KindlED
The KindlED Podcast explores the science of nurturing children's potential and creating empowering learning environments. Powered by Prenda, each episode offers actionable insights to help you ignite your child's love of learning. We'll dive into evidence-based tools and techniques that kindle curiosity, motivation, and well-being in young learners. Do you have a question, topic, or story you'd like to share with us? Get in touch at podcast@prenda.com.
KindlED
Season 1 Top 10 | #10 The Power of Agency. A Conversation with Ian Rowe
We're starting off the summer break with #10 of our Top 10 Season 1 episodes.
Ever wondered how personal agency can transform lives? In Episode 11 of The KindlED Podcast, Kaity and Adriane welcome author and educational expert Ian Rowe. Ian, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, co-founder of Vertex Partnership Academies, and CEO of Public Prep, shares his inspiring story of personal 'coming of agency.'
ABOUT THE GUEST:
Ian Rowe is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he focuses on education and upward mobility, family formation, and adoption. Mr. Rowe is also the cofounder of Vertex Partnership Academies, a new network of character-based International Baccalaureate high schools opening in the Bronx in 2022; the chairman of the board of Spence-Chapin, a nonprofit adoption services organization; and the cofounder of the National Summer School Initiative. He concurrently serves as a senior visiting fellow at the Woodson Center and a writer for the 1776 Unites Campaign.
Until July 1, 2020, Mr. Rowe was CEO of Public Prep, a nonprofit network of public charter schools based in the South Bronx and Lower East Side of Manhattan. Before joining Public Prep, he was deputy director of postsecondary success at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, senior vice president of strategic partnerships and public affairs at MTV, director of strategy and performance measurement at the USA Freedom Corps office in the White House, and cofounder and president of Third Millennium Media. Mr. Rowe also joined Teach for America in its early days.
Mr. Rowe has been widely published in the popular press, including in the New York Post, The Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Examiner. He is often interviewed on talk radio programs. With his forthcoming book “Agency” (Templeton Press, May 2022), Ian Rowe seeks to inspire young people of all races to build strong families and become masters of their own destinies.
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About the podcast:
The KindlED Podcast explores the science of nurturing children's potential and creating empowering learning environments.
Powered by Prenda Microschools, each episode offers actionable insights to help you ignite your child's love of learning. We'll dive into evidence-based tools and techniques that kindle young learners' curiosity, motivation, and well-being.
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We're all ears! If you have a question or topic you'd love our hosts to tackle, please send it to podcast@prenda.com. Let's dive into the conversation together!
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Adrienne, how's it going? It's great. How are you, Katie? I'm so great. I'm excited that it's summer and that we are going to re-release some of our favorite episodes, and we're going to start it off with one of my absolute favorite episodes, episode 11.
Speaker 1:This is a conversation with Ian Rowe. He wrote a book called Agency. The episode is called the Power of Agency and here's why this is my favorite, one of my favorites. It's too hard to pick real favorites. You know there's so many good ones. I just felt so empowered after this episode and like so much hope. Honestly, because Ian Rowe is just one of the most amazing people and he is doing, and has done, so many amazing things in the world already and he's literally just getting started, and I just love how all of his work is really directed at some of the most like hard to talk about things, and I just think that he is able to address all of this stuff in such a candid, transparent and empathetic way. I just really learned a lot from him and I'm excited to replay this highlight. What did you like about it?
Speaker 2:I loved his personal story that he shared and how he was able to reflect and realize that this one moment is really what changed everything for him. So that's really really powerful and he's just a great storyteller and he isn't just saying these things, but he's actually doing them. Like you said, he's making a big change in the world and we are so thankful for the work that he does in education.
Speaker 1:Amen to that, let's do it. Hi and welcome to the Kindle podcast where we dig into the art and science behind kindling the motivation, curiosity and mental wellbeing of the young humans in our lives.
Speaker 2:Together, we'll discover practical tools and strategies you can use to help kids unlock their full potential and become the strongest version of their future selves.
Speaker 1:Hello and welcome to the Kindled podcast today.
Speaker 2:Hi, Adrienne how's it going? Good how are you Katie?
Speaker 1:Doing so good. Who are we talking to today?
