, they may not necessarily, Oh, I want to comply with you right away, but they feel heard. They feel their feelings were acknowledged, which automatically brings down their guard. So that's one of the first-on-one negotiation tips I've realized, like when dealing with kids, you validate their feelings.

The other thing you do is try to give them choices; you can; you try to find how. Sometimes they're like, there are no choices. You can always do something to make them feel in control. And it can be something as silly as you want to go out with that Batman outfit for lunch.

Pick your battles. It's okay, I'm not going to argue, that's what you want to wear, that's fine. You'll be Batman today for lunch. That's fine. Sometimes you like this with time; it makes them feel like, okay, I'm not like, like they're not trying to control me, right?

They're trying to set boundaries, and kids want boundaries. And some parents are like, Oh, I want to be my kid's best friend and this and that. It's no, they don't want a best friend, right? They have that they want a figure that's understanding kind, and that puts limits. And so you can put those boundaries and limits, but do it in a way that provides choices, and they feel in control of something.

And so I guess those are, and I'm going to expand on this in my book because I went down a rabbit hole with this, like FBI negotiators and what they do and what I can grab for kids, and I go more specific in the book but those are three things that are simple that you can apply right away with your kids and I swear they work like magic.

It's like simple tics, but they work like magic. 

Chris Powers: I will already take you up on going to bed. My kids do not like going to bed anymore. My four-year-old has gotten old enough to know when her six-year-old sister, who gets to bed a little later, isn't in bed. 

Ana Fabrega: And it's a whole thing. 

Chris Powers: Oh, it's a whole thing every night. And sometimes, I feel like I conquered it. And sometimes I leave just feeling like I got owned. 

Ana Fabrega: It takes, it's a process.

Chris Powers: Why is it useless to ask kids what they want to be growing up?

Ana Fabrega: I love this question and am not too fond of this question.

It's because now that kids are entering school right now, like this month, you see all the pictures on Instagram of them standing up. I'm in first grade, this and that, and I want to be a fireman when I grow up, or I want to be an astronaut when I grow up. Here's the thing. When you talk about careers as something you are, it's this idea of the self-fulfilling prophecy.

Kids start to believe a few things. First, this is who they are, and they cannot change that, right? In reality, research shows that we, people, have over a dozen careers in their lifetime. So, switching until you find what suits you. should be something we normalize.

And this is something you need to talk to kids about when they're like, okay, what you want to be when you grow up has yet to be invented. And I often talk about who would have thought being a YouTuber would be a thing. And you have all those people making millions of dollars with YouTube.

And it's that wasn't a thing when I was little. And talking instead of careers of something that you are, it's something that you do, and that thing can change or may not be invented yet. Also, it's fascinating because when you talk about things like, and there's a lot of research that this author and professor Adam Grand talk about, it's like, when he did this experiment with kids, when you talk about, being a scientist versus doing science, it's like vastly different.

Being a scientist is something you like to possess, and you become that. And many kids are like, Oh, actually, that's scary. I don't want to go there. But when you talk about doing science, and anyone can do science, and anyone can try, it's like they're more inclined to pursue careers in science.

And it's as simple as simply shifting the language and how we talk about it. We should not talk about careers as something we are but something we do and something that can change. It aligns with this idea that if you don't like what you're doing, it's okay to quit, right? I talk about this a lot, like perseverance is super important. Still, if you're persevering in the wrong direction, you're better off quitting, so Teaching kids, I want you to try this.

I want you to be exposed to various things. So that you get this general knowledge, but then, if you like this, I will make you stick with it. You can quit and try something else until you find what you like. And so there's the fine line there.

Because you need to know when's the right time to quit? When are they quitting? Because, for other factors and but that's the parent's job to try to find, spend some time trying to find that out. But it's become fascinating. Instead of asking them what you want to be, talk about, brainstorm all the things that you love doing, and then what you want to try first.

And so it makes a difference in the way that they approach this. 

Chris Powers: All right. I want to spend the last few minutes going more personal, and you had said that your husband may come from this and more the traditional way.

