Kelly Smith

0:05 Welcome to the Leadership Passport. I'm delighted to welcome my guest today, Kelly Smith. Kelly is obsessed with learning. He started a micro school around his kitchen table in 2018 and since then has helped thousands of people start their own micro schools as founder and CEO of Prenda. Before Prenda, Kelly ran a volunteer coding program at public libraries, built and sold a small software business, worked in engineering and marketing roles at various technology companies, and earned a master's degree in nuclear fusion from MIT. And Kelly lives in Arizona with his wife and four children. Welcome, Kelly. Thanks, Kevin. It's good to be here. Yeah, great to have you here. So look, you described yourself in that that bio as being obsessed with learning. So when did that obsession first sort of bubble to the surface? And when, when do you, when did you realize it was more than just kind of personal curiosity?

0:57 Yeah, it's an interesting question because my story, like many was, was a sort of natural interest that was gradually dimmed by formal education. So by the time I graduated high school, I thought about school as, you know, a series of hoops to jump through and tasks to complete and behavior standards to meet. But as I look back on the story, outside of school, I was constantly learning. I mean, I did. I remember running little experiments with, you know, rolling balls around and asking my dad about the behavior of, you know, mechanical objects, you know, as a pretty young kid. And he's explaining to me that there's this thing called physics.

1:38 And I, you know, I said, when can I learn this? Like, when is physics? And he said, I don't think they teach, it's all college. I mean, I was lucky enough to get a physics class in high school, but, you know, I was interested. I, I just wanted to know how the world works. That included art, literature. I mean, my friends and I were coming up with inventions and trying to sell them to our parents. We were running little businesses. We were making my my friend Michael and I made a rap album. That's incredible as 10 year olds, you know, just all kinds of things that we could do with our emerging brains as we grappled with the world around us. So it's learning as a way of life and just excitement all around about what humans have figured out and and what's out there to learn. And so for those people that aren't aware or haven't heard the term micro school before, how do you describe it to people who aren't familiar with the concept? Yeah, so picture a small group of kids meeting together in person, typically mixed age, but maybe they they span a a range of three or four grade levels.

2:36 And these kids are learning in a way that's very student centered. So they're in charge of their learning, literally setting goals, working at their own pace every day to achieve mastery of core academic subjects, but then also working together as a group to do creative projects, to do Socratic discussions, to do hands on science experiments. And so, you know, in my first micro school, there were seven kids. One of them was my own son, and I was not a teacher, but a guide. I was really there to facilitate, mentor, coach and support this environment where really it was all designed to light a fire for kids or help them encounter the joy of actual learning. So many people talk about kind of reimagining education and, and but very few actually start something or do something about it.

3:26 So what kind of gave you that confidence and impetus to act and get something happening when others kind of hesitate or don't bother? Yeah, I mean, I think naivete probably is the main reason for this. Some people say entrepreneurship is a disease more than anything, but I've just been that curious learner that wants to get out and try to grapple with the world around me. I had been involved in many of those conversations. I tended to gravitate toward educators. Some of my close friends were involved in in traditional education in various forms. And you know, I had kids. I was looking at it as a parent, really watching my own kids experience the very same things that I had experienced, you know, try to keep your head down, stay out of trouble, submit the work, get the grade. But it becomes pretty rote and lifeless exercise. So watching all of that, I also had stumbled into it through this coding program that I had started at the library. So this was really not intended to be an education innovation. All I thought was it's fun to code. There are resources online that anybody can learn to code, but most people don't look at it.

4:35 So why don't we do a club together at the Public Library and kids come and they they work together in person, but a lot of it is online learning that they could have done at home anyway. And we really stumbled into a, a dynamic where kids were clearly at the center. They were loving learning. I mean, they wanted to come, they would come back, bring their friends, their parents were, you know, reporting all kinds of interests and engagement. Some of them used code club as a way to convince their kids to do chores at home, because then their reward was go down and, and learn really hard cognitive stuff at the library. You know, it doesn't make sense, but it was that it's, it's that aspect of human nature that really does want to learn.

5:16 And we had tapped into it. We tapped into the social side, really stumbled into it. I didn't see it when I first started. It was just expediency, but I'm, I'm now building this contrast in my brain. I'm seeing how learning could look at the code club at the library and I'm seeing how learning does look for, for millions and millions of kids all around the world in traditional classrooms as a result of just simply a structure that's, that's outdated. And so, you know, putting all that together, I, I thought, well, what if we tried school different? What if we applied the principals of the code club and did it in a in a way that hit math and science and social studies and all the the core subjects. But we put kids at the center and we build an environment that is both personalized and social that's all about helping kids set and achieve amazing educational outcomes and to feel very supported and nurtured along the way.