Speaker 2:We are talking to Ian Rowe. I'm super excited because I don't know a whole lot about him or his work, but just doing a little research. I cannot wait to explore his book on agency and just learn about all he's doing in education. Would you like me to read his bio?
Speaker 1:I would love if you would read his bio. Oh my gosh, that'd be great.
Speaker 2:Okay, so Ian Rowe is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he focuses on education and upward mobility, family formation and adoption, and upward mobility, family formation and adoption. Mr Rowe is also the co-founder of Vertex Partnership Academies, a new network of character-based international baccalaureate high schools opening up in the Bronx. Until July 1st 2020, mr Rowe was CEO of Public Prep, a nonprofit network of public charter schools based in the South Bronx and Lower East Side of Manhattan. Before joining Public Prep, he was Deputy Director of Post-Secondary Success at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, senior Vice President of Strategic Partnerships and Public Affairs at MTV, director of Strategy and Performance Measurement at the USA Freedom Corps Office in the White House, and co-founder and president of the Third Millennium Media. Mr Rowe also joined Teach for America in its early days. We cannot wait to have this conversation with him.
Speaker 1:We are so excited to welcome Ian Rowe to the Kindle podcast today. Welcome.
Speaker 3:Oh wow, adrienne Katie, it's so great to see you. Thank you for having me on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're really excited for our conversation today. I feel like we're going to learn so much. The first thing I just want to hear from you is I want to hear your story. Tell us a little bit about you, about your background. How did you land in this work that you're in? What's your big? Why, kind of like, tell us how did you land in this work that you're in?
Speaker 3:What's your big why? Tell us about the change you're trying to make in the world? Sure Well, first of all, again, thank you for having me on, and that is always a great first question. What's my why? And I think for many of us, I guess our why was shaped by experiences that occurred early in our lives, and for me that has a lot to do with my parents.
Speaker 3:My parents, vincent and Eula, were born and raised in Jamaica, west Indies. They got married, they had a whole adventure. They moved to England, they had me and my brother, but ultimately they came to the United States in the late 1960s, 1968 in particular, in a very tumultuous year of our country. And so obviously my parents came to the United States with clear-eyed about, particularly issues around race and the challenges that existed in our country, and there were race riots, all sorts of challenges. But they also knew that the country was changing and that there was increasing opportunity for people of all races. So the Civil Rights Act that just passed, the Voting Rights Act, and so my parents had a belief that with a strong family, good education, strong faith, they could make a go of it here in the United States with their two sons, and we first moved to Brooklyn and then we moved on up to Queens and that's where, probably, I had the experience that has helped me define my why, and I was in junior high school 231. We had just moved from Brooklyn to Queens, to Laurelton, queens, which is a small town, predominantly white, jewish, italian, but it was slowly changing, becoming more racially integrated, and unfortunately that led to a number of incidents that were racially motivated and it was becoming a problem, that were racially motivated and it was becoming a problem and our junior high school 231, was almost becoming like the epicenter of racial incidents and the school board decided to solve the problem by opening an annex, another junior high school in the Rosedale section of Queens, so it was the town just bordering Laurelton, but it was more predominantly white, and so they were like, let's just create another junior high school.
Speaker 3:And so, in effect, what happened was all the white parents in our school 231, took their kids out and moved them to this annex in Rosedale, leaving Junior High School 231 as basically a segregated, all-black school, and my parents, you know, who had come to the United States in pursuit of the American dream on the assumption that you know where the white kids go, that's where the better education will be that they were going to take me out of junior high school 231 and send me to the annex. And you know I will always remember the Sunday night before the Monday morning when the transfer papers had to be submitted, because, you know, for my entire life my parents were the holy grail for me. My parents would crawl through broken glass for my brother and I if they felt that that was the right thing to do. So I had never questioned my parents about anything and this decision seemed should have been just like any other decision which I trusted. But something didn't feel right about me being taken out of my school, which I loved, and to go to this annex school. So that Sunday night I begged and I pleaded with my parents not to go. You know why? Does my school have to be bad? Just because all the kids are going to be left there, or black? I love my school. I love my teachers. You know it's their loss at this annex if they don't go to 231. And I cried I mean, I've never challenged my parents on anything, anything, but it just it just felt like it was not the right thing and somehow, some way, my parents relented, they let me stay at 231.
