I Love Seeing Hardcore People Moving Into Serious Edtech

We put man on the moon with computers weaker than a digital watch. Why don't we have efficient learning at scale? We overcame Earth's gravity half a century ago, but we can't overcome the gravity of educational mediocrity? Bullshit. That's why I get so excited seeing hardcore people moving into serious edtech. People who don't take bullshit for an answer.

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Nothing puts a bigger smile on my face than serious educational innovation.

The field of education has been moving so slowly that anyone watching from the outside would infer it’s at some efficient frontier. But the reality is it’s not anywhere close.

There is so much student learning left on the table, so much student potential that goes unrealized.

Why? There’s no good scientific or technological reason. It’s just people problems. Misaligned incentives, institutional inertia, vested interests in keeping things archaic.

Much of the science of learning is stable yet barely leveraged. Key learning-enhancing practice strategies (like mastery learning, spaced review, retrieval practice, interleaving, etc.) have been known and well-replicated since the early to mid 1900s, yet they remain relatively unused.

The technology exists to implement these learning-enhancing practice techniques at scale. Computers are now commonplace in school.

If we put a man on the moon with computers weaker than a digital watch, then why can’t we deliver fully individualized instruction at scale?

You’re telling me we overcame the gravity of the Earth over half a century ago, and yet we still can’t overcome the gravity of educational mediocrity?

Bullshit.

Which is why it’s so exciting to see more hardcore people moving into serious edtech and seriously pushing the status quo.

People who don’t take bullshit for an answer.

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