6:08 And you know, I wouldn't have used all of those words at the time, but I was crazy enough to pull my kid out of school and my friends pulled their kids out and we just gave it a try. Within one semester, it was obvious that there was something here and it was really going to work. And micro schools are sometimes misunderstood as kind of a niche or alternative. What's the what's the biggest misconception that you hear from people when discussing micro schools and and what's the the reality if that's the misconception? Yeah, I think it's it depends on where where you're coming from in these conversations. So very quickly I have to pick up, you know, who is this person and what are their assumptions? A micro school.

6:54 And some people will say, well, that's homeschool, right? That's that's basically unschool or that's homeschool or, or it's it's loosey goosey or it's free range or it's hippie or it's Waldorf or it's, you know, some of these things that people know to be maybe they think of it as alternative or weird or, or outside of the norm. And it is definitely in the in the sense that this is an environment that kids really like to be in. You see very happy learners, you see safety and an engagement that you typically don't see in traditional classrooms. Yes. But I will say on the other side of that, it's a group of people they're meeting together every day We do meet. My first micro school was in a home, but many of these micro schools have grown into commercial spaces or they meet in a classroom at a church or maybe even rent space back from a local school district. So, you know, picture something that looks a little bit more structured.

7:49 And, and in terms of the model, I mean, kids are learning to read. They're actually learning to read at faster rates and more effectively. They're learning math. They're engaged in these things. We see kids moving multiple grade levels in one year. So a lot of academic holes being filled and kids working ahead. They're they're taking initiative. You know, one of the things we do that's maybe different than traditional models is we don't tell kids, we don't assign homework or, or tell kids go home and, you know, drill or do these things or do this busy work. And what we see instead is we give kids options and invite them to care. And then they come up with projects that blow your mind and they go home and work on it for hours and hours and hours just out of intrinsic motivation and enthusiasm for learning. So, you know, I think what you would see is, is kids who are really engaged, they feel safe, they're willing to take some risks.

8:45 There's very much a spirit in a micro school of just not having to be right all the time, right? So it's OK to make a mistake. And you'll hear kids, you know, actually applying the growth mindset in their day-to-day learning activities, which, you know, I think everybody's figured out that growth mindset's a good idea. But in most cases it's just a poster on the wall. It's it's hard to actually implement inside of the structure that, you know, you frankly have to teach the lesson, do the test and then move on. Whether you got AD or an A, it doesn't really matter. So, you know, being able to truly give kids the time and space to master concepts and go back as many times as it takes. That's just one example of, of learning in a, in a way that you know, it's just, it feels intuitive. It feels like obvious, the obvious thing, but frankly it's it's just not how it works in in a majority, an overwhelming majority of classrooms even today. So from a from the perspective of the adults involved in a micro school, are there any kind of non negotiable elements for a successful micro school in terms of approaches of the adults in that space?

9:51 Yeah, I mean, I think the main thing is you want to build an environment where kids feel they feel safe to make those mistakes and take those risks, right? What that requires is a one-on-one connection with an adult who's invested in your life. So, you know, I, I talked to friends who teach in, in traditional like middle schools and they have seven class periods and there's thirty kids in each class period. So that's 210 individual faces that are coming through their classroom every day. There's zero chance that you, you know, understand anything about those kids. They're learning their life, what's going on. You know, you, you may know all of their names. I think that would be impressive if you know all of their names. And so I think in a micro school, think of 10 kids and, and that's the micro part, right, Is it's a small group and this one adult and you see each other every single day. You, you form a alliance, you form a bond that really does open up neurological and psychological possibilities for learning that you just don't see in, in traditional models. And what we're talking about here is, you know, I'm, I'm noticing you're off today or you're less motivated than you usually are.

11:03 What's going on? And, you know, the, the student and the guide are having these discussions about the human side of this. And then what that means is that the adult is able to invite those kids in a wise and loving way to be the best version of themselves. And you know, I, I joke that all of the kids in my early micro schools would would have at least one moment during the year where they would break down in tears, Not because I'm terrible to them, but it was really them facing the fear and the challenge of trying to be the best version of themselves. And, you know, if you've done a, a sport or something where a coach, you know, sees potential in you and, and encourages you, that can be, it can be grueling, it can be scary.