Speaker 3:And I will always remember that moment because in some ways I didn't know it then, but I describe it now as my coming of agency moment where I suddenly felt like I had more to almost approve to my parents that them believing in me, them trusting my decision, they weren't going to regret it. And so I became more invested and I had this realization that I could influence my destiny. You know I could. I could play a part in what the future held for me. And you know I I always wonder, if my parents hadn't relented and I went to this annex, would I have had the same level of investment in my own education that I believe I had?
Speaker 3:Since that moment and you know, I think they made the right decision I went to, we finished there at 231, I went to Brooklyn, tech and Cornell and lots of life experiences, but there is no question, all of my work in education, even me writing my book. I'm hoping to recreate for millions of other young people that same kind of coming of agency moment where you realize, you know what I can be a part of shaping my own destiny, like I can play a role, I'm invested, I'm in it, and so that's my why, like every single institution I've been a part of, it shouldn't matter what the demographic makeup is of the organization, regardless of the racial composition or anything else. You can still have high expectations and believe that it can be the best, regardless of who composes that institution. So that's kind of a story that you know, that's very real and I think about it all the time, like that turning point when I was, you know, when I was 12 years old, that I think put me on the pathway that I'm on now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, wow, that's so interesting. Thank you for sharing that. A phrase me on the pathway that I'm on now. Yeah, wow, that's so interesting. Thank you for sharing that. A phrase that you just used that really caught my attention was a coming of agency. We use the phrase a coming of age meaning like getting older, but that doesn't always go with the coming of agency, where you really start to make decisions for yourself and feel that weight of responsibility.
Speaker 3:Yes, yeah. And the thing is I sometimes wonder for a lot of young people if they never really experienced that. You know, if they go through their life hearing messages about all the reasons you can't do something, all the forces that are arrayed against you, all the structural barriers, and unfortunately, I think we're kind of living in that time, especially if you're of a certain background, if you're from an economic class, a certain race, gender, that there's just all these narratives that are telling you systems are rigged against you or you've got to wait for some other institution to change its ways before you can be successful. So this idea of a coming of agency moment, I just think, and especially you know, you guys, you know Prenda schools, like you have young people who you know, who are in your schools. You have parents who have the greatest aspirations for their kids and yet we're living at a time where it's not always clear like what's my pathway? How can I become an architect of my own destiny? How can I become an agent of my own uplift? So that coming of agency moment is something I think is really important.
Speaker 3:And the thing is we got to make sure that when young people do experience that coming of agency moment where they realize, wow, you know what, I can control my destiny, that they have the resources and support to actually carry that through. Um you. One has to go hand in hand. Where you realize you know what I actually do, have power within my own life. And, and and now you have the capacity and knowledge of how to exercise the tools of power in your own life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. We're actually studying this right now with our Prenda kids to see how, what percentage of them have what we, or what is termed an internal locus of control.
Speaker 3:Yeah, how are you assessing that?
Speaker 1:So there are some standard protocols in the literature about like questions that you can ask and databases of of responses that you can compare your your sample against. So we're just asking the kids K through 8 kids these questions and seeing kind of where they are experiencing that locus of control in the world. Is it internal or is it external to them?
Speaker 3:A few years ago we released a study called Black Men Making it in America, because oftentimes when you hear about black men you almost immediately go to a very negative narrative. You go to incarceration rates, you go to non-marital birth rates, you go to the oppression of black men and rarely do you ever hear about this thriving black middle and upper class of Black men.
Speaker 3:And this study was trying to find out. Well, what are the characteristics that make these men successful? Is it that they're just all LeBron James they can bounce a basketball or is there anything else in common? And what was interesting about this research study was that it did find that there were a few common elements. And typically these men had finished their education, at least a high school education. They had been full-time employed. If they had had children, they'd been married first.
Speaker 3:So there were a few kind of behavioral actions that were clear, but the common characteristic above all was this sense of personal agency, that they had this internal locus of control, that they felt that, even though they can't control everything, they were the greatest force that could influence, whatever the external factors were that could either be working against them or working with them, but they had the wherewithal to know that they had the power to assert that influence. So you may want to look at that, but I always remember that was a powerful study, that helping young people understand yes, there are challenges, yes, there are barriers, yes, there are blockades, but I have the ability to overcome, which is a really inspiring and, you know, sort of character based strength that I wrote my book for and that we're trying to cultivate in our schools.