And you are coming from this in more of the, call it the more modern way, or you have a different way of looking at it. But that's the case in a lot of households. You have parents that have opposite ways of thinking about educating their kids. How do you guys deal with it? And like, how should parents, how do you tell parents to think about it when they're choosing what to do for their kids?

Ana Fabrega: Yeah, this is an exciting question. So here's, it's great because, like you said, it provides a balance in my house. Cause I, after, I'm very passionate about this topic. I live, breathe, and dream about this all the time. I'm constantly thinking about how we can improve education.

What are the things? And it's gotten to a point where I've become with the traditional school system. I was there for a long time as a student and teacher. And I realized this really, but the reality and this is something that, being with my husband, made me realize doesn't mean that the traditional school system doesn't work for anybody.

No, it works well for certain types of people. My husband is a specific person who benefits from sitting quietly and straight. He loved paying attention to the teacher's lectures, which was how he learned best. He has this incredible memory that he would read something or hear something and, being great, would get an excellent grade, but then he still remembers, and it's unbelievable.

But this is the traditional path as we worked for him. He was very motivated. He loved school, so confident kids are like that, but it's not the norm, right? It's the exception. And so something that I've talked a lot to my husband and parents about is that maybe your kid.

If your job is to figure out if your kid is in the right environment, if your kid is thriving and is happy, and an essential thing your kid wants to continue to learn and is excited to learn, then don't touch that. That's the right place for them. But if that starts to change or is not the case, you need to find alternatives.

And so when I talk to my husband, what will we do with fed? And we don't need to figure it out right now. Like, he's ten months. And you see all this like pressure, like parents whose babies are ten months and they're would like, we need to roll them in this school and do this.

And, like all this pressure, the school system makes a lot of it. And if you look at the research like this, it doesn't make sense. Kids don't have to start school when they're five. But anyway, what will go with the flow? We'll see what kind of kid we have.

Maybe he's like his father and wants to go to a more traditional environment. And if that's the case, I won't prime him. I'm going to let him, I'm going to let him try it out. And if he's thriving and he's happy, then great. But if my kid is not like his father and he's more like me or most people I know, we'll try different things.

And many ways work. We're going to try different things until we find what's the right place for my son. And when we have more kids. One kid may be very different from the other. And the fact that we're doing this thing for this kid doesn't mean it will work for my next kid.

And so we need to keep an open mind. We need to be very patient, and we need to be willing to try different things until we find what works for our kids. And it's going to be a lot of trial and error. And some parents are like, Oh, I don't want to risk it. Like, why would I do that?

And then maybe it doesn't work. And I'm like, if your kid is unhappy in school, it's already not working. We're already wasting their time. Their time could be better spent elsewhere. So you might try to find the best alternative or environment for them. And so it's all about having that balance; having those conversations with your spouse has been super important for us.

A lot of people only think about this once they have kids. And this is like such a meaningful conversation to talk about your values. It would help if you reflected a lot on your experience growing up. You need to think and stop my book, and that's the whole point of my book: to make you stop and reflect on your own schooling experience when you were growing up.

What myths do you have in your head or lessons that may need to be more helpful that you should unlearn and not replicate with your child? It takes a lot of introspection as an adult to figure out the best thing you can do with your kids.

And so I invite parents to think about that. And if you need help figuring out where to start, you can read my book. It helps a lot with that. And yeah, it's like trying, not being scared, again, this whole idea of failure, not being scared to take risks and try different things until you find what works for your family.

Chris Powers: The book will be in the show notes for anybody listening to The Learning Game. Is there any data or anything that comes to mind when I say it? Only child versus a child that has eight siblings. Do kids learn more if they're an only child, or do they learn more if they have many siblings, or is it random?

Ana Fabrega: I have yet to look at the data on this, so don't quote me on anything; I'm just going to speak from my experience of working with only children or kids with several siblings. Okay. So that's where this is coming from. And again, I only have one kid, so I am a one in five, for example.

So I come from a big family. Moving around, it was me and my sister, but we were five because we moved to many countries. And so personally, as a kid, I learned a lot from my sister and by teaching my sister, my younger sister. And it was like a back-and-forth process.

