Leadership, Growth Mindset and AI Strategy: Building Systems That Scale Real Business Growth

0:00 You know, for the least as that I'm meeting you guys for the very first time. What problems are you actually solving? Yeah, I'll jump in. So my name is Robbie and I'm the CEO and founder of Tech My School. And essentially what Tech my School does is we go into schools, we do an audit this diagnostics of sorts, comprehensive package, comprehensive process. And ultimately what we're trying to do is we're trying to find gaps in schools.

0:29 So then we can then fill them with solutions that are 21st century in nature and at the heart of it are focusing on student skills that are going to empower them for today and tomorrow. We're still growing. We're we, we still just are scratching the surface. This is our fifth school year. So not new in education, but a relatively new new company. We found too that schools kind of regardless of their funding level or their, their stature, many of them are, are still modeled after a very like 19th and 20th century model of educating kids.

1:02 And one of the things that we're really trying to do is help help schools to address a skill set that is not being addressed very readily in kids right now. And specifically in the schools that are really struggling, the ones that really buy into what we're doing. And they have a real growth mindset, right? They're really thinking about how they can grow and improve. Those are the ones that actually end up doing the most amazing things with their kids.

1:25 And what's really cool about technology is if you can just get, if you can get access to technology to places that don't have it. A lot of times their mindset, they're they're kind of ready for fresh thinking. To Nigeria. Yeah, Niger boys. So I went from California, where I was born, to Hawaii. I worked in the inner City Schools of Hawaii back to California and then I went overseas.

1:49 They're like the. UK, yeah, I've heard of Costco. Yeah, yeah. So when you live in Nigeria, you're you're missing some things. You know, they've got great Joloff rice, but you, you know, you miss some of your American goods. I was like, let's go back to Puerto Rico, learn some Spanish, go fishing, you know, do the boating thing.

2:04 And then, yeah, I put my boys in the local schools. And I was just absolutely shocked because these schools were so much like Nigerian schools, like, you know, African schools. And I'm not saying that in a in a derogatory way, but it was just that like America is the wealthiest country in the world. And every school that I had seen to that point in America, whether it's Hawaii or San Diego, Florida, NY, there's a certain level of standard.

2:35 Let's just say where the facilities are big, there's grass soccer fields, there's a canteen for all the kids to eat, there's libraries, there's teachers who are getting paid a certain level of pay. They have cays and medical and health and all that kind of stuff. There's programs. Before we dive back into today's conversation, I want to share something important.

2:54 This episode includes a pay partnership with Better Help, a platform designed to make starting therapy easier. I know from my own journey as a leader and entrepreneur that life can sometimes feel overwhelming. There are seasons, severe stress, uncertainty, and pressure build up, and you need a safe space to process it all that severe therapy comes in. Therapy isn't only for people facing clinical challenges. It's a space to reflect, grow, and find better ways to manage stress, relationships, and personal goals. It takes courage to seek help, but it's also one of the smartest investments you can make in your mental and emotional welding.

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3:41 And with over 7000 reviews and a 4.5 Trustpatibrating, Better Help is a platform you can rely on. So if you feel like you're benefit from talking to a therapist, visit betterhub.com/kingjames. That's betterhub.com/kingjames to get 10% off your first month of therapy. Once again, this is a paid partnership with Betterhelp and I encourage you to take that first step. If you've been thinking about it, sometimes the best investment you can make these in yourself. Welcome to the King Dems Podcast, where we share the stories of extraordinary people and dissect hot, relevant topics that shape our world.

4:18 From visionary leaders to trailblazing creatives, we uncover the mindset, strategy, and grit behind greatness. Whether it's business, culture, or personal growth, we ask the real questions. This isn't just conversation, it's transformation. The Kingdom's podcast, your next breakthrough starts here. Music licensing reimagined your life. Ladies and gentlemen, you once again welcome to The Kingdom's podcast.

4:45 And today there would be two very special guests in the building introducing first fighting out of the blue corner, introducing a fighter fighting out of Houston, TX pal Sombro, and now fighting out of the red corner, a fighter fighting out of San Diego by way of Puerto Rico Robbie Corps. That would win. That's a bad You're welcome.

5:26 You're welcome. You walk over the port, right. And yeah, I'll do other. Reach advantage in that fight, but. You have the reach advantage. Wow. So this is a room Beer Beach challenge. Thinking, shopping, leadership and explore how technology, mindset and intelligence systems shape the future of business and society.

5:47 Today's conversation sits at the intersection of education, AI, relation, and systemic impact. Our guests are Robbie Cobbs and Kyle Sumrow, builders working on the frontline of educational transformation. The work is not theory, it's is execution. Real environments, real constraints, real outcomes. They are helping schools move from PS to clarity, from the active technology to strategic systems, from outdated thinking to future ready leadership.

6:20 This conversation is for founders, executives, operators, investors, educators, and anyone thinking seriously about how we build systems for skilled intelligence rather than suppressive. Robbie and Carl welcome once again to The Kingdom's podcast. Thanks for having us. Yeah. Thanks for having us in.

6:41 You're welcome. So I don't know who's going to go first, right? You know, or the least as that I'm meeting you guys for the very first time. What problems are you actually solving? Yeah, I'll jump in. So my name is Robbie and I'm the CEO and founder of Tech My School. And essentially what Tech my School does is we go into schools, we do an audit this diagnostics of sorts, comprehensive package, comprehensive process.

7:09 And ultimately what we're trying to do is we're trying to find gaps in schools. So then we can then fill them with solutions that are 21st century in nature. And at the heart of it are focusing on student skills that are going to empower them for today and tomorrow. So Tech, my School, is a company that can serve, you know, the best schools in the world, but then can also serve some of the most struggling schools. And we started by working with those struggling schools. We started here in Puerto Rico and kind of from there, have branched off and have served schools literally all around the world, from Kenya to Greece, across the US And then obviously in Puerto Rico, we've served about 50 schools so far. And yeah, we're still growing.

7:55 We still just are scratching the surface. This is our fifth school year, so not new in education, but a relatively new new company. We found too that schools kind of regardless of their funding level or their, their stature, many of them are, are still modeled after a very like 19th and 20th century model of educating kids.

8:15 And one of the things that we're really trying to do is help help schools to address a skill set that is not being addressed very readily in kids right now. And specifically in the schools that are really struggling, the ones that really buy into what we're doing. And they have a real growth mindset, right? They're really thinking about how they can grow and improve. Those are the ones that actually end up doing the most amazing things with their kids.

8:38 And what's really cool about technology is if you can just get, if you can give access to technology to places that don't have it. A lot of times their mindset, their, their kind of, they're ready for fresh thinking. Kind of like when, when I was living in Cameroon, they didn't install, they didn't bother installing landlines.

8:57 They just gave everybody cell phones and put up cell towers. It was like, like they skipped a step. And some of the schools we work with are kind of like that. That's like almost like they can skip a step if they've just decided, hey, we're interested in this newest, most updated skill set for kids. And they kind of let us in and, and let them help. Let us help them build programs works. It works really well for them.

9:17 Wow, interesting stuff. I don't know how to fit this for I love it when I have guests that are very, very much aligned with the philosophy of the forecast. When you look at the name of the forecast, it is Kingdom's podcast, Growth mindsets, leadership, AI and business insights. And the walk of what you guys have been talking about relates very much to growth mindset.

9:44 And if you've seen previous episodes of the podcast, I've already said this, I have only two goals from the forecast to educate and to motivate. And if I'm able to do that, you know my goal is accomplished. The forecast is under the education category one Spotify and Apple broadcast and the sub category is self improvement. And you see what you guys are talking about just it hits the nail on the head and a very big philosophy that we have on this forecast is mindset, skill set and tool set. And that is exactly what you guys use in empowering this schools the educational C stand right being sure that the people I crept with the right mindset.