Speaker 2:It makes me think of how important it is for the adults in these children's lives to understand, even like self-determination theory, and understanding how important you know autonomy and and uh, relatable-ness, is that a word? Uh, relatedness. Relatedness Relatedness and competency are it's so important, and so I I'm hearing you say you know you have this book, and I would love to know more about, like what work do you do? I know you have schools. Where are you spending your energy these days?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's a good question because I feel typical Jamaican. I've got like seven jobs and but the one certainly one of the biggest ones is running Vertex Partnership Academies, which is a new virtues based international baccalaureate high school that we just opened in the Bronx. As you can hear from the bio, I'm also a senior fellow at AEI. I have the book I write, but in some ways all of the work is connected to this question of how do we empower the rising generation to overcome the victimhood narrative that is seemingly so present in our present day zeitgeist. There's a great poem that our kids at Vertex are going to learn. It's Invictus, which is a great poem by William Ernest Henley. If you guys aren't teaching it in your schools, you may want to read it, because I mean you could spend a whole semester just studying this poem and the circumstances of the author who wrote it, william Ernest Henley.
Speaker 3:But the last two lines of the poem are I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul. Just really powerful, powerful words. And I've actually been in a school I visited a school in London a couple of months ago where all the kids learned that poem. So imagine, in this cafeteria, about 150 kids standing up. You know who all have memorized this poem, shouting in unison, proudly and strongly. You know strong spines. I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul. It's really inspiring, you know, just like there are no victims in that school, and that's why I'm hoping there's a similarly created vertex, but there is this the power of oral recitation of poetry, and so you know. So what am I doing? Like so, in all the work that I'm doing, whether it's the book or the Vertex, what are the tools to help young people build that internal locus of control that you're seeking to assess now? Because it doesn't come from nowhere, you know, it doesn't just happen. You know kids don't just pull themselves up by the bootstraps or they feel that they can overcome any hurdle. That has to be cultivated.
Speaker 3:And over the last few years I've really identified, at least in my view, what I consider these two meta-narratives that I think are really robbing young people of their sense of agency. And these two meta narratives I call one I call blame the system, and the other I call blame the victim that if you're not successful in this country, it's because America itself is this oppressive nation that based on your race, your class, your gender. The systems are inherently rigged against you. You know, if you're black, there's a white supremacist lurking on every corner. You know, capitalism itself is evil and these systems are so rigged, so discriminatory, so powerful that you as an individual are powerless to overcome them and you have to wait for some major government redistribution program or something else to help you. And obviously that kind of message, if you hear it over and over and over again, you start to feel that kind of message. If you hear it over and over and over again, you start to feel that I guess it's true. You know I'm powerless. There's this term in positive psychology called learned helplessness, and I think that's a phenomenon that occurs in communities where you're constantly fed this narrative that there are these systems, there's these oppressive structures holding you back, so obviously that's you. That's very debilitating. But on the other side is this narrative blame the victim and in a blame the victim narrative. That's a view of America where America is great.
Speaker 3:If you're not successful in the country, it's not America, that's the problem. You're the problem, right. You didn't pull yourself up by your own bootstraps, you didn't take advantage of all these amazing opportunities that exist in our country. Like you, are the architect of your own failure to a young person who may have been born into a low poverty situation, without a strong family, not part of a strong faith community. I mean I just the school that we just opened, vertex Partnership Academies, in the Bronx.
Speaker 3:Of the 2000 or so student public school students who started ninth grade in the year 2015,. Four years later, only 7% graduated from high school ready for college right, meaning that they started ninth grade and either dropped out or they did earn their high school diploma but still couldn't do math nor reading without remediation if they were to go to school. And in New York City there's a cap on charter schools. So even if you wanted to create a great school to serve all those kids, you couldn't do it right. So an eight-year-old can't solve that problem. So we have to give grace when you hear these narratives. Well, why didn't you just pull yourself up by your bootstraps? Or why didn't you just succeed with all these opportunities? So, between blame the system and blame the victim, to me those are two narratives that really damage the aspirations of kids, because the message is either you know the system's too rigged against you or it's your fault.
