Elon Musk's experimental public school, in existence since 2015, is a combination of new educational tools that finally put the student at the centre. So that future generations can one day meet the stars, in person.
According to the 2022 school calendar, the last day of school for Italian students was 9 June (except for Bolzano, which will be 16 June).
The year that has just ended is undoubtedly the most difficult one ever, due to the delays imposed by the pandemic and the consequent impact on the standards required of young schoolchildren, as well as the precariousness of the thousands of teachers still waiting for tenure and, to top it all off, the various inconveniences that the many families have experienced to catch up with all the time lost over the last two years.
And while people are thinking about how to improve the Italian school, there is already a secret school overseas, conceived by the visionary and unpredictable Elon Musk, who intends to revolutionize the field of education by focusing exclusively on the potential of the so-called Alpha Generation, with the aim of preparing a new species of brilliant and ethically inclined individuals.
Here, the man of the moment continues to make people talk about him, but this time in a truly ambitious project that concerns the whole of humanity. But let us take a closer look at what kind of school Elon Musk is creating for the future.
The Alpha generation
"Sometimes it is up to a generation to be great. You can be that great generation."
Nelson Mandela
Who are the Alpha Generation and IGeneration? Those who think they are aliens are actually not that far from the truth, since compared to previous generations, they are all those children born between 2010 and 2025 who in common possess the incredible predisposition to naturally and effortlessly understand the use of the various technological devices available, such as: Smatphone, Pc, Tablet, Playstation etc.
Between the spontaneous ability to comprehend the dynamics of the usable digital world, and the extraordinary speed of association and memory, which the children of the IGeneration (O Alpha) naturally cultivate, is seen as a normal extension of their body, or a limb that cannot be detached or kept away. This innate inclination towards today's complex technology, also becomes a cutting-edge project founded and financed by Elon Musk back in 2015, who intends to create an ad-hoc experimental school, where all the potential of the so-called Alpha Generation, can be properly understood and stimulated in order to realize happy individuals, capable one day of improving future society.
But how does such a school of tomorrow's stars develop?
The Star School of Tomorrow
If one accesses the official website of Elon Musk's school, one immediately realizes that it is a school that is completely 'different' from the others; first of all, the appellation that many people give it is certainly that of a secret school, as it is not possible to receive any detailed information on the teaching methods used, other than a small glimpse of the general concept of the proposal of the aforementioned school.
The Astra Nova School, is undoubtedly a clearly alternative school, access to which is possible with a simple online application available throughout the year, providing only some general information about the child to be placed. The so-called 'laboratory school', as it likes to be emphasized, focuses mainly on a few parameters:
Experimental school: which constitutes the founding theme and is centralized on the design of new learning dynamics and modes, in order to offer a better quality and innovative service for all students;
Online-only offer: the participation that takes place online, with digital classrooms, was also created to include qualified international students from all parts of the world;
Working classes: the age range includes young people from 10 to 14, with full- or part-time registration and in collaboration with the Art of Problem solving, to provide a wide range of mathematical options for all students participating in the workshop.
Projects and team working: it would appear that there are no different levels as well as for the inclusion of grades, which are not provided for, unlike in all ordinary schools. The intention is mainly to put the student back at the centre of the actual work, in the creation of real, practical projects.
Elon Musk and his terrible experience of being bullied in his school days for being misunderstood for his incredible abilities prompted him to create a school designed 'totally his own way', in line with the entrepreneur's other famous ventures, including: SpaceX, Starlink, Neuralink and Tesla, and the very recent acquisition of the Twitter social company.
The central objective for Elon Musk, which emerges from a broader vision of the future world in general, is the enhancement of the natural abilities present in the individual child to be correctly placed in the collective context, where:
both competition and individual performance are totally banned, in favor instead of respect and ethical and responsible choices in full harmony with the other representatives.
Therefore, all subjective performances resulting from perpetually stressed individuals with a tendency to be self-centred, and without a real mission to fulfill for mankind, are not accepted in this 'real Cool school ', according to Elon Musk.
No to conformism and Yes to student-centredness
'Teach to the problem, no to the solution'.
Elon Musk
The importance of the child and the future individual in a certain innovative context, which excludes both voting and risky competitions altogether, are just some of the most representative aspects of Musk's lab.
The best way to teach Alpha children is indeed to develop:
problem-solving skills and quick response;
Train critical thinking;
improve teamwork to be able to make better individual decisions.
But before developing all the skills necessary to create the better individuals of tomorrow, it is important to focus on the core of the new educational system, put in place by Elon Musk himself with his AD Astra, and that is, as we have anticipated, on the centrality of the student.
The typical role of the teacher that most of us have known, seems light years away from the experimentation proposed above Ad Astra; the old teaching staff did nothing more than conform to the pre-established syllabus of the institutions and the induced rigidity of the current tried and tested system, without ever considering in depth the needs and desires of the student, taken individually. In this regard, Elon Musk, on the other hand, is very clear about what the ideal school for his children (who also attend) should have and what it should not.
But before developing all the skills necessary to create the better individuals of tomorrow, it is important to focus on the core of the new educational system, put in place by Elon Musk himself with his AD Astra, and that is, as we have anticipated, on the centrality of the student.
The typical role of the teacher that most of us have known, seems light years away from the experimentation proposed above Ad Astra; the old teaching staff did nothing more than conform to the pre-established syllabus of the institutions and the induced rigidity of the current tried and tested system, without ever considering in depth the needs and desires of the student, taken individually. In this regard, Elon Musk, on the other hand, is very clear about what the ideal school for his children (who also attend) should have and what it should not.