10:32 I think a lot of times in the corporate world, people place too much emphasis on the skill sets. But we don't have to realize that without the right mindset, you cannot even achieve anything. Or when you have a close mindset and you are able to acquire the right skill sets and you're enabled with the right tool sets, there's no limit towards you can actually achieve.

10:59 So from me to you, it's a very big thank you. You know, sharing your time, your expertise on the forecast today. And of course, I like to say this, anytime a person shares their time with you, they share their life with you. Of course, the SI unit for measuring life this time. So, you know, with that being said, why does education system design matter to founders, to executives, to investors that listen to the show?

11:28 You know, for me, I think it's a little more personal. You know, education is the foundation of society. So there's a direct correlation between test scores and GDP. High test scores, high GDP, low test scores, low GDP, right. And for me, I grew up, you know, this poor kid in San Diego. I was the poorest kid in school. I didn't have electricity at home growing up, as crazy as that sounds.

11:52 And it wasn't because we didn't have electricity in San Diego. It was just because my dad didn't pay the bill and they don't give free electricity so and my only like food was at school. So elementary school was a place for me. It was a sanctuary is where adults cared about me. It's where it gave me a chance to have an opportunity to to make something of myself.

12:14 I think if I was born in so many other different countries, I wouldn't have been able to accomplish nearly what I've been able to accomplish now. So, you know, I'm very grateful for that. I've traveled to 65 countries. I've kind of seen it and and yeah, so coming to Puerto Rico, I was coming in from Nigeria, the last place before Puerto Rico, working at the Americas. To Nigeria.

12:37 Yeah, Niger boys. So I went from California, where I was born to Hawaii. I worked in the inner City Schools of Hawaii, back to California and then I went overseas. So I was in Kazakhstan, I was in Qatar, I was in Saudi Arabia, came back to California. I was in Silicon Valley, got my master's in IT, and then eventually landed in Nigeria where I was a remote learning specialist during COVID times. Before COVID hit, actually, I was preparing the school in case Ebola hit again.

13:04 You know, because of when Ebola hit, there was remote learning and so I was kind of preparing the staff for that. And then Covad hit and we were just ready to go. So we were that class that had done the fire drill before the fire. So we were organized, we were ready to go, but we still that process.

13:17 We burned ourselves out and we were like, as soon as the contract was done, we're like, hey, let's go on an island and just enjoy our life. Just go for one year to take a sabbatical, my wife and I, and then, you know, I'll write a book on Ed tech, and then I'll get back out there to this very comfortable life as an international administrator working in these diplomat schools.

13:36 We had to make a decision between where we wanted to live. It was going to be either Kosamui, Thailand. We love Thailand. We've been there four times. Zanzibar. Zan. Yeah, Thailand's great. Zanzibar, which I think is probably the most beautiful of the three places we were choosing. Zanzibar beaches are just 2nd to none. Love Stone Town and then Puerto Rico. And so we landed on Puerto Rico because we wanted our boys to kind of learn Spanish.

14:01 I'd study it in school, but I wasn't great. So I really wanted them to give them a chance to be immersed in it. And then also there's something here called Costco. So if you know what Costco is, Costco is essentially like Tesco or whatever. It's just like a big supermarket where like the. UK, yeah, I've heard of Costco. Yeah, yeah.

14:19 So when you live in Nigeria, you're you're missing some things. You know, they've got great job off Rice, but you, you know, you miss some of your American goods. I was like, let's go back to Puerto Rico, learn some Spanish, go fishing, you know, do the boating thing. And then, yeah, I put my boys in the local schools. And I was just absolutely shocked because these schools were so much like Nigerian schools, like, you know, African schools.

14:48 And I'm not saying that in a, in a derogatory way, but it was just that like America is the wealthiest country in the world. And every school that I had seen to that point in America, whether it's Hawaii or San Diego, Florida, NY, there's a certain level of standard. Let's just say where the facilities are big, there's grass, soccer fields, there's a canteen for all the kids to eat, there's libraries, there's teachers who are getting paid a certain level of pay.

15:15 They have KS and medical and health and all that kind of stuff. There's programs or sports. There's just a certain, you know, equity that kids are afforded as Americans that just doesn't exist in many other countries. And so going from Nigeria, I was working at a great school in Nigeria, the American School Legos, but we did a lot of field work.

15:34 So we would work with just local Nigerian schools and we did a lot of charity work. We donated computers. We hosted a little conference for them. I mean, even in my own personal life, I had my my own boys, we went to the orphanages and we donated to the orphanages and work with them. So I kind of had a somewhat of an understanding of both worlds. And then to see Puerto Rico, where everyone is an American citizen, it's an American territory. They're not a state, they're a territory. A lot of people don't know that, but it's America. Like if you're born here, you're American. You can move to New York or Los Angeles tomorrow. Vice versa, you can move and live and work here. So it's just like moving to any

16:09 other state. But the schools here are just insanely low. And so there's kind of the eye test of just like, OK, these, there's something's off here. There's no libraries, there's no canteen, there's no fields. It's just a concrete box with some fans and a chalkboard. Like I've seen this before, but not in America.

16:26 So there's just the eye test. Then you look in the classrooms and you're like, this is, this does not look like a 21st century classroom. This is in the way they practice, in the way they're talking. And so you look at the research. There's a testing organization called Pisa. Pisa, they do kind of a standardized test across countries, right?

16:45 So across the world, and I think maybe 100 and some odd countries participate. Puerto Rico scores last in math, reading and science. They are the outliers of the outliers. So there's kind of like this big BLOB in the US fits somewhere in the middle. You know, there's like 50-60 countries all right there.

17:04 You know, there's a little deviation between math, reading and science, you know, left or right. But it's all in that, you know, cluster. And then you have on the far right, you have like, you know, these outliers like Korea and Japan that are kind of like, you know, highest scores. And then you start to go towards the left. Yeah.

17:20 You start, you know, seeing countries that have lower scores and they're countries you'd think of. Then you get to this like, outlier that like way out, like Pluto, you know, like way the heck out there. And that's Puerto Rico, and it's crazy. It's just so crazy. And so for me, you know, knowing that my, you know, current state is at such gratitude and at such a debt to American public school systems, seeing these American kids not have that opportunity. Because honestly, if I'm in Nigeria, if I'm in India, if I'm in Kazakhstan, I'm a guest and I do what I can to help. But it's their country.

17:59 They have their own laws, their own ways, and I can add to it. But it's like I can't make these big changes because it's, you know, it's their country. And I mean, maybe I could, but, but still, it's like I know in others, many countries culturally, it doesn't matter if you know, you're this brilliant person, if you're not the right tribe, you're not the right last name, you're not the right, you know, religion, you're not the right gender, not the right family or whatever.

18:22 It doesn't really matter. Your life is kind of predetermined in a lot of ways, but the beautiful thing about America is it's not like that. It doesn't matter where you start with who you are or what you are. It matters about who you are. So whether you're black, white, Asian, whatever, if you work hard, if you have that growth mindset, you will achieve. And that's why as frustrating of a country as America is, it still stands at this as this kind of beacon of light in the world is that anyone can come there and restart themselves, reimagine themselves and make it if you work hard, you know, and if you value education and if you value, you know, that grit. And so seeing that, knowing

19:02 that, that that's what makes me proud to be from America is because before I left America, I was always kind of like, I'm not going to say there's any self hatred, but it was just kind of like, man, we're such a racist country. We're such a bad country, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Because that's what the media just constantly pounds in your brain until you go to all these other countries and you're like, man, we're actually like the least racist country in the world. It's a place where, I mean, my roommate was from Nairobi. He's got the thickest accent you've ever heard in your life. And he came to America barely.