Speaker 3:For me, my entire life, it's always been around. You can't just shout in the rain. You can't just complain. You know what's your empowering alternative complain, you know what's your empowering alternative. Yes, we all. There's lots of people complaining and whining, blah, blah, blah. But what is it that you want young people to say yes to right? What is it? What is the framework that you're putting forth that they can say, okay, I get it. At least at least there's another path I can go down. And that's why I wrote my book Agency, with this framework of free family, religion, education and entrepreneurship as my offering, you know, based on, you know, 30 years of observation in this work with young people. That I think can actually help young people in particular see a very different path for themselves and hopefully have that coming of agency moment and the tools for know what to do after that.
Speaker 2:Can you give us your definition of agency? I found this very powerful when looking up your work and because I think I was thinking agency of just oh, I get to make my own choices, I get to do whatever I want. Or sometimes we talk a lot about, like I mentioned, self-determination theory and parents and educators think, oh, we can't just let a child do whatever the heck they want. You know like where is this? So I love the way you tie in agency to morality. So can you define that for us please?
Speaker 3:You just said something very important. You know what you were really describing like well, do whatever you want. I mean, to some degree, you know what you were really describing like well, do whatever you want. I mean, to some degree, everyone can right, because everyone has free will, right. But I define agency as the force of your free will guided by moral discernment, the force of your free will guided by moral discernment. And the reason I that that that last clause is so important is that there are tons of people with free will who do a lot of bad things right, who don't make the best choices in their own lives, and so the question is, if the people that have been successful in our society have felt a sense of self-determination or a sense of agency, where does it come from? Right? So I often describe agency like a vector or velocity right, where velocity is not just speed, it's speed and direction, and it's the and direction part that's so important, and that's why I have put forth a framework free, because how does one learn to become morally discerning? How do you exercise your free will? In what direction do?
Speaker 3:In my observations of working with young people from every kind of background, you know, rich kids, poor kids, white kids, black kids, hispanic kids, asian kids. You know, kids in homeless shelters, kids in foster care. You know I've worked with kids in very challenging situations as they grew up domestic violence, poverty, dysfunctional homes. And yet I've seen some young people, as they make their passageway into young adulthood, make decisions that unfortunately recreate the same disadvantage that they experienced growing up. And yet I've seen other young people who have made again in similar situations, where they're facing all sorts of conditions that one would predict oh my God, that kid's lost for generations. And yet they make different sets of decisions where they break the cycle of disadvantage. And the question is why? What makes the difference? It's like that study I mentioned before with black men. You know the narrative also force of your free will, guided by moral discernment. It's also where does the power to become morally discerning come from? And my observation is that there are four pillars family, religion, education and entrepreneurship. That those are the four pillars that young people who have broken the cycle of disadvantage have embraced along their pathway into young adulthood. So the first F for family.
Speaker 3:What's important here is that, regardless of the family that a young person might be from, part of the way that they broke their cycle of disadvantage was about all about the family that they were on the pathway to form right. So it's not about the family you're from, it's about the family that you're about to form. And typically young people who broke the cycle of disadvantage were following what often is referred to as the success sequence, which is that they had finished at least their high school degree, they got a full-time job of any kind just so they learned the dignity and discipline of work, and if they had children and had gotten married first. 97% of millennials who follow that series of decisions avoid poverty and the vast majority enter the middle class or beyond. So it's not a guarantee. The vast majority enter the middle class or beyond. So it's not a guarantee. But the young people who are on a pathway of transforming their conditions for what they were born and raised in to, something on a pathway to prosperity usually recognize that the most consequential decision they could make as a human being was to bring another human being into the world and that they were different pathways to get there. So that's the first anchor of my framework free that young people who broke the cycle of disadvantage were on not from the family they were from, but on a different pathway for the family that they were about to form.
Speaker 3:The second big observation was that typically young people who broke the cycle of disadvantage had some kind of personal faith commitment, usually through some kind of religious affiliation. Didn't matter if it was Christianity, buddhism, actually didn't matter, it was just important that they lived by some moral code, that they had some mechanism of making decisions that helped them grapple with whatever the issues might be. And what was also interesting was that they were also part of a larger community. So whether or not they were going to church each week, they were part of a community of people. That helped them adhere to that moral code.
