Episode 38 Aanand Srinivas

Hello everyone and welcome to a new episode of Veerai's Wellness Podcast. Today we have Anand Srinivas with us who needs no introduction, but still I'll give it a try. Anand is the founder of Stay Curious and he is famously ex-content creator of Khan India, Khan Academy India, and he is being followed by millions of fans across the world. Welcome, Anand, and I'm so humbled and glad that you could make it to the podcast today.

Thank you so much, Nidhi, for having me, and thanks for, like, you know, such a glorious intro. Like, thank you so much.

Yeah, you deserve it. Of course, Anand, like, I'm also a big fan of you. Even my children are. Both my children, uh, they are, like, associated with Stay Curious. My son loves it. My daughter also started loving it. So thank you for starting Stay Curious.

This is the best. Yeah.

Yes, and I would really like to know what, uh, made you start Stay Curious so that people understand what it is, where it is coming from, why you are doing it. We would love to hear all of it.

Awesome. Um, I can maybe give you like a quick context to why I was in some ways forced to start Stay Curious. Uh, it was like coercion. I started off teaching physics and I love physics. That's why I got into education more than liking teaching. I just loved physics a lot. I thought, hey, somebody will pay me to teach physics. I taught that for a while and learned that teaching in a classroom setting— I used to teach in a traditional classroom setting and I could see the problems with it where I would lecture a lot. It's very passive and children would act like they learned it. I felt they learned it. And then at the end, when I expected them to know things, it wasn't there that much. So 11th and 12th students and I was like, hey, I'm a scammer. That's honestly what I felt. I actually felt like because every stakeholder is happy, student is happy, I'm happy, my company is happy, parents are happy, but no learning occurred if I checked. So then what happened was I got into this field called brain science or learning science. Specifically, a professor from IISC taught me a lot of these papers, shared a lot of papers to say, hey, this can be done methodically and measured methodically, and then you'll cause much better outcomes. And then I worked with the same students but switched the model to more of a workshop-like model where they actively learned. And then what happened was that they actually told me a backhanded compliment. One student told me, sir, till now I thought you're a great teacher. Today I learned a lot. I am a great learner today. And I realized that that's a much better classroom. Then I thought, how do I do it? Joined Khan Academy to basically make it happen through schools itself. And I kind of concluded that a better way to do this, for a lot of long reasons, is to just build a school from the first principles of how the brain learns. And that's kind of what Stay Curious is. It's a virtual school that teaches students in a way, practically, in such a way that they're actively learning. So that the big problem was the rote memorization and the rote kind of lecture-based learning that we do. But the other thing I saw was that now that we're doing this, the knowledge has to be updated to what the world needs today, not what the world needs like 15 years ago. So when I told you why it did not continue to work with schools, the curriculum update took like very long and they were like consistently 15 years behind. So I was like, okay, there's new things we need right now, like financial literacy or how to use AI and the gaps like getting wider and wider. So how do you update the curriculum to make it so that it matters to the real world today with the real-world skills today? That was the second bit. And the third was that it does happen in conventional schooling that there are mental health effects on children, children based on some of the environments, right? It's sometimes very shutting down curiosity. So it's called Stay Curious for a reason. I'm giving the most important reason last. The joy of learning curiosity is primarily what I live for. Okay, like I feel like any problem you give me today, if you're curious enough, we can pick it. I think if you can teach children to be that way, they can do that. So that's the mode of starting it. And we started with like 4th, 5th graders to start with, 8 to 10-year-olds to start with, where they work remotely 3 to 4 hours a week, hours a day, and meet once every few months. This model of learning actively real-world skills was what we came up with. And last thing, in case you're trying to visualize school, we learned that one of the hard problems I couldn't solve in a school was to hit a ratio of like 1 is to 8 that I realized I don't know how to do. I actually don't know how to do such active really personal one-on-one kind of learning if the ratio is much higher than that. So that was one of the reasons we felt let's put all the eggs in the same basket.

60 students in our class.

I know, right? And we can't blame the— I was one of those teachers, so I understand that there's only that much I could do. So then I thought, hey, why not actually show what's the best that's possible? Like create like a really— put all the focus on personalizing and less on other things. So 1:8 ratio and one-on-one coaching is kind of like weekly one-on-one coaching is kind of the method in which we are making this kind of real-world skills, social skills, emotional skills happen. But that might have been a separate modules under Stay Curious.