19:29 His dad was in government. So he kind of snuck him in. His dad lost power, he lost his visa. He stayed, he got his like kind of fake green card in LA. He worked, worked at Costco. That's actually where he met with Costco. And then he went to school, ended up marrying this girl, finished his degree at OU, got a patronum engineering degree. I mean, the guy's making like whatever, 300,000 a year, He's crushing it.

19:51 His wife's a lawyer. They live this beautiful life. And it's like, that's America, you know what I mean? And so that's why it's that's why it's such a special place. And also why it's so unacceptable for an American territory state, in my mind to not have a world class education. And so that's kind of how tech my school was born. It was like seeing my kids coming from Africa, seeing my kids in this school and just knowing immediately as a, you know, educator for 20 plus years, like I need to, to, to help, you know, it's like this call to action, this call to service.

20:22 I know I can help. I know technology's the avenue to help these, these educators, these kids. And then the service began. So that's kind of like the birth of tech, my school. And Kyle has also been a big part of that journey with me. And we work together in Saudi Arabia and Jeddah. And I went to go work for him.

20:38 So I came in as his assistant tech director, the assistant CTO of the school. And so I kind of learned a lot about the position and just how schools operate under Kyle. And then he went on to do his story. But we've always kind of remained buddies. And as I was seeing this, I was kind of talking with Kyle about what I'm seeing and the processes of, you know what, what tech my school became. So he's though he's not like the founder. He's even before tech my school began like him and I have always been thought partners and we've always kind of worked together in that way.

21:09 So I'll I'm. A pre founder. Yes, I'm going to pass the ball to Kyle and let him introduce himself and talk about like how he kind of joined a tech, my school and where he was at. Yeah. So I have a similar story, not from the very beginning, but excuse me, similar story of moving around the world and working at international schools.

21:29 So I was in Cameroon and then in Saudi where Robbie and I met and then I was in Switzerland after that and then Vietnam after that. So I would say that so we, we did so much learning along along the way, right. I mean, I could have easily done that stint in, you know, four or five different schools here in the States and I would have learned a lot about the job and, and the role and whatnot.

21:52 But being able to do that internationally was kind of like a double education for me. I got to kind of, you know, do the on the job training and learn about what I was doing in my profession for the same time. Got to know people from all these different amazing cultures. That was that was such a huge thing.

22:07 But Robbie and I started working together in Saudi and we started working on essentially some of the conversations we had were around like systematizing the skill set. So you were asking about the structure of school and, and the importance of the structures. And I think Robbie and I, one of the things we agreed on from the beginning is that industry is looking for something a little different than what we are currently providing. I think this, this has become exacerbated over time, probably because of technology more than anything. But in, in industry, they're looking for universities to train kids up in a certain way to get them ready for the workforce, right?

22:44 But then there's K12 education where Robbie and I are, and they're, we're trying to get kids ready for the college landscape, right? And we're in a bit of a predicament in the sense that colleges are not very vocal about communicating the needs of kids in these newer ways. So what we've always done and, and this is, you know, if your listeners aren't listening from the States, maybe some of the terminology is different, but the the thinking is the same.

23:12 And universities everywhere, which is that there are these preparation pieces that kids go through in order to qualify for university in the United States. It's two primary exams that they take the SAT and the ACT and you can take take one or the other. Some kids, a lot of kids will take both. But those scores along with your grades from high school essentially are the determining factors and whether you get into school or not. That's gotten more, it's more human, humanistic, humanized now in the sense that they're, they're really do pay attention to like your essays.

23:42 You have to write essays. They'll give you a prompt. Some of sometimes the, the prompts are kind of loony in some ways they sound crazy, but they're really, they're really looking for something from you. They want to know, want to know about your mindset. You know, we were talking about growth mindset earlier. But my whole point of saying all of this is that universities are really the ones who should be telling educators like Robbie and I what they need.

24:02 What do you want your incoming students to look like when they come in? And what we get from them is not messaging about this type of first we got 21st century, we're getting a little further into the 21st century now, but we would say like next Gen. skill set, right? AI has been a really shined a light on this because there's a whole new emerging skill set that is kind of on the horizon for kids now that we are also not addressing very, very adeptly. But part of our thinking is like we kind of have to skip the middleman and we kind of have to think about industry also, because industry is very clear about what they want from the kids coming out college and college is not very clear to us about what they want coming into

24:45 college, if this makes sense, right? It's kind of like a three-step process of a young person graduating into the workforce. And I think that what, what we really tried to do is to pay homage to what the skill set when they get out of college is really what we're kind of aiming for more than, I mean, the universities.

25:05 Universities are still set up as kind of incubators for thought and research. And, and that's, that's really fantastic. And I think that's where they really shine as in the research side of things. But when it comes to like the skills that are required for thinking like I'm talking about AI and understanding how AI systems work and how if you put bad data into an LLM, you get crap out the other side, right? Like the kids have to.

25:28 Understand garbage and garbage out. Garbage and garbage out. Yeah, they have to understand data quality. They have to understand engineering like the yeah, prompt engineering and the efficacy of the process, right? Like in order to, in order to make this work, you have to understand what the machine is actually doing. And so that's, that's part of what we're it's not, I mean that that's just one small part.

25:47 So we're, we're also looking at the, the ability to like, showcase their learning by, you know, multi modally, being able to use traditional methods of presenting evidences of their learning while at the same time being able to harness some of the newer technologies, right, like podcasts and videos.

26:07 And like, what's the difference between someone writing an essay and someone building a documentary to get the same point across of their, of their learning, displaying their understanding of a concept or content or showing off skills. So what, what we're, what we're really working with schools on is to help them to kind of rethink the narrative of, of assessment, how we assess learning.

26:28 Because LLMS, they came on really quickly and very, very quickly what we were doing at schools was saying like kids, kids are teething. Now they're having them write the, they're writing their essays. Well, then maybe we should rethink what we're asking kids to do to show us what they know. So this is a big part of our thinking when we're working with schools.

26:47 Amazing, there's actually a whole lot to unpack. What you said, 1 scene I very much believe in is another force. He's time to work that you need strong institutions and not just strong individuals. You guys are strong individuals, but this a limit to what strong individuals can actually do. But when you have strong institutions and the institutions, you know, play their role like the system would be in a good place.

27:17 So you have the schools, you know you have the universities and of course you also have the policy makers, right? The policy makers have a very, very big role to play in ensuring that the administration of these schools right, are in the right place. From your experience, what have you seen first hand that you know most policy makers and persons and leadership misunderstand about the school system? You know, it's, it's interesting because when you're talking about, you know, a system, especially when you're in America, it's always comes back to politics. And so that's a very convoluted subject in itself. In the states mainland there, you know, politics are, are very much a part of that system in

28:08 terms of how everything's built. What are kids being taught there? There's a kind of a localized set of, you know, Department of Education as a federal reach or did have a federal reach. And then there's the the states having their, their kind of more local reach and there's corruption, there's certain elements to it that, you know, inhibit the success or, or failure of education in America.

28:32 Puerto Rico has its own kind of subset of political strife and, and control in the system. And so it doesn't fall under the exact same purview as the systems in the mainland US. So because of that, I'm not going to say it's the Wild West out here, but it definitely has. There's a reason why we score what we score. And so it's just such a challenge to it's such a challenge.

28:59 And I mean, we have an MO U department education, We want to work with them, but there's just so many components to it, whether it's the people at the top who are constantly revolving and then as soon as they leave, they fire everyone and then bring in their people. So I'm if coming from Africa, that was something that was kind of a this tribalistic governing and every yeah. And I mean, happens everywhere, you know, to a certain degree, coaching and sports, you know, you get hired, you bring in your buddies or whatever.