Speaker 3:Third observation education was that the young people who broke the cyclic disadvantage usually benefited from some kind of educational freedom or school choice. So Prenda is a great example of that and what that can mean when a parent I mean imagine if you were in that school district in the Bronx where only 7% of kids graduate from high school ready for college and you have no choice. It's really hard to even get on the first rung of success. And then the very final E that I've observed of young people who broke the cycle of disadvantage if they were on the way to path of to form a strong family. They had a personal faith commitment. They benefited from educational freedom.
Speaker 3:The last E in free is about entrepreneurship and being a problem solver and that it could mean starting your own business or work. But it was really this idea of when you encounter challenges, you had the ability to overcome and that you didn't crumble under pressure but that in some ways, these first three pillars helped. You have to develop what I call the overcomers mindset. So that's what I'm now trying to do through my book, through school, through all of my messaging Like here's a framework that a young person can hopefully embrace, especially to counter the blame the system and the blame the victim narratives.
Speaker 1:That is wonderful. I love that framework. So I'm curious in your schools, how do you go about changing the hearts and minds of your students to help them unlock all of this Like? Can you walk us through your process for moving kids forward in their mindsets, attitudes, beliefs about their potential?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So I mean, and it's I mean, it's a really good question, because how do you actualize this stuff, how do you operationalize it? And we do it in a couple of ways. One of the ways we operationalize this idea to help young people understand the sense of agency that they can develop is to build new institutions, like a new school that offers this very rigorous international baccalaureate curriculum. You typically don't find an IB program in low-income communities in the Bronx, certainly not an all-IB model, which is what we are seeking to do. That's one of the first things is, if you think back to the story that I shared at the very beginning of a podcast, where my parents wanted to take me out of the school because there was a sort of implicit assumption that if this school were all black, it would have lower expectations, lower standards, and I wanted to stay in that school, and the message I got back then, and I still carry with me today, is that we can have the highest of expectations, regardless of who is in the building. And so I think that's the first thing is to ensure that young people know that there are rigorous expectations for them and that they're going to be supports and structures to help them achieve, and you know, and so that's more the kind of traditional academic model of math and science and engineering, everything that we're trying to do in our school Separately.
Speaker 3:We also have a class called Pathways to Power, and Pathways to Power is more of a it's kind of a life skills class and it's all about you, you know. It's all about what are the aspirations you want to achieve. Our anchor text is the seven habits of highly effective teens, and the first habit is all about goal setting. So the first part of the Pathways to Power class is all about what is it that you want to accomplish, not in 50, 60, 70 years, but in the next 10 years of your life, the next 10 years when you're going to be making huge decisions. Now again, these are ninth graders, right, so you're 14 years old. In the next 10 years of your life, you're going to be making decisions about your education, about your work, about relationships.
Speaker 3:How do you go about navigating those decisions? And once we lay out the goals and all the kids write that down and share them publicly, then we ask well, what are the obstacles going to be? What do you think, based on your own lived experience, what you observe your peers and oftentimes that can be things like families, family issues or families being formed prematurely or not having access to good schools or not having access to work, and so we kind of work through strategies that young people can deploy to overcome what those likely hurdles are. I mean, I'll share a story with you. When we were designing Vertex one of the things that we did actually pre-COVID we visited high schools across the country, and there's one in particular in New Orleans that we visited and it was a group of ninth graders and this is a predominantly low income group, a multiracial Black, hispanic and Asian kids.
Speaker 3:And I remember asking of this group because we were getting some pushback in New York with this concept that I'm just about to tell you about. But I said to this group of ninth graders, these 14-year-olds you know, who are almost all low income, I said you know, if you knew that there were a series of decisions in your control that when young people just like you followed that series of decisions people just like you followed that series of decisions, 97% ended up avoiding poverty and the vast majority of you know, entered the middle class or beyond. You know, would you want to know what those decisions are? And they looked at me and they said, well, yeah, you know. Why wouldn't I want to know? Yes, of course we'd like to know. And I said, well, there's some grownups who think that you should not know, that if I tell you you might be offended or insulted in some way and that you might be taken aback, so better just not to tell you at all. And so they looked at me again like, are you crazy? Well, what are you talking about? You tell us, you tell us and the real issues are the structural barriers. Better not to say things like what we then proceeded to talk about.
