From Curling To Classrooms

A curling controversy sparks a bigger question: what happens when we borrow the best parts of elite training and bring them to everyday classrooms? We jump from biathlon fandom and “curlgate” to the pressure young athletes face, the startling math of medal payouts, and why access still decides who gets to compete—on the ice and in school.

We don’t shy away from the hard part: cost and equity. Boutique micro-schools can run $40–75k per year, a nonstarter for most families and districts. So we get practical about what public schools can do today—pilot adaptive tools already in your ecosystem, shift schedules to protect applied learning time, partner with local organizations to expand pathways, and measure mastery instead of seat time. 

If you care about personalized learning, AI in education, SEL, CTE, mastery grading, and project-based learning, this conversation will sharpen your thinking and offer concrete steps to try. Subscribe, share with a colleague, and tell us: what’s the first change you’d make to your school day?

Want to send us a show idea or just say hi?  Email us at: thechangedpodcast@gmail.com! 

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:05

Welcome back to Change Ed. Change it. Change Ed. Your number one podcast that brings you all things education and is giving you coverage on this year's Olympic Games. I'm your host, Andrew Kuhn, Education Consultant from Montgomery County Intermediate Unit.

SPEAKER_01 0:22

Here with me is Patrice Temacek. Also out of the Montgomery County Intervention. I don't always say it that way. I didn't have to think about it for not.

SPEAKER_00 0:34

You just change it.

SPEAKER_01 0:34

You had to think about your name. I had to think about how I said it because you get into like a habit of like how you put trees.

SPEAKER_00 0:41

Oh, that's tough.

SPEAKER_02 0:43

Oh thank you. And also, here with us is Tony Marambito.

SPEAKER_01 0:49

We're done. We're done. We're done. Oh my gosh. I'm gonna have to listen to a few episodes because I can guarantee you that's not how I always say it.

SPEAKER_00 0:58

Tony Marambito, IU21, staff development facilitator. Also fan of the biathlon.

SPEAKER_01 1:06

All right, listen, I gotta I gotta talk about No Wait, I just watched a really good ping pong movie. It's not ping pong, it's table tennis. Is table tennis part of the Olympics? Not ping pong.

SPEAKER_00 1:14

The summer Olympics, yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:15

The winter ones, but in the summer, I learned you're not gonna be a little bit more. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:18

Yeah, I figured you would.

SPEAKER_01 1:19

You figured I would what? Like that movie? Yes. I don't like him.

SPEAKER_00 1:22

You don't like a chalomet?

SPEAKER_01 1:23

No, I like Chalamet. Oh, I like I love him. I didn't he was very good.

SPEAKER_00 1:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:29

Very good because I didn't like his character.

SPEAKER_00 1:31

I didn't see it, but I know a lot about it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:33

Is it a real person?

SPEAKER_00 1:33

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:34

He was like a real butthead. Wow. Like a manipulator, like picky human.

SPEAKER_00 1:38

So is a fictionalized version of Marty Riceman, by the way.

SPEAKER_02 1:43

I was worried about who it was.

SPEAKER_00 1:44

I figured you were worried, yeah. No, he didn't say anything for minutes. So I can move on.

SPEAKER_01 1:48

No, it wasn't we he just said he likes the biathlon. All right, biathlon?

SPEAKER_00 1:53

Yep. I'm a big no, I'm used to saying start biathlon guy. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:58

That's what I'm used to saying. So sorry. Anyway, that's what we think. Like, oh, that's a sport.

Curlgate Controversy Explained

SPEAKER_02 2:02

Can we be real about the Olympics? It's not the Olympics. We're all watching one sport ever. And that's curling. Anytime I turn on the Olympics, it's curling. We even had curl gate, right? With the finger and the push.

SPEAKER_00 2:13

Sure did. Everyone says these Canadians are very nice, but they may be cheaters.

SPEAKER_02 2:17

I don't know. I I didn't even see it, but I heard that it went down. It was pretty nasty. I got I don't think words were spoken. Now, my understanding is that he was still behind the line when push push gate happened. Is that right?

SPEAKER_01 2:30

Well, it depends. It depends. It's a thick line. So is it behind where the line starts or is it behind where the line ends? Oh, so it's not just like a little like 12-point line. It's like a solid 30 or 40-point line if we're talking font size.

SPEAKER_02 2:42

There's really there's a gray area that's actually green. It's a green area.

SPEAKER_01 2:46

But like it was, yeah, I think the line's large enough to either fit almost all of the puck looking thing in it. So when he pushed it, it wasn't past the farthest part of the line when they claim he pushed it. It wasn't past the farthest part of the line, but it was past the start part of the line.

SPEAKER_00 3:01

He was accused of double touching the curling stone by making contact with the granite part of the stone with his finger after releasing it down the ice.

