Ad Astra: Musk’s School at SpaceX
June 26th, 2018I had heard of Musk’s private school before, but I didn’t have a sense of what actually went on there. My wife and I are homeschooling three (soon to be four) children, so we are always on the lookout for interesting feats of pedagogy.
Via: Ars Technica:
In a corner of SpaceX’s headquarters in Hawthorne, California, a small, secretive group called Ad Astra is hard at work. These are not the company’s usual rocket scientists. At the direction of Elon Musk, they are tackling ambitious projects involving flamethrowers, robots, nuclear politics, and defeating evil AIs.
Those at Ad Astra still find time for a quick game of dodgeball at lunch, however, because the average age within this group is just 10 years old.
Ad Astra encompasses students, not employees. For the past four years, this experimental non-profit school has been quietly educating Musk’s sons, the children of select SpaceX employees, and a few high-achievers from nearby Los Angeles. It started back in 2014, when Musk pulled his five young sons out of one of Los Angeles’ most prestigious private schools for gifted children. Hiring one of his sons’ teachers, the CEO founded Ad Astra to “exceed traditional school metrics on all relevant subject matter through unique project-based learning experiences,” according to a previously unreported document filed with the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
“I just didn’t see that the regular schools were doing the things that I thought should be done,” he told a Chinese TV station in 2015. “So I thought, well let’s see what we can do. Maybe creating a school will be better.”
In an atmosphere closer to a venture capital incubator than a traditional school, today’s Ad Astra students undertake challenging technical projects, trade using their own currency, and can opt out of subjects they don’t enjoy. Children from 7 to 14 years old work together in teams, with few formal assessments and no grades handed out.
Ad Astra’s principal hopes that the school will revolutionize education in the same way Tesla has disrupted transportation, and SpaceX the rocket industry. But as Musk’s sons near graduation age, the future of Ad Astra is unclear. Will Musk maintain interest in the school once his children move on? And even if he does, can a school of fewer than 40 students ever be anything more than a high-tech crèche for already-privileged children?
You ask, “Can a school of fewer than 40 students ever be anything more than a high-tech crèche for already-privileged children?”
Socrates would say, yes.
My question would be whether the students always work in teams, because teams force a pecking order on their members, resulting in some very talented but less aggressive members never fully developing or expressing their potential. And the most brilliant ideas of the meek kid may be hijacked by the forceful one and perhaps exploited, perhaps sabotaged. Teaching methods may change, but human nature doesn’t.
Socrates worked with students individually as well as in groups.
Also, teams often break a project into sections so that no one person gets the experience of carrying out every aspect of the project himself, beginning to end. And if a student can opt out of a class, then some knowledge that is essential to completing a project may never be his, but he won’t know what he is missing because another student on his team has that knowledge, be it drawing plans, writing instructions, or using math or chemistry. The overall vision, comprehension and skills gained by having to do it all yourself is lost in team-based learning. A Boy Scout alone in the woods needs to know everything he learned to think and do in earning his badges, even if he is best at building palatial shelters out of sticks and branches and doesn’t like the tedium of collecting and purifying water. An Ad Astra kid alone in his palatial shelter might die of thirst.