Fostering Creativity

Perpetual Learning

Last week, I talked about the idea of building your own personal bundle/monopoly.

The reality is that this starts at a very early age when most of us didn't view the world this way. This leads to the question of how do we help future generations build their personal monopoly.

This is where I've been paying attention to the work of Ana Lorena Fabrega - a former teacher turned edupreneur. She is working with David Perell on to launch a summer camp for kids that teaches them on how to be a citizen of the internet.

Whether it's using social media, know how to look for information or building relationships online, kids don't have a go-to resource to learn how to do these things effectively and responsibly. Most parents grew up in an era where these skills weren't really necessary to succeed and so you have a barrier that's very similar to speaking an entirely different language.

Ana's camp along with other resources like The Knowledge Society are working toward solving this problem. As such, I felt it made sense to have a conversation with Ana to see how she's thinking about solving this.

Here's what we talk about:

The Future of Education

There's a lot of different avenues for education - whether it's the traditional system, online education, homeschooling. Do you see one channel becoming the predominant form of education? How do you see all of this co-existing with one another?

What should a 10-year-old child focus on doing right now? What does success or failure look like?

Being a digital citizen is a foreign concept for most parents today, especially for those who come from disadvantaged communities. How do kids get around that barrier?

Building a Summer Camp

How have you gone about building a course for children? How does it compare with adult learning courses? What has stayed the same?

Why did you choose to focus on creative writing? How would you go about teaching other skills? (e.g. STEM)

Tell us about a couple of stories from your pilot WOP camp. What kind of transformation have you seen with students?

How do you think about a child's support system? How can parents and caregivers support this system? Not everyone has the time, resources or even knowledge to teach their kid to be citizens of the internet.

Let's fast forward to 2040. What is it about the camp experience that you want your students to remember? What will they have learned that other kids didn't necessarily have the exposure to?

This is definitely a great listen. Check it out!