Episode 100: Prenda: Looking Back, Looking Forward. A Conversation with Kaity and Kelly.

We celebrate Episode 100 by digging into Kaity’s first year guiding a home microschool and what it teaches us about building belonging, agency, and high expectations. The big takeaway is that connection comes first, then kids can take on ambitious goals and grow into capable, self-governing learners.

• celebrating Episode 100 and thanking guests, listeners, and the people who kindle learning 
• Kaity’s KindlED shout-out to her mom and what lifelong learning looks like in real life 
• why Kaity chose to start a microschool despite already training guides at Prenda 
• designing the Wonder League culture so middle school feels safe and welcoming 
• using simple rituals and messages to reinforce belonging and community norms 
• guiding vs teaching and the “Mario Kart cloud guy” model for getting kids back on track 
• balancing agency with boundaries so self-directed learning stays productive 
• “start with heart” as the foundation for academics, behavior, and motivation 
• setting ambitious but doable goals and recalculating plans together as a class 
• coaching social skills, optimism, and civil debate through modeling and reflection 
• piloting Prenda high school ideas to keep learning relevant and engaging

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.

Got a burning question?
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!

Important links:
• Connect with us on social
• Get our free literacy curriculum

Interested in starting a microschool?
Prenda provides all the tools and support you need to start and run an amazing microschool. Create a free Prenda World account to start designing your future microschool today. More info at ➡️ Prenda.com or if you're ready to get going ➡️ Start My Microschool

Transcript

Episode 100 And Gratitude

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Well, welcome everybody to another exciting episode of the Kindled Podcast. I'm Kelly Smith, and you guys know Katie. We're here together today, Power Team. We're gonna be talking about, well, a lot of things, but I think it's important to note an important milestone, Katie. I mean, what would you say?

SPEAKER_02 0:16

Uh, yeah, you guys, this is episode 100. It's been such an amazing journey, right? We're just really grateful for everything, um, for all of the amazing guests that we've had on and for all the things that we've learned. I feel like so privileged to get to be a part of the Kindle podcast and to talk to all these amazing amazing people and to continue learning.

SPEAKER_00 0:37

I've talked to people, other friends that have done podcasts, and what they say is the best part about it is you just get access to interesting people and you get to have fun conversations and then share it with the world, which is so fun for me too. Uh, it's an opportunity to keep learning all the time. So, thank you to every single one of our guests, over 100 episodes. Thank you to Katie. Thanks to Adrian for the past work, and we've had others on our team that have have done work on putting this together. And thank you to you for listening. We really appreciate you being here. It's fun to be able to share this journey with you and talk about micro schools and learning and brains and all of the various things that we like to talk about here on the Kindled Podcast.

The Kindled Club And Unsung Heroes

SPEAKER_02 1:16

Can I add one more group of people to that shout-out list? So every single episode of the Kindled Podcast, we've asked every guest to share someone who has kindled their love of learning or their motivation or something like that. And so we have this like club, like the Kindled Club of like people who have inspired, like the people that we are learning from and being inspired by, like they are who they are and they're able to share what they share because of those people. And I just feel like those are the unsung heroes of like organic, like nitty-gritty work of helping kids grow up. And I think that sometimes it's easy for us to like make a product or a school or something like that and be like, look how shiny and awesome this is. But really, like the real work of relationships and being in the weeds with kids, like it's not glorious. You're often an unsung hero. So I just want to uh double down on just recognizing that we all have people in our lives that that kindle the good in us and grateful for those people.

SPEAKER_00 2:10

We should send them all fruit baskets or something, something cute.

SPEAKER_02 2:14

Definitely, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:15

Katie, I don't know if anybody's asked you this, but let's actually start today's episode with your kindled shout-out, who is a person that has kindled a love of learning for you.

SPEAKER_02 2:24

So easy. My mom, and I'm gonna cry, but uh yeah, this lady is like an unstoppable learning machine. Like without even meaning to it to do it, or like she's not like never heard her once say, like, I'm in I'm a lifelong learner or anything. She just is. And like I've spent my entire life seeing her hit problem after problem and just like digging in and learning what she needed to learn to tackle that. Like she has raised siblings with various struggles. She's homeschooled us from for different periods of time. She's fought lots of lots of battles for us. And then she like took over my dad's dental practice and like saved our family from like a lot of debt and like learned how to do insurance and like all sorts of things. I'm like, just watch this woman for I think she's mom, how old are you? Like 81 now, almost 81. It's just like I've just watched her learn and like just kick trash her whole life. And I feel like every every even like like we look at the like work of literacy that I've like engaged in and like been able to make treasure hunt reading and and all of that work. And it's because she gave me a book that that helped her teach my brother how to read, right? So like I watched her fight that battle and she's just just incredible.

SPEAKER_00 3:38

It's an inspiring way to start today's episode. Thank you, and shout out to Katie's mom. Thanks for the great work you did. We're all grateful for who Katie is and what contributions she's been able to make. So good job inspiring her to be a lifelong learner. All right, you ready to get started?

SPEAKER_02 3:53

Yeah, let's do it.

