Michael Strong is most recently the founder of expanseonline.co, a virtual secondary school program.  He is an experienced school creator whose projects include Moreno Valley High School, a charter school in New Mexico ranked the 36th best public school in the U.S. by Newsweek; Winston Academy, a school for highly gifted students in Florida who successfully completed AP exams; and The Academy of Thought and Industry, the high school model for the largest U.S. Montessori network. He is the author of The Habit of Thought: From Socratic Seminars to Socratic Practice and Be the Solution: How Entrepreneurs and Conscious Capitalists Can Solve All the World’s Problems. Key Takeaways: 1:16 Michael Strong’s common and significant components among the schools he has built. 3:18 Describing Expanseonline program and its role in helping middle-schoolers. 5:40 The trend of online learning and how community building can still be present among kids. 9:09 Advice to conventional parents forced to do homeschooling in this time of pandemic. 13:40 Socratic approach to learning vs. Traditional schooling 17:57  Developing High Level Academic skills of kids and how it can help in lowering the suicide rate. 19:18 Learn the 3 Techniques towards Intellectual Dialogue 30:43 Incremental Progress and Expectation on maintaining kid's engagement. 35:41 Develop Critical Thinking in the Era of Disinformation. 41:23 Establishing trust and vulnerability in group dynamics through the lens of Socratic Discussion. 49:55 Identifying the type of student who thrives in the Socratic approach. 53:11 Understanding the balance among diverse human principles. Quotes: “Young people are finding lots of social options online. I think there is something about having your core learning community, be part of your social community.” “Well, we can't get the physical, you know, we can't hug her, we can still have eye contact. it's imperfect eye contact, but it's eye contact.” “ Our job is to create a deliberate learning community that also includes that community warrants. “ “I think the notions of love and curiosity take you a certain way of loving the workings of your child's mind.” “We underestimate the value of active engagement elsewhere and overestimate the value of schooling.” “I think instead of saying, Am I doing it right? Our goal is rich intellectual dialogue.” “The school game is so much about following rules and it's doing what the teacher tells you.” “But, you know, in Socratic, as soon as you (as a teacher) start hoping that they'll (children) come up with a certain answer. Totally. You've ruined it. You've just ruined it. “ “Personal identity is not just tattoos and piercings or what clothes you wear. The most important kind of personal identity consists of what kind of convictions do we have? What do we stand for?” “I think love, curiosity, empathy, conquers all, and victim oppression is never a healthy dynamic.” https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelstrong1/ https://www.linkedin.com/school/expanseonline/ The Habit of Thought: From Socratic Seminars to Socratic Practice

In this interview, Sarah Moore of Dandelion Seeds Positive Living shares her story as a worldschooler and a playful parent. Her credentials include publications and speaking engagements all over the globe, undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, certificates in Child Honouring Course from the Raffi Foundation for Child Honouring and completing the Parenting 2.0 course from Dr. Vanessa Lapointe. She also spent a year observing Teacher Tom, who’s one of the world’s leading practitioners of ‘democratic play-based’ education. She also works with worldwide bestselling gentle parenting author, Elizabeth Pantley. Sarah has worked with hundreds of children in the classroom setting in addition to worldschooling her own child and currently offering courses to parents and teachers to help them along their peaceful parenting journey. With Sarah’s improvisational comedy training, she is a credible source of creative strategies on cultivating play as adults, fostering cooperation and connection with children and getting them to be actively and happily engaged in academic learning. Are you ready to be a playful parent/homeschooler? Learn the key tips from Sarah Moore’s story! Key Takeaways: 2:47 - Sarah’s Journey as a Parent 12:48 - Worldschooling her Child 18:22 - Daily Routines 25:20 - Examples of play time in Sarah’s home 23:44 - How to cultivate play as adults/parents 34:21 - Learning through experience 39:03 - Finding the right type of schooling for her child 43:53 - Tips for parents who are busy but want to provide the same type of learning environment for their kids 51:49 - Preparation vs Mindset 56:49 -  Metaphor for the difference between traditional homeschooling to alternative schooling 01:00:46- Advice for parents on Government Regulation for homeschooling/worldschooling Quotes: "They are more receptive to learning if they had a chance to connect with their big person, with their teacher, they will learn much better if they are feeling connected." "Take what is real, take what is happening, and simply build on to it. So that there is nobody talking out of their feelings, there's nobody talking out of their reality." "See things from a child’s perspective and simply building upon the story that they have in their mind versus trying to encourage a transition that they are not ready for the moment." "It is easy to fill the 'academic bucket' just by simply living life." "School doesn’t start and stop at a certain time." "Our kids are natural-born learners." "Kids learn because they are ready to learn." "The very best curriculum I ever bought was a dry-erase whiteboard." Links: https://dandelion-seeds.com/ https://dandelion-seeds.com/services-2/ https://www.facebook.com/DandelionSeedsPositiveParenting https://www.instagram.com/dandelionseedspositiveliving/ https://www.pinterest.com/dandelionseeds5/

