Michael Strong's videos and podcasts
This week
A really great profile of @DStrachman and the early years of the @thielfellowship , which appropriately connects her passion for alternative education with the formation of the project,
One of the hardest things I’ve seen in education is trying to re-engage a teenager who has spent years consuming video games, social media, and YouTube slop for hours a day.
Grok details: “The PISA 2025 data supports the core numbers: B-S-J-Z (Beijing-Shanghai-Jiangsu-Zhejiang) scored 612 in math vs. US 463, a 149-point gap. China (those regions) rose 21 points since 2018; the US fell 15. OECD equates ~20 points to one year of learning, so the gap exceeds seven years. Top performers: 54% vs. 8%. Note this is not a full national China sample.”
We will be moral and relational nodes in the web of humanity forever. There will be endless challenges and opportunities for excellence to do surpassingly well in those roles forever. Ambitious young people will find ways to reorient themselves around ways to manifest these forms of excellence even as some previous roles become obsolete.
One thing parents should feel free to do is create a very distinctive culture at home.
“Parents often choose schools because of culture, values, safety, discipline, or educational philosophy. Two schools may produce identical test scores while offering very different environments. Families naturally differ in what they value, and a system that respects those differences may better serve a diverse society than one built around centralized decisions.