SPEAKER_01 3:08

Because that's the part that I heard the rule was you can't touch the granite part.

SPEAKER_00 3:12

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 3:12

And it sounds like double touching is not allowed either, obviously. And I think his reaction to it, his exception.

SPEAKER_01 3:18

It was what made you feel like he definitely did it.

SPEAKER_00 3:21

He knew what he was doing. It was very un-Canadian like.

SPEAKER_01 3:23

It made me feel like, oh, he knew what he was doing because he's feeling some kind of way about it.

SPEAKER_02 3:27

Well, if we're being honest with that reaction, that's happened to every single educator only more than once in the classroom.

SPEAKER_01 3:32

No, it's coming. All my students were angels. Are we talking about kids or teachers?

SPEAKER_00 3:36

Both.

SPEAKER_01 3:37

Yes. All my kids were angels.

SPEAKER_00 3:38

What is your favorite Olympic uh winter Olympic sport?

SPEAKER_01 3:41

I really like I like ice dancing.

SPEAKER_00 3:42

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 3:43

I've been following that Iliah kid.

SPEAKER_00 3:45

Mm-hmm. Quad god, that guy.

SPEAKER_01 3:47

Yeah. That poor young man. Because he got eighth, I think. Oh wow. In something. But he's like over here bing and like he was.

SPEAKER_00 3:54

He did a forbidden move, didn't he? To win everything.

SPEAKER_01 3:56

No, he f well no, the backflip's allowed now. It was a little bit more.

SPEAKER_00 3:59

But it was forbidden a little while ago.

SPEAKER_01 4:00

It was forbidden, like two or three years. Yeah. Yeah. But he fell and like came in eighth, but he was predicted to win like everything. And I can't even imagine the pressure that this this poor kid.

SPEAKER_00 4:11

It's old. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:12

Like, and I say kid, I think he's not, you know, like in maybe his teen. I don't really know. I should look up how old he is. But like the pressure that this young he's 21, the kid must have felt going in. One, he's deemed himself the quad god. It's all of his social medias. Two, like he was it by far. Like by far, he was winning. And then he fell. I feel bad for him.

SPEAKER_00 4:33

Kind of, I don't want to change the subject, but I also find this staggering because I was doing a math training the other day, and one of my favorite math websites is slow reveal graphs.com. Yeah. And like you have them do it in kind of like a notice and wonder about what the data is, and when then you unveil it. But one of them was something that has to do with countries and how much they pay their athletes for when they medal. So quick Google search here in the Google machine says that Singapore pays$792,000 for a gold medal, Hong Kong$768,000. How much do you think the US pays a gold medalist?

SPEAKER_02 5:03

Five dollars.

SPEAKER_00 5:03

Nothing.$37,500. Wow. So some of these countries, Italy, my homeland,$214,000 for gold. So like some of these athletes are this is their full-time job.

SPEAKER_01 5:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:14

And I watched a series on on Instagram the other day about the Olympic US Olympic athletes and their day jobs. So it's kind of crazy how good we are at at these sports and it's not their full-time gig.

SPEAKER_02 5:24

Is it also a supply and demand issue? I mean, the United States, if they were to give away almost$800,000 per gold, that would be a lot of money because we walk away with a lot of medals. Where some of these other countries you mentioned, it's a big deal if they get a medal. So it's you know, you're you're putting all your eggs in one basket saying this is worth this much if we walk away with this.

SPEAKER_00 5:44

Like Malaysia's paying they're the third highest, 256,000. But how many medals do you see Malaysia winning? Correct. I mean, so I asked Patrice, her favorite is ice skating.

SPEAKER_02 5:54

I will turn on the Olympics as a background thing that you know I think that and this isn't a problem, but the pace of it is different than I'm usually like I'm I love to watch football and it will it could engage me for the entire day. This is like I'm doing something else. Let me turn it on and I can look over and watch it and come back. I I enjoy uh what is it, the luge? Is that one of the things that they do?

SPEAKER_00 6:18

The luge and the skeleton. I believe the skeleton is head first and the luge is yeah, like that.

SPEAKER_01 6:23

Okay, can we circle back into the fact that we are an educational podcast? And what does this have to do with anything?

SPEAKER_00 6:29

Well, here's some education for you. Summer Olympic versus the winter Olympics. Five billion unique viewers for the Summer Olympics, two billion unique viewers for winter Olympics.

SPEAKER_01 6:38

Oh, so people are kind of aligned with us then.

SPEAKER_00 6:40

329 events with 32 sports in the summer, 116 events, 15 sports winter. Wow. This is the biggest disparity, I think. And because the viewership is not that far apart. 206 participating countries in the summer, only 91 in the winter.

Pressure, Medal Payouts, And Access

SPEAