Michael Strong
@flowidealism
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Founder @Socraticexp, the only K-12 high-touch virtual school for launching entrepreneurial, creative, +intellectual students into lifelong happiness + success.
Austin • 📅 Book trial class→
Joined April 2009
I spent a lot of time making something for you. It's now ready. "How to Give Your Child an Expensive Private Education for $250/Month From Home" is now live. After 35 years, these are the principles and actionable steps to empower your child with elite private
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If you had to defend every belief in a circle of peers, how coherent would your thinking really be? At The Socratic Experience, we sit in a virtual circle, read a book, and discuss. If you state an opinion, anybody can ask you a question. Years of this practice create a
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There is nothing harder than watching a child lose their love of learning. A student with strong abilities senses right away when their environment cannot meet them, and their enthusiasm fades quietly in response. These parents acted before the system pushed their child further
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Initially, upon reading Chapter 1, and thinking of "Jane Austen" as a writer of classics, Alana didn't see how "Pride and Prejudice" was funny. Now, getting to Chapter 15, she can clearly see the RomCom style - the hostility of Elizabeth to Mr. Darcy due to his early
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AI will replace passive workers. If you simply do as you're told and wait for instructions, machines can already do your job better. Many conventional schools train children to be passive. Overcrowded classrooms prioritize behavior management over instruction. Bright kids grow
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Arizona recently granted each of its 1.1 million students access to an Education Scholarship Account. Families can now direct funds toward any school they choose. As more states adopt the program, estimates suggest that twenty million students will have similar access within a
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One of the most hopeful trends in the U.S. today is that many of the entrepreneurial tech elite are no longer sending their children to traditional schools (in Austin, it is a full-on movement). If millions of children are to be freed from the limits of traditional schooling,
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A lot of school is boring because there's no moral accountability. Socratic dialogue changes that. Anyone can ask you anything. You have to be alert. Did I contradict myself? Can I defend this? That alertness is the beginning of integrity.
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It is a fascinating essay, “Funny how I had expected to resolve the underlying issues in my marriage while engaging in a similar dynamic with my therapist. In another circumstance, that might have been a therapeutic technique, but not here. I also found it ironic that I was
I worry far more about AI stripping us of our humanity — including human connection and shared experiences — than I worry about it destroying jobs. This essay from the NYT is unintentionally haunting.
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People now say that students at Harvard don't read books anymore. As an educator, I believe a child who becomes a voracious reader has eighty percent of their education settled. Even in subjects like biology, reading fluently is key.
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After working with hundreds of boys, I’ve realized that one respected male mentor can change their trajectory more than years of academic interventions. It mirrors what happens in nature: without mature role models, young males get lost, erratic, and frustrated. Add one grounded
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A 6-year-old was asked: Can AI be a friend? She paused. Thought about it. "AI can do things friends do. It can walk with you and talk with you. But it doesn't really love you." That's the relationship we need to help kids build early.
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I just spoke with another adult, now successful with a family, who said that he had felt suicidal in school because of the way the system treated him. I think that once we normalize talking about how dreadful school was for many people, we’ll see a deluge of people talking about
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A profound reality check for young people. The disconnection from fundamental human realities is upstream from many of the dysfunctions of contemporary adolescence.
What a great ministry. What a great lesson for young people to learn.
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People assume kids “bounce back.” But I’ve watched emotional shutdown persist for months, sometimes years, until a child is placed in an environment where they feel safe, respected, and intellectually taken seriously. Healing doesn’t come from time. It comes from the right
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One of the most hopeful trends in the U.S. today is that many of the entrepreneurial tech elite are no longer sending their children to traditional schools (in Austin, it is a full-on movement). If millions of children are to be freed from the limits of traditional schooling,
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I read this at 18. Had a big influence on me. Interesting finding: difference between levels is not quantitative like hours worked. It’s qualitative. So what an Olympic swimmer calls swimming and what a varsity swimmer calls swimming are two different things.
We are obsessed with "talent" and people that have the "special something". This is just a way of avoiding thinking about what it takes. Excellence is real. There are people that get ahead nine times out of ten. Olympic swimmers, repeat founders, bestsellers... But, if you
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The ability to engage thoughtfully with other humans improves one’s ability to get the most out of AI?
You know how some people seem to have a magic touch with LLMs? They get incredible, nuanced results while everyone else gets generic junk. The common wisdom is that this is a technical skill. A list of secret hacks, keywords, and formulas you have to learn. But a new paper
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John Taylor Gatto called conventional education "13 years of training in how to be passive and dependent." That was 30 years ago. Now add AI that makes passivity frictionless. The epidemic of essay cheating isn't the disease. It's the symptom.
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One of the crazy things about raising kids without broadcast television is they have no idea what to want as gifts One of my kids' christmas list this year featured, and I'm not kidding: * "pens and paper" * "a really big pillow" * "a kiss"
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A great piece by @DrMikeBrooks ,
@flowidealism “The real problem of humanity is the following: we have Paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions, and Godlike technology.” - E.O. Wilson. Our entire educational system is a medieval institution. We didn’t evolve to understand our own inflection point.
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