29:31 But it's, it's more extreme, I would say here. And then, you know, just sometimes it's a lack of follow through with certain monies that could be allotted to schools and other times it's, it's grift. And other times, you know, people don't know where the money went. So ultimately it's just such an uphill battle.

29:53 And, and it's just such a shame that like, honestly, tech, my school should not exist. The work I'm doing, though, we love it, it shouldn't exist. Honestly, like they, they, the schooling system should be, there's enough money to where the schooling system should be so good that we don't need to be around maybe in a consultancy way and in a minor smaller way, but not to the level of extent that we're serving and the impact that we're making. So, yeah, in short, you are a product of the system in which you live.

30:24 A lot of times it's, it's difficult, but whenever you're in a place where the system is less effective, more corrupt, more negative, whatever you want to say, the bigger impact you can make because there's such a wider gap between success and failure. And we just happen to be in a location where we can make up a pretty big impact.

30:44 I would say what Robbie's talking about really is very zoomed out at sort of a macro structural level level. We're talking about countries or governments, right? And he's totally right. I mean, you don't have to do much more than follow money. I mean the money money ultimately is what will decide. I would say the way the money flows rather than the amount, the way the money flows, I think is, is what's related to efficacy.

31:11 Because a big, a bigger problem in, in Puerto Rico, it, it's not the total amount of money going into the system. The total amount of money is not the problem. The, the amount that's getting to the classroom is really the problem in the United States. The money gets to the classrooms. I think the bigger problem is that the system is so large, it, it operates in such a way that it's very difficult to like in a state that doesn't give a lot of control to individual school districts.

31:36 Like in Texas, I think there are what, 304 hundred school districts or even more than that probably if, if the, if the state has too much control, it's hard for the, the, the school districts themselves to have very much nuance when they have maybe very different populations to serve. So the problems in Puerto Rico and the problems in mainland are different, but they they have them what I would say zooming in to the sort of individual district or school level.

32:07 In the process of zooming in, sorry to interrupt you. In the process of zooming in, I want you to weave something into that process, right? What? What are the signals that you look out for? When do you evaluate in these schools? So I'd love for you to read that into the zoom in. Sure. The individual school leadership, this comes back to then.

32:28 That's why I think we're going to hit this over and over again. It comes back to mindset. It comes back to whether or not a school leader fundamentally or a district leader fundamentally believes that every single person in the district, both teachers and students, can grow. They have to have this mindset that we're not just trying to manage the status quo.

32:49 We're not. Like in a car, you put it on cruise control on the highway and the car kind of keeps you at the same speed. There should not be a cruise control button in education because education is not static. The things that we're trying to teach kids in certain content areas stay more or less static to some degree.

33:09 Like you could say history and math and those things are maybe they're more static. But if you dig a little deeper, history, the ways in which we view history, the research that we're doing and make connections between modern and history from before, this is also like technology, it's also changing all the time, right? So like.

33:26 The. Fact that we create these huge systems that sort of promote the continuation of the status quo is very, very difficult. One, one of the things I actually love this analogy that Robbie makes, he talks about LeBron James. You could say this about like Leo Messi or any sport. These athletes that are at the top of their game, they still have coaches, they're still being coached. They have this fundamental understanding in athletics. We, we fundamentally believe that we can always improve. Leo Messi, by all rights, probably doesn't need a coach. If there's anyone that doesn't need a coach, it's that guy, right?

34:00 But he's still coached and he's coachable. Like coach ability. I think is, is a is a good way to a good frame to to look at it. So you're, you're asking for signals. What can you, can you expand on that? Can you say more about what you mean? What do you mean when, when we're going into a school to try and figure out how we can help? Is that what you're?

34:19 Exactly, exactly. You know, what are the signals, what are the factors that you guys evaluate to make your assessment? Probably you're muted. Yeah. I think the what we do is we we try to look at it from a systematic standpoint. So we can create a model that can fit in any school. And so we focus and we're looking through three different lenses. So the first lens that we're looking at is building and improving educational systems.

34:45 So everything that you can touch may create policy computers, you know, software, all those kinds of things. So we're looking at where is your school fit in terms of those? How can we serve, how can we help, how can we help improve that lens? The next lens we look at is improving the educators capacity. So we're looking at mindset, we're looking at how professional learning happens in the building. What is the philosophy of the leadership and the school? What is the ethos and what is the practice that reflects that? How does learning happen for the adults and how are they self improving, reflecting, collecting data, those kinds of things?

35:22 So the second lens is really focusing on the adults in the building because they're the ones who are facilitating this to students. And then finally, the third lens is we look at student empowerment. So what are the things that students are actually doing in their classroom, outside of the classroom?

35:36 What skills are we actually teaching them and are they showcasing in order to kind of signify this person who's going to go out into the world to this AI and informational economy and be a contributor or producer or creator? And so by looking first at the systems, you know, things that you can buy, looking at the adults, what do they feel confident and what are they knowledgeable on?

35:56 And what do they think about teaching and learning? And then we look at the kids because you immediately want to go straight to the kids. Like what is the result of the system? What does a product look like? We don't start there, that we end there. The first thing you got to do is look at the factory and say, OK, how can we modernize this factory?

36:12 And then you look at the workers. How do the workers, how are they learning? How are they doing their thing? And then you can say, OK, now let's look at the product because it always starts like Kyle was saying at the top. And you know, regardless of the school that we work with, we worked with every range of of school. The leadership is going to determine the success of the process of tech my school going in or just really any, any process of a school going in.

36:34 If if a leader cares, the teachers are going to care. If a leader is learning, the teachers are going to be learning. If the leader is, you know, conscientious and observant and you know, is putting there is, is having follow through, the teachers are going to fall in line and vice versa. And so we've worked in schools that literally could could have been in Lagos like easily, like if you went to the campus, you saw what was going on.

37:01 You're like, I'm in Nigeria, but it was it's in America. And then we've been to other. Schools in America. You're like this, this is like one of the top schools ever. It's got everything money can buy. And sure, they may have a lot of the systems component, but they those other facets aren't there, or at least they're not as much as they could be. They're not hitting their potential because the leadership is, you know, either arrogant, lazy, or just has a fixed mindset.

37:31 So we try to partner with people who have that growth mindset. And even if they don't, I mean, at the end of the day, we work to serve children. I will literally work with the most difficult school because even if I can make that school 10% better, I know the future of those kids are going to be 10% brighter. And so we're going to, we're going to do everything we can to, to serve that school for that reason. And so my wife who works with me, she gets frustrated all the time.

37:53 She gets frustrated with teachers, she gets frustrated with directors. She gets frustrated with our donors because we're a nonprofit. And I tell her I'm like, listen, you can't focus on these other external factors. We're here for one reason, and that's to serve kids. You work for them, you know what I mean? So like, keep doing good things because that will improve their lives.

38:14 And that's what it's all about. So at least for me, that's why I cut tunnel vision myself to, to, you know, block off the, the negativity that comes with working with various groups of people, economic etcetera. Yeah, because we, we, we pipeline a lot of our funding from, you know, some of the wealthiest people in the world. And so we, we really want them to care about what we're doing. And sometimes they do and sometimes they don't. And so that's frustrating.

38:41 And then we serve schools that may be bought in and may be working hard to improve their school and their kids. And sometimes they don't, right. So sometimes you can get this negative force on both ends from the donor side and from the from the school side. And it can be discouraging. But what keeps keeps us going is just focusing on that singular goal of improving lives of kids. And because the kids don't choose, they're just born. They're just born and their parents, they go to this school and then you're just there.

39:08 And so they're other outcome is determined by that school. And we, we do everything we can to empower them. A lot of these kids are victims of circumstances. You did not choose the family that you're going to be born, so you do not choose the location. So it's it's a great thing what you're doing at least giving them a better chance about succeeding in life because the background matters.