And it was beautiful for my development. So I think there was a lot of there, but mostly when I was a teacher, and I would teach kids that came from were an only child, what I would see, and again, I'm generalizing, but a lot of these parents were very much on top of the kid. And so they tended to be the overprotective or quote-unquote helicopter parents.

And again, I'm generalizing, but it was a common factor that I saw the parents were very much on top of the child. And then that creates a problem for the reasons we've discussed. We need to give kids independence. We need to let them struggle and figure things out.

And so these parents tend to be slightly more hesitant because it's like their precious baby. They want, Once you have more than one, it becomes like, Oh, I've done this already, and so that's one thing in terms of the relationship, but then I feel like there's a massive benefit of peer instruction when kids learn from other kids.

They learn even better than when they learn from adults because kids speak the same language, and they understand themselves better. It's they're on the same note. And so something about being with other kids always if you have siblings is compelling.

Again, it comes from what I've observed and my experience, but I still need to look at the data but now I'm interested. So I'm going to look it up. 

Chris Powers: Okay. All right. My final question. It's a big one, but you could share your thoughts. You have a son. You don't know, you'll probably have more children.

How are you thinking about their education? I know we've touched on it in points, but do you have a plan for those first seven to eight years of your son's life? And what's your plan? 

Ana Fabrega: Yeah. So I get this question a lot, and it's funny because I'm not worried about it, unlike many of my friends.

I'm confident that, what, and I don't have it all figured out, but I'll tell you what I'm thinking. But again, I'm willing to pivot along the way. And I will because things are changing quickly, and more opportunities are coming up in the alternative space. I'll have a different answer if we have this conversation again in a year.

And I'm okay with that. Like, I'm excited for that. But right now. I plan to enroll. The future of education is a menu where you have different alternatives and find what's in your neighborhood or online that suits your schedule.

And so for my child, he will be doing a lot of free play and free exploration and, maybe, some Montessori program for his early years, where he can go a few hours a day to be around other kids. He's learning life skills, and he's engaged and playing around so that he's not always at home with me.

I plan to spend a lot of time with him, but he must be around other adults and kids. So that's one thing. The other thing is I'm very optimistic about the digital tutors. That is starting to come up, Synthesis, where we came up with one that's good, but there are other people also working on this. Still, after seeing the results this year, I'm optimistic that we will have a digital tutor who works like a human by the time he's seven.

That will be able to cover all the hard-core academics and all the STEM subjects, et cetera, really effectively, like in an hour a day so that he'll be able to spend on his iPad or his computer like an hour a day learning those hard-core academics that right now they learn in school for eight hours.

They're not learning for eight hours five days a week for 12 years. And so we're concise that in an hour a day so that the kid has the rest of the day to play sports, play instruments, and enroll in a forest school to be outside.

And there are a few around my house that I already checked out that are fun. He would have a blast. There are also beach schools that are very interesting for a few days a week. I love the idea of micro-schools. I think that's what's going to look like when he gets a little bit older, like six or seven, if I don't want to be the one in charge at the moment for several reasons, like right now, I say I do, but maybe that will change.

Then, I'll enroll him in a micro-school with a parent or teacher I like. Like you have a saying in the curriculum, it's a few hours a day and very project-based learning. And then, yeah, I kind of plan to go with the flow and see what other things, of course, he'll be part of Synthesis where he learns, plays this simulation where he's learning how to problem solve, how to think critically, how to work with other people, communication skills, like all the soft skills.

And so, as you see, it's like a menu where you pick, choose, and plug in your day, depending on what works with our schedule. I plan to travel to our home countries. I'm from Panama. My husband's from Puerto Rico, and I see a lot of value and how much he grows every time we go back home and spend time there with family and friends, just like in a different environment.

Having grown up myself, moving around a lot, I see the value and how much you learn outside of school when you're doing that. So, we can also give that to my child, but not a concrete answer. See how it's like a little bit of everything. 

Chris Powers: School can use a more concrete schedule with bells every 45 minutes.

And I love it. Hannah, this has been fabulous. Thank you very much for your time today. 

Ana Fabrega: Thank you so much. It has been fantastic. Your questions were excellent.