Speaker 3:We talked about these elements of the success sequence where I didn't say to these kids you must do this. I didn't say, you know, in a prescriptive fashion these are the steps you must follow, but more so a descriptive fashion which said over the course of your next 10 years, you're going to be making progress, a whole host of decisions that have different likely rewards or consequences associated with that series of decisions that you choose. So here's one set of decisions that you know, 97% of young people avoid poverty. Here's another series of decisions, maybe in a different order, that result in different likely outcomes, and here's another set of decisions. So the whole idea is that we want to put you in the driver's seat of your own life. Right, that's how you operationalize these things.
Speaker 3:It's not so much tell, tell, tell. It's submerge young people in all the information that is very relevant to their lives and decisions that they're making. And what was interesting about this conversation with ninth graders back in New Orleans back in 2019, is that at the end of it, I felt that these young people felt that they had been respected as future decision makers within their own lives, and that's what agency is all about. That. You know that there are these big things coming up. You know that there are these big choices you're going to have to make. Do you have the information? Do you have the pillars, one of which is, hopefully, great schools, a great family that you're thinking about, a personal faith commitment? These are the pillars that lots of evidence over millennia tells us it's connected to human flourishing, and so we're trying to bring this collective wisdom that has existed for eons into our schools in ways to operationalize what our aspirations are for kids.
Speaker 2:That's huge and I hear you identifying and helping these kids identify their hurdles and the roadblocks. Have you found that you have faced any roadblocks in facilitating this shift in mindset and behavior, especially with the adults that are working with these students, because you said that there's a lot of adults out there that don't want to give those decisions to these kids. So what roadblocks have you faced?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So the truth is full disclosure. I've faced a lot of pushback, and I mean not from everyone. I mean there are some people who are adults, who know the pathway of empowering a rising generation is to equip them with the tools of empowerment, not to suppress the information. And, by the way, many of them have practiced in their own lives to be successful.
Speaker 3:But we're living in a weird time right now where it actually takes courage to say obvious things, to say that, hey, here's this data, for example, that says if you make this series of decisions, 97% of the people who follow it avoid poverty. It's not 100%, it's not a guarantee, but why wouldn't we want to tell young people about that? Well, there's some adults who are so invested in the blame, the system narrative, that you know, no, no, no, no, no. We got to focus our energies on the structural barriers. That's the main problem, that's the reason kids aren't succeeding. So don't you know, don't waste time, because if you start talking about the tools that young people can deploy individually, you're taking the attention away from the real issue and unless, for some people, unless you are fully down with that narrative, in some ways you're almost, you know, you're almost canceled. You're almost. You know folks don't want to hear from you and I face that. And you know, all I can say to people is that when we're trying to speak to young people I know I've named my book Agency but in some ways the most important character-based strength or virtue is courage Courage to speak the truth to young people about the factors that really drive human flourishing. That doesn't mean we should ignore systems and barriers that are out there. For example, in New York City there's a cap on charter schools and again we have 50,000, 60,000 kids on wait lists. So we should all be trying to fight against those structural barriers that impede the ability of primarily low-income folks who just want their kids to have a shot at going to a great school so we can chew gum and walk at the same time.
Speaker 3:But to not empower young people with the information, the very granular elements that they can control in their life, that's a disservice. It's almost irresponsible. I mean one of the things we'll be doing. You know in our school that there's, there's a just to give you an example of people who you know who who are often opposed to the kinds of things that I'm putting forth, there's a piece of data that many people know. It's focused on the racial wealth gap, which is a real thing. You know, if you look at the 2019 survey of consumer finances, the wealth of the average white family is about $160,000 more than the wealth of the average black family. So that's a fact. It's documented forth.
Speaker 3:The New York Times 1619 Project, you know, wrote a long, 8,000-word essay basically saying that it doesn't matter what a Black person does, it doesn't matter if you get married, it doesn't matter if you buy a home, it doesn't matter if you get college educated, it doesn't matter if you save. None of those things, in her view, can overcome 400 years of racialized plundering. End quote. Now, mind you, nicole Hannah-Jones has done all four of those things in her own life, and good for her to lead a life of prosperity, but it just sends this message that there's nothing you can do.
Speaker 3:And, of course, if you look at that same data and just take into account two additional pieces of information family structure and education the average Black married, college-educated family has about $160,000 more wealth than the average white single-parent family. So the reason that's important and the reason we cover that in our schools, is that perhaps there are factors beyond just race, in this case, family structure and education that young people need to know that there are levers in their control that are dramatically different. So, yes, there are folks who will push back on some of the ideas that I'm putting forth, but we need courage today. We need courage to really help young people understand, without you know, rose-colored glasses, you can face the world as it is, with all the challenges that exist for people of any race, any background, but know that there are tools, there are pillars, like the pillars of family, religion, education and entrepreneurship, that can make all the difference in your own life.
Speaker 1:We have loved this conversation. I've learned so much from you. We're going to ask you our last question. We ask this to all of our guests. It's who is someone who has kindled your motivation, curiosity, commitment to excellence or personal purpose passion. Who has that mentor been in your life and what did they do for you?
Speaker 3:Wow, that is a. That is a great question. Um, probably, uh, vincent and Euler row. My parents you know my, my parents, uh, first of all, my parents were married for 48 years before my dad passed away and everything I've been able to accomplish in my life is really a testament to what their vision was for my life. And you know, I'll always remember when my parents were telling, you know, telling my brother and I about their early dating years when they were in Jamaica.
Speaker 3:You know my dad would pick um my mom up on horseback uh for their dates, you know, out in the country. And you know they just had this romantic uh adventure and, uh, my dad uh went to England at the time. Uh, jamaica was an English Commonwealth, so he felt he reached his apex in in Jamaica as it relates to education. So he felt he reached his apex in Jamaica as it relates to education. So he went to London and then when he was there for six, you know they had been dating and now he was in England all by himself, and so he wrote to my mom's parents for her hand in marriage. I mean literally. I mean this is back then and there was big consternation because here's my mom and here's the fellow who they knew but now is in London and her parents said yes. So my mom, at 19 years old, took a boat all by herself to go, take a 5,000 mile journey to London to be with Vincent. They got married and they had my brother and then we had me.
Speaker 3:But they used to share these stories about their adventure, their life, this partnership that they had, and my dad always used this phrase start early with the end in mind, start early with the end in mind, this idea of always knowing you know before you set out, like what is it you're seeking to accomplish in anything you know, in relationships, in work, in business.
Speaker 3:And so you know, I miss them a lot. You know, I wish I could share a lot of the work I'm doing now. You know, when I was writing my book Agency, I was reading passages to my mom. My book agency, I was reading passages to my mom, because my mom was sick and she just passed away. But I was reading passages to her about how she and my dad affected my life and and even though she was having, you know, in failing health, I could tell that she knew that her legacy, that that she was loved and noticed and and noticed and will be remembered. And so I would have to say my parents for providing a vision for what life can be. And now I hope you know, with my own wife and my own children, we can be that for them as well.
Speaker 1:That's beautiful. Thank you for sharing that. Well, it's been an amazing episode here on the kindled podcast and we've learned so much from ian roe. You can get his book anywhere books are sold. It's called agency. It's a truly incredible read. Highly recommend it. Thank you so much for coming on the kindled podcast adrian katie.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much. What an honor all right.
Speaker 1:Well, that's it, for We've hope you've enjoyed this episode with Ian Rowe.
Speaker 2:If this episode was helpful to you, please like, subscribe and follow us on social at Prenda Learn. If you have any questions you'd like for us to address on the podcast, all you have to do is email us at podcast at Prendacom. You can also join our Facebook group, the Kindled Collective, and subscribe to our weekly newsletter, the Sunday Spark, the.
Speaker 1:Kindled Podcast is brought to you by Prenda. Prenda makes it easy for you to start and run an amazing micro school based on all the things that we talk about here on the Kindled Podcast. If you want more information about guiding a Prenda micro school, just go to prendacom. Thanks for listening and remember to keep kindling.
