KindlED | The Prenda Podcast
The KindlED Podcast explores the science of nurturing children's potential and creating empowering learning environments through microschooling. 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 | The Prenda Podcast
Episode 79: Public Microschools Making a Difference. A Conversation with George Philhower.
We explore how clear promises to families can reshape a district and spark a statewide network of microschools. George shares the roadmap from listening to homeschoolers to opening a K–12 site at a campground, plus the courage and imposter syndrome that come with big dreams.
• four promises as the foundation for culture and decisions
• replacing compliance‑driven teacher evaluation with growth
• enrollment insights from homeschool and virtual families
• designing a statewide charter and governance model
• launching a K–12 microschool at a youth campground
• multi‑age, self‑paced, hands‑on learning in small groups
• founder support through district back‑office services
• honest trade‑offs on services, logistics and scale
• using microschools as living labs for district change
• practical advice for leaders facing imposter syndrome
About our guest
Dr. George Philhower serves as the superintendent at Eastern Hancock Schools in Indiana. He holds a Bachelors in Elementary and Special Education from Cardinal Stritch University, a Masters in Instructional Leadership from the University of Indianapolis, and an Ed.S. and Ph.D. from Indiana State University. George imagines a future where every student and educator wakes up genuinely excited to go to school—not because they have to, but because they know it’s a place where they are safe to be themselves, where success is attainable, where their work has meaning, where friendships thrive, and where they are greeted by adults who truly see, support, and love them. George is convinced that the best way to make this vision a reality is through collaboration among leaders in the field of education who are committed to disrupting the status quo. George works hard to share the work happening in his district and learn from others in the field in order to make his vision a reality.
Connect with George
Indiana Microschool Collective
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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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I dream that we can create a system that works for all of them. So the vision of Indiana Microschool Collaborative is that every single kid in Indiana should get to go to a school that feels like it was designed just for them. And you know, that's that's our dream. And and I think imposter syndrome comes when your dreams are so big that they scare you.
SPEAKER_02:Hi, and welcome back to the Prenda Podcast. I'm Kelly Smith, your host for today, and we'll be talking to Dr. George Philhour, who's the superintendent at Eastern Hancock Schools in Indiana. He has a bachelor's in elementary and special ed from Cardinal Strait University, Master's in Instructional Leadership from University of Indianapolis, and an education science and PhD from Indiana State University. But in addition to these degrees and backgrounds and his deep experience in education, George has a big dream. He envisions a time when all students and staff wake up excited to go to school every day. He wants kids to feel like the school they attend was designed for them. And as part of that, he has created the Indiana Microschool Collaborative. We'll be talking to him about microschools, about innovating in education generally, how innovation can be a dirty word in education circles sometimes, changing culture, making promises to families. I think you're really going to love this conversation and excited to share George Philhauer with you. George Philhauer from Indiana, welcome to the podcast. Thanks for having me. George, I've been looking forward to this conversation. Let's start by just introducing our listeners to you and who you are. You've been an educator for a while now. And can you kind of give your, you know, a summary of your professional background? I'd love for people to know who they're listening to.
