Read the full transcript of Episode 23 of the NAIS New View EDU podcast, which features Tyler Thigpen, co-founder of The Forest School and the Institute for Self-Directed Learning. He joins host Tim Fish to talk about self-directed learning and its approach to help students develop four core competencies: learning to be, learning to do, learning to learn, and learning to live together. He shares what educators, parents, and students can expect from an educational experience that’s radically different from the norm.
Tim Fish: Today, I am excited to welcome Dr. Tyler Thigpen to New View EDU. Tyler is the co-founder of The Forest School, an Acton Academy in south metro Atlanta, co-founder and executive director of the Institute for Self-Directed Learning, and instructor and academic director at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education. Formerly, Tyler was a partner at Transcend, a national nonprofit in school redesign.
Tyler holds a doctoral degree in education leadership from Harvard Graduate School of Education, a master's in public administration from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, and a master's in theological studies from Regent College of the University of British Columbia.
Tyler has written about the future of learning in The Washington Post, Education Week, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Getting Smart, and many others. He is the father of four children, all of whom attend The Forest School. And Tyler, I just wanna say it is such a pleasure to welcome you today to New View EDU.
Tyler Thigpen: Tim, you're too kind. It is great to be here. Really enjoy our conversations as always, and excited for this one.
Tim Fish: Thank you so much. You know, we've been working together for, for a number of years on various projects, and I'll tell you every time Tyler, we get together, no matter where it is. Sometimes we've met in airports and had lunch together. Sometimes we've met at NAIS. Sometimes we've bumped into each other at various places.
And every time we get together, you leave me thinking about and rethinking what is possible for young people. So before we start our conversation, I just wanna say, thank you. Thank you for, for helping me reorient to, to how I think about the future.
Tyler Thigpen: Well, thank you for those kind words, Tim, and right back at you, honestly, the feeling is the same every time I'm with you. I appreciate the learning mindset that you bring to this work and from the position that you sit and your team at NAIS. Being able to see what different folks are doing on behalf of families across the nation is really inspiring.
So, so thanks. Thanks for the kind words.
Tim Fish: So let's get it started. One of the things that, as we all know, that got New View EDU started was this, this simple question that if we look at the last, I don't know, 125 years since the Committee of Ten sat down and thought about what the purpose of education is to, to where we are today and the world we're in—and things certainly are quite different.
And I'm curious from your perspective, you know, if we go broad. What is the purpose of education today? Why should young people be in school? What should school be about fundamentally?
Tyler Thigpen: Great. Great question, Tim. I, I've been wrestling with this question for a few decades now. It's just on my heart as a human, to, to give courage to, to people, and especially to young people. And I've been wondering to what end, and I think to live in the United States where there really are differing views on the purpose of schooling, you know, both historically and today, I think it's really fascinating. The way I make sense of it is I just am a person who is personally very focused on relationships. And I think about the fact that as humans, we all have relationships with ourselves. We have relationships with others and we have relationships with the natural world.
And so you might say that we have relationships with both the social and the natural world. And so I think the purpose of education is to guide young people to explore how they might learn to cultivate both the social and the natural worlds, and even restore the social and natural worlds in, in ways that they may need restoration. In ways that they're broken.
And so it's a very, very much, I take a relationship centered approach, you know, how might we create environments that allow young people to express their thoughts, feelings, and plans? Just knowing that all of those are coming from a good, beautiful place. And then how might we empower them to use, you know, their talents, their skills in order to develop and restore the social and the natural worlds?
Tim Fish: You know, Donna Orem talks about this a lot on the few episodes she's joined us for, where if you look at what was at the center for a long time, is very much sort of the acquisition of content and skills in an academic environment, right?
And those things are really important. The things we should absolutely be doing today, but also this notion of relationships and how relationships give way to wellbeing. And how a foundational component of the purpose of school has gotta be the wellbeing of the individuals in our community. And then what does that look like, and how do we create the structures where that takes place?
And it, it really leads me to your work with The Forest School. You know, The Forest School is part of the Acton community of schools. I think it's now probably over, what, 200 schools in the US and around the world? And, you know, Acton schools have a unique vision, and a unique view on what school can look like and how school can operate.
Could you just take a couple minutes and give us a little bit of background and a little bit of explanation about both Acton schools and The Forest School as a unique example of an Acton school. And sort of what's school like every day for a student who attends, and how might it be different from what people typically think about when they think about school?