In addition, the new generation at Musk's lab, will work full-time with advanced artificial intelligence, including coding, practical construction, computer science, critical thinking and ethics, but excluding some classic subjects of traditional schools, such as languages, history and other humanities.
Here, the centrality of the student as Elon Musk's great dream, is perhaps encapsulated in his initial thought of innovating and reforming at the same time, that is to say, of twisting what is known and giving it to the world through a completely new outfit. (in this case of Education), privileging, however, at the moment, only those chosen few who can move to the hills of Los Angeles and certainly not aimed at the general masses yet, since the fees and expenses to follow this experiment, all remain Top Secret.
Future of education
“To help a child, we must provide him with an environment that allows him to develop freely."
Maria Montessori
It is clear that a different school is also needed for the IGeneration (for those born between the late 1990s and the early 2010s). A school, which gives room for doing and therefore for experimentation; and which restores the meaning of discovery, through curiosity, a sense of justice and creative imagination. Nothing better, then.
But in parallel with what has been argued, it is necessary to understand the current framework that the school in general (and in Italy), has decided to assume in the last two years to counter the COVID pandemic, through the compulsory assumption of a new form of learning, which is promulgated strictly online, through the so-called DAD pathway (i.e. Distance Learning) at all levels of education, presenting not a few cons for students.
In fact, the Almalaurea survey of about 110 thousand completed questionnaires, carried out in the midst of the pandemic period between December 2020 and May 2021, states that as many as 29.3% found some technical-organizational criticalities of a personal nature, such as:
software poco fruibili, sovrapposizione delle lezioni e condivisione degli spazi;
In fact, the latest data from this version of School 2.0 tells us that:
78.4% of university students stated their preference for face-to-face teaching, the aspect most appreciated being the direct relationship with lecturers (81.6%).
Consequently, the inevitable transformation taking place in the 'beautiful country', to which the negative record numbers on births are also added, has nonetheless revived three unlikely discussion variables in favor of DAD itself, namely:
that learning can be carried out without travel and with greater flexibility of time and day;
of parental intervention or greater family presence, especially towards high school students, in the completion of their academic year;
of proposing DAD itself as a supplement to effective and better learning for young people along with face-to-face teaching, trying to bridge the technological gap between those who own a PC and can follow lessons electronically and those who, on the other hand, do not yet have any possibility of owning one
In the conceptual imprint of the post-COVID New Normal, in which some school subjects are even expected to disappear in the future, (e.g. history, geography, humanities and languages), new forms of learning such as DAD are inserted, which shift the student's attention towards the prolonged use of the aseptic light display as the only place for social interaction.
Elon Musk's Multiplanetary Vision
"Yes, I am an Outsider and proud of it."
Elon Musk
All this brings us back to the initial idea of the School according to Elon Musk and the actual centrality of the student as its main objective. But in addition to Elon Musk, that type of school in which the child has full freedom to manifest his or her spontaneity and is accompanied on a responsible and constructive path, actually already exists.
We are obviously talking about the emblematic figure of Maria Montessori and her famous method used in some 65,000 schools worldwide. Montessori's incredible ability to have profoundly understood that a child's mind is absorbing, and how important it is to educate to freedom according to the criteria of love, creativity and listening, building together a true 'children's school', the future men and women of tomorrow, is of pure inspiration for the best schools of today and incredibly avant-garde, compared to the high expectations of the multi-millionaire Elon Musk. What the Montessori method has developed, since its first home for children aged 3 to 6 in 1907, is the perfect synthesis of a never-ending journey, in which good education passed on with the most appropriate instruction for the individual child can only and always bear beautiful fruit.
And Elon Musk must have perfectly understood the importance of the individual for the community at large, winking at a seemingly distant world, the pedagogical and psychological world of the mentors of the past, and among them the avant-garde vision of the ever-loved and studied Maria Montessori.
You hear about Elon Musk, almost every day now. Once for the Mars mission, another for the mind-boggling acquisition of the famous Social Twitter. It goes without saying that all the moves he is making, besides proving to have an enormous impact on international finance, economics, society, and even culture, increasingly (perhaps) reveal his most ambitious intention: that is, to prepare a new multi-planetary species that could one day inhabit the imaginary red planet. But the dream of developing better individuals is at the same time also one of the biggest obstacles that Elon himself will surely have to face in the near future, since:
sooner or later he will have to make his vision of the School known to the world;
sooner or later he will have to make his vision of the School known to the world;
in his very ambitious intention to build a 'multi-planetary' species model, he could probably clash with other schools of thought, which now see him much more as a hardened and unscrupulous Trans-humanist than a true benefactor of the masses;
the general idea of preparing individuals to be better than others, applies to what extent compared to whom, really? And which image of a representative better man should we instead follow and why?
To conclude, if we could see the future of Elon Musk and the whole of humanity through a crystal ball over the next fifty years, we would see it straddling:
A figure in perpetual transformation, but in a state of near omnipresence, seeing, touching and transforming everything and everyone, setting new records and moving ahead of the times with the construction of new common and usable realities for all mankind.
If Elon Musk, between anti-establishment hero and free-booter, plays his cards right in this watershed time between Science and Consciousness, and always remaining true to his role of unwavering Insider-Outsider, he could bring many more benefits than drawbacks to the planet (earth), thanks to his innate ability to anticipate and disrupt the dominant single-mindedness, with the one and only unwavering motto of 'always following himself'.
And we assume that whatever decision is taken, it will be vital for the continuation of the Earth's species and its possible stay on planet Earth, in addition to the one in preparation on Mars.