SPEAKER_01:Sure. I'm George Philhour. Like you said, I'm the superintendent at Eastern Hancock Schools. We're a small rural district just east out just outside of Indianapolis. So if you've ever been to Indianapolis and you've taken Interstate 70 towards Ohio, you can literally see our district from the interstate. However, we're rural enough, you can't really get there from there. So we're kind of out in the middle of nowhere. Okay. 40% students come to us by choice. So in Indiana, it's open enrollment. Kids can go to school pretty much wherever they want. And 40% of our families drive to our district from out of district. Prior to being at Eastern Hancock, I was at Western Wayne Schools, which is which is closer to that Ohio area. I was superintendent for the last two of the 13 years that I was there. When I was a teacher, I was a special education teacher. And yeah, I've, you know, just been an educator my whole life. I've lived my whole life according to the school calendar. I've never lived a year, you know, since I was five years old that was not a part of the school calendar. So just a lifelong educator. And again, couldn't be more excited to be here.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, a couple things kind of standing out as you kind of tell your story. One, nobody does special ed in particular. Really, no one does education at all without really caring a lot about kids. So that's coming through in the way you're you're talking about your background. And I appreciate that. The other thing is is innovation. And I think, you know, some some people don't think of school districts as being innovators. I think this this point that you say 40% coming to East Hancock School District from, I'm guessing from the city. I mean, are they driving out from Indianapolis or coming from other places? I mean, that's that's interesting.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, mostly not Indianapolis. Um we're 40 minutes from Indianapolis, so that would be pretty good drive to get to school, uh, at least you know, from where we are. Um but they come from the neighboring districts that yeah, yeah, we we're pretty proud of of what we do. Um, you know, I've I've been at Eastern Hancock for four years. It was a pretty special place before I got there, but we we kind of define the work that we do within four promises that are outlined in our strategic plan. So promise number one for us is joy, just the idea that we want to think every day, what do we do to make these people want to be at this place? I think the world of education needs some intentional joy. If we don't, we just pay attention to the gravity of life around us. It's not really pulling us towards a place of joy, so it's got to be intentional. So we do lots of little things to bring joy to life. Um, next week we actually have a conference at Eastern Hancock called Joy Jam, where educators come from across the country and join us for two days of fun and um great learning. Promise number two for us is we call it connection. It's just the idea that everyone should feel known by name, strength, interest, future hopes, and dreams and needs. And then we feel like if we can create a place where everybody feels known that like that way, that it's pretty special. Promise number three is growth. Obviously, we're school, so we want everybody learning new things every day that they will remember, which sounds really simple unless you've ever taught anything ever, and you know that it's it's way more complicated than that. And then promise number four, we call success, and it's just the idea that it's our reminder that our our job's not to produce a bunch of academically proficient kids. It's it's we want kids that are confident and excited about that Monday after graduation. So we really work hard to blend what's next with what's happening now. And so it's not a work-based learning and college on campus and and those kinds of things that are happening. And so everything that that we do at Easter Hancock fills through the filter of those four promises.
SPEAKER_02:Oh. Can I just pause and say having promises, presumably promises to the students and to their parents, which is already put you in a pretty unique category. I mean, I work with, you know, educators. I think there's a lot of emphasis on compliance, on, you know, checking boxes for the state, even the portrait of the graduate work that I think has become pretty popular is often oriented toward maybe a promise to society in general or to taxpayers. But for you to go directly to your community and and it's showing, right? 40% of your kids are coming from other places. They're intentionally choosing this because they believe your promise and and you're doing it. So did were you were you the initiator of that or did you inherit these four promises? How did that all come come about?
SPEAKER_01:When I was hired by my school board, one of the early charges was was to create a strategic plan. And you described us as innovative and nothing will scare people away more than the word innovation. So we don't try to talk about that. We we try to talk about the common sense things that we want to do to get better. And so, you know, joint connection, growth, and success are are are things that we definitely wanted to be aspire towards, but they're also descriptors of the things that were true about our community that we were already pretty proud of. Like when we're operating at our best, those are four things that we're doing really, really well. But they're also, you know, they're things that we'll never quite achieve, you know, and yeah, but um definitely aspirational promises.
SPEAKER_02:I think everybody that enters education at some point wants those things, right? They want to connect, they want to help deliver joy and ignite this love of learning. They want growth to happen, obviously. I think they want success, which you could map to real world meaning and and purpose. So you you put these promises out there, but it runs into a brick wall in some cases, especially when it comes to checking boxes and compliance. Some of these things that we've been talking about. Did you have any issues with you know working with your existing faculty, staff, teachers, just to say, like, look, we're gonna make these promises? I mean, I would imagine somebody, even a well-intentioned person, saying, Hey, George, like, I'm sorry, but I'm already overstretched. I I can't make those promises. I can't do that. You know, is is that was that a a journey for you guys, or did it, you know, just sort of happen easily?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I I don't know. I don't know that we have reached much resistance at all. I mean, it's pretty hard to argue with joy, right? Like if you if somebody asks you, Kelly, hey, do you want more joy or less joy? Like you're probably going to choose more.