11:47 It's all the emotions, but it's actually humanity at its best. And it's what we want in learning environments. But all of that is impossible. I mean, it's, it's almost inconceivable to think about that in a in a traditional environment where, you know, so much of it is just around sort of maintaining order and getting through the standards and, and doing the tests. Yeah. I mean, a micro school really opens up possibilities. And This is why not only parents and community members have stepped up and said, we love micro schools, but a lot of educators are coming and they're saying, I want to do it that way. It actually feels like a much better way to achieve what I wanted to do from the very beginning when I got into teaching. Yeah. So when I follow on from that thread a little bit, you mentioned that you've helped lots of people start their own micro schools and people sort of getting on board with this. What's the kind of?

12:36 Hardest part about? Scaling or spreading that you're talking about things that are really relational and deep connection and those sorts of things. What are some of the challenges of scaling something of that nature? Yeah. So this is, like many new ideas, The by far the largest challenge, the largest block to this is inertia. It's literally just doing what we've always done and maybe not even knowing that there's another way, that there's a possibility. Even if you do know. And we get the, the privilege of meeting a lot of people who encounter these ideas for the first time. I'm always inspired because I can see the wheels turning in their brain. I can see them kind of fill up with this hope and this, you know, this excitement around what could this look like? What could I do as an adult in the lives of these young people? And it's, it's inspiring to them. You can actually feel the energy. And then without fail, there's a fear or a doubt or a thought that comes in, you know, how could I possibly what what gives me the right?

13:37 What would people think? You know, how would I deal with all the logistics? They think of it as this, this big thing that you have to do. And the truth of it is, you know, Prenda exists to take barriers down as far as we possibly can. And so if you are the type of person who can sit face to face with a young human, you can see humanity in them. You can honor and respect that. You can treat them with dignity. You've probably done it before and some in some context, whether that's academic tutoring or maybe sports or music or you know, community events, community participation. If you, if you can do that, if you can be there with that human being and extend a loving invitation for them to be the best version of themselves possible and then hold them accountable with kindness and and care for them. I mean, we, we tell our guides you are, you are an agent for this kids future self.

14:30 So when you're sitting with this kid, you're not there as their representative. Now their, their current state might think I just want ice cream and video games all day long, but as a 30 year old, I'm here representing the 30 year old version of you saying, here's what I'm going to hold you to because I know what you're capable of. And I see how how working hard as a young person to develop learning habits is actually going to lead to a life of meaning and contribution. And you know, all the things that that are promised in embedded in human potential. So yeah, being that is, is really the limit. But I would argue that there are a lot of people that could be that most of them talk themselves out of it.

15:11 And so we're constantly trying to help them see that they're capable of making big contributions. So what's, what's through that? What through that whole process of, of scale and helping people and, and help them with those understandings. What what surprised you the most about that process over time? You know, maybe one surprise is just the the width of this this segment of the population. You know, I, I had seen parents do this. In fact, when we first started, I thought probably the people that do Prenda are going to be either current homeschoolers or they will have at least thought about homeschooling. Because if you think about that, those are people who have, you know, they cared so much about a child in their life that they were willing to, you know, do something out of the ordinary, put a lot of work in, spend up, spend money and time preparing all of this. You know, they homeschoolers by and large, do it without help, right?

16:07 They don't have a group like Prenda that's making things easy for them. So, you know, I thought, wow, we're going to basically look for people like that. What surprised me is it's not just those people, although it certainly is those people. But like I mentioned, it's classroom teachers. I was at an event in Arkansas meeting people talking to them about about micro schools. And there was a woman in the back. She looked kind of, she looked very professional and kind of skeptical, like she just had this look on her face. And I talked to her afterwards, you know, a little bit with trepidation, right? I'm, I'm a little nervous about this. And it turns out she's the assistant, you know, Superintendent of a, of a school district. And I said, wow, you know, are you here to like, I don't know, criticize me or, or, or tell me all the ways that I'm harming the, the public system?

16:59 And, and she was like, no, I'm, I'm considering how we can do this either with my current district or, or I'll leave and go do this because she saw the vision of, of what's possible and, and how this can benefit the lives of kids. So I think those kinds of surprises where I just see how many folks really do get it. They see the opportunity, not just the problem. I mean, a lot of people see the problems in education, but what we're talking about is the, you know, a solution. It's being part of the solution. It's this invitation as a parent or an educator to create what you wish existed, right? And that's, that's not always possible in this world we live in. But in education, it is now possible.