39:32 Even the Bible says Eve the foundation be destroyed. What kind of writers do? But I'd like for you to touch on what a high functioning learning system looks like in practice to. Tackle that one. To me it's one of the main evidences. Is teachers learning alongside kids An institution, it's high functioning is one that is an institution of learning, right?

39:52 Teaching happens, but learning, learning is the non negotiable. Everyone is learning all the time. And one of the reasons why that's important, I mean, it's important for any adult who's in a you know, it's to be to be learning, I think, and and growing. But as adults learn and they show their passion for learning and understanding new things and.

40:15 Being humble enough to learn from the kids, the kids respond to that, that that is how you develop kids who are lifelong learners, kids who love learning. That's really our goal. Our goal is less to teach kids what to think, but teach them how to think. Schools oftentimes will say that, but but what does that really mean? What does how to think mean?

40:33 How to think really incorporates a lot of different things across like an age appropriate continuum. But the one thing that's continuous across that whole thing is a love of learning. So curiosity, there's an amazing quote, there's an author, a guy named George Kuros is this great quote. He says, if if kids are less curious when they leave us, then when they came to us, then we failed. And so I think a high functioning system involves a place where failure is acceptable. They say, we like to say fail fast and fail forward. And we say this, a lot of schools will say this. They'll say we really want to facilitate a place where be a safe place to take risks and to fail. Yet we, we punish failure.

41:16 I mean, we, we really want to see schools that are building systems that allow kids to really push their own limits and fall and get up and learn right from that, that whole iterative process. So I don't know, Robbie, what would you say in terms of high functioning? What? What am I missing? I think you hit the nail on the head when it comes to the academic component, you know, learning, failing forward thinking, those kinds of things. I would just say that schools are, you know, a community. And so part of a successful school and a place that you want to go to is 1 in which the community and really the people who are there are, are valued.

41:53 They're they're given a chance to express themselves freely and, and just learn together. So I think what's different between a school and maybe just opening a, you know, a business is just the fact that schools are a community space. You're dealing with people, you're dealing with their lives, you're dealing with their problems, you're dealing with, you know, all those kinds of things.

42:13 And so you want the school to have this, this we look at when we break down our audit of a school, we, we kind of have two different, I would say, frameworks that we build from. So the first is 1. That's an internal framework that kind of speaks more to what Kyle was talking about in terms of, you know, structures in place and, you know, success, failing, all that kind of stuff. We also look at how do the educators at the school think of learning?

42:38 How do they think of themselves? How do they think like where, where do they feel they fit and where do they, how do they value themselves and how do they value learning? And what is their purpose, right? What is the point of being there? And so we get that from Robert Dilt's levels of learning. So he has these these kind of framework where it's just more about, you know, kind of self identifying your purpose and your point and who you are and being reflective on that.

43:04 So there is this technical side that we serve, but then there's also this other component where we want schools to really define themselves as learners, to define themselves as thinkers, to define themselves as places where kids can come and have a safe place to grow and, and to to nurture their passions.

43:22 And I think it comes down to leadership too. I think, I think your leaders set the tone for what's allowed to happen in a sense, right? The two another top. So I'm, I'm actually almost done with a, I'm almost done with a second program, a master's degree in educational leadership. And I think out of all of the study that I've done, really what what I see as a theme is that a leaders role is to support people who support people. And So what I see a lot of times in schools is that leaders really try and micromanage processes which they should actually be in a support role more than a barking orders type of a role.

43:58 I think there's a misunderstanding from leadership about what their purpose is. And, and, and honestly, your teachers, you can think of like, if you think of this in a corporate sense, you know, your teachers are really like your middle managers. They're in charge of another group of people, which are your students.

44:11 And your job as a leader is to support those teachers, to support learning in the classroom. And there's a million ways you can do that. But like that, that's one of the things that I look at too, when, when we're going into a school, I'm looking for the sort of hidden signals from leadership on you.

44:24 You what One thing that's important is when we go into a room and we're doing, let's say like a big kind of a corporate training with teachers and the leaders are there too. Some places you can, I mean, it doesn't take much, but you, you can see the subtleties in the way that people's body language is or the, the, the ways in which they're deferential to leadership. I mean, you can feel the, the, the company, the school's orchard more than you can see it on paper. You can feel it.

44:52 And, and I think that that's, that's part of what we have learned to identify kind of internally. So that when we're talking about how we can help them, because our job ultimately when we go into a school is to help them to self identify where they're at and what they want to do based on our framework. And we don't go in and tell them what they should and shouldn't be doing.

45:11 It's not like that. It's a non judgmental sort of assessment that we do with them. And when we get to the end of that, how we know how to best help them really has a lot to do with the ways that they interact with their leadership. And there are certain things that we would do that are more aggressive in terms of the types of interventions that we would recommend. Only if their leadership won't support it, we're not going there.

45:31 We're going to have to take a different, more grassroots approach. Really focus on us intervening with teachers more than intervening with leadership who can intervene with teachers. There are subtle differences in communication and signals that we pick up from leaders and so the most high functioning places I would say are the places where the leaders are passionate supporters of their teachers.

45:53 Interest and stuff. It's it's quite interesting. It shows like you guys eavesdropped a conversation I had with you and Youthang, Young Youthang is the head of community, the school of mentors, and he was on this forecast. I think we had a discussion, I think was it last night? Yeah, last night. And he was telling me about his experience in China.

46:20 He was born in China but grew up in the United States. So we always make this joke about, oh, you're like Apple were made in China but designed in the US, right? But but he's always keeping in that the quality is good. He's always bringing in that disclaimer. So shout out to your new Fang. You need to see this one.

46:40 He was teaching English in a Chinese school. And when he started the program, he was asking one of the Chinese teachers that how can I teach these students effectively? And guess what the teacher told him, Teacher told him instead of you thinking of how you are going to teach the students, why not think about what you can learn from these students?

47:06 It gives him a rethink. You know, learning is a two way St. Just at communication, you can impact knowledge and you can also learn from the people that you're teaching. It's interesting myself speaking to you, right? It's quite interesting that we have connecting dots. I've worked in the NGO space of the charity space, and I've also been a teacher myself.

47:30 I used to teach professional accounts and students. I'm a target account of what you guys call ACPA in the US. So I used to teach the students writing the professional exams. And I realized something that the best students, that the best teachers are the best students. The best teachers are the teachers who adopt that lifelong learning approach, who adopts curiosity, because when you have the humility to learn and to keep learning, you're like a sponge.

48:05 You keep absorbing information and you can help to what I say, communicate that information in the best way possible. And it's interesting that you guys adopt that approach. You know a lot and massive respect to you guys for that approach because that is the way it should be. It's interesting how some people feel like maybe because they are older or more experienced, they feel like they cannot learn from other people and it's taunts your growth as a person.

48:38 Learning is a two way St. You can learn from a toddler, right? But how do you try to what I say has that right orientation to leadership and of course to the teachers, because it starts with leadership, right? And of course the teachers determine the future of these future champions that we have in our custody, basically.

49:05 So how did you work around the orientation? Orientation of. Yes, you know, the orientation for the teachers and of course, the orientation for leadership. It's interesting that people have certain mindsets, right? You either have a group mindset or a fixed mindset. Whatever mindset you have is a function of your orientation.

49:30 If you are a person who believes in the principle, the philosophy of being a lifelong student, you're likely to have a growth mindset. But when you have a fixed mindset, it's difficult. And for me, I feel like one of the things that is difficult to teach people is mindset. But. There's a psychological path to it. If you keep passing on a message to people in a particular environment, at some point, you know they pick up on what you are passing on the message, right? So we need that be orientation of the community of leadership or the community of teachers and that way it cascades to impact on the students.

50:18 Yeah. I mean, for us it's it's more of on the practical level sometimes, like Kyle saying, you can see that work chart through body language immediately. And those at the top who have that fixed mindset or, or just a complacent mindset 1 where they feel like their title determines their outcomes. So they sit back and you know, their patron, their Hefe, the boss and these other people learn and I'm good. We we work with them for a time, we try to do everything we can to improve the school, help the kids, help the teachers. But ultimately success and failure does ally a lot with the leadership.

50:59 And if the leadership is not in compliance to what our missions doing or just having a growth mindset, there are times we have to let schools go. And that's an unfortunate thing. But not everyone respects free, not everyone of values things that are given to them in charity. So, and everyone wants free because they're like, oh, I want something free, but are you going to value it?

51:21 Are you going to take care of it? Are you going to follow through? And so our work is service based. So we will go to a school, do this audit, we'll create this detailed plan for their school for a year and then we get to work. So we'll follow through. We go and we do an all staff for, you know, provisional training for the teachers and then the next day we're on campus doing classroom observations, doing instructional coaching.

51:44 And his Internet just died I. Think so. I think that's what happened. So yeah, I'm sure he's going to. I was on a roll. You were on a roll. Yeah, was was he fuzzy when you were talking as well? Yeah, a little bit. I think he's probably just got a. Maybe he's a slower connection. Essay. Yeah, it sounds like he's usually in the UK, so it probably would have would be better, better Internet if he was in the UK.

52:14 I liked it. He's added the questions to the chat. I found that to be really helpful actually. That's great, I even noticed that. There we go. It's cool that they keep the keep the feed going though, even when the host drops. Yeah. Like if it was a zoom meeting, I think it doesn't shut the meeting off if the if the host dropped out.

52:37 Also I found out as I was waiting in the waiting room today that there's a downloadable. There's a Mac version of this. I don't have time to set it up but. You can. It's got extra features. There's like a Riverside app for Mac. I'm going to try that, make it so I can blur my Vietnam painting. You're very familiar with that painting, aren't you?

52:59 Yeah, I like it. I didn't know it was from Vietnam, actually. You brought that in. You can't probably appreciate from the angle about how big that picture is. I mean, the picture is probably 5 feet across. A guy delivered that. This will be unsurprising to you. A guy delivered that on a scooter.

53:16 He was like hanging off the back of the scooter with this giant painting. This is delivered into us. We, we, I think we paid him like a dollar $2.00 delivery fee, something like that. He he show. He shows up this giant painting. What did you that in Ho Chi Minh? That was in Ho Chi Minh. Yeah, we, there was a, it was about a mile from our apartment kind of on in our little pocket of the town where we lived and was this little art studio where this guy is.

53:46 All he does is all day long. He probably takes him a couple of days to churn out one of these paintings, but he's just prolific. He's hundreds and hundreds of these original paintings. And we we went in there one day and we're like, these are so cool. We've got to get one of these to take home with us.

53:59 I think the painting costs like 100 bucks that like it wasn't a lot, but then it probably costs us like 500 to ship at home. Yeah. You know, what sucks is that after traveling to all these different places, I've always gathered artwork, Knick knacks, statues, just all these different things. And I have them.

54:16 They're they're in storage. But we bought this house that has this beach theme where every space was, like, tastefully designed by that Facebook lady. And so I just feel like it's somewhat wrong to mess with it. Yeah, it would just be out of place if I put like, an Egyptian, you know, whatever a pharaoh's face where the beach painting is.

54:35 So they're just sitting in my box. There's just there's a ton of just artifacts like have yet to put up. So one, one thing I was thinking about when Robbie was talking is that there's a there's a research he's he's famous among educators, guy named John Hattie. And he did very, very long like a 20 year study on 10s of thousands of students.

54:54 And he was looking at these different ways that we intervene, like different facets of educational programs and how they to what degree do they move the needle forward in academics, right. And in terms of student achievement and student learning. And the number one item on there actually wasn't wasn't a physical intervention. It wasn't one of these things that we talked about as educators, scaffolding learning and differentiation. And it wasn't something that we do. It was actually a mindset piece.

55:22 And it was called, he calls it a collective teacher efficacy. And what it, what, what he was getting at is essentially that if in an organization, if the, the learners actually, and I, I started thinking about this when, when you mentioned, I love the way you frame that too, when, when you said that the best teachers are the best learners, right?

55:40 Are the best students. So to that point, so his findings were essentially that if everybody in the building has this collective mindset of growth, that they believe that every person can learn in the building, that is actually the number one defining factor in terms of pushing academics, academic output further. And that I think is, is also kind of goes back to the question you were asking about structure, right? And what is a, what is a high functioning structure look like? Well, collective efficacy and this collective mindset of growth is actually now through research is is is proven to be one of the most important parts of a high achieving school research.

56:23 Research is very, very important, right? And I think research actually utilizes ethical thinking, problem solving mindset, which is very important because for me, I think about it, why are you going to school? Why are you getting educated? If you're not going to turn out to become a solution provider, then I think it's it's a waste of everybody's time. But Speaking of providing solutions, right, Technologies are the hearts of providing solutions in this modern day world.

56:56 So many organizations actually buy technology, but the skill change outcomes. Why is this the case? You know, for us, especially in classrooms of various ages groups, because not just these more adult learners, we work with five year olds, we work with four year olds. And so when we say technology, we're technology centered, but we're learning driven. And so sometimes the best technology you can use is a pencil or a book or a crayon, or even just how you're using proximity in the classroom.

57:26 In terms of your stance, what we're trying to do is we're trying to find the best tool to serve the best purpose for that student, for that learner. And so we're really flexible in that sense. But conversely, technology in that, you know, I guess layman sense is it's compounding in terms of its ability. And we've seen that over the past five years, especially with these large LLMS that have come out and and have really there's I'm not going to say dystopian, but there's just a lot of outcomes in the near near future that could happen. And I in my ex feed is just filled with these people who are just like you're not going to have to work in five years like work is going to be taken care

58:07 of. Tesla optimist. All these AIS platforms are going to get so good and then once AGI happens, it's like it's going to be so transformative that you're going to really have to rethink your life and everyone's going to rethink their life. So there's a part of me that's like, let's stick to these tried and true things and let's just find the best tool, whether it's a tattoo BT model or if it's, you know, a ball versus do I just need to just hold on for the next three to four years here until I can buy this robot that just does everything for me? And, you know, what are we teaching kids for if they're going to be, you know, everything's going to be taken care of for us.

58:44 So I don't think that's going to be the case. Part of me thinks I hope not. But at the same time, it's a, it's a very, very curious time to live in because there is this future that can go so many different ways. And honestly, I think even the leaders of in the industry don't know how it's going to end, which is both sad and frightening at the same time. Because I think there is, if you get it wrong, it could be, you know, one of the dystopia models that there's a percent chance of this happening is that there's some sort of extinction event, as they call it the paper clip model, where it's like to, to maximize the shape of the paper clip or the efficiency of the paper clip, they have to

59:22 eliminate this, which leads to eliminating this. And then eventually the robots kill all humanity or something. You man, we got to keep you off of Reddit. Well, I'm just something that leading AI people in the world, you talk about the Elon Musk, you talk about the Sam Altmans, you talk about these people who are driving society.

59:41 And with. Technology right now they are in the driver's seat they're they have the thoughts I'm not listening to some Spooks on Reddit. It's like these are mainstream figures who have a deep fear of AI, of the future, of technology and and they've yeah, they feel like we know this is dangerous. We're playing with a grenade here. But whoever gets to the finish line first is going to be the take all winter winner.