SPEAKER_02:Um, I I've heard the word, the phrase unfunded mandate bantied about, right? I mean, do you get into that sort of that would be the opposition? It's not that this is a bad goal. It's just how am I supposed to do that? Uh, you're already giving me so many other things that I have to do, you know?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Yeah, true. So I think we use that word innovation, and and really I like to think about it as more of a relentless pursuit toward towards something. And so when when when that's the goal, then how we respond when we come up against barriers like that are it's different than like you don't just say no, you try to figure out that's why we call them promises. You know, if I say something's a priority, I got lots of priorities that I don't get to ever. Um, but if I promise people, then I better figure out how to deliver on those. Um it's a really powerful framework. Yeah. And and then so like it leads to conversations about, you know, what what do we need to stop doing? Like, so like innovation and improvement aren't always just about the new things that you're going to be doing. It's it's sometimes about the things that you're doing that don't align with those promises that you need to stop doing. Or ways that we need to support the educators who need to be delivering on those promises so that we can figure out how to take some things off their plates. Yeah. You know, if it's if it's a promise, then I better figure out how to deliver on it. Or I better call it something different.
SPEAKER_02:Well, I love it. I I think it's incredible and it must have taken courage. I'm I'm sure you're you're being very pleasant about this. I can only imagine the kind of behind-the-scenes conversations and and the work that it takes to really change culture this way and and put this into practice, right? It sounds like this is what your community is experiencing, these promises. I'm sure you would say, and everyone would say in your community, not perfectly delivered, but aspiring toward these things. And it's a noticeable difference when that's written down, it's stated, it's out loud, it's lived or attempted to be lived in the day-to-day. So huge kudos. I mean, if you live near East Hancock School District, give it a look because it sounds like a really special place. And I'm excited about it, even before talking about microschools and some of these things that I'm excited to talk about. So when you say stopping doing things, do you have examples in your mind? Are there things that came up where it was like, well, here's a barrier that's maybe doesn't need to be here, something we could knock down?
SPEAKER_01:So one of the early ones for us at Easter Hancock was teacher evaluation. So um we try to think a lot about the purpose and and what's the true purpose of the thing that needs to be done? And is it our purpose? Like, are we literally just checking a box? And and sometimes that's the case, and we just need to find the most efficient way to get that done. And so we don't have to think about it. Or is there a real purpose? And I think if we thought about what's the real purpose for teacher evaluation, it's it's teacher improvement. But the the challenge for us was when we ask our teachers, does this make you better? Like zero of them said yes. And when we ask our administrators, do you enjoy doing this? zero of them said yes. So we decided to reframe our teacher evaluation model. And we we don't we don't ever have a scenario at Eastern Hancock where somebody goes into a classroom and and gives a teacher a number based on whatever the performance was that they saw during that time. Our teacher growth model was all built on teachers taking a look at our instructional framework and setting goals, doing some reflecting, and then setting goals based on that. And then they get their points and for the end of the year evaluation score, just based on their willingness to have an honest reflection, set goals and you know, make progress towards those goals. So that was one of the things that we needed to stop doing. We needed to stop that silly checking the box process for teacher evaluation. And then on top of that, by doing that, it created an environment where staff are never afraid, like that. I'm if I walk in their classroom, they know that I'm not there to give them a number, which means that they're not scared of whatever's going to happen while we're in there together. Right. Um, yeah, that's it. That's the first thing that comes to mind of something we had to stock.
SPEAKER_02:It's incredible. I mean, it must have taken some guts to kind of change, change your mind. And I don't know, did you have to convince anybody at the school board or somebody that is looking at this and saying, wait, well then how will we know if these teachers are doing a good job?
SPEAKER_01:So we're blessed with an incredible school board that loves our educators and loves our community and they put lots of trust in our leadership team to make the decisions that are going to continue with the results that we're getting.
SPEAKER_02:George, I just got to say, you know, I work with people that are strong leaders that cultivate and foster a lot of trust. And, you know, you're you're sort of you're saying all of the things, right? Like deferring to the board and the educators. And it's it feels almost like magic. I mean, clearly you're you're doing something right, and it sounds like a very high trust environment where, yeah, teachers are happy and they're able to succeed. And now that if you take away some of that existential fear, which I think is in recent years, is you know, school choice continues to grow. Parents are now a customer, we're not used to thinking that way. Uh, you know, what do you mean make promises to the to the families? That's that's a lot. And and yet to embrace all of that and say, wait, we can offer something truly impressive that people will will seek out, they'll want to be here with that choice that we've we've given, we've decided parents should have, we can now listen to them and and engage without fear of all the bad things that I think really governs a lot of the debate and the discussion out there, the the fear. I think that's a it's just a huge gift to to your community. You guys are doing that. So let's talk a little bit about innovating. I mean, I think you've had some rounds of this, but I particularly want to get to the story of this this idea of the district hosting micro schools. As you know, microschools are a phenomenon. We're we've been part of it. We've tried to work with districts, we have not been very successful. We've had some some examples of really innovative school leaders who have worked with us, but oftentimes it's you know, it's just for a combination of reasons, it hasn't clicked. And so I'm very intrigued by you stepping in and and your your your staff and your team saying, let's do um, let's do micro schools here at East Hancock. So I really want to understand where the idea came from and how you you put it into practice.