17:41 And it's, it's just thrilling to be part of that. So to follow on from that a little bit, you know, micro schools make up, you know, a very, you know, tiny fraction of maybe the overall education landscape around the world that perhaps a bit of an outlier. What do you feel is the the role of micro schools and perhaps influencing or, you know, nudging, persuading, you know, more mainstream schooling? How can how can micro schools and you know, Prender and others you know have an impact there, do you think? Yeah, Yeah. This is an interesting question. It's a big vision question. It's how does this all play out? How does this evolve? One of the things that what I saw early on is that the actual ideal is to incorporate the the concepts, the innovations of micro schooling, but do them on campus. School is many more things than than just learning right? School is is childcare, school is extra supports school is a Community School is a resource for many. There's food associated with it, there's transportation. So if you think about all of those structures and in keeping those all the same, but then doing learning in a way that that truly lights a fire for kids and helps them, you know, believe in themselves and be the best version of themselves. And is that possible?

19:05 My, my answer is still yes, But I was confronted with a pretty hard reality when I, I did some early, I call it research, You know, I, I walked into some schools that, you know, where I knew, I knew the administrators, I knew school leaders, I knew teachers and I sort of pitched them on this, like what, what if you did it this way? And by that point I, I had some conviction. I had, I had been experimenting with it and they just looked at me like, I don't know why we would do that. Like we've got, we're, we're struggling to run, you know, this, this whole other thing. It's hard with, you know, innovations hard in any context, but I think it's especially hard when, you know, I think the the public education system has gone hundreds of years without really having to think about, without having to be forced, you know, to, to care what parents want or to be, you know, responding in a, for example, in a business, if you offer a restaurant and nobody wants your food, then no one comes to your business and you go out of business. But in.

20:11 You know, in education, you open a school, you just have to convince your regulators that you're doing a good job. And parents have no choice for for at least a really long time, there's no options. So now we're entering a world where that is changing, right? Parents do have options. Parents are coming in and they're saying, hey, my kids bored. My kid is not learning at the level that I want them to learn. My kid hates school. And you know, in the past, it was kind of like, well, sorry, like this is what it is. And now, yeah, that's a different conversation because the parents can go, they can choose a different school, they can create a different a micro school. And so it does put some pressure on on the whole system. What I think that's going to do is it's going to open up conversations and we're already seeing this forward-looking school leaders, administrators, lots of teachers where they start to say, Hey, I actually agree with, you know, some of the methodology here, like there's, there's literature around project based learning, there's literature around inquiry that goes back a long time. Maria Montessori was right about some things. And how can we get more student autonomy and and more nurturing connection with the with the adult. So, you know, if if you start to see that conversation shift, then hopefully this the structures will follow and the schools will be able to apply some of the concepts that, you know, really have made micro schools so successful. And then it's the best of all worlds because now you have, you know, parents that don't have to go, you know, out of their way to find a different thing and

21:42 drive them somewhere. There's many parents that that's a big struggle. And, you know, we can do it right on campus and we can have a micro school that that empowers learners. That's Prenda's mission is to empower learners. If we can have a micro school that empowers learners without having to give up, you know, the the structures and supports of traditional education. So, yeah, I would expect to see that. I don't know the time frame or exactly how that's going to go. There's still, you know, general kind of resistance to it. There's a lot of apathy. I think there's a lot of open hostility even to to the micro school movement. And I think some of that's just misunderstanding. The goal is not to tear anything down. It's it's just to be there for kids and open up possibilities that haven't existed for them. So for someone may be stuck within a traditional system or school that they want to change a teacher and educator of some sort, but they don't know where to start. What would be your advice in terms of what are some first steps within the place they are to to move in this direction? Yeah.

22:48 So if you're in the United States, call me prendaprenda.com, just you can reach out and we'd love to work with you. Literally one of the first things I'll say to somebody that's an educator or school leader is let's look at doing this inside of your system, right? So you don't have to quit, you don't have to upend your life, you don't have to give up your, you know, retirement benefits and all that. You could, you could potentially do innovative schooling from where you are. Sometimes people will look at me funny and they say, no, not at my school. Like that's not going to go over well. I know my, you know, administration's not going to like it or something, but I actually encourage them to give it a try. I think there's a lot, there's a lot more openness to new ideas than there has been in the past.

23:29 And so it's, it's worth trying bring up that conversation, Say, hey, here's the podcast I listened to Kevin was like talking to this crazy guy about micro schools. I would love to, I would love to do something like this. You know, how could we take my class of 25 and, and, you know, make it into two micro schools that aren't really running in a, in a different way? And, you know, I, I think if that doesn't go well, you have options. There are there are increasingly ways to do this and many parts of the United States now there are school choice funding models. Parents don't have to be independently wealthy to, to access these programs. You can go apply for a scholarship from the state and often that scholarship is enough to justify.

