Elon Musk, one of the worlds brightest and a leading innovator, created a unique school for his children after pulling them from a more typical school, and you should know about it. Musk is the CEO of Tesla, the most forward-thinking business of our time; venturing into fields from fully electric luxury-sport cars to space travel.
Musk, in all of his brilliance, is the product of what a thirst for education can produce. He read consistently throughout his childhood to channel the loneliness he felt from transferring schools six times and as a victim of merciless bullying. All of this reading armed Musk to reckon with the future challenges he would face in creating new innovative industries and technologies.
Musk’s school is named “Ad Astra,” meaning “to the stars” in latin. The school is based on two principles. The first is to “cater the education to match their [the sutdents'] aptitudes and abilities,” says Musk. Some people are better at math, others at writing, music, he says. It is imperative to cater to these proficiencies for the child to excel and reach potential, says Musk. This is an important concept often lost in our educational system. Uniformly molding children to be a certain way is not the way to create the innovate society necessary to tackle the complicated problems of the future. There is a saying that goes, “you can't teach a fish to climb a tree,” and this holds true in education.
The second principle is to emphasize efficient problem solving or to “teach to the problem, not the tool,” says Musk. "Let's say you're trying to teach people about how engines work. A more traditional approach would be saying, 'we're going to teach all about screwdrivers and wrenches.' This is a very difficult way to do it,” says Musk. His approach is rather to theoretically give a student an engine and have him disassemble it. This is where Musk says an important thing happens: “the relevance of the tools become apparent.” The current educational system, even up to the college level, certainly teaches problem solving with respect to the tool rather than to the problem. Teaching Musk’s model of thinking allows kids to be more creative with the tools they are given, even outside the scope of engineering.
Musk says he removed his children from regular school because regular school did not adhere to the previously listed principles. Musk saw a deficiency in our system and, in the fashion of a true innovator, he made something better. Learning from this man could prove beneficial for society. These are the types of people who should advise education boards in our government. Clearly, whoever has the job now is terrible, as America is frequently behind in global educational rankings. This is not sufficient to keep our people competitive against rising world powers that triple our population.
There are only 20 students enrolled in the school which sits in a mansion on a golf course in Bel-Air, California. The students are comprised mainly of Space-X employees, one of Musk’s companies. However, the glamor and exclusivity of the school should not take away from its innovative and effective educational teaching methods. Could you imagine a world, or a future rather, where America’s students are the brightest and most well trained in the world? Economic performance and societal well-being are closely linked to and affected by how we educate our youth. All humans have massive, innate, cognitive potential; the mind is a powerful thing. Unlocking this potential in our next and current generation of students is what is going to spark the change needed to keep this planet from Armageddon, not “educating” them through busy work and quizzes.