What I understand is that, you know, the one with brain science and then coding, they're separate modules. But I think you've also come up with another form of, uh, format which is Neo School, which is more for homeschooling parents. Can you tell us more about that?

Yeah, absolutely. So what started off as these individual modules has now come together into a full school offering where if you're a homeschooling parent who felt like, hey, these are the things that I need for my child, but conventional schooling does not provide it. And like we discussed, there are so many challenges of doing it. So a Neo School is basically what the model I described, where it's few hours of remote work a day. And to create the physical connect, you come together once every few months. So that takes all of these skills, social skills, emotional skills, critical thinking, all these real-world skills and the core content that a school would typically teach, like science and math. All of the core knowledge, but focuses on depth and teaches it to students. It's a full replacement to a school. And to do that at home from wherever you are, but still get a structured knowledge— one of the problems is our children getting the knowledge that they need to get in a balanced way and the feedback they need to get, etc. We take care of all of that so that they can just be prepared for the future confidently without any of the lacunae in any skills, either cognitive or social-emotional.

So Anand, I have also been doing some research because I am also a homeschooler, right? And I could feel the pain of any mother whose children are going to school and they don't feel valued enough in school. So, uh, when I was researching on this subject, I realized that, uh, what I'm looking for is very similar to something which, uh, existed in the Gurukul system earlier, you know, when before STEM came in. And now when I look at, you know, Stay Curious, I feel there is some kind of connect Uh, but then in the Gurukul system, it was like more of a residential program for children, and I was not comfortable sending my daughter for that because she chooses to homeschool. But then in Stay Curious, uh, I see that, uh, she has the, you know, capability and that, uh, freedom of learning at home. So do you two see that there is some kind of resemblance in these two different modules?

Yeah, so one of the things that worked really well in that model, in the Gurukul model, was this apprenticeship model where you're in a small group and you're essentially learning in a way that mimics what— very out of line, right? It's tight and it's deep relationships with somebody in a small setting. And essentially it's extreme version of that because you're living with them, like you're saying. But a version of that is where in a small group there's a deep connection and you're learning in a way that you have to do it by— learn it by doing it and not learn it by like So the main way it's similar is that we essentially just simulate a modern workplace and they simulated what was needed for them. So you simulated have a guru and in a small team just learn on the job starting from day one rather than wait for 15 years to have it. In that way, I think there's like a good similarity between Gurukula and us.

And also there was a lot of focus on brain science earlier as well. And then individual skill of the students who were going to the system. I think that is something that you have replicated very well.

I think because it's a small group, they were, they were giving preference, or you could make it more personalized because simply because there wasn't a need to. We only used to educate, I think most, if I remember correctly, it used to be available to only a small group of people also, the Gurukul itself. So we could afford to like provide it in a very, very close setting with small group with deep relationships. And I think that was great about it. Yeah.

Also, if I have to draw a parallel between, you know, Gurukul and Stay Curious and the Finland way of education, which has become like really popular because, you know, that's considered the best school system now across the world. How can we draw that parallel so that we know every module individually?

Very good question. I think I'm just going to look for the parallels now. The first one is that there is very high respect and status for the teacher. I think that's the most common one. Like, hey, we all understand that we can say things in the vision policy, education minister, or me. None of us matter. What matters is the person who's working with the child. This is true in Finland, uh, this is true, this is true in the Gurukul system, and we're trying our best to make it so that all the finances and the status is poured into the person who's in actually doing it, not just financially but also supporting them with tools, right? Finland doesn't do it. That's the one common one. The other I see is that there is long-standing relationships that are able to be fostered. So Finland tries their best to keep the same kind of people working with its children, almost like they become co-parents. At that point, you've been talking to this child for like 4, 5, 6 years. We hope that we can make that happen here. And in the gurukul, of course, they live with them and grew up with them. It's almost like another parenting person. So there is evidence in brain science that longstanding relationships of this kind do help. The third I see is generally smaller groups of children working in a personalized way and some respect being given to their uniqueness and their creativity, not like seen as an unnecessary kind of problem to be handled. That's also because of the ratio, but also because the philosophy of all three.