SPEAKER_00 3:54

Katie,

Why Katie Starts A Home Microschool

SPEAKER_00 3:55

we are gonna dive in today. I don't know if everybody listening knows this, but they should know it. Katie has been with Prenda for basically since the beginning. I remember her coming to my house in 2018. We've talked about this. You looked at what I was doing in the microschool, you were interested in it, but from basically the very beginning, started inserting ways that it could be better. And I've just been grateful to you. I've I've watched you uh just level up continuously, be a learner yourself, help and inspire lots of other people to be learners. So, you know, Katie's so integral to this whole thing, and she's been a very hands-on person throughout. Uh, Katie got even more hands-on this school year. So for the 25-26 school year, Katie decided she was going to start a microschool in her house. Uh, and if you go over there, you meet these 12 amazing sixth to eighth graders that are having just a mind-blowing educational experience with Katie as the guide. She continues to refine her ideas, her thinking, to evolve, to come up with new ways that kids can be empowered learners. This is all happening live while she's running the microschool and then still working at Prenda and making those contributions. So I don't know how she does it, frankly. But um, Katie, I wanted to just ask you some questions today about this this year, this experience you've had as a guide. And as we celebrate episode number 100, I think it's fitting that we kind of talk about the the nitty-gritty of you and your experience in the microschool. You ready for that?

SPEAKER_02 5:20

Yeah, I'm ready. I'm so grateful.

SPEAKER_00 5:23

All right.

SPEAKER_02 5:23

For all of it.

SPEAKER_00 5:24

I'll be asking you some hard questions. Can you just first talk about this? I mean, you have helped lots and lots of people start microschools. Prendus helped more than a thousand. If you, you know, I think most people would say, okay, I don't need to start a microschool myself. Like I've done this lots and lots of times. Like I've helped lots of people start microschools. But yet you decided that you were going to do this. Can you just sort of walk through that process, that decision process? What was it that kind of drew you into it? And what were you looking for in in deciding to do that?

SPEAKER_02 5:53

Yeah, so I get some crazy irrational ideas sometimes. And I think um something in my brain is maybe broken. I don't know, but it like makes it so I feel like this very, very what to other people would feel like is a very big lift, like feels like no big deal. And it's just like an easy, like fall asleep thinking about it, and I like get really excited about it. As soon as I kind of like notice that this like thing is like growing in me, I'm like, all right, I know that this sounds crazy and I know that I'm already very busy, but like let's throw a micro school on top of my already very busy prenda life. But I just got I just wanted to do it and it just never that excitement never went away. And I still feel that way. Guiding's the best part of my day. I honestly feel like guiding has saved me because I we've talked a lot over the years since 2018, there's been lots of like really intense times at Prendo where like we're all working 60 hour weeks and we're like, you know, we're pedal to metal trying to make these micro schools happen and to serve people and to make sure kids are taken care of and things like that. So it's been a wild ride. And I told my husband, like, I think I'm gonna start a school in our house. And he was like, is this like one of those times where like I'm supposed to say no? I told him a long time ago, like, never let me cut my bangs. Like, I don't want to cut, like I I know I always want bangs, but like, never let me do this. Is this one of those times where it's like you always want a school in your house, but like, don't let us actually do this? But I'm like, no, this is not a bang situation. Like, I really feel called to do this, and I feel like it's gonna be so good for Prenda because making all the curriculum and up and teaching all of the professional development and things like that at Prenda, like, how can I just sit and tell people like do this, do this, don't do that? And I'm not like willing to like do it, right? If it's so easy to do, why don't you just do it? Right. So it is easier with Prenda, but it's not an easy thing to do for sure. Uh, but it's been amazing. And I'm like really glad that I followed those like excited feelings. He just kind of knows sometimes that even if a path seems a little like crazy and everyone's like, why would you do that? It's like you just gotta feel you got those feelings.

SPEAKER_00 8:08

Yeah, well, I will give it to you. I've seen it happen multiple cycles of this. We've known each other for long enough that I've seen you you do this on other things. And you know, the world benefits, right? We we know what treasure hunt reading is. That was one of these things where you just came about it's more than an idea. It's like such a compelling notion that's driving everything, and it doesn't even feel voluntary at a certain point. So I remember when you talked to me about it, it was not like, hey, what do you think about this? Or I'm thinking about this, or can I do this? It was like, this is what's happening. It's like, wow, uh, that's incredible. But I've seen it enough to know that get out of the way and let you do your thing. It really has been magic. Let's talk a little bit, just give people a picture. So you're home in the suburbs of Phoenix, Arizona. You've got um 12 kids in there, two of them are your own kids, and they they all are grades six through eight. Can you just kind of paint a picture for listeners so they have a sense of what exactly is going on in this microschool? And yeah, walk them through it.

Designing A Middle School That Feels Safe

SPEAKER_02 9:06

Yeah. So when I was setting up the school, I felt really passionate about making it like I could, and I know a lot of people who send their kids to Prenda, right? If I was to put out a text that said, like, hey, I'm guiding, like I would have a full microschool, which is a blessing. But I intentionally let everyone know, like, I'm guiding and I'm only opening half of my spots to kids who have done prenda before, intentionally trying to build a class where kids are coming out of different educational opportunities. So my class is mixed half kids who have kind of grown up doing prenda. This is Prenda's eighth school year. So we kind of have like this microschooling community, especially here in Arizona, where we're lucky that there are lots of micro schools. And then half my kids come from public school, charter school, homeschool, different, they've they've had different educational experiences. So yeah, so I honestly like something I love about Prenda is that we're not the Prenda police and you don't have to like be a like cookie cutter prenda. Like you can really be who you want to be as a microschool and bring your own vibe to that space, your own expertise, your own love, like all of that, and then kind of work together with parents and form your community around like Prenda as like a spine, but like really add and and subtract the things that, you know, like really make it your own, right? So one of the things that I did early on is that I decided that we were gonna kind of have like a makerspace vibe. That's something that I wanted to engage in. I really like doing like big projects with kids, and that's something that Prenda makes super easy to do. So that's kind of the vibe I chose. Um, just the main thing I try to do every day is to create an environment where kids know that they're wanted. And I think sorry, I think in middle school that's really hard. And so the tagline for my school is we're called the Wonder League. And our tagline is where middle school isn't terrible. So, like if you think back, it's like high school's actually pretty fun. Like you get to do lots of stuff. You're like, so you start driving, like there's lots of independence. Like middle school for most kids is like the worst. You're like, it's just a really rough time. So I just want to for me, it was dark. Right. Like, think about middle school for a second, not too long, because you'll it'll make you sad. But um, I just want to create an environment where kids felt excited to come to school and where they left, like excited to learn, and that they didn't have to spend so much of their energy like navigating the social mindfield of like, do I look cool? Do they like me? Like, am I accepted? Just to really show kids how to have a strong community where they felt safe and a sense of belonging. So that's kind of like my goal of.