Maureen O'Shaughnessy, EdD, is the founding director of Leadership Preparatory Academy, a nonprofit progressive micro-school in Washington State. With a master’s degree in educational administration and a doctorate degree in educational leadership, she has an extensive understanding of the components needed to transform the education system. Dr. O’Shaughnessy is the author of Creating Micro-Schools for Colorful Mismatched Kids: A Step-by-Step Process that Empowers Frustrated Parents to Innovate Education and has served as head of school and principal internationally in countries such as Kuwait, Hungary, and Ecuador. Weaving in a strong emphasis on service and leadership at each school, she has been an educational change agent across the globe. And now as founder of Education Evolution, she aims to disrupt the education climate as we know it to help ensure each child is seen, heard and valued and met where they are academically, socially and emotionally. Key Takeaways: 5:26 Hearing out the needs of our children and the role of micro-school in it. 8:51 Getting to know Maureen and how she got into this new movement towards Education. 13:48 Advice on how to deal with frustration in the midst of confusion with their children's education's sake. 18:25 Seven Steps to Innovative Education 31:21 Leadership Preparatory Academy as a Scrappy and Happy School 43:12 Hardest thing about Micro-Schooling 50:28 What metaphor describes Micro-Schooling? Quotes: "We're talking about adults, adults, adults, but I don't feel like the kids are in the conversation as much as they should." -Shannon "It's (Micro school) just a chance to rethink education and make sure it's working for our learners." -Maureen "You definitely want to get really clear on your mission and you need a tribe." -Maureen "You're never gonna grow. You're never going to improve if you never get starting." -Maureen "Brains don't learn sitting and being talked at, and most of the college classes are memorize and spit it back out again." -Maureen Social Links LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maureenoshaughnessy/ Education Evolution LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/education-evolution-podcast/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EdEvolutionPodcast/ LEADPrep LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/leadprep/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LEADPrep/ Micro-School Coalition LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/microschoolcoalition/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/microschoolcoalition/ Class: Build Your Own Micro-School Book Creating Micro-Schools for Colorful Mismatched Kids: A Step-by-Step Process that Empowers Frustrated Parents to Innovate Education 

For this episode, our host, Shannon Falkenstein, speaks with Anne Olderog, an Acton Founder who has an impressive wealth of knowledge on education. She is also a Partner at Vivaldi, leading projects on growth/innovation strategy, positioning and brand architecture. She works with education companies such as Blackboard or McGraw-Hill to ensure that today and tomorrow’s learners get the very best that education can offer. Anne holds an M.B.A. from the Wharton School, an M.A. in International Studies from the Lauder Institute at the University of Pennsylvania, as well as an M.Phil in Management from Cambridge University. She is a Laureate of the Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris (Sciences-Po) in Paris, where she earned a B.A. in Economics & Finance. Prior to her business career, Anne received a B.A. in French Literature at the Sorbonne in Paris and researched policy issues for the French Parliament. She is fluent in 6 languages and consulted major corporations in the U.S., U.K., France, Germany and Italy. In her (scarce) free time, she enjoys blogging on changes in education, engaging in virtual bike races, training her dogs and losing to her son in ping pong. Key Takeaways: 2:56 - Anne shares her story on how she started a school for her daughter 15:17  - On encouraging learning 17:44 -  Teaching Compliance VS Self-Sufficiency 19:11 -  Education can be a game 22:44 - Cultivating Children’s unique creative minds and equipping them to be the leaders of tomorrow 24:42 -  Anne’s advice to parents 28:25 -  What Acton Academy Verona is like 39:11 -  Dealing with Covid 48:59 -  Being Vulnerable in front of our children and role model how to deal with challenges, how we can take risks and how we can learn from our mistakes 53:45 -  Anne’s thoughts about college 56:32 - A metaphor that can help parents understand the microschool movement and the big seismic changes in education Quotes and Tips The best thing we could do for our children is equip them with meta skills that will enable them to be great with people, be great leaders,  create following, articulate their ideas and ultimately be lifelong learners. The best thing you can do as Acton parents is unpush your own buttons. Learning needs to be as engaging as social media or else we’d lose their attention very quickly to video games. Ultimately, we want to educate citizens who are self-sufficient and who are equipped to make their own decisions and really contribute to the society in a meaningful way. Educating is so exciting in itself that we adults simply need to step back and let it shine. Mentioned Links: Anne’s Article about Covid19- https://vivaldigroup.com/en/blogs/covid-19-changing-education/ Allison Gopnik - Gardener and Carpenter - https://www.amazon.com/Gardener-Carpenter-Development-Relationship-Children/dp/1536617830 Acton Academy Verona: http://www.actonacademyverona.org/