That's so bang on, actually. And I was myself trying to draw a parallel, and that thing that you mentioned about the respect for teachers, I think this is something that stays with the students forever. So I remember those teachers of mine whom I really respected, but maybe I don't remember all of them. Because they made an impact in my life, and, and I would be forever grateful for that. So I think that's, that's absolutely bang on, Anand. And also one thing that, you know, I know a lot of people who are sitting on the fence, who knows that this education system is not right for their children. They need— there is a desperate need for a drastic change. If somebody is exploring a concept of homeschooling How can we make that transition, you know, smoother and faster for them, you know, that they can have this confidence in homeschooling or neo-schooling or, you know, alternate ways of schooling? What is your suggestion to that?

Yeah, um, it's a great question. So first up, I have empathy for all of us who— I went to a school that was more traditional. Um, let's just pick the specific problems because It also does some things well. But so let's pick the specific problems that are highlighted. Not as much focus on real-world skills as needed, not enough practical methods. It's very rote, rote learning, kind of just for grades and exams. And third is some effects through peer pressure and various other things on the mental joy of learning and curiosity. So when you're out of it, you have a degree, but you kind of don't want to learn anything anymore. It's a pretty likely outcome. Yeah, I'm picking these top 3, right? Because there are some other things it might be doing well— socializing everybody to some baseline where Hey, you would just have met people around you, all that is doing. So let's say these are 3 that you care about deeply. What is the challenge with homeschooling? It's pretty intensive effort-wise. And like I said, if there's like a respect for the educator as a profession, they do it professionally, they know how to do it. Like each of them deal with like hundreds of children. We see like, uh, so there's like that problem of how am I going to replicate that level of expertise at home. Third is how am I going to pick the curriculum to be, uh, just the right way to teach these. So these are challenges. So what they can do, if they can set aside these— I think there are resources today. But one of the things I think neo-schooling, what I'm calling neo-schooling, is basically a way to just like— there's an escape hatch without having to develop expertise for it or set aside time for it, which are two challenges I've heard. The third challenge, of course, is like, God knows whether this works. What is the harm I'm creating if I do that? Which I think is a valid thing. And I'm hoping that with more research that we put out, more and more parents understand that this has worked. It's very well developed in the US, right? So a lot of people, like millions of people do, uh, it's a more sophisticated, um, movement there. So I think that if they also check out other countries, they know that, hey, this has happened there. Because it is true that, uh, the structures of the public school have their own limitations. When I say public in India, public plus private is pretty much the main way we educate. So I would say that look up the research outside, but be mindful of your resources and time available to actually do a good job. And if you can do it, um, then sure. If you can't, I think there are options like us, options that where you have to pull together resources and try, uh, but it's not as risky as it used to be, as long as you're aware that— I would only warn against one thing, which is, uh, know that the knowledge that they need to learn, you can still give it as long as you're somewhat clear about the curriculum is non-negotiable, uh, the base curriculum, and learning it in your own interest, in your own pace, that's negotiable. I think the only challenge with homeschooling is if they also miss out on key knowledge areas that they need for the future, and it's impossible for children to themselves know that. So just keeping that in mind would be very good for homeschoolers.

And also, uh, for parents, it is also important for them to understand what the child wants, whether they want to be homeschooled or not, or whether they want to go to the school or not. That is also should be a very big deciding factor. Like in my case, I have two kids, right? My son chooses to go to school, my daughter does not want to go to school. So I have to parent them differently, I have to look at their needs differently. So every child has their own needs. So that's one takeaway here for the parents also, that just don't jump into it, understand what the child wants before we get into this new concept which is, uh, which still has some stigma. Although if I would have to choose between homeschooling and regular schooling, I will always choose homeschooling first because that gives us so much bandwidth in terms of, you know, the freedom. My daughter has to explore whatever she wants to explore, you know, any curriculum. We can travel anytime. Yeah, we are not tied down to a routine. We do not have exams, so there is no pressure for exams. So I mean, as a parent, I love homeschooling, honestly. And, uh, It's working for us, but everybody has to evaluate their family conditions also, right? So that's one thing about homeschooling I think we should know.