SPEAKER_00 11:40

I mean, it's not like you're literally gonna get stabbed at most junior highs, hopefully, but it feels like that. I mean, just watching your back and you're constantly looking for your group that's gonna protect you. And yeah, it's tell tell everybody about these posters you have on the wall. I posters can say things on the wall, but I think what's interesting about it is people listening can hear how intentional you've been about designing the actual culture. And these little sayings that these kids are looking at every single day are uh reinforcing, are reinforced through your your intentional effort to build a culture in that room. I mean, you could you could feel this walking into the space.

SPEAKER_02 12:14

For sure, for sure. Um one quick story, real quick. I have a student who has had her whole life in public school. And at the semester break, we were kind of reflecting like if they were happy that they've come to Prendi, like kind of like what the difference was. She's just sitting at my kitchen table and just kind of had her head down and she like looked at me. She was like, I can't like cry like 900 times in this episode.

SPEAKER_00 12:37

Crying's fine.

SPEAKER_02 12:38

She just looked at me and was like, you can like be yourself here. In normal school, I was always worried about like how I looked and like what other people thought about me. And like it was just like this big social game. And she was like, Here there's like none of that, and I can actually learn. And I was like blown away by that. I was like, okay, truth truth. Like that's that's amazing, and that's the goal. We're doing the goal. So posters on the wall, yeah, they are essentially just posters on the wall, right? Posters don't make culture.

SPEAKER_01 13:10

Right.

SPEAKER_02 13:12

I think that they're very intentional. So you can actually get this. All of my posters that I have on the wall is just a a printable that prend offers, and uh we give it away for free. So you can have these posters in your house too. And I don't know that I'll even be able to remember them all. There's seven of them. No, just say one.

SPEAKER_00 13:26

Give people a taste, you know.

SPEAKER_02 13:28

Sure. One of the posters says you matter, you matter, you matter, you matter, you matter.

SPEAKER_00 13:31

Can you say it slower than that? It's like, I mean, it's it's ridiculous because why would you write the same thing five times? But it's because it literally takes that long for a kid that's a seventh grader or sixth grader to really get that idea, you know, drilled into their head. And I think if you look at these kids, they feel it like you matter. You matter. Like actually you matter. And that's it's just so powerful. I love that that's up there. And I love that you treat them that way, and then they treat each other that way. I mean, you can feel that vibe in the in the room.

SPEAKER_02 14:02

Yeah, it's really special. Another one is do what is right, not what is easy. Which I think is a Dumbledore quote. I was like watching Harry Potter the other day with my kids, and I I I've never I haven't seen the movies in years, and I'm like pretty sure he says that. So when I wrote that, I didn't mean to quote Dumbledore, but I think so often it's so easy, especially like in our like over-entertainment, over like easy lives, sometimes to just like slip into ease and just like do the easy thing. And being an empowered learner and owning your education and like who you are becoming as a person, as a as a young human, a young adult, like really depends on your willingness to lean into what is right and and not and not just like right, but what is hard, right? Like like progression and progress does not come easily. Like it is a fight to be won every day. And that battle for self-mastery and self-governance and like being able to govern your agency well, like that's a fight that these kids are in every minute of every day. And I want to provide the support, the relational support, the environment and like community, and then the academic, like educational approach that supports that, that helps them like lean into challenge instead of like find the easiest way to the A or like to get that an 89.6. So they think, well, how can we remove a lot of those things and those beliefs? So like that's not even a thing that we talk about anymore. And how can we just talk about our future selves? And something early on that I told a lot of a lot of guides, and I found this myself, like it's hard to like reposition yourself as the adult in the room and not pretend to be a teacher.

Guiding Vs Teaching With The Cloud Guy

SPEAKER_02 15:41

Like the role of guiding is very different than teaching. And sometimes they're like, people will ask us, and we get this question all the time, don't we? Like, do you have to be a certified teacher to do this? And our wild off-the-wall answer is no. And the reason is because this is actually a very different skill set than traditional classroom teaching, right? Definitely there's some overlap for sure, but it's not exactly the same thing. And when you're pretending to be a teacher, well, okay, so as a guide, you have to remember that like your job is not to force everyone to do, to jump through all of the hoops, right? It's like that's kind of like the mindset of a teacher. It's like, here's the curriculum schedule, here's the standard of test, like we have to like meet these standards and like just push, push, push, push through. The very first day of school, I showed other guy in Mario Kart where he's like the cloud guy that picks you up and puts you back. Like if you fall off. Yeah. So there's this really good YouTube that shows like of every iteration of Mario Kart that Nintendo's made, there's always been that guy. And he like looks different. He has a name, I totally forget his name right now. Um, but I showed them this YouTube where it was like, this is this cloud guy throughout history, right? He's always been a part of this game. Um, and the game we're playing at Prenda is a little bit different than the school game that you're used to playing. And at Prenda, I am like the cloud guy. And if you are like you have a goal, you want to win, you're running this race of like becoming this amazing person who has all these skills and capacities and passions and interests, and you're contributing to the world in this way. That's your race. Because there's gonna be times where you're off track, right? Like you're supposed to be doing math and like you're not doing math, or like you're, you know, not living up to our core values or something like that. There's gonna be lots of ways that you get off your path. And I know that your actual goal, your long-term goal is to finish that race. And my goal is as the cloud guy is to come pick you up and put you back on track, make you face the right direction so that you can try again. Yeah. And the cloud guy's never mad at you. The cloud guy is not like he doesn't also give you a lecture or like give you a punishment or something. He just picks you up and it's slower than you. You always want the cloud guy to go faster, right? Because you're like, I can't, I want to keep going. I want to keep playing. But like the cloud guy just moves how fast the cloud guy moves, and we put we put everyone back on track. And that might happen nine times a day, right? Like repositioning, reframing things for these kids academically, emotionally, psychologically, neurologically, in all the different ways. I'm noticing, okay, we're off track here, and we're just gonna kind of nudge so we can stay on track. And that it doesn't take any autonomy away from the child because it's like you're still the driver in this. Like you could just drive right off again, like, and I will be there. You're friendly, you're friendly neighborhood prenda cloud guy.

