Why Elon Musk Built a School for His Kids - YouTube

This video is brought to you by Squarespace. In a corner of SpaceX's headquarters in  

Hawthorne, California you won't find rocket  engineers or even adults for that matter.  

For a number of years, Elon Musk ran a school out  of his rocket factory to educate his five children -  

not including boy number six, Baby X. They had been  enrolled at a private school for gifted kids in LA  

but Musk wasn't satisfied with their education  as he once told the Chinese television network.  

The regular schools just they weren't doing the  things that I thought should be done. Musk has  

been critical of the American education system -  pointing out teachers don't explain why kids are  

taught a subject. They're taught a mathematical  formula without explaining why that formula is  

important. As an analogy, he says simply listing the  tools you need to take an engine apart isn't the  

same as trying to disassemble the engine yourself  and by doing so, learn the relevance of the tools  

as you go. When he's not happy with how things are  done, the entrepreneur tends to do something about  

it - whether it's creating rockets, cars, computer  chips, or his own school. He named it Ad Astra  

which is Latin for: to the stars. I actually hired  a teacher from the school they were at who also  

agreed with me that there was a better way to do  it. That teacher is Josh Dahn who I spoke with over  

Skype. Was it a tough decision for you to leave the  private school where you were teaching at to go on  

this new venture? No, of course not, right? I mean if  anything, you know, Elon asked me to think about it  

and I responded, you know, hours after we originally  spoke, like, in the middle of the night because  

it was so clearly a great opportunity. Ad  Astra was far from a typical school with no  

classes in language, music, sports, or even grade  levels. Students were grouped based on their  

ability where they took part in complex team  games to test their critical thinking skills.  

In one simulation, teams competed at various art  auctions to try to assemble the best collections  

to display at exhibitions around the world, similar to what these students are doing. I like the Shrine Gate. Okay, yeah, you do that one.

It's a lot for adults to juggle let alone the eight to 14-year-olds at Ad Astra.

Musk reimagined how school could be taught  based on First Principles reasoning. A fancy way  

of saying: How could you rethink how something  is done in order to make it better? A strategy  

applied to Tesla's manufacturing of batteries. It  used to be very expensive to build batteries for  

electric cars. You could say that's just the way  it is and there's no way to bring the price down.  

First Principles thinking would say it's possible  to make cheaper batteries by breaking it down to  

the basics: figuring out what the batteries are  made of and how those materials could be cleverly  

combined to form a battery cell. In education,  First Principles mean figuring out how students  

can get the best learning experience possible to  bring about the best future for them and for the  

world. I can't believe that it's sitting at a desk  listening to a teacher tell you how to you know do  

side angle side theorems in geometry class. Ad Astra  grew from nine kids in the first week of 2014  

to 50 six years later - a mix of children of SpaceX  employees as well as high achievers from the area.  

Sometimes they ventured off-campus. A converted  garage at the former house of Gene Wilder once  

served as a chemistry lab. This unorthodox approach  to education doesn't come cheap. Tuition was around  

$30,000 a year with some receiving  financial aid. When Ad Astra closed in June 2020,  

Musk donated funds to kickstart an online school  called Astra Nova headed by Josh Dahn. Although the  

SpaceX CEO isn't personally involved, he has  his fingerprints all over the new school. A 

former SpaceX engineer teaches rocketry there. And  even the application is related to one of Musk's  

passions. Interested students have to submit  a response to this environmental problem. What  

would be your answer? There's a large lake near a  small town. A corporation dumps harmful chemicals  

into the water. Scientists studying the lake say  it'll die in 10 years if the pollution continues.  

An individual, the puppet master, is concerned  new regulations will impact profits  

so they decide to pay a small group of scientists  to publish bogus research claiming the lake has  

never been healthier. The media reports on the  new study. Politicians have the power to stop the  

pollution but decide not to since there appears  to be disagreement over the health of the lake.  

Plus, the company employs so many people in town  its closure would devastate the economy. Voters who  

listen to the media, politicians, and scientists  are confused over what the truth actually is.  

They re-elect the politicians. The corporation  continues dumping harmful chemicals into the  

lake and the lake dies 10 years later. So, who is  to blame? There's no right or wrong answer but the  

school is interested in how the children reason  through ethical dilemmas.

It's not about preparing the 100 or so admitted students for an Ivy League education. In fact, Musk went on the record

to say degrees don't matter when Tesla's artificial intelligence team  looks to hire -

putting it this way: Don't care if you even graduated high school.  

Not to mention, many smart people dropped out  of college like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates.  

Musk has said he simply wants evidence of  exceptional ability which he hopes can be fostered  

at a young age. And SpaceX of course is an exercise  in possibility. The concepts are available to kids  

around the world online through a separate venture  called Synthesis. As people spend more time online,  

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Thanks so much for watching.

For Newsthink, I'm Cindy Pom.