Tyler Thigpen: Oh Tim. Well, I could talk about this a long time, so I'll, I'll try and keep it brief, but, and I have you to thank for, I think introducing me to that Acton network early on, or, or at least in my early steps, but I remember when I was doing some exploration and research around, you know, school movements, and I came across the founders, Jeff and Laura Sandefer of the Acton academy network. And I heard them say, we believe, we start from the belief that every child is a genius and can change the world. I immediately thought, well, I think that too. I'd love to see the kind of learning environment that you've designed, you know, that is in alignment with that idea. And that's why I got turned on to, to Acton.
And so, you know, the, the mission of The Forest School and other Acton academies is, is simple. It's that each person who enters our doors will find a calling that will change the world. And so it's very much centered on what you just mentioned, Tim. So helping young people flourish. Helping young people find their purpose. I mean, yes, there are academics, you know? Yes, there are skills and knowledge and the traditional English, science, math, you know, history domains, but it's not just that. The, the, our school, The Forest School, is designed to cultivate a much broader, more holistic set of learner outcomes.
You mentioned that gang of ten. You know, it makes me think of, in 1996, there was a meeting in UNESCO, you know, right around, you know, when the internet was just becoming huge. And a group of folks that were convened to explore what is the future of education? And, and they sort of said you know, there's this transdisciplinary approach that's really appropriate moving forward.
And it's, we, schools should exist to, to help young people learn to be, learn to do, learn to learn, and learn to live together. And The Forest School very much is a place that's intentionally designed to give learners practice from the youngest ages at learning to be great people, at learning to do key marketplace skills, at, at learning to learn for themselves and really learn to shoulder the responsibility for their own learning, you know, based on learning science and then, and then learn how to live together in an intentionally diverse environment. For me, it is so fun being at The Forest School. It's kind of a convergence of a lot of things at once. I mean you know, it's a very inspiring environment. You know, where learners are challenged and, and inspired and stories are told, and questions are posed that don't have clear yes or no answers and learners have to debate.
It's a very empowering environment where learners have a lot of choice. They have a lot of say, they can go at their own pace. They can work on what they wanna work on. They can sit where they wanna sit, they can eat where they want to eat. They can work with whom they wanna work. There's a strong emphasis on character formation at the school. We believe that there's a connection between developing strong character and you know, being able to shoulder the responsibility for your own learning. And so, you know, there, the learners are, are given opportunities to make rules and to learn how to follow those and to hold one another accountable and responsible for those rules and in doing so, you know, practice good, strong character.
You know, at Forest there's a real emphasis on inclusivity and belonging, we're really trying to maximize diversity across six dimensions, Tim. Economic diversity, racial diversity, religious diversity, age, gender, and then even school background. I mean, at Forest, we've got about a quarter of our learners come from homeschool environments, a quarter come from charter school, a quarter come from traditional district and a quarter from independent schools.
And it's a really interesting mix and everybody kind of brings their own strengths and experiences and stories. You know, there's also an emphasis on relationship building. We, we're really tracking, Tim, you know, learners. The extent and the depth and the quality of the relationships that our learners have with people who are like them, with people who are different than them, and with people who are in power, who can, you know, maybe get 'em a job or make a reference or, or do an apprenticeship. And there's rigorous learning. You know, the, the projects are real world. Learners have to use their math. They have to use their science to help people in the community. And that's hard and messy. And there's some struggle, but, but we love it.
And then, you know, lastly I'll say there's a lot of flexibility. We've got an online environment as well called The Forest School Online. And it's been really interesting to see parent and learner demand to be able to kind of take their learning anywhere across the world.
And so, you know, again, for me, it's, it's really fun.
Tim Fish: Yeah. You know, it's, I love the way you describe it. And it's what I've seen when I've visited and I've had the opportunity to sit at the table with students. And you know, and one of the things way back when years ago, I had the opportunity to, to visit with Jeff Sandefer and many of the other founders of Acton schools at the original campus in Austin, Texas.