SPEAKER_00 18:24

I love it. I love it.

SPEAKER_02 18:25

But that's kind of how I think of myself and my my guiding role, which I think has helped me be a better guide, honestly.

SPEAKER_00 18:32

Yeah, no, I think it's it's a beautiful idea of you know, people struggle a lot with giving agency to kids. This is something adults, well, one, we we hate it, and two, we don't know how to do it very well. So when you even if you can be convinced, right? Some people will will get this idea like, oh, kids can't be trusted, you know, they need to be controlled and coerced and cajoled and you know, and then eventually they'll thank us for it. I you know, and you could maybe there's that, like people have that theory in piano lessons. It's like we just put them in when they're two and then just make them practice, practice, practice, and then eventually they'll they'll say, Thank you for making me do all that. And I think there's even there's examples where that can work, but I think what needs to happen at some point is that human being needs to be granted agency and acknowledged, and then they get to make a choice, right? Like, am I gonna hate this or love this? My parents put me in piano lessons, and I for three years made the choice to hate it and didn't ever like it. And then I was wheeling and dealing, and I got out of piano lessons, and I traded it for a different musical instrument, and then, you know, vocals everybody, you know, and that that's my own choice. I think that's that's fine. I guess the the other way to go, though, is I think people will say, Okay, I get it. Agency. Like, we need kids to be in the driver's seat, they need to learn how to make their own choices. And so you just sort of like put your hands up or tie your hands behind your back, and you say, Pretend I'm not here, do whatever you want, like just wide open. And that's almost equally terrifying for children to be completely given, especially at younger ages. There's like all kinds of problems with that. One, it's definitely not productive on helping them become great, you know, advocates for themselves and utilizers of their own agency. You want them to become agents, and that requires those constraints. So moving them back on the track, like helping them know what's okay, what's not okay, what what are the parameters, what are the agreements, and then holding to those agreements over time. So yeah, I think people have this picture of self-directed being like, oh, it's, you know, there's just like the adults gone or whatever, and the kids are just like Lord of the Flies. And and the reality is, I think, much different than that. I've seen you interact with these kids and you have deep connection. I mean, deep love. They know that you're there for them, that you're fully on their side. And yet, like you're there's there's boundaries around what you're tolerating and what you're not tolerating, and you're gonna encourage them to be productive toward the person that they want to become.

SPEAKER_02 20:52

Yeah, I mean it is definitely a spectrum, right? So, like on one end, we have micromanagement, and on the other hand, we have chaos. And we want to land somewhere in between where it's like we're moving forward towards a productive place that is going to land this individual with the capacities to live a meaningful life and contribute in meaningful ways that are satisfying to their own heart and mind. And we know from our experience, like I'm not I'm not a person that's just gonna like, let's just be friends with all the kids, just be their friend. Like, no, like you are, you need to play a strong leadership role. And our friend Annie Martinow calls this being a compassionate alpha. You need to be a leader, you need to set the guidelines, you need to hold kids accountable, but you need to do it in a loving, warm way. Going back to the piano lessons, it's like that definitely works, like forcing kids to do things like you can definitely get a strong pianist out of that method. But there's like an opportunity cost because there's a lot of energy in that system that goes towards that kid fighting you. And if you can just get them to want to do it, if you could you can reframe things so that they like it or hate it even a little bit less and that they can choose it, they're actually going to be able to move, put all that energy into forward progress. And they're actually going to be a better pianist and a lifelong pianist. Like if you force a kid to play the piano, as soon as you stop forcing them, they hate piano and they never, they're very good at it and they never do it. Like this happens with reading, right? We force we go to get out of the flashcards, we're like read, read, read, all of the things. And then it's like, hey, you can read, but I don't want to. And so I always say like a child who can't read and a child who hates to read, read the same number of books. Zero.

SPEAKER_01 22:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:29

Right? It's an interesting point. Yeah. So when I was in piano lessons, I'm the youngest of six. So my mom forced a lot of p kids to do piano lessons. And then when she got to me, she was like, I'm like done like forcing this. Like I took a sewing pin when I was seven and carved I hate piano and my grandfather's antique piano. And I spelled piano wrong. So I was aggressively telling my mom my mom like I would like my agency over my piano skills, please. And I don't want to do this. I do, I am a little sad like I don't play the piano.

SPEAKER_01 23:05

There you go.