Absolutely. I think that you called out the important ones. In fact, not all of the parents who join us in Stay Curious Neo School are homeschoolers. The homeschoolers mainly call out the availability of time for the child to now pursue all of these other passions that they have interest in and the lack of pressure, needless pressure like you say. Like not all of the pressure is needed. And so then the flexibility that you mentioned, these are 3 things we've heard somewhere in that order, like the ability to pursue passions being— I've heard it most often. And then like you said, the whole unnecessary test after test after test is not necessarily learning, it takes away from learning time. And the flexibility that we get. Yeah.

So, and then there are, you know, a few more questions that come to my mind that, you know, there's very less awareness about homeschooling in India right now. And when my daughter, you know, she's asked that which class you are in, she has no answer. And then she's, you know, ostracized that why she is not going to school, you know. I mean, how is that even possible that you're not going to school? How do we handle that? How do we bring in that awareness that this is also something that exists and it's okay? I mean, how do we bring in awareness to that?

Yeah, one way I can think of, I'm just thinking out loud right now, is a lot of the great people of the world are homeschooled. A lot, a lot of them, right? If you guys go just, just like ChatGPT this, a lot of people whom we will know as like some of the most famous people in history were homeschooled, and more recently as well. So it's not like a, um, it's not necessarily a thing that needs to be ostracized. That's first one thing. There are different reasons why people do it, right? Like, if let's just imagine somebody is really passionate about a sport and they've also— it's just taken off in their life and they really want to do it. That could be a reason. There are of course very non-student-driven reasons also. There are lots of parents who see this problem itself and then decide to homeschool, right, even though the child's not there. So, um, I personally wouldn't fight that battle. Personally, um, if somebody has an opinion on it, I would be like, cool, like that's okay. And, uh, I think of course with something like Stakeholders New School, they would have a grade. They can say I'm in grade 5, if that, uh, if that helps. If there's that social bit that helps. I've heard it gets a little lonely, that part we solved. Um, you know, I've heard that one of the core challenges about is it not done in a social setting. But what do you all do? Do you like all hang out in like groups or something? I've heard that that's something you all do, like in the same—

for the homeschoolers? No, actually not. My daughter is not much into, uh, you know, mingling with a lot of others, uh, kids also. She has stopped even going to the parks now in the evening. I don't know why. She is more into herself and she's enjoying that. So I'm fine by that. If a child who does not need to have a lot of friends and a social circle and she's by herself and she has just one or two friends, I think that's also okay. I mean, I don't know why we are always supposed to be surrounded by people. So this is one apprehension I see a lot of parents have, that child does not become social. So when my daughter was going to school, still then she was not that social. So it—

if you ask me, it's like more like correct problem, but school, is it wrong? Is it correct solution? We're not clear, right?

That problem is still looking for a solution.

Yeah, so I've generally seen that, like you said, right, I think giving them that space to take their own time to socialize is much, much better. Different people do start doing it at some different ages, and, and like giving them that time and slowly exposing them, just like we say, if somebody does not like science and if they like— slowly exposing them to it is always the right answer than like saying, hey, go there and hopefully it'll get, it'll get done. So I think that would be a valid strategy where you're respecting their autonomy and their need to slowly start exploring it and feel more and more comfortable. And then, and then go ahead. Yeah, um, I think you'd ask me how to handle the ostracization. I actually never can say that word well, that word, uh, ostracized. Yeah, yeah, I honestly don't know what's the right answer other than the fact that it's a pretty valid movement across the world. There are lots of famous people, super successful, all like, you know, uh, nameable— I'm just not naming them here— who've all been homeschooled. And, uh, it's a, it's a very valid way to do things as long as some, uh, kind of guidelines are kept in mind. And the pros and cons. That's it. So it's like, that's what I would, I would say in this podcast.

Anybody who's listening, I have one last question from you, Anand. Uh, you know, we are going through a post-pandemic aftereffects, which is another, you know, epidemic that's come, the mental health, right? So, uh, all, you know, parents, everybody got affected, uh, by the COVID and it's of course coming up now on the surface how mental health is getting affected. How as parents can we ensure that we, you know, take care of our children's mental health? That I think would really help us to understand our kids better and handle them better. Yeah, I give you food for thought.