And I was sitting in the room, and Jeff was talking about this notion of stepping back. He talked about how one of the incredibly important elements of Acton is that the guide, not, they're not called teachers, called guides, guides have—create the context by which they step back. And then when things start to kind of get messy, as you mentioned, the magic is in the, is in the necessity to step back again, that once we feel like we gotta jump in and fix it, as educators, we actually need to step back again and let the students, and let them figure it out together. And I've often said that, you know, I'm a big believer—in almost every episode of New View EDU, the concept of agency has somehow popped in to our conversation. And one of the things that I've seen in Acton, and I've seen at Forest, certainly, is through the lived daily experience, agency is really unlocked in the students. And I'm wondering if you could just tell us a little bit about how the designed daily experience creates the context where folks step back and where they really do create some of that agency in ways that maybe folks in more traditional schools, more well-established schools, might go, huh?
Tyler Thigpen: Yeah, Tim. It's the, the joke, the running joke around our team. I don't know if you ever watched The Simpsons, but there's this one episode where in it, Homer Simpson is standing in front of a bunch of green bushes. And he sort of steps back and he disappears into the bushes and the bushes kind of close around his face and, and you can't see. That's, that's like a, it's a, I don't know if it's a motto or a, an aspiration or a true north for our team.
But that's what we're trying to do, because we believe that learners can handle it. You know, where, wherever there's something that teachers or adults have typically done in a school setting that we think learners can do, you know, we'll step back and we'll let them do it. And it will take a while and it will be messy, but it's, you know, what neuroscientists call productive struggle. That's really missing from a lot of teacher led classrooms in, in our country today. And, you know, and I've been a teacher in a teacher led environment in the largest public school setting in, you know, in the state of Georgia. And, and so I can relate. I mean, I, it is very tempting as a teacher and it's even more tempting as a parent, when a young person whom we love struggles to step in and to, you know, shoulder some of that responsibility, take, take some, alleviate some of the pain or struggle. That's just so tempting.
And, and in many ways, you know, we, we, we are addicted as adults to answering the question for the learner and explaining it to them. And when we do that, I mean, it's helpful. And there's definitely moments where it makes sense. You know, I think to, to, to do some explaining but, but I think we've gotta realize the trade off. When, when we, when we explain all the time, we take away the opportunity for the learner to have to shoulder the responsibility for their own learning and to struggle productively and to build that agency that you're describing.
And the way I've heard a colleague of mine, Orly Friedman who's doing the Red Bridge out in the, the West Coast schools, you know, define agency as the skill, having the skill and the will to achieve your goals. And at Forest, you know, we are giving learners practice every day at building their skill, building their own motivation and will to achieve their dreams and their goals.
Every single day, they set their own goals and they put it in an online platform called journey tracker. And they have a chance at the end of day to kinda reflect on, you know, the extent to which they met or did not meet those goals. And you know, just kinda like me and you, I mean, as you know, sometimes they, you know, miss their goals and don't hit 'em for the day. Sometimes they, you know, far exceed them. Sometimes they're right on track, but they're learning how to right size their goals. But, but really they're, they're building that agency and they're figuring out like, you know, what, what really are goals worth setting? How, what really does motivate me and how can I, as an independent self directed learner, how can I learn over time to, you know, not do something that's immediately gratifying, like talk to my friends or watch a YouTube video or watch Netflix or whatever it is. And instead choose to do something hard, choose to do something challenging that aligns with my short and my long term goals. So, so, you know, they have running partners at our school that they set their goals with. They have town hall meetings where they make the rules for the studio in the form of a contract of promises, they have to hold each other to those promises. So they're getting practice, you know, at building that agency and learning how to really self-govern and, and make rules worth following.
And, and of course they have so much choice and they have to experience the natural consequences of those choices. And that's very powerful. I mean, them experiencing the natural consequences, positive or negative, of their choices is, is maybe the most powerful instructor, you know, in the building. It, you know, the more so than what any caring adult you know, you know, provides for them.
Tim Fish: Well, you know, it's interesting, when I started my career teaching fourth grade, you know, we did a contract, we kind of had some of those things. I was trying to, to, I think get at a lot of what you're talking about in my fourth grade classroom in Fairfax County schools with 32 young people under my care, which surprises me to this day.
And, you know, the thing was though, I also had an overarching educational philosophy that I think was driving what I did. And I think my educational philosophy was: if I'm talking, they must be learning. So the more talking I do, the more learning will take place. And so what I did was I had these, these, these philosophical principles that I wanted to implement, but yet at the same time, I then filled the day with stuff. Stuff that I designed. We had this long block in the morning, two and a half hours, where I could have done whatever I wanted. And what did I do each morning on the blackboard? I filled it up with spelling and then history and then math and then language arts. And I blocked the time out and I created disciplinary silos for my students instead of opening it up and letting them have control.