SPEAKER_02 23:05

But like I developed other skills and like my life has not called for piano skills. I definitely think if I had those skills I it would be a blessing to me, right? Yeah. But like I've I've developed other skills that have blessed me and like are a blessing to other people more than if I'd become a concert pianist. And there are other people that have that talent that I enjoy and respect, right? We don't all have to be pianists.

unknown 23:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:28

And I think as adults we kind of have this idea of like we all have to be this certain kind of kid. And that makes me a successful successful parent or successful teacher if I can create, if I can produce like the cookie cutter kid, right? But cookie cutter kids have a lot of mental health issues, turns out, and like not a lot of internal motivation and they feel worried about their worth and value. And I just want to raise this like a generation of kids who feels like confident in their worth and value, independent of their academic skills, their math, their math test scores, their spelling all those things are important. We don't want to let any of those things go. But first we're going to love the heck out of those kids and prove to them like we are partnering with them and that nothing that they can do or say or not know is going to impact our relationship with them.

Start With Heart As The Learning Engine

SPEAKER_02 24:13

And once they know that the brain can rest enough to learn my favorite analogy here is food, right? It's like if I don't know where my next meal is coming from and food is like connection or attachment with an adult. If I don't know where my next meal's coming from, all of my energy is going to go into finding that next meal, right? And I might find some unsavory ways to get that, right? Like I might start stealing or like something like that. Just like kids if if they're starved for that relationship and that acceptance that they need to feel neurologically like satiated, then they're gonna, if they don't have that, they're gonna spend all their energy trying to find that and they're gonna find some unsavory ways to get it like being super annoying or a lot like the class clown or like something like that. Right. Then we have kids that have behavior stuff.

SPEAKER_01 24:52

Right.

SPEAKER_02 24:53

And then like essentially the behavior is all telling us like I'm hungry, like feed me. And we're telling those kids, I'll feed you as soon as you grow, which we don't do with food at all. It's like, no, no, like the food helps me grow. The food makes me like satiated and have the energy to go play soccer and to go play piano or like do any of the things that kids do to learn and grow. Right. But there's they get so dialed in on this like very first need of attachment and connection that they're always in search of it and then they find it in all the wrong places and become such a distraction to their nervous system that they can't learn. Anyways, that's my long rant about that.

SPEAKER_00 25:29

You explain it so well and I've always I've always been impressed with how you really make the case for connection as the foundational element, the building block, the the thing that's gonna unlock or open doors for everything else. And I'm fully there. Have there been any you know now you're in a room with these kids who are in at junior high age, which is like you you've said, it's can be a hard age are there any surprises? I mean have you run into places where you're like, huh, I didn't expect that I would love to hear any any and it could be around this relationship question connection or any other aspect of running the microschool.

SPEAKER_02 26:05

Yeah. I mean a lot of surprises just daily um around how like I thought that like knowing all of this stuff and having read all the books and like I do it with my own kids and things like that. I thought day one I was going to be able to show up and like rock being a guide. Just being like I'm gonna be unstoppable, right? Like I was confident. And I like got put on my heels a little bit because I had kids who didn't want to connect with me right away and I'm like but connection like you need it right like it's I'll I'll do it. I'm here for it. And they're just like no like like they're not it's just a lot slower to allow me to provide that to them. And it takes a lot of time and consistency to build trust with people. And I I remember talking to some some of the parents like after a month or two of school just being like I don't think I'm like doing this well. Like maybe like I was just like full of doubt and they were like it's been like six weeks Katie like relax like this takes time and I'm like oh yeah it does take time. And now that we're like over halfway through the year like a lot of that has subsided and like I'm enjoying the the benefits of not abandoning like the hope of those relationships like just showing up and honestly Kelly like some days I'm like I don't have it like I don't like I'm so tired and like the house is messy. Like it's just like a lot and then like the first kid opens my door and something like changes in me. Like I might not do a lot of like the right things today but I can smile at this kid and I can say hey like I it's good to see you and I can I can authentically create a relationship where they feel wanted and included and like if I have energy for nothing else that's what my energy goes towards and then that is just this like perpetual like that puts us it's like the flywheel for a good day. That connection drives like the engagement drives like the curiosity it drives like their willingness to like inhibit their talking and like control themselves during conquer time and like trying to like get our stuff done right this is this constant battle of like let's have fun and enjoy this and also we have some serious work to get done and both things have to be true. We have to do both of these things and it's just like constantly juggling that.

SPEAKER_00 28:20

So we have this value as you know at Prenda and our listeners will know this too we call start with heart you can hear it in the way you're talking about this is that if I only have the resources for one thing, like that thing's gonna be connection. I'm gonna really show you that I love you. The other thing that's ending out to me here is that's deeply internal, right? It it's almost miraculous it has to do with the actual way we see and perceive another human being which is you could do lessons and professional developments all day long about tactics of making a kid think you love them, but they see right through all of it they have X-ray vision and the only way that this actually works is if you really are there. Now the good news is if you're willing, if you if you're saying I want to love you, I'm struggling that's enough. There's a lot of grace in this and you'll find yourself actually capable of more than you think almost like tapping into some sort of reservoir of external help like you're just talking about you're on a day where everything feels like a mess. But that's real and and just a I mean it it's on the one hand an invitation and a celebration of everybody that's out there trying to love kids. I mean it's it's such great work it's such important work it's hard work it matters. And at the same time you know I'm thinking about you know people ask me these questions like what would you do to sort of change public education? It's like I would start with heart. I would try somehow to build the whole system around adults who care about kids. Now that's really really hard to do right a school of education a degree a board that issues a certificate really can't say anything about whether that's there or not. The only way to do it is to be in the room face to face and uh just a shout out to all of the educators out there that do start with heart. I mean I think that's that that's present in our system but to the degree that it can be stronger you now are in this position like you are right where where real learning can happen.

