Elon Musk created a school just for his kids

Elon Musk didn’t like his kids’ school, so he started his own, the inventor and entrepreneur said in an interview on Beijing Television.

[…]

Musk says in the interview that Ad Astra, which is a year old, currently has 14 kids and will increase to 20 in September. His grand vision for the school involves removing grade levels, so there’s no distinction between students in 1st grade and 3rd. Musk is “making all the children go through the same grade at the same time, like an assembly line,” he says in the interview.

[…]

Musk sees a fundamental flaw in how schools teach problem solving.

“It’s important to teach problem solving, or teach to the problem and not the tools,” Musk says. “Let’s say you’re trying to teach people about how engines work. A more traditional approach would be saying, ‘we’re going to teach all about screwdrivers and wrenches.’ This is a very difficult way to do it.”

Instead, Musk says it makes more sense to give students an engine and then work to disassemble it.
“How are we going to take it apart? You need a screwdriver. That’s what the screwdriver is for,” Musk explains. “And then a very important thing happens: The relevance of the tools becomes apparent.”

[…]

“I hated going to school when I was a kid,” Musk told his interviewer. “It was torture.”

http://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-creates-a-grade-school-2015-5

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By Stephen

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Professor and quant guy. Libertarian turned populist Republican. Trying to learn Japanese and play Spanish Baroque music on the ukulele.

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