I took that control. And what it showed me was that time is the currency to get at that notion of self-directed learning that you're talking about. How does time work for the young people at Acton? How might that be different than what they might experience at a traditional school?
Tyler Thigpen: Great question. Well, a typical schedule at Forest and, and Forest Online, you know, we start the day with an inspiring story. Usually a diverse character somewhere. And we invite the learners to put themselves in a, in their shoes. And it's kind of a hook for learners. And we pose a question that has no clear right or wrong answer, and then we just let them debate.
So again, the day is starting off with that openness that you're describing Tim, where, you know, they're sharing and forming perspectives, maybe even changing their perspective, but communicating it and kind of wrestling and building off each other and, and thinking critically. And then, you know, maybe taking away from that to summarize sort of a takeaway for the day.
And then after that, getting alone with their running partner and setting goals. And then they have kind of what you're describing, a big chunk of time, a few hours where they can live into their choices. So it's not siloed in the disciplines like you just described. It's open. They, they can choose to work on whatever, whether it's a disciplinary, if they're gonna go deep in a discipline, you know, like math or writing or reading or storytelling, or civilization, then they can.
Or they might be working on a project that, you know, pulls from all the different disciplines, but they do that for a big chunk of time and, and everybody's working on different stuff. And so they kind of have that space to get into flow. We talk a lot about flow and I know you appreciate, you know, that theory around flow. That sense when you kind of lose time and you really focus and, and lose yourself in your work.
Tim Fish: Yeah, absolutely.
Tyler Thigpen: And, and, and then, you know, kind of break up the day with a little break, and then, you know, have some lunch together and maybe some PE or art and then the afternoon sort of rinse and repeat 'em anyway, start again with that story and then really do some hands on stuff in the afternoon, typically with a real world project. But that again is transdisciplinary, you know, where they're using their math, they're using their science or using their English. You know, an example, Tim, would be learners at our school partnered with a, an amusement park down the road called Fun Spot America to use their physics knowledge to design, help them design a new roller coaster that they're building now.
And, you know, in the end they pitched their presentation. These are elementary learners, by the way. So your fourth grade class, you know would, would've been a participant in that. And but again, it's blurring the lines between the real world and the classroom so that learners can see, you know, I'm learning this physics for a reason. Like this is actually real and useful, you know, in the world, we're gonna help out the community. But that's kinda how we think of time. And then if you sort of spread it out over the course of a session or a year, you know, our guides, which is our word for teachers, you know, we, we guide the learners to create for themselves a badge plan, which, you know, we don't give grades, we give badges, which represents a set of skills and knowledge that learners need to, and want to master over the course of a year.
And those are customizable by the way. I mean, you can, you know, families can put on those badge plans, whatever they want. And we kind of help them think through the trade offs of what, what's gonna go on there. But you know, from a time perspective, they're working on, over time, proving mastery of, of those various badges. So that by the end of the year, they're advancing at the pace they really want to, and we are sort of agnostic to how fast or slow they're going. That's one of the beautiful things about a self-paced environment. You can go as fast or slow as you want. We, we typically find learners go faster on average, and most of our learners do, you know, are above grade level, you know, as evidenced by norm referenced tests nationally, but we're okay with 'em going slow too. Cause sometimes that's okay.And, and hopefully that kind of environment that embraces that being behind, being on track, being ahead, whatever, you know, helps them flourish a little bit more. And appreciates the, the unique differences of every, of every young person.
Tim Fish: Yeah. You know, it reminds me of a book I just finished reading from Greg McKeown, called Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less. And it makes me think about school and how, you know, over time, we just keep packing in more. Right. It seems to me, sometimes we have the disciplined pursuit of more. Of adding, right. Teachers will often say, it's just one more thing I'm putting on top of everything else. And I think part of the magic of what you're describing is this idea of creating the essentials. The essential context, whether it be relationships, choices and trade offs. Setting personal goals, measuring progress, having freedom, choice, to make decisions about where I'm going.