SPEAKER_02 30:15

There are so many things that could get in my way, right? Like if you were like if I'm a microschool guide and you, the CEO of Prenda, were like breathing down my neck to like get the academic results and like all of these things and like the crusade schedule like that's what the you know classroom educator is up against. It's like you have to I have to choose one of these things. And with 10 kids maybe you can start with heart a little bit easier and still get those results but like with 30 kids in the classroom like I have to be the army right like I have to be like sit in your seat now and like I have to use all these tools that negate relationship, put kids in a in a nervous system state that doesn't help their learning right because I feel as an educator like unsupported myself right. So it's wonderful to be able to I wish I could give every educator the gift of being able to have the energy like taking all of that. I mean the other thing is like with Prenda like I run a very besides like interjecting some like makerspace type stuff I run a very prenda by the book. Like I use all of the Prenda tools like I run the day just like Prenda says to and I don't spend any time outside of school planning school I don't lesson plan. I don't grade like I might give some thought to some some things like I'm not saying like don't ever plan anything, but I am able to with Prenda have all of that energy that would typically be going into planning and like grading and all those things like that's freed up for me to be able to show up like in an energetic like warm way. And I want to be clear that like when I'm saying like love kids and like be welcoming like that sounds dumb. Like it sounds like so like sounds fluffy cliche. It sounds fluffy yeah and I'm not at all saying like be permissive about their behaviors and what they like their

High Expectations Through Student Owned Goals

SPEAKER_02 31:57

academics. It's like we have really high expectations at our school. I'll tell you a story from last week like the way the way Prendo runs like you have a number of days of school right I put my my my school calendar into Prendo World it tells me like it sets all of the academic goals based on that schedule right so if we go on a field trip that's one less day that the kids have to hit their goals. And like you think that they'd be like really excited about field trips and like not having to do school but when we're like hey let's do a field trip they're like they're like okay but like could we get some extra conquer time another day like our goals are like suffering here. Like they're telling me like they need to get their stuff done. And we had we had a handful of kids who are getting kind of behind in their goals. And so last week I just wrote a number we like calculated like we still want to go on this field trip. We're gonna have spring break like you know like let's take all these days out. So we we figured out that we only have 34 more days of school and like them hearing that, they were like you guys we have got to lock in like we've got to like recalculate this and like immediately they started like counting all the like units left in their math curriculum and their like all of their ELA stuff and they're like okay I have to do you know three of these a day or four of these a day to like get done before and I'm like okay like do you feel capable? Is that is that a doable thing for you? Like we can talk to parents and we can go back to the drawing board and like renegotiate these goals. We don't want to like overcommit on a goal and cause like a lot of like undue stress. We want a little bit little bit of stress but like we don't need to be I'm reminded of a video that my son did for Prenda like a few years ago when he was in fourth grade it was like a tour of Prenda world and he's like when you're setting your goals like you want to be like it should be hard but not like crying on the floor hard but like a then he was like but a little crying is okay. It's a little yeah like it's gonna be really hard but it's like a doable hard right so like we had like a doability check in after we recalculated these goals and everyone is like yes like we're locked in we can do this and like we had a prior prioritization conversation where it's like hey this is your main like the goal where you really need to start gunning that on on this and like these other things like can take a take a backseat to that. Like so everyone's just clear on their plan. They feel hope in their plan that they're like that it's doable and like they they can persist and hit those goals. They're gonna be so proud of themselves when they do finish those doable but ambitious goals and I just love seeing these like 11 and 12 year olds who are like having these conversations right like it's amazing.

SPEAKER_00 34:29

I think if you were to just stop people on the street, right? Adults, I don't think you'd have a lot of them that could point to you know an example in their life recently or maybe ever, where they set a goal that stretched them, they really owned it completely, you know, and put themselves out there like laid it on the line and then achieved it or even didn't achieve it. I mean that that's an experience that's so valuable to just human flourishing self-actualization. I mean these things psychologists will talk about but it is what we call the empowered learner. It's being the best version of yourself possible. And I love that we're not telling you what the goal is there's so many different goals that would be great. And so finding the right one for you but being the type of person that can can recognize and embrace the challenge, you know, this is another of our core values but learning over comfort right I choose to be uncomfortable. I choose one little teardrop or sweat drop not crying on the floor in a puddle but also not just skating through. I mean it's very easy to just you know I think if I had been presented with Prenda especially after spending a lot of time in traditional systems and I was one of those kids that figured out the rules and I did the minimum I mean to get the A, I probably would have said, okay, what's the minimum? And then I would have set easy goals for myself, right? And every time I see our kids go beyond that, right? They just take it to the next level we'll say, well this is what 1.0 grade levels worth of mastery would look like for you in math or English. And to see the kids and and I think our average grade is our average goal is north of two grade levels in ELA. I mean so you look across our whole system, these kids really are stretching themselves. They're shooting for more than just the minimum what that means is inevitable pain and suffering, but lots of great moments for coaching and and support.