Yeah. Because it's so important. And you are right, the data is in the direction that of all the things that are getting better, this area seems to be of concern. There's one first possibility that we'll address, which is that it's just possible that it's getting reported more. Just the possibility that the awareness is larger, we're able to see it, it's getting reported more. So that's one possibility. Is it necessarily getting worse? But there is also some evidence that social media and exposure to social media of the kind where you're getting a lot of likes could be a strong correlation between that. So there is one, is like being able to modulate that screen time with social media in particular, uh, with the child could be a start. And there's some correlation between young girl children and social media exposure that's even larger than the other one. So that's like baseline, uh, some, some kind of hygiene towards it. That seems one. Second, um, I think that there is still some stigma associated with, like, if I say I have a headache, I think I wouldn't feel ashamed even a little bit to say it, and I don't think you would ever judge me for it. I think there's some stigma, so you can say I have some anxiety that I've been handling. And I think that if there's a bit of that more even at home, and if that's there, I think that could help. And it is also true that there is more— there is not as much access to mental health resources. I think if you're able to have a trusted person whom there's no self-diagnosing happening and because there's also this risk of overdiagnosing. So making sure that there's no diagnosing happening at home for any of these, just like we wouldn't do for like, I don't know, typhoid, um, just treating it like anything else would be a start. Because while it's increasing, whether it's happening at home is not clear. Now if we come to parenting side, right, see, I'm more of an education expert and less of a parenting expert. I'm not super sure what parents can do at home, but I can assure you that it's not just you all. Um, a lot of evidence suggests that the cultural context, the the genetics and parenting play a role in. So it's, it's only a part, and you can— I'm just saying this so that parents don't end up feeling fully responsible for this and try to be perfect. As a joke, maybe I'm going to say that it's almost entirely going to happen if they have access to mental health resources. So they're going to talk about you in therapy when they're 25 or something, and it's okay. Let them do that once or something like that. It's fine. You get it right mostly, and it's, it's, it's okay. What are the no-go zones? I would say that some opinions like physical punishments, etc., still work, are actually not There's a lot of evidence that that creates not very good— it creates issues rather than improvements. And because I'm hearing this a lot, there's some fear in, hey, am I not disciplining the child enough? And that's a great question. Is setting consequences important? Yes. Is being clear about what's negotiable, non-negotiable? That's true. But doing it gently. And so a lot of parents I talk to, their main confusion is they're stuck with, hey, but what you're telling, is it too permissive? Um, or the other option is to be aggressive and yell or hit or something like that. They know only these two words. I think they can be assertive, set boundaries, clarify negotiables, but do that in a respectful, gentle way such that the child doesn't end up having to have unintended consequences in mental health to do this. I can give you one example if we have time for a minute or so. Let's imagine that you believe that a child is interested in something and you want to like give selective validation to that. And if they talk about art, you wouldn't like— you'll be like, okay, cool, cool, whatever, right? Subtle. This can cause like some unintended unintended consequences, even though what you're really trying to do is share with them, hey, the science thing that you, that you're showing me, I think it's also valuable for the future, and I really think it's valuable, and it's like super nice, I'm happy that you're learning it. There's nothing wrong with saying that, but I think getting these communication bits right, uh, remove the unintended consequences of mental health where they're trying to parent please. And, uh, so, but it's not— I wouldn't say it's super complex. We're planning to do some workshops with parents on this because I don't want to make it sound like there is this entire Bible you have to learn. But it's like a few rules that you kind of keep up and you're mostly fine. Like appreciating, uh, the thing rather than the person. Uh, treat your appreciation as a parent as a flashlight that's very strong. Between adults, it's not that strong. You're already grown up, I'm already grown up. But for a child, especially from parent, don't shine it at them, shine it at the thing they did so that they don't feel like I'm supposed to be good and all that. Hey, oh, that thing you did was amazing. So little things like these, and you can— they can look it up, but I'll try and do some workshops on this in the future.

That makes so much sense. And thank you so much for these insights, Anand. I'm sure everybody watching would go away with a lot of insights and it would improve their life in some way or the other. Thank you so much.

Thanks so much for having me, Neetu, and this was just such a lovely conversation. Thank you so much. Thank you.