One of the things I find also fascinating is that in this model, in this model of stepping back, in this model of letting students do more, you actually need less to make it work. And the result of that is that you're able to run the school, from a business model perspective, for less than a traditional independent school. Independent schools traditionally, I think right now, our average is $26,000 across the NAIS network of schools for a year of education. And doing great work. And often feeling though, like man, $26,000, I can't get it done for that. And yet you've been able to figure out, and many other schools like The Forest School, have figured out a business model that actually unlocks maybe lower tuition.
Can you talk a little bit about that?
Tyler Thigpen: Yeah, Tim. It's a provocative, you know, question, I think. First of all, to your point about us wanting to keep ad, I, I remember in my early studies of education, there was a researcher called Marzano. I don't know if you ever came across this study.
Tim Fish: Yeah, I know Marzano, sure.
Tyler Thigpen: Yeah, he, he looked at kind of the, the standards, whether, you know, typically public school standards, but, but also some independent school standards that were similar, and kind of asked the question, okay, if a learner was really gonna master these, how long would it take?
And I think he and his research team concluded it would take something like 22 or 24 years, you know? And then of course we, we, since that time you know, we've, we've obviously had some, some revising that's taken place of our standards in independent and public school settings where they're more skills based and less knowledge-focused in an information age to, to help alleviate some of that. But, but still it's a lot. And, and I know teachers everywhere feel burdened by how much they quote unquote, “have” to cover with learners and get through. And so, you know, one of my friends and colleagues at Harvard, Jal Mehta, you know, he and I have been talking for a long time about cutting out, you know, curriculum and what, what can go. And, and he, he sort of took that idea and, you know, you familiar with the Marie Kondo you know, approach to I, I believe she was the professional—
Tim Fish: –Working with like your closet, right? And this whole notion of like, you pick up a sweater and you're like, do I love this? Does this bring me joy?
Tyler Thigpen: That's exactly right.
Tim Fish: You know? And then if not, it goes, yeah, yeah, yeah. Totally.
Tyler Thigpen: So, so Jal was like, how do we, Marie Kondo, you know, the curriculum, right. And, and get to this, you know, what's most essential about learning? And, and you're right. I mean, when we embrace as a team, certain mindsets, dispositions, default positions around what learners are able to do, the adults in the building do less. And it's not irresponsible. It's, it's just a different set of roles and who's on the hook for what? And who's doing what. And I mentioned earlier that any, you know, anytime there's something that we think that typically adults have done, that we think learners can do, we'll give it to 'em. And you know, an example is them making the rules. An example is them holding one another accountable for rules.
I mean, you know, a lot of schools have, you know, a Dean of students, right. Or an administrator in charge of behavior. Well, what if, you know, the, the learners did that? Obviously guided and supervised in a way to make sure it was non-discriminatory and respectful and empathetic, but, but learners can do that.
And, and what better practice will they get at learning to live together than being in charge, you know, of those rules? But not just that, I mean, event planning, we do seven events, public events every year that are learner led. And I, I just, I used to work in an independent school. And I've worked in public schools as well. Where the, where the events, there was a lot of pressure on the adults to pull off a really good event, right. And, and so much time and planning. But when, when I say to our parents and caregivers, like, hey, this event coming up is learner-led. They've been working on it for five weeks. And so here's what you can expect.
You can expect it to be and feel and look learner led. And by the way, this is amazing practice for them. And, oh, by the way, when you leave, as you walk out the door, we're gonna ask you for your feedback and we're gonna show 'em the feedback the next day on reflection day, so that they have a chance to see your experience of the event that they put together.
Right? I mean, it just takes so much pressure off the adults, and it's a great opportunity for the young people, you know, to lead and, and to apply their learning and to engage others and use their learning to solve a real world problem. And so, and again, those are just a few examples, but as a result, I mean, our, I think our cost per pupil’s somewhere between $5 and $6,000 a year right now.
And, and we're grateful for that—
Tim Fish: Five and six?
Tyler Thigpen: Yep.
Tim Fish: That's $5,000 and $6,000, not $50,000 or $60,000, right? Like you're, that's a dramatically, that's a dramatically different model. I mean—
Tyler Thigpen: That's correct.
Tim Fish: How many students now at The Forest School?
Tyler Thigpen: Well, we have a hundred and—we have 140 in person and then 50 online from all four US time zones, Kenya, and Uganda.
Tim Fish: Wow. So 140 in person, grades—essentially kind of grades one through 12. Right? I know grades are different. You're in multi-age spaces.