SPEAKER_02 36:12

And I think it's important to realize that like there's no adult in the background being like it's two years progress or else or like you're not going to get this prize or something like there's no like right kind of like sinister push behind that. It's like, well, what do you think you could do? And then I cast a vision for kids like at the beginning of the year when we're doing goal setting like they'll take the IRETI test and they'll we'll be going over the results and I'll tell them what I think is possible possible for them. Like I think you could be scoring up here or I think you could get a year and a half done and that would set you really for set you up nicely to like go into high school strongly or like whatever they're gonna do next. And they look at me like with shock. They're like you think I'm capable of doing that and I'm like I have zero doubt in my mind that you can accomplish this if you want to. If you want to that I then I just ask like do you want to and nine times out of ten they'll be like yes I want to and I love that. And I so I have my son is in my class and he has had some ups and downs in math and I also have my ups and downs in math which we have talked about many times which I like actually have been growing so much in my growth mindset around math this year and in just my skills right like I feel like pretty confident in middle school right I think we should tell every adult listener to go on Khan Academy and just choose a math course that's like a little bit too hard for you and just see just go after it, you know I think it's a good way to build the build the mindset. Anyway Yeah and the empathy right like you haven't struggled with something like in probably a few decades. We gotta build some empathy. Yeah so Everett uh he has set a really ambitious goal to finish two grades two grade levels of math and get ahead where he's usually feeling like this is a lagging competency for him. Um and so we were up late uh the other night he was doing math and he didn't ask for my help. I was just like I just sat next to him because I just wanted to see what he was doing and how how the math was coming. But he did something he got something right and he was like see mom I am capable as if like I had been doing things to undercut that belief. And I think that it's easier sometimes to give that to other kids that aren't my children. So like I think there are there are like some some trust things that I had been doing which has helped me reflect um a lot. But I've just been so proud of him for not wanting to change his goal. Like he's consistently like wanting to do this big goal still and I think that that is gonna benefit him and his life way more than maybe even his math skills will right like the ability to persist and to like just work blood, sweat and tears through your own like inabilities and like weaknesses and just face those head on instead of like trying to avoid them like that is a huge huge character thing that I'm so proud of him for and so proud of all of my kids and so many predicates for just like staying in the fight right the being the man in the arena.

SPEAKER_00 39:00

So deeply I mean I think everybody listening to this right now is just resonating like yes Katie exactly what you're describing and that and that is what we want as humans. We want to be that ourselves we want that for our children for sure for everybody that we're working with and supporting you know it's funny as we talk about this you're giving concrete examples of what this looks like in the realm of math English writing science I think people get it in sports. I've been watching you know we just got through the Winter Olympics I have a lot of friends younger people I I count them as my friends that are participating in team sports and there's coaches that are undercutting and you know hurting confidence and you know not every coach is great but it's it feels common to find a coach that does what you just did in the sport sporting arena right like I think you could be by the end of this year you could be performing at this level and these are the drills and this is the work and this is the commitment that it's going to take and I believe in you and I want to support you in it. And from that frame like I can get a lot of work out of you so to speak you know I can I can inspire you to really push and lean into it. And yet I think in in math it sounds so foreign because there's no one like that in our lives in the traditional system. And so you know one way to think about what you're doing with your microschool and what so many of these microschools are doing is it's applying principles of great coaching, which is very much starts with a strong connection, seeing potential in a person and then lovingly but stubbornly supporting them in in achieving that greatness. So to do that in the realm of math and English, skills that are much more likely I mean I don't think anybody believes like oh my daughter's going to go to the Olympics for gymnastics. I mean there's some people that believe that and they're they're right, you know, some percentage of them are right. But most parents that's not what they're doing. They're saying I want her here because she's gonna build this toughness, this mental toughness and I watch these figure skaters in the Olympics and my daughter can have mental skill like that just the the grit and determination and the outlook and then she can apply it to anything else in her life and achieve whatever her goals are. If people know that intuitively and yet in the realm of academics it's it seems to be missing.

SPEAKER_02 41:12

Yeah.

Coaching Social Skills And Civil Debate

SPEAKER_02 41:13

The other thing um like you're talking about applying this in math and things like that. The other way I feel like I'm applying those things is in like your social skills, which is so in middle school like you're really figuring out who your person your personality is, like how you treat others and things like that. And sometimes I'll just like catch kids doing things not catch in a bad way but just like notice in them like I just asked you where your computer charger was and suddenly you like your face looks like this and like your tone is like changing and it's like I have accused you of some great evil or something like that, which just tells me like they're used to like being accused adults like accused. Yeah. So it's like okay but I can just like carefully and gently being like hi like right now your face looks like this and your tone is like this is are those intentional choices or is that like and and so like I've been able to like coach kids in like or just like being negative. Like I've had kids who are just like every little thing that goes wrong they're just like oh like this is terrible and I hate this like all of like the verbal negativity and just being like hey have you ever noticed that like 90% of the things that you say like are negative? Like I'm just curious like if you've ever noticed that and they're like I guess that is true. And like getting into a place with where you have enough rapport where like they are open to that feedback. Like if I just showed up on day one and be like you're a negative kid. Yeah that would not have gone well right like but six months into this I could be like hey like I and and what I love doing actually is just noticing those things and praising them for their growth like hey like you don't say you are like actually now the most optimistic kid in this class and like I love how you are dialed in and like everything you say is so encouraging. Like just the growth is so impressive and inspiring to me to like it is inspiring. Try to follow your example now, right? So calling them out in the good ways and not just the academic things school is so focused and rightly so like kids go to school to learn basic academic skills. Like I'm actually in alignment with that but along with like what the what we do, we're also creating a soil for them to grow up in like we're part of kind of like that that substrate of community and experiences that help them become who they are becoming and that is a lot more than academics. It doesn't mean that it isn't academics or that we don't do academics or anything. It's just that we want to be cognizant and aware of like all of the other ways that we're we're supporting kids too.

SPEAKER_01 43:35

Right.

SPEAKER_02 43:36

And that actually like facilitates the academic growth in so many situations, right?