1:00:08 So if I don't stop pushing the ball forward, they're going to keep pushing the ball forward and I'm left in the dust. I don't think we should be doing this, but I can't allow these other guys to to win and take over the world, let's say. So I'm going to keep pushing the ball forward as fast as I possibly can without. The guardrails in time to really process what we're doing. And so it's like, in a sense, we are monkeys playing with fire in the sense that we could build something that ultimately has a dystopian outcome.

1:00:34 And anyway, it's kind of scary to think of, but I'm not saying it's going to happen. But there is a realistic chance that this possibly could. Hans is whether it's 5% or 50%, no one really knows. But when you're talking about thoughts, creativity, because I mean, what separates us from the animal Kingdom is just our brains and our ability to have these conversations into to think and to work collectively.

1:00:55 And if you're building something that can do that exponentially better than we can, there's no telling what it could end up doing. I think we're thinking, hoping for the good. I'm thinking I get a robot. I'm hoping for a robot that just does all my dishes and cleans the laundry and I don't have to do any chores anymore.

1:01:13 What's my YouTube? So my my issue with. Kyle, get this man off just. Backing up a little bit and. Get him off Reddit. Yeah, I know. I feel like people like this, people like this who think about the dystopian outcome have seen too much sci-fi. Over to you. Kyle OK, here's here's something that foundationally we believe at Tech my school, we believe that technology has the power to level the playing field between the haves and the have nots, right?

1:01:40 Absolutely. We have a system set up, unfortunately right now where capitalism has created this environment where the the rich keep getting richer and the poor keep getting poorer, right? We're we're expanding that gap. Technology has the ability to bridge that gap. Let's let's look at your dystopian model.

1:01:58 Let's call this the best case scenario where everybody gets that robot in their house that does all the work and right, does everybody get the robot or do just the rich people get the robots? Because I have a sneaking suspicion that the rich people get the robots and the poor people continue to do their own dishes and clean their own floors. I'm thinking that what what we want to do and what we're trying to do, the model that we operate on is essentially, and I don't know if you knew this because we didn't really say this before, but the schools that we serve in Puerto Rico, we serve them for free.

1:02:25 Almost all of them, some of them, the school that means do pay for our services, right? Like we serve a couple of schools that are wealthy private schools that that they can pay us. And that's part of how we generate revenue. But we we do this, the way that we do this is fairly socialist. And the reason we do it is because we believe in education so strongly.

1:02:44 And we believe also that technology in education, when leveraged properly, can be an absolute game changer for Wow. Keep going. Again, just keep going. My, my point is just that we operate in a way that is is the opposite of what I think is actually going to happen. What keeps happening is that we keep coming up with this amazing tech. Like you look at the large language models as a simple, like there's a free version of them, but the version that does all the things is unaffordable for people who are in poverty, right?

1:03:17 So like even something as simple as a large language model, and I get it, it's a business and they have to pay for it. It's not cheap to be burning these tokens constantly. I don't know if I see this idea that you don't have to work anymore and like the machines are going to take care of you and do all the things. They're not going to take care of the poor. They're going to take care of the people who can currently afford to be taken care of.

1:03:38 That's what I think. And I'd love to get. I'd love to get an economist's view, you know, like someone who is steeped in the tack but also understands the history of the patterns of how technology has has helped. I mean, like, think back to the cotton gin, right? Eli Whitney comes up with the cotton gin.

1:03:55 Who did the cotton gin really help? The cotton gin did not help the people who were out in the field picking cotton except for that it took their job away, right? I mean, like, it made the job easier, you say, Yeah, it helped them, but then what are they doing now? Now they don't have a job. And yes, like, this was a horrible time in American history where those people were probably enslaved people anyway. But the large part.

1:04:19 But my point is just that, like, whenever we come up with new technology, we're like, it's so helpful. But who is it so helpful for is my question. Yeah. I think also, too, that there's like, there's only one penthouse. Not everyone can live in the penthouse. And so they're still going to. They should.

1:04:36 Even if there's robots doing many things, there's still going to be a differentiation between wealth and income. And you know, yeah. Because we're not going to be sharing that wealth. Whatever, whatever efficiencies have created more wealth or it's not, it's not shared wealth. If wealth belongs to whoever created the efficiency and whoever owned the process that just now became more efficient, they make more money. But I think it's actually going to continue to exacerbate the problem because while the rich get richer, they create those efficiencies.

1:05:03 It means they need less people. Yeah, No, I mean, I what's scary about the AI component of it is just that if it does subtract that just swaths of jobs, that's the fear, right? It's like, what are people going to do? I mean, we're going to invent new jobs, I'm sure things that. I don't think we're going to invent them at the pace that we're going to be. Reject.

1:05:27 Yeah, that. Crushing other jobs. I mean, we're, there's going to be a lot of scuba instructors, you know what I mean? There's going to be a lot of scuba. So I think one, one of the things we brought up while you were gone was the idea that like if we create these efficiencies and you know what, you know, like you don't have to work anymore, the world has become easy for you, who is actually benefiting from that?

1:05:52 And, and I, I don't think that will be a benefit across the board. I think it will be the same sort of stratification that we currently see. I don't think that changes. I think the people who were already the haves will continue to just have more. Exactly exactly because I see AI as an assistant AI as a tool for transformation, for efficiency, but it's really amazing to to get to the take of the extremists or an AI, right.

1:06:25 Why are we afraid of AI? Humans created AI right artificial intelligence and if humans if the world is going to get destroyed right it's as humans that are going to destroy the world. We are still in charge of this thing right AI robotics who initiates the prompt who the EC works with electricity that's there's a lot of limitation to what you can possibly do with AI in terms of thinking of you from a destructive perspective. We can only wait to see what what happens in the world, but people thinking about not having to work I don't see that happening.

1:07:07 I stand to be corrected, but I. Think only a few people will realize that. Yeah, maybe people are Robbie. Especially another Reddit. I've learned that I can't be that person. So I came to Puerto Rico to be on sabbatical to go shooting and relaxing and, and you know, because I was overworking when I was in the, in the, in the schools. So very, very quickly, you know, within a few weeks I had gone from new, new parent on vacation to training all staff and, and helping them improve systems and then going from one school to, you know, 50.

1:07:42 So I've learned that about myself is that even when given some time off, I go very stir crazy quickly. I suck at vacation too. You're not alone. Yeah, and so I do. Worry about. How that will affect mindset if that dystopian happens where like everything is taken care of. You can't create anything because robots do it better and they do it more efficiently and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

1:08:05 You know what? What will we do with our time? But I think it'll be more creative. I'm more of an optimist personally. So I'm I'm going with the utopia. Everyone gets to hang out and we can all just be buddies. You know what I mean? Do it. Let's see how that goes, you know, But talking about the schools, if you compare working with these schools, like scaling up an organization. So what would the leaders need to think of differently? I think that are you talking about schools specifically? Are you talking like industry?

1:08:34 The schools, the schools specifically, they are basically an organization. What do they need to change? Yes. So what do you really need to change in order to achieve that scale up? So for businesses, if you want to scale up a business, you're talking about efforts to improve the revenue, you want to cut costs, right, in order to make the profit line, you know, bigger. What is it with schools that you need to put in place in order to ensure that the schools are improving? Of course, you guys are in the business of improving the schools basically.

1:09:11 Yeah, I think they need to. So in the classroom, one of the things that teachers generally do is they use this idea called backwards design, where you think about the, you think about the goal and you work towards the goal, right? You work backwards to plan how you get. To the engineering. In yeah, but in learning, you'd say here, here are the KUD. These are the things I want kids to know, understand to be able to do.

1:09:32 And that's at the end, right? And so how do I, how do I make that journey to get to that endpoint? I think that schools need to zoom out and use the same technique and try and figure out their why. Why are we here and what are we trying to build? Right. And one of the, the the ways that they do that is that they have curriculum.