Tyler Thigpen: We have pre-K four through 12. Yep.
Tim Fish: Oh, okay. So pre-K four through 12, you got 140 in person, 50 online. You know, almost 200 total students, total head count, total FTEs, right? Because as you said, as students do more, adults do less, like how many people need to work for a school with 150 on campus students and, or, and then 40, 40 online?
Tyler Thigpen: Yep. That's right. So we've got, I'll need to double check these numbers, Tim, but because we're, we've just added a few staff, but I think we've got about 12 full-time folks. And then we have a cloud of contractors that are part-time as well. So maybe 18, 19 in all. And then that includes our Institute for self-directed learning as well.
Tim Fish: Wow. So, and also we'll talk about that. Another non-profit, the Institute for self-directed learning, which is doing, which is really spreading this work, taking it to scale, but 12. 12 people. Like that's it. That's everybody. Right? That's business operations. That's, you know, how you think about enrollment? That's all your teaching and, and guides, your staff, your support staff, everybody. Right?
Tyler Thigpen: That's correct. And you know, and again, we're based in Atlanta, which is as you know, and, and a lot of your audience knows, is a, the independent school market here is, is dense. And, and so it does take, it's a new way of thinking for parents and caregivers who are exploring independent schools, you know, the fact that we don't have a front desk, for example, or we don't have a high touch admissions process.
We are high touch when we get in touch with folks, but but we're very strategic about, you know, when we sort of open our doors to folks who are interested in exploring the school via exhibitions or open houses and, you know, the admissions process or what have you, but, but helping parents understand. We don't have a lot of these same services that are costly because we are giving this opportunity to the learners. I mean, honestly, the parents, even though for a lot of 'em at first, they're like, I don't know how I feel about that. Usually over time, they're like, oh, I think that's great because it, it's giving my children an opportunity to lead, an opportunity to, to learn.
And they're capable.
Tim Fish: Yeah. And that's the thing also for me. When you and I have spoken in the past, one of the things you had told me when you're sitting down with families who are interested in enrolling their child into The Forest School, you, I think you had said something to the effect of one of the things that's most important about that conversation is you often find yourself saying to them, I'm not actually sure this is for you. I'm not a hundred percent sure you understand, you know, what this is gonna be like. It's, it's a little different. You know, that much open time, that much student designed goals, the things you traditionally expect from school, you may not see here.
And it gets to this idea, Tyler, that I've been thinking about, which is this idea of clarity, this idea of just saying like, this is what we're about. This is how we do what we do. This is really what we believe. And we'll be a great fit for some folks and we won't for others. And that's okay. Right? To do what we do. That's, that's part of strategy. You know, Michael Porter says essentially at the core, strategy is designing to be unique. This idea of figuring out who you wanna be. And I'm curious, as you've worked with families, how do they respond? Do you find that sometimes there are families who explore The Forest School and say, yeah, that's just not for us. Or do you find families that struggle with, when their child enrolls, you talked about the 25% where kids come from the different schools.
Tyler Thigpen: Yep. It's, it is a great question, Tim. I would say we've been tracking for what reasons parents will move on, you know, from our school year after year and there, and there's two most common ones. One is, despite the fact that they early on will sign on and are excited about the notion of having a guide instead of a teacher, some of them will decide, you know what, I want a teacher for my child and I do not want a guide. And so that'll be one of the main reasons that they, that they leave. And by that they mean they actually want a caring adult answering their questions and explaining things to them, and– and for lots of different reasons, but that's kind of one of the choices. Now, the vast majority of our parents do not conclude that, but we do have a minority of parents to conclude that.
The other thing would be learners who do have some special needs. And you know, our school is, because we are small, we are not set up to serve all students with—especially some students—with special needs. Now we do have, about 30% of our learners have an individualized education plan or a psych eval. And that's one of the common misconceptions about self-directed learning, that it's not good for learners who do have special needs. One of our main questions out of our research agenda, Tim, is to disprove that because we know it, it works, we know self-directed learning, learner led environments can work for learners with special needs. And we wanna add to the research base that demonstrates that, and there are some subset of special needs that don't work. And so, for example, you know, I, I remember a middle schooler who was with us and I miss her. She's awesome. She was on the autistic spectrum and the, the hardest part for her was the student accountability.