SPEAKER_00 43:41

Holistic, right? You can't sort of compartmentalize it's interesting as we talk about this. So I think I'm thinking from the lens of a future employer. Somebody's looking for these kids are 11 so 10 years from now I need to make some hires of entry level positions. And I'm thinking okay, I do I hear that they're getting good at math and English? Yeah I you know I hear that that's happening Even way more important than that, do I hear that they have the drive and determination to set challenging goals for themselves and the ability to manage themselves in pursuit of that goal? Like now, okay, now as an employer, I'm perking up, I'm listening. And then it's do they have the self-awareness to engage with other people, to notice how they're being as a contributor to a team or a project? Do they take in feedback from others? Are they, you know, participating in these? You're starting to really describe, and this is begin with the end in mind, the type of person that I want to hire, that I want to work with in the future, whatever your interests or whatever field you want to go into, these are things that are going to be really valuable. And it's cool to think that that's starting at such a young age that these kids are are developing what really is going to set them apart. You know, in this world of technology, it's, you know, it's not so much knowing the facts, right? You don't put up, this is interesting. You don't put up with the brilliant jerk anymore in most companies, the somebody that's really good at their field and they just are toxic to work with. Like those people are out. And uh you want somebody that's gonna be diving in with positivity and a learner and supporting the team move everything, bringing out the best in others, multiplying people. I mean, that's who you want. So it's interesting that we're practicing that very explicitly and deliberately in the microschool.

SPEAKER_02 45:20

Yeah, we had a really interesting conversation last week. We, or this was earlier this week, we do debates. And I had like, um I anyway, so like I was just watching them have this debate and I was offering like very little direction. And things were like people were they were talking over each other, there was they weren't like following the debate, like protocols or like schedule or anything like that. And I was just like, I paused them and I was like, hey, like how do you guys feel right now? Like, how do you think this is going? You know? And then I just like kind of modeled like some like pro like deep active listing of like restating someone else's idea, steel manning their idea for them, like doing some like critical thinking modeling and like just speaking like slower and like making sure that like we are bringing like the vibe like to like civil discourse instead of not. And they were able to have the most amazing discussion with that level of structure and support and modeling, but like next time, like they're gonna need a little bit less of that. And then we're moving them over and over to like being able to have like a robust discussion about things that they disagree about with like a lot of amazing skills and just it's just reminding like your example of like the kind of employee or like the kind of like adult that we're trying to build, it's like that's a really important skill that I feel like these kids are really really honing. And even after that discussion, we do a struggle and success uh every day for wrap-up. So at the end of the day, we do our tours, we clean up, and then every student shares a success and a struggle. Um and so many kids mentioned that like their success for that day was like learning how to communicate better, and like they were like, I really like how the debate ended. Like some of them even were like, My struggle was how the debate started. Success is how the debate ended. Um, because we've had some like dicey debates where we're like not friends for a little bit afterwards, like they get really invested, and it's like, okay, like how can we control our nervous system? How can we like stay curious and you know, all of that? So I'm like, oh, this is just such fertile ground for growth, and I don't know how I would facilitate that in a any other educational setting besides a micro school. So I'm just like super grateful.

SPEAKER_00 47:34

It's beautiful. Well, give us this has been so fun to just get a glimpse into your microschool to hear some stories and to understand what's going

What’s Next With Prenda High School

SPEAKER_00 47:41

on. It's always fun to talk to you. Give us just a quick look at what's next for you and where does this all go. You don't have to spill spill the whole cup, but uh I think people are curious about you and and your work and and just if you can just share what you're thinking about there.

SPEAKER_02 47:56

Yeah, so I guide middle school right now, and I'm going to guide again next year and kind of be piloting a little bit of prenda high school. So we only do K through eighth right now. We've served K through eighth kids for eight school years now, and we wanted to like really lock that in and do that really well. And it's not perfect, but it is it is it is strong now, and I feel like it's time that we kind of like branch up. I remember when I first met you, we were doing kind of like third through eighth, and then I like helped like branch it down to K through two, and now it's like, K, well, I was eager to branch it down to K through two because my oldest kids were really, really young then, and like I wanted to put them in front of us. I was like, we got to build a program here. And now my kids are on the other, they've they've microschooled for seven years now, and they're on the other end. So I'm like, all right, like how can we keep this good thing going? And I think just getting, you know, we've got a lot to learn about high school and all the things, but I've been learning a lot and I'm super excited to build out something that can help kids feel like their learning matters and is relevant, and so we don't see the engagement cliff that we see in traditional schools a lot of the time where kids just like have to be somewhere, so they are just phoning it in for four years and jumping through other people's hoops in kind of this like meaningless blah blah way. And we're just like not gonna have that at Brenda. We're just gonna um try to find try to find a way to do high school that feels real and relevant.

SPEAKER_00 49:22

Well, not to overhype this, I've seen some of the early prototypes and some of Katie's thinking on this. You guys, it's gonna be awesome. I'm really looking forward to a small pilot. I think just a little bit of this for this year, but hopefully things will go well and we'll be able to introduce the world to new ideas at the high school age level as well, which you know, you can do different things. We've been talking about getting kids to greater levels of autonomy, for example. And high school is pretty close to grownups, so there's there's some fun things that are possible there.

SPEAKER_02 49:51

Definitely.

SPEAKER_00 49:52

Katie, thank you so much for letting me ask you the questions today. I know people are used to you asking questions, but it's fun to just hear what you're up to. Thank you for the work you're doing with with kids, with these 12 kids in your house specifically, but also thousands of kids across the Prenda ecosystem. And I know there's people out there listening that use your work every day, and they do it to empower learners. And just a shout out to all of them and to you. And I wish you all the best as you continue to push this work forward.

SPEAKER_02 50:19

Yeah, it's been a wild ride, and I hope that it continues to be wild because the wildness is what makes it uh exciting, you know? If we knew all the answers already, it would be real boring. So I'm excited for new horizons and new problems to work on. And I'm excited to like build that with kids and with guides and with parents because I feel like that's where we get off sometimes, is like thinking that we have all the answers all the time, and really like the answers are in people that we're trying to serve.

SPEAKER_00 50:46

It's gonna be great.

SPEAKER_02 50:47

Yeah, it's gonna be fun. 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 Prenda Learn, and if you'd like more information about starting a microschool, just go to Prenda.com. Thanks for listening and remember to keep Kindling.