SPEAKER_01:Sure. So um, you know, when you're 40% of your student bodies coming from out of district, you you try to be really intentional about listening to families and um and and really watching your enrollment really closely. And and we noticed that a growing number of our families each year were choosing uh to homeschool. And um that reflects a national trend that we're all all aware of of a growing percentage of of families. Um we decided that we wanted to invite families into a conversation, not like to try to recruit them to come back to sch our school, but just to learn um, you know, what kind of education were they looking for that we weren't providing. And in the end, you know, after a year or so of of lots of conversations, we learned that they weren't really interested in homeschooling. Some were, but like not all of them. Yeah. They were just looking for something different. And in rural Indiana, especially, there's not another option. So there's there seems to be a like a continuum of choice, and all with it they had the option were was the polar ends of the continuum. So the traditional public school or homeschool. And there were there was no other options between the space. So um that led to us having some almost like design thinking conversations with my board around, you know, what what if we figured out how to step in and provide those spaces in between? And in Indiana, the way to to accomplish that was through um a charter. We could have chartered a um started a charter school within our district, um, which would allow us to offer sites within our district boundaries, but we decided to think a little bit bigger. So we got authorized by the state charter board, and we got authorized as Indiana Microschool Collaborative is our school name. So it's a statewide school. So I currently have two boards that I kind of work for. I've got a 501c3 board where the charter work falls within, and then uh my local school board serves obviously as my major employer. But those boards work together, they're collaborative but separate. So there's a five-member school board, two of those board members are on the micro school collaborative board, and that board is currently made up of six individuals. So those two individuals are a minority of both boards, which allows that those two organizations to work well together, but not necessarily, you know, be the same governing body. So the Indiana Microschool Collaborative can launch learning sites around the state of Indiana, and and we're we've launched one or we're planning to launch one here in the next few weeks when school starts in our area. I'm at a local campground that kind of sits dormant throughout the school year. Our capacity as we got rated open was 50, and we've got 50 kids signed up and a waiting list beyond that. And then as we start to think about the 26, 27 year and beyond, we're we're planning to launch multiple learning sites. And the way the collaboration works is I'm learning that most micro school founders are very interested in the education side of doing school, but not so much interested in payroll and you know the back office, you know, business management and that kind of thing. And I've got an office full of people that are wonderful at those things. So our intention is for the Eastern Hancock office to help with that side and then support micro school founders as they launch new sites all over the state. Um so we're we're really excited about what this could look like um in lots of ways.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that's amazing. So tell me a little bit more about this site, the location. You said it's a camp.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so it's it's called Nameless Creek Campground. It's a youth camp. Um that they're actually having summer camp there right now. And um we'll be uh we'll we'll have 50 kids on their campus, at least 50, uh all school year long. It's it's beautiful. Uh kind of out in the middle of nowhere. Yeah. Um on site that um are just ideal. You know, when we were when we were first dreaming about what this could look like, we were envisioning churches and and that kind of stuff, which would be incredible. And and then this site, which we've we've kind of known about for a while because it's in our area, but we just didn't really put two and two together that this could be the site that we were looking for, and it's it's it's truly ideal.