24:11 I mean, this isn't high end money. We're, we're working with half or you know, 70% of what the, the districts work with, but you can still, you know, get education done on a budget and, and create the types of environments that really just open kids minds and, and help prepare them for a life of, yeah, meaning and purpose and all the good things that we want for our children. And you talked about that, the kids having a life of meaning and purpose for a student in a micro school. Fast forward 10 or 15 years, they're, you know, 222527 or something. What do you hope they would say in reflection of their micro schooling experience?

24:53 If, you know, if everything went well and they, you know, you know you met your goals and objective, what do you hope they would say? Yeah. It's a, it's a great question in in some ways I'm lucky because my son that was in my first micro school, he was in fifth grade at the time and he is now turning 19. He's graduated from high school. He's off on his own. He's he's doing a religious mission for two years. And he's in the middle of this experience really pulling from some foundational stuff. Now. It's hard to separate out like did he learn that from, you know, informal coaching from his parents or did he learn it from the micro school? But what you see in this kid and, and really in, in lots of others that I've seen is, is really a, a willingness to take ownership for your life.

25:42 So, you know, I, I think inadvertently a system that's that's kind of big and does, you know, deals with large batches of kids and sort of dictates things at scale. What that does is it takes away the sense of agency and and ownership. It encourages kids to look at themselves as kind of passive recipients of this thing called education. And what you see in a kid who comes out of a micro school and and my son included, is a sense of agency and ownership. You know, it's this is my life. This are these are the things I'm interested in. You still end up with classes and he'll go to college and have, you know, a course that he's not thrilled about, but he just has to do it because of the the graduation requirements need him to take this one course. That's but that's OK.

26:27 You can still operate, operate in that. You can operate in that world in a different way. You can be still a high agency person that takes ownership. And this is what I love about high agency. And, and I get to meet a lot of these people in my entrepreneurial journey is high agency people are the ones that make the world right. This is you. You look around, Steve Jobs has this famous quote where he said, you look around at this world that's been created by humans and you think, oh, it just is amazing. But if you think about it, everything there was created by a person. And it's not a like a different species. It's Someone Like You that decided, you know, I want to do this, I want to make this contribution. I want to figure this out.

27:08 I want to solve this problem. And being that type of person that sees it, wants it, and then knows how to chase it and do it. I think those things feel out of bounds for far too many of our kids where they're not really able to, you know, take take ownership and and dive in and do those things. So I would, you know, echo Steve Jobs and say, I want every kid to look at the world around them, find ways in which they think that world could be different or better, and that could be big or small. It doesn't matter to me what it is. But then go about making those changes that inevitably is going to involve human learning. So there's reading involved, there's writing involved, there's communicating with others, there's asking good questions, there's researching, there's tinkering and trying and iterating and all of these things that go into really any human endeavor that's that's worth its salt.

28:01 So I would encourage that. And thankfully that's what we're seeing in kids that that get into these micro school environments because they're able to feel more agency and more ownership of their life. A leader, past or present, you admire. George Washington, Cliche, but man, that guy. And finally, best piece of advice you've ever received. Best piece of advice and that's I don't have one right off the top of my head so I need to think for just a second. The thing that comes back to me is, is about keeping options open. So I got to college and I really wanted to, you know, I was interested in everything. For me, high school was a drag and college was amazing because all the sudden I had agency.

28:49 I was allowed to choose, you know, courses that I wanted to study and and I wanted to sign up for all the majors. I remember talking to my dad like they they're going to make me choose a major. And he said we'll choose something more technical because it's a one way direction. And so it really steered me into kind of deep analytical work. I got to work on lasers and study physics and get go to MIT and do all of this stuff that I wouldn't have otherwise been able to do. But it wasn't my lifelong passion or the only thing I cared about. And it actually set me up then to still be able to come back and do less technical work. But yet, you know, it's still equally difficult in the, and maybe more so in the unlocking of human minds and hearts that that is education.

29:36 So grateful for that advice and for the journey that I've been on. So that seems like a great place to leave it. So thank you so much for your your time today, Kelly. It's been wonderful chatting with you and then the work you're doing some, some really great stuff there. So thank you. Thank you, it's been fun. Thanks so much for listening to the episode. If you enjoyed this conversation, don't forget to subscribe, like, follow, et cetera. Drop a comment below to let me know anything you'd like covered in upcoming episodes or suggestions for future guests. You can also connect with me on Instagram and LinkedIn.