It was learners holding one another accountable for their actions and for their work and for their progress. She just was not in a place in her life and her spirit and heart in that moment where she could take that without it being overwhelming and stressful for her. And her parents and I talked at length about it, and I get it and I saw it too.
And you know, we all thought this makes a lot of sense for them to kind of, to move on, but those, those are the two main reasons why folks move on. But, but to your point, Tim, when I talk with parents before they enter the school, I usually, after they express interest, I just make 'em very aware of the struggles that they're gonna have that you know, parents have had, and caregivers had had at our school. Because they are different than struggles that you have in a traditional teacher led environment.
And as a father and as a head of school and a guide, they're exactly the struggles I want our learners to be having. Because I think they're productive struggles and they're gonna result in the kind of humans that we want, but I just wanna give parents a heads up. And so I talk to them about things like, you know, being okay with failure and, and how our school will celebrate learning from failure and, and provide many opportunities for learners to experience the natural consequences of their decisions.
You know, I'll talk to 'em about pacing. A lot of parents will get uncomfortable if their learners fall behind and, you know, in our experience, that's a huge learning opportunity for learners. And the best thing to do is let them fall behind and let them struggle with it and realize, oh my goodness, I have got to catch up.
But again, the parents, the temptation there is to jump in and, you know, not do what Homer Simpson did and disappear into the bushes, but do the opposite. You know, communications is a struggle as well. We really put—I can't tell you, Tim. And I know you've been in this work a long time, too. Like so many times there are adults having conversations about young people and young people aren't even in the conversations, you know, and it's like, what are we talking about?
Like this young person needs to be leading this conversation. They're the ones on the hook for this. What, what's their opinion? What's their take, what's their goal. And so, as a result, we don't let our parents talk to our guides. They have to go through me at school, and the reason is because we want to keep the responsibility on the learner.
Now there's obviously exceptions where, you know, we'll need to get everybody together or I'll have a conversation with a parent and the learner together. But we keep communications on the learner so that they have to learn to advocate for themselves and be responsible for their choices. Again, there, there's a laundry list of, of common parent struggles I could talk about, but those are just a few. And again, I find what happens, Tim, in our experience, is parents begin to parent differently as well. They start to give more ownership to their learners, move away from sort of more you know, helicopter approaches to more empowering, self-directed, learner led, child led approaches and, and they report to us that it's positively impacted their parenting as well.
Tim Fish: Yeah. You know, it reminds me of one of the great lessons I learned from a talk I heard from Dan Kindlon, a psychologist, and he was basically talking about this sort of, if you're, as a parent, if your child is getting out of the shower and leaving their wet towel on the floor and you're picking it up, that's gonna be a, a sort of a, like, are you the kind of parent that picks up the wet towel, you know? And I'm telling you, man, it hit me. I was like, yeah, like I, that wet towel on the floor drives me crazy. And so, I pick it up and like, but what am I, what kind of message am I sending when I pick that thing up? Right. And what am I doing for my child? And how is that a learning opportunity? And it's where my lovely wife Diane and I are different because she would never pick up the wet towel. Right?
And if you think about it, where in school are we picking up the wet towel? Right? Where are we bringing that in? Like, I think that is something we need to be thinking about and it, you know, Tyler, I could talk to you all day long and I, and we haven't even scratched the surface on, on the center for self-directed learning, and, or the Institute, excuse me, for self-directed learning. And what I'm so curious about there and the work you've done through the Institute to help schools, existing schools, charter schools, public schools, all over the world to start thinking about self-directed learning, start thinking about bringing these ideas into existing schools.
One of the questions I'm curious about from that is, when you've been doing that work, as you've been writing and bringing that to schools, what do you find that schools struggle with? You know, I, I think of myself as a teacher and I think about when I got into teaching and I think about how I saw, I felt my job was to get in the way. My job was to help students. My job was to relieve that angst that you talked about, that productive discomfort. Right. But what do you find are the struggles that schools often have as they hear what you're saying? And they say, yeah, I want school to be more like that. And then we just have trouble getting there.
Tyler Thigpen: Yeah, Tim. I could talk about this a, a long time. We've really tried to be very intentional about, as we've partnered with schools and networks to, to move more towards self-direction, learner led environments, to document, you know, all the struggles that educators and leaders, parents, and learners have.