SPEAKER_02:So the parents are thrilled. They've got outdoor activities, you've got nature around, but there's also buildings that are amenable to sitting down and getting some learning done. What else is different about this micro school relative to um, and by the way, 50, we call that a mini school. We we typically think of that as a little bigger, but but I don't know. Tell me a little bit about the model and how you're thinking about education. Like if I'm a parent, why am I choosing this versus one of the great schools where I'm promised joy and connection and and all the other things?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. And well, it's been really interesting watching where the enrollments are coming from. And very few of them are coming from Eastern Hancock. They're, you know, families that were choosing homeschool or choosing an online virtual school is where the majority of the kids are coming from. So as we were dreaming, we really struggled with what grade levels first. Like, how do you grow this? And as we talked to families, we realized that that most of them weren't interested in kid-by-kid choices. They wanted to make a family choice. And once you involve four or five families, you've kind of got the continuum of education. So we wanted to our first sites K through 12. So we'll have while we're calling it one site, one micro school for lack of better words. So there's it's the there's multiple buildings and plenty of space to to spread those sites out, and we'll have multiple teachers, multiple grown-ups there to support the learning. But you know, that basic idea is kids are doing lots of hands-on learning, you know, working at their own pace, multi-age classrooms, you know, the the kind of things, Kelly, that you and your audience are very familiar with. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:That's awesome. Yeah, I'm I'm really excited to hear that. I think the idea of a small school in an interesting place is already exciting and that can be convenient for parents and they like the extracurricular associations or maybe just the environment, right? The safety of it. There, my kids love being here. We've chosen adults that are expert at cultivating connection and things like that. So you you're already in a good spot. But it it does feel like a missing opportunity. And sometimes I'll run into these where it's like, okay, we got 10 of us and we're mixed age or whatever, but everyone sit down and we're going to do this lesson and you guys listen to me. You know, it's uh it's a great opportunity to personalize this to help kids take ownership. And, you know, we believe that that that really unlocks this uh passion, this love of learning that's just different than what I experienced, even though I was good at school. I did not grow up loving it or being particularly happy to be there, you know. I just sort of went through the motions. So I think that's it's beautiful that you've taken that opportunity. And I'm excited to see what what comes of it. Incredible that you got full right off the bat. So you either have great marketing or it's just a really desperate need in your community for options.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Uh we we're really excited, you know, from a change management and a leadership standpoint, you know, we've you know, we're we're on this relentless pursuit from the inside of shifting a traditional building to, you know, be deliver on those promises as as much as we possibly can. And that's a process that takes a while. I mean, we think from uh there if you can plant something that's proximately close enough that you can almost see, it gives you something to to look at and learn from. And and our best hope is that Eastern Hancock can learn from those organizations that are that are popping up and and vice versa. That there are there are things that are happening at Eastern Hancock that probably those micro sites could learn from and and use as they they grow. And that so it's Indian microschool collaborative, and the micro school word is is pretty important, but the collaborative piece of that is also extremely important because I would imagine that the life of a micro school founder could be pretty lonely. Yeah. Like the idea of having a network of other microschool founders that you can learn from and lead with would be pretty powerful.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I think it's maybe my bias. I came into this with I and you know, and I think you mentioned a lot of people are strong on the education, weak on the business. I was maybe stronger on the business in tech. I had never been a teacher before when I started a microschool in my house, uh, now, you know, seven, eight years ago. So getting to that point where um where it's like, okay, I'm gonna do this. I really felt like, man, people are gonna need a lot of help on, you know, the resources, curriculum, the learning model, and the business side, you know, how to enroll kids. And we got good at all of that. And then I'll I'll go tell it to people so excited. Like we've helped a thousand people start microschools and I'll have this conversation where it's like, look at all these things we've built for you. And then they're like, yeah, but and then I'll show them our community and it's literally just pull it up. Like there's this constant discussion of people talking to each other, and here's like the training and how to engage and what happens. And people see that and they're like, Oh, I'm I'm not alone. And I think your intuition is absolutely right that it it can feel it can feel like an isolating, lonely thing, and and you're doing something different, and people are looking at you funny in your community, and so all of a sudden now it's like I'm not weird. There's lots of smart people doing this, and I'm part of a movement or a group. So I love the idea of the collaborative and sharing resources. I mean, in fact, I want to help however I can. I mean, I love what you guys are doing and would love to see this grow. Yeah. So what tell me a little bit about the educators? How did you find the actual adults that will be on on site?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, the the first one actually came from within Eastern Hancock. She's um a special educator that um was just kind of interested in doing something different. Also was one of those people that had leadership attributes that kind of oozed out of her that, but didn't really want to be a principal. So when this opportunity came, she um, you know, was was really interested. And then the other ones, the other hires that were in the process of making right now have come from within. And we're learning that a lot of the families that were choosing to think differently about their own kids' education were educators themselves. And so the rest of them are either coming from certified educators or non-certified employees who just are interested in coming and helping out. You know, we did very little job posting outside of the community of people that have signed up to be a part of the conversation.
