🐴 Why kids forget what they learn in textbooks

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What started off as a think tank founder trying to explain his work to his 5-year-old son has become a 6-million-book phenomenon.

Connor Boyack never planned to revolutionize children's education. He just wanted to share ideas about free markets and property rights with his kids—and couldn't find a single children's book on Amazon to help.

In this conversation with OpenEd CEO Isaac Morehouse, Connor shares the philosophy driving his work across policy reform, the popular Tuttle Twins series, and educational innovation.

What's the driving philosophy behind your work with the Libertas Institute, Tuttle Twins, and other initiatives?

If I were to distill it down, it's opening minds. It's getting people to consider things they haven't considered before. It's breaking people free of the conveyor belts that they've been trapped on their whole life.

I see a lot of our work as not only helping support different options, but getting parents, getting people to realize, "My gosh, it's a new world. Look at all the abundant opportunities there are."

And to step out with a little bit more confidence and courage to go in a different direction than what they may have experienced when they were a student.

You often talk about intentionality in education. What exactly do you mean by that?

You'll remember this Isaac. You contributed a chapter to the book we did a few years ago, Skip College. Most people assume the co-authors are anti-college and want everyone to stop going. The thesis of the book was never to say college is inherently bad. It was to say, “Let's be intentional.”

If you're intentional about going to college, there are often much better, cheaper and faster ways to get that degree. Or it may be that that's not your path and you need to go to Praxis, or a trade school, or some other model.

What I don't want for parents is to just be caught in a trap or on the conveyor belt. If at the end of the day, you're going to put your kids in that same system, great—but do it with eyes wide open. It's not that any particular route is bad, but that you need to be intentional so that you know the cost-benefit analysis.

🎥 FEATURED CLIP: The Secret to Making Learning Stick

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Continue Reading All 5 Questions

In the full interview, Connor also reveals:

• How he discovers the "adjacent possible" to build from one success to the next

• Why context must precede content

• The neurological research behind why stories create better retention than textbooks

Read all 5 questions with Connor Boyack →

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