1:09:48 And so those first two things that the K and EU the the no, that's content. What do kids need to know? And then the EU is understanding that's concepts. They generally know what kids should know and what they should understand. The last part is what they should be able to do. That's the skills, right?

1:10:05 The skills, I think, are the part where most schools have failed to basically say, hey, when a student graduates from high school, this is the skill set that they need. They already know what they need to know, but they don't necessarily know what skills they need. And if they do, they need to update that skill set.

1:10:22 So I would say that that would be my first, my first reaction to the school needs to say who do we want these graduates to be? They call up, they call it a graduate profile, right? You, you, you build, you build the product. So this is backwards from what Robbie said earlier. With a factory model, the idea you you do actually need to know what the intended widget is that comes off the end of the factory line before you can build the factory essentially. Interesting.

1:10:48 So basically we are about to round up, but I want you to attack this improvement from three perspectives. That is the philosophy on British podcast is built mindset, skill set, tool sets. So in order to achieve the improvements in the schools that you work with, what is the right mindset? What is the right skill set and what are the right tool sets? So for us, it's again, we're working with people, working with, with educators who are in power, who have positional power and they're in control of the futures of many, many people, both the teachers and the students and sometimes even the parents.

1:11:35 And so really we're just looking for leadership to be open minded, to learn to care about their kids, to work through challenging things in a, in a, in a way that they're comfortable with the uncomfortable. Because we're going to bring in a lot of different ideas, different tools, different structures.

1:11:58 And when you're in that position of leadership where you feel like I've got it and things are good and stir this, we're not optimal, but I'm safe. I'm safe in the bubble that I'm in. Why change? I just need to make the paychecks coming in. The power's there. I get to do what I want. Why, why mess this up? I, I could be bringing these guys in and they bring a philosophy in or a tool or a mindset or whatever. And that disrupts my little safe bubble. So there is a, a sense of risk.

1:12:30 So these, these leaders need to be a bit, they need to be willing to risk their personal comfort for the greater good of children and their future. And sometimes parents want that, that same methodology that they had when they were kids. So like I was taught in a certain way in 1980 and 1990, and my kids should be being taught in that exact same way.

1:12:54 And if it doesn't look like that, I'm going to complain. I'm going to cause a ruckus. I'm going to make life uncomfortable for leadership because I want it to be like it was for me. And so we have to combat those those mindsets with parents with leadership, like, hey, I know that things have gone a certain way, but the world's different.

1:13:12 And so we need to prepare appropriately. So that's kind of the, the first thing the, the skill set really is one that's adaptive because there's just so many things that are coming at us. We're being bombarded with, with various very, you know, different software strategies, ideas, all these different things are coming at us.

1:13:32 So I think adaptability is and almost survivability is is kind of the name of the game, especially with the speed of these tools and how they're built, I mean. It's verbal skills. You can build yeah, soft skills are so important, learner mindset, being adaptable because there's just so many things being thrown at us.

1:13:47 And. And it's going to come to the point it almost says now that the layman can develop software where if even if you're not a programmer, you can work with these language models to build really comprehensive, really impactful, really powerful goals. And so when the masses can create, you're going to just get so many great things coming out of that and you have to be ready for the for, for change. It just has to be part of your DNA of like I am going to use the best possible tool or my kids, whatever that may be. And today it might be this and tomorrow it might be that. And we have to be ready for that. So I think the soft skills, malleability and having the adaptability to, to take on

1:14:27 these different things that are being pushed at us almost on a daily, daily level our daily basis rather. And then when it comes to tool, it's just, I mean, I, I hate to say, but it's like, what's the best tool today? What is the best tool that we can use today to help our kids for tomorrow? And so today it might be, you know, a spreadsheet tomorrow could be an amazing software called relief roster that helps you, helps you coordinate and manage your, your substitute teachers.

1:14:59 So I think those it's less about the tool, it's more just more about mindset. Yeah. And I think that that tool set like to your, to your point, like there's a, there's a foundational piece. I'm sitting here looking at my computer, right and thinking it is still important that kids have access to whatever the whatever the hardware sort of modality is of the of the current day. Right now it's mobile devices and laptops or tablets or, you know, whatever.

1:15:29 I think that beyond that, I don't know that it matters that much what the tool that the tool set to me is the least important of all of them. I think really the more important part is kids learning how to learn, right? So like for you and I, we, we were old when we've grown up learning all these years and we both love learning.

1:15:49 And so I think the LLM, the best part about the LLM wasn't like, let the machine do my work for me. The biggest benefit to it is like, I have AI have a free like university level, you know, learning possibility here. This thing can help me learn new skills and that's how I've used it. It's been like the best thing ever for someone who loves learning because it's it's just basically wired for you to. Ask for all the questions, yeah.

1:16:16 Asking all the questions, how do I build that piece of software? And to me, every single kid should be building software, not because I, I think software is particularly the answer, but because it's easy to do it now and, and like it's, it's possible. It's still complex, but it's a process that's so worth it. Because if, if we're living our lives based around these digital tools, I think kids should be able to create their own, you know, their their own apps, their own software to run on these tools.

1:16:46 Yeah, yeah. It's and not just for entertainment. I mean, like for productivity. You talk about relief roster. I mean, like I created that as a productivity tool to solve a problem. And that's what software should be. It should be solving problems. You know, one of the things I used to go into schools and say I had this pyramid and it was like the pyramid has these. It was almost like back in the the dark ages, it was like the masses were illiterate, but at the very top you have the clergy that could read and write, right? And there was almost this mindset of like, they're too common to need to know how to do this. They just need to work in the fields and let us smart people, us intelligent people, we're

1:17:23 going to be the ones controlling them and telling them what they need to know, basically. And then eventually we all learned how to read and write. And it's a good thing we're all not going to be, you know, New York bestseller authors, but we should all be able to write for our own personal use. I'm writing a letter to my mom, I'm writing a letter to a friends, or I'm writing a short story for my kid.

1:17:43 We should all be able to do that. And I think it's the same thing now. It's like there was this pyramid of creators and consumers. The creators at the top being the Mark Zuckerberg who comes from the sleep family where his dad paid for his special tutors to teach him how to program. And then he was just born at the right time and was able to create Facebook.

1:17:59 And now he's this multi billionaire, whereas everyone else is kind of like like I just consume the software they make and that's good enough for me. Whereas now, like you're saying it should be, everyone should be creating software, you know, because we can make cool things can. Make our mindset I. Can make a birthday present for you about some stupid memory that we had back in you know what I mean about XYZ where we used to cat attack if you remember that software I made you know and so it's.

1:18:31 OK, I'm going to be able to catch up with you. So from me to you guys, it's a very, very big thank you. And of course, I'd like to see one person shares the time with you this year, the likely to be because the SI unit commercial and like this time, of course, love and our respect to you guys. Of course.

1:18:46 I wish you guys the very best and hope that you guys make massive, massive positive impact. It's goodbye for me. Do you want to give a shout out to anybody before you leave? Yeah, I was going to say for any of your listeners who's interested in and who's an educator or who has a kid in a school who can, you know, wants improvements for their schools, go to techmyschool.org.

1:19:09 We'd love to serve. We serve schools around the world. We have software schools. Yep. We do it in the, we do it in the in person or or virtually. We can help your school. We'll go in and we do it for free. Reach out to us. Great deals on software too for schools. We we get huge discounts because we're a nonprofit and we act as a philanthropic arm for a lot of Ed tech software companies. So hit us up if you want to talk about software discounts too. Yep.

1:19:38 Interesting, interesting. I think I have somebody for you guys now. We'll talk about that behind the cameras. Goodbye, guys. Always go for something in your life, conceive, believe, strive to grind and achieve. Thanks for having us.