Austin Scholar #82: 2 Hour Learning

& my 2 Hour Learning journey

Hey, y'all!

This week from Austin Scholar...

1. 2 Hour Learning

2. Austin’s Anecdote: Kids learn best when they're in the driver's seat

3. Scholar’s Sources: My 2 Hour Learning journey

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2 Hour Learning

I got a 1600 on my SAT last week. You might be surprised to hear that for most of my school career, I've only spent two hours a day on academics. In this newsletter, I'm going to explain how I did it–and why 2 Hour Learning is the future of education.

Your kids don’t need to spend more than 2 hours a day on academics to do as well as they want to. Most people think that you have to spend six hours a day in class, and do a ton of homework if you want to crush academics. But that is wrong.

Like, wrong wrong.

Like, “the Earth is flat” wrong.

My own 1600 SAT score is evidence for this argument, but it’s not just me. There are hundreds of students who are thriving while only studying academics 2 hours a day.

I’ve been working with MacKenzie Price–head of GT School and Alpha, as well as the one who actually convinced my parents to take me out of standard school–on launching an online program called “2 Hour Learning.”

This is really important for a number of reasons. First off, everyone knows that schools as they exist are terrible. Just read the Twitter feed of one of my mentors, rebelEducator, for hundreds of examples and reasons.

Every parent wants their kids to learn life skills, not just academics. But that is impossible when a student has to spend six hours a day sitting in academic classes followed by hours a day of academic homework. We are wasting our kids’ K-12, and it’s not necessary.

Educational experts have been writing for over forty years (e.g. Benjamin Bloom) about how kids can only spend 2 hours a day on academics and still crush every subject. But to do this, you have to use schooling approaches that aren’t compatible with the “teacher in front of a classroom” model, so no one implements them. 

For the past decade, MacKenzie Price championed and helped build a school that has blown up the traditional “teacher in front of a classroom” model. 

That school is Alpha, where I’m currently in high school. As I mentioned earlier, she convinced my parents to pull my sister and me out of standard school and put us in what has evolved into Alpha. When I started on this path eight years ago, it was risky. I was definitely a guinea pig. (Ask me about literally failing all of my seventh-grade standardized tests. Or don’t.)

But the path isn’t risky anymore. The proof is there. (Check out Scholar’s Sources for my journey.)

I’ve been working with Mrs. Price to package up Alpha’s learning approach so it can be made available to everyone. If you look at the 2 Hour Learning website, you can see it is going to be powering schools (e.g. Texas Sports Academy), homeschools, microschools, and even Ukrainian refugees. 

My classmates and I have pioneered and lived this for the past eight years so you can feel confident that 2 Hour Learning will work for your child. We need to change education, and 2 Hour Learning is the catalyst.

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Austin’s Anecdote: Kids learn best when they're in the driver's seat

What happens when you put kids in charge?

Most educators will tell you that there are two things you need to educate a kid:

1. A motivated learner (by far the most important)

2. Lessons at the correct level of difficulty for said student

This is surely true for me. When I want to learn, I’m all set. When I don’t care, good luck getting me to actually learn anything. 

And even if I am motivated, put me in material that’s too hard (like med school biology that’s so hard I can’t understand half of the words) and my motivation will instantly vanish. Technology has become great at the second thing. AI tutors can figure out what a student knows and doesn’t know, and can then give the student appropriate lessons.

But it doesn’t do anything to solve the motivation problem. Schools have put technology in front of their students only to wonder why it doesn’t work. And that’s where my classmates and I come in. 

Freeing up time is incredibly motivating. If you want a motivated student, tell us we only need to spend 2 hours studying, not six. 

If you give students four hours of their time back to do the things they love, it'll be a lot easier to convince your kid to spend two really focused hours on their academics. It’s the part of our approach at Alpha that my classmates and I are most proud of. We are relentless in making sure that the benefits of technology are used to truly reduce the amount of time we spend studying. 

Give kids four or more hours of their time every single day back to do something they love, and they’ll have the time to do something meaningful with their high school years.

2 Hour Learning has certainly allowed that for my classmates and me at Alpha. It’s allowed us to do well academically, but also have enough time to master a sport, launch a business, build a top Substack newsletter, create a dating app, publish a video game, and win pageants–all of these are true examples of things my friends and I have accomplished.

Parents: take advantage of my classmates and my eight years of being academic experiments. We’ve proven you can do it; your kids can too.

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Scholar’s Sources: My 2 Hour Learning journey

Here are six of my newsletters if you’d like to deep-dive into my 2 Hour Learning journey:

1. What is a Masterpiece? And why should your kid have one?

Check out this one if you want to learn more about what your kid can do with those four hours.

2. Five Masterpieces from my friends at Alpha

Read about kids raising ~$500K to start a business, creating teen dating apps, preventing cancer with epigenetics, and more.

3. Benjamin Bloom and the Two-Sigma Problem

We’ve known how to learn in 2 hours for over forty years.

4. Do Educational Apps Really Work?

Motivation matters more than technology.

5. Why Alpha High Students Score So High on Their MAP Tests

More proof.

6. Giving Teachers More Work Won’t Solve Our Educational Crisis

Teachers are great, but the “teacher in front of the classroom” model must go.

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Thanks for reading. Go crush the week! See y'all on Sunday.