SPEAKER_02:Wow. That's actually a really exciting phenomenon. I keep finding these people too. I they I think they're kind of quietly existing in the wilderness. They don't really have a place in the mainstream. I mean, they'll do, they're often good at their jobs, but they have this feeling of, you know, what if we really shook things up or did it differently? We could, we could hit, you know, strike a much larger impact and activate some of these what you call non-cognitive benefits of of a real true learning environment. Those people are great. And and when they see, oh, I can actually make the school of my dreams like really do it and not just do it eventually, but do it now, you know, I think that's the difference between microschools and and some of the older rounds. Like charter schools were awesome, and you saw people like that step up, but it's an enormous lift, you know, to prepare a charter application and get the building and get everything off the ground with multi-million dollars. And so it takes years and lots of money, and only a few of them get to do it. So for people that maybe don't want to jump that hurdle or can't jump that hurdle, um, sounds like you're finding those folks right in your in your community. And I love people ask me a lot, you know, who are the people that start microschools? It's like, are they parents or are they educators? It's increasingly both. They're uh, you know, they they they taught forever, they're really strong educators, but they also are asking the hard questions, what do I want for my child? And that can lead to potentially different outcomes. So this is exciting, George. I I can't wait to see how this goes. And I need to get out there and visit you guys and see this this beautiful camp. What uh what do you do besides the core academics? I mean, do you have a one of the things that a school district is is core academic, but then there's all these extra, you know, resources, programs, school lunches. I mean, school is so many things. How have you thought about all of that in the you know, in this world? I didn't realize you were completely legally separate. So maybe you don't do it. We don't do any of those things.
SPEAKER_01:So yeah. Well, um, so the answer to that is easier this year than what it might be next year, as we're thinking about launching sites all over. Right now we're, you know, we're close to Eastern Hancock. So we're not providing transportation to and from the building in the in the morning and the afternoon. But things like school lunches and those kind of things we can we can work on because we're we're close if we need to. Amazing. But you're right, like there are a lot of ins and outs of of school that you kind of take for granted if you've, you know, like like I said at the very beginning of this, I've lived on the school calendar my entire life. And, you know, sometimes when that's the case, you you forget all the things that happen within a within the Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:People will say, you know, they'll they'll use the word factory sometimes and it it's meant as a derogatory, you know, attack, but factories produce a lot. And I think that's something we forget is there's we we often have to talk to people about the trade-offs, you know. Does this microschool have a baseball team that competes in some sort of league? Like, no, it doesn't. There's 10 kids in this microschool. Now there people, the community gets together and they come up with things and there's club sports. I mean, thankfully it's it's not the end of the world, and parents still have to figure it out. But yeah, that's amazing that you're able to couple some of that in and participate, sort of like weave it into a uh the overall school experience that you guys are used to providing with your your district schools. It's amazing.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it's been uh, you know, whether or not to provide all of those different kinds of things has been um, you know, an ongoing conversation. And this being the first year, we try to keep things as simple as we possibly can. Nice, you know, and we're focusing a lot on the the academics and the um obviously the non-academic type of skills as well. And we're really we're really thinking hard about the school day mostly. And then, you know, in the next few years or so, we might have some time and capacity to think about things that are happening beyond the school day.
SPEAKER_02:Love it. Well, I'm excited to read the papers. Hopefully, you publish something about all of this and just share everything you're learning because it's it's truly innovative. I mean, there's not a lot of this happening um, you know, from in from the inside, so to speak. And it's really exciting that you guys are doing it. Let's shift gears a little bit, George, just for our last few minutes here. Would love to just kind of take some of the you're a humble guy, you're not gonna feel comfortable with this, but some of the learnings and insights that you've um distilled through through this experience, take a moment and and think of it as you're also a helpful person. And so think of it as there are people listening to this right now in similar professions to you involved, either on a school board or as an administrator or principal or a teacher that are, you know, part of the traditional education system. And they're thinking, wow, this really sounds awesome. Like I would love to get this off the ground, but you know, very quickly there's a voice in their head that just says, No way, it's impossible, you know, brick wall. Give them, yeah, give them your best sort of yeah, I don't know, pep talkslash best practices, things that you've figured out as you've you've taken this on.