And our list is not exhaustive, but it is long at the moment. And you know, you mentioned this notion of letting go, just the role of a teacher. That in and of itself, just changing what the expectations are. The competencies required to be an educator in a learner led environment are different than what are traditionally taught in a graduate school of education. And I teach in a graduate school of education. You know, so, so I think some of the, some of the biggest challenges are just the notion of letting go. You know, a lot of teachers and educators and guides, they're, they're afraid to let go and, and let learners have control. That they're concerned students lacking confidence. They're concerned about student maturity. You know, maybe they, as an educator, don't have experience with learners actually doing amazing things. You know, they haven't seen that. And that can be a barrier, you know.
Some, for sure, some teachers in, in parts of our, our nation struggle with a lack of resources, you know, lack of internet connectivity, lack of devices, that sort of thing that really amplify learner led self-directed environments. Some teachers, you know, have misconceptions about what it is. I mean, I think a real great critique of self-directed learning, if you don't know anything about it, you just hear the idea. It's like, oh, that's, that's pretty self-centered for kids. It's like, oh, just let them do whatever they want to do. And that seems really self-centered, you know, it's like, that doesn't make any sense and they need to be responsive, productive citizens. So like how, you know, so that's a misconception. I mean, and one of the things that we tried to do in 2021 with our landscape analysis on self-directed learning was to put out a definition that would, included, first of all, you know, a more diverse set of authors and researchers. Second of all, that included K12 studies, because most of the research on self-directed learning is only for adults, you know, and beyond.
And so we included a definition of self-directed learning that has young people on the hook for the other. For helping others, for finding a calling, you know that will in fact change their communities and change the world. That's not just about them. So it's, you know, again for, for a lot of teachers overcoming these misconceptions. As I mentioned earlier, Tim, a barrier is teachers perceive that they need to make sure that students are getting the content, you know, that they have to deliver. That's a tremendous barrier to overcome. You know, class numbers for some, they report being, you know, a struggle, but honestly, in a self-directed environment, when there's a culture of self-directed learning built, the, the classroom numbers can actually be bigger than, you know, for us in our high school for one to, one to 35, 1 adult for 35, there's some Acton, you know, it's, it's bigger than that. You know, one to 50 would be like a ratio that's aspirational.
I think a big, and I'll just, I can, again, I can name a lot of barriers, but I'll end on this one. It's public perception, you know, of—you know, I, I remember when we were trying to, you know, launch our school and create a diverse pipeline of families. You know, a lot of our lower income families especially were confused. They were like, wait a minute. My—I'm sending my child to, to school so that they can get what they need for life's next steps. And you're telling me that your staff isn't gonna answer any questions. How does that work? You know, and, and so what I learned was that you know, in terms of messaging and communications, we want to help families understand that what we're empowering young people to do is help them how to think for themselves and how to learn for themselves so that they can win and own their own future.
But to, to get there, there are some learning journeys that parents need to go on. To understand what it, what, what learning looks and feels like and how empowering a learning environment like that can be. And so part of the work that we do honestly, is helping parents mourn the loss of the traditional education system and get excited about and convicted for a new model of learning. And so we have parent coffees every month where we kind of get together and share ideas willingly and steal ideas shamelessly from each other. But those are just some of the barriers. I could list more, but those are the top ones that come to mind.
Tim Fish: I love it. And when you start to sort of go with that less is more, when you start to think about this idea of stepping back, you know, I, I talked in the past about this notion, what I call structured agency. That to create that environment, there has to be that element of designed structure. Right. It's, it's essential to it. And also, higher and higher degrees of agency. And it's the blend of the two. It's not just, Hey, do whatever you want. It is this blend of the two that creates the context for the kind of learning that we're looking for.
Tyler, I had no doubt that this was gonna be a fascinating conversation and I just, I just wanna thank you for taking the time to join the New View EDU conversation, because your perspective on self-directed learning, you're living it in action every day at The Forest School. The research that you're doing and sharing with the world, and I would encourage folks and we will put in the show notes links to both the center and the Institute, The Forest School, and many other things that you have put into the world, is just gonna help all of us continue to think about this evolving role of teacher. The evolving purpose of our schools, and what we can really be doing to help our students thrive. And as you, as you said in the beginning, flourish. That's what we're really after. That's what we're designing for. So I just want to thank you so much for spending some time with us today.
Tyler Thigpen: You're welcome, Tim. And thank you as always for the chance to connect. And it was, it was very enjoyable.