ANA FABREGA: Kids Should Play Games to Learn

Ana Lorena Fabrega is an EDUpreneur and former teacher known by little ones as Ms. Fab.

She's currently the Chief Evangelist of Synthesis School, an innovative online enrichment club started by the director of Elon Musk’s experimental school at Space X.

Synthesis helps students build decision-making & problem-solving skills through games.

After listening to this conversation, you'll understand:

– why the current education system needs an overhaul
– the skills we should be developing in kids
– unlearning & the future of education
– the role of technology in learning
– forest schools, micro-schools & alternatives for parents to consider
– how games can be good for your kids
– the lindy effect & ideas that will stick around in education
– remote vs online education
– recommended books for kids

Timestamps:
00:00:00 Intro
00:03:16 Attending 10 Schools by Age 15
00:08:14 What Makes A Great Teacher
00:13:32 How to Prepare Kids For The Future
00:20:58 What Skills & Jobs Do We Need To Develop For?
00:24:23 The Lindy Effect: Things That Won't Change
00:33:55 Evolving The Education System: Personalized Learning, Downtime + Failing
00:39:52 "A Marketplace For Education" - Forest School Example
00:41:33 Micro-Schools
00:44:52 Special Needs + Autism
00:49:02 Unlearning
00:52:42 The Role Of Teachers
00:56:22 Synthesis School + Using Games To Teach
01:08:07 Online vs Offline Learning
01:13:23 Universal Access to Education
01:16:27 The Finland Model - Global Perspective
01:20:19 Advice to Parents: How to Nurture Interests
01:23:18 Dealing with Kids Behaving Badly
01:25:34 Ms. Fab's Book Recommendations
01:30:58 Wrap Up

Ana's Fab Friday Newsletter:

Book Recommendations:
Wonder by R.J. Palacio:

The Man Who Walked Between The Towers by Mordicai Gerstein:

The Most Magnificent Thing by Ashley Spires:

Fantastically Great Woman who Changed the World by Kate Pankhurst:

Rosie Revere, Engineer by Andrea Keaty and David Roberts:

What do you do with an idea? By Kobi Yamada:

Zero and One by Kathryn Otoshi:

Beautiful Oops by Barney Saltzberg:

[PolinaMarinovaPompliano]

Ana is my favorite human on this planet!! So excited to watch this!

[JonesDTaylor]

Glad to see people discuss these issues

[olivergilpin]

Learning on demand is SUPER interesting. I’ve seen as a business owner that is a great approach but for the education system, that sounds awesome.

[olivergilpin]

Joined the newsletter! Ana seems very inspired by the work!

[camnifique]

There are all important issues and I 100% agree that tue education system is long due for an overhaul. I have two points I want to make. 1)Ana’s approach (while I appreciate that she challenges the status quo) is quite extreme. I hear a lot of criticism and very little original solutions. While slow, there has been some good advancements in the right direction (ie. check out Finland, Sweden etc.) which she doesn’t seem to recognize. Just generally not a fan of painting everything with a black brush.
2) what she proposes is an after school program (which I think is awesome btw) that will only available to a few elites who can afford to pay $180/month. Does this kind of stuff not create a bigger divide? Education is after-all supposed to be an equalizer.

Again, I don’t disagree with her criticism and love the Synthesis idea. I’d like to see some recognition of the progress made and perhaps some more inclusive (original) solutions. Conversations like this are a great start so keep challenging things! 🙌