SPEAKER_01:I don't know if it's makes pep talk criteria, but I've never so in my career I've never done anything that has led to so much imposter syndrome. Just because, you know, I I know how to be a superintendent. I know how to you know do the job of school as we know it but as we've talked to families who are are wanting to make decisions for their kids there comes a point where I we had to make a decision to try to be a part of the solution. And so I I think you know I I know I'm blessed. I've got a board that's very supportive that makes being courageous easier than some of my colleagues probably have because I know I've got I've got a extended contract and I've got tremendous support from my school board and my livelihood is not at risk by making this decision. But I think it's just the I don't know find find the people that are crazy enough to dream with you. So for me, we've got I've got a friend who's on the state school board he's also on our board now named Scott Bess. I've got a friend named Kim Rear who works really closely with Scott that you know the three of us did lots of dreaming about what this could look like before we actually spun it up. I've got a couple of board members that were really really interested in helping me think about you know the business side of this they're not educators but they're business people and I think find the people who are you know just maybe as as crazy as you are and would be interested in and joining those conversations and you know I would invite anybody that would meet that criteria to you know they can reach out to me anytime. I'm I'm happy to chat with anybody who wants to join in these conversations.
SPEAKER_02:It's amazing. Okay so just to spit back what I just heard you say expect imposter syndrome that's coming I I love that advice because it's so accurate and I think it for whatever reason imposter syndrome surprises us you know when it when it gets there we assume that it must mean something terrible about us and and the actual likelihood of this it's coming you're gonna feel that way so just know it's coming. And then it's fine.
SPEAKER_01:Kelly D just you know do you think maybe that comes from like we're building something and I've got 50 parents plus signing up trusting me. So then like then a little bit of me thinking like wait do they know they're trusting like me? Like I don't know that I feel ready to earn that trust and I think that's where it comes from and maybe the confidence will happen September when the school's actually open and running it will.
SPEAKER_02:I mean and that absolutely happens this is what what's crazy and I I'll tell this story sometimes I'm obsessed with the Wright brothers Orville and Wilbur not too far away from you guys and in Ohio they've got this bike shop and they've got this dream of flying like birds you know how can we do this? So they go to North Carolina because of the wind they're on a train it's these long trips and they're launching these gliders and crashing them like year after year they're just it's like sort of working sort of not they're kind of just stumbling along but there's over all of those crashes and flights they're building this I don't know I don't want to call it swagger. I don't know if it was swagger even yet but it it's this sense of like well we at least know how to get this far off the ground and and do this thing and and it's messy and it's not it doesn't feel remarkable at all. They're reading in the newspaper at the time about big money projects that were happening over in in Washington DC that were doing great yet supposedly doing great but those guys they were spending all the money and and then they had this like spectacular crash just disastrous like it didn't work at all. Meanwhile just one flight after another they're learning a little bit at a time and and the thing that they had was just the gumption to just keep doing it like to do it in the first place and keep doing it. It puts you in a special category. So you believe like oh those guys are the real ones they have their Smithsonians involved and et cetera but you know I meanwhile I'm actually doing these glider flights and there was this year I know this is turning into a longer story but there was this year after multiple years of gliders where I think it was I'm trying to remember if it was Orville or Wilbur that like pushed it they just said look there's these papers that have been published and these scientists there's data and there's the science of flight you know that was like and I'm putting it in ironic quotes on purpose because the it was all so new it turned out to be just total hogwash like it was it was bogus. But they read all of the literature and they reworked all of their designs to sort of align with conventional wisdom of the time they went back with their their new and improved you know we've we've now read everything we've got the science of flight and we go to Kitty Hawk again and it's just a disaster. It was their worst season ever nothing worked they've got this just pile of wreckage basically that they're bringing back on the train to to Ohio and they're like what just happened like why did that yeah and and I think the idea the reason for imposter syndrome is we have this sense that there's this data backed tried and true proven thing that we know works or whatever. And and I I guess there's people like me and I think you're one of these people although I don't want to get you in trouble with your board if they're listening to this that are a little suspicious of that narrative, right? It's like, sure we've been doing it this way, but are we sure that it works, especially when you look for maybe some different outcomes like well I mean there's obvious like nape scores and reading and math and like those things don't seem to be working. But then you also have like do kids like being here? Do they is joy even a factor in any of this and should it be? Are they prepared for life? I mean you can hear throughout your story like you sort of implicitly question that if not reject you know some of those assumptions. But they're still going to be like so embedded in your brain and I'm saying this now to the people listening, you're gonna believe that like those people have it. They've got their answers they've got it figured out and what could I possibly all I've done is sat with kids face to face for hundreds or thousands of hours right like that's you know you know something because you've done that. You've it feels like crashing airplanes or gliders when you've spent all that time trying to help kids become learners. But yeah I think I think it's an interesting not that you asked me for this sermon but it's an interesting phenomenon because it happens over and over again we think okay there's the the real truth there's the science there's the real you know and I'm fake I'm an imposter I can't do this and so your brain's going to play tricks on you. I don't know if any of that resonates with you.
SPEAKER_01:For sure does I think the other like I don't know you know we're small at Eastern Hancock. I I get to meet I meet every single junior and senior every single year and talk to them about you know what you're playing after high school what are we doing to prepare you for that who's your go-to person around here and when you're that small you get to know individual kids and so when that happens you see which kids that you know we to we talk about the word works often and sometimes works means enough kids for the grown ups not to feel bad about but like I dream that we can create a system that works for all of them like that we can find a way so the vision of Indiana Microschool Collaborative is that every single kid in Indiana should get to go to a school that feels like it was designed just for them. And and I think that's that's the that's the dream you know and and and I think I think if we're going to achieve that dream my job's not to just plan a bunch of microschools. My my job's to be a big enough influence that I'm influencing the way that school's done inside the walls that are already established as well. And you know that's that's our dream. And and I think imposter syndrome comes when your dreams are so big that they scare you. And I think that's that's also true that it's okay. Like I think that's probably true of the Wright brothers that their dreams were so big that they scared them.
SPEAKER_02:And thank you for sharing that George it's a sacred thing to hear you kind of open up your heart and share that dream and it's it's a powerful one. It's it it gets me excited. So I know that there are people in your world but beyond well beyond the scope of people you've even met that are hearing that and saying yes like I I'm motivated by that dream, by that vision. Other things I heard you say, find your tribe I love that advice so building up this posse collaboration, I think you did that twice. You did that once by really listening which is just such a breath of fresh air in I think a world where it's too easy to sort of just go with emotion to listen to parents to take them seriously engage with the people leaving for homeschool and say, hey like just tell me about it like what are you doing and and why and what are you looking for? And you learn so much by engaging that way. So you're building your tribe and your community but the other thing you did was you know you mentioned some of their names some of these folks that are on boards with you and these are big picture people that are willing to share a dream like that and and feel motivated. So I agree that you're lucky I also think that that never could have happened if you hadn't started with the dream and started talking about it. So if you're out there and you've got a dream you you maybe think it's not worthy of sharing please share it. You know talk to people listen and refine your dream and then and then share your dream and and I think there's so much that can can come from that. So that's incredible as well. Any other advice as we wrap this up George I think just do it.
SPEAKER_01:It's gonna take all of us to do it. If the kind of person that's listening to your podcast it's probably the kind of person that's already thinking about doing something and they just need to get going.
SPEAKER_02:Love it. Well I wish I could spend more time with you and I definitely wish I could come visit the camp. I I want to see this this center and and visit your microschools. So thank you for the work you're doing. Thanks for taking some time to talk to us about it and and share this. And we'll put contact information about the collaborative in our show notes so if anybody's interested in kind of learning more about George and the work they're doing in Indiana and and hopefully far beyond. Thanks George thank you so much.
SPEAKER_00:The Kindled Podcast is brought to you by Prenda. Prenda makes it easy to start and run an amazing microschool based on all the ideas we talk about here on the Kindled Podcast. Don't forget to follow us on social media at PrendaLearn and if you'd like more information about starting a microschool just go to prenda.com. Thanks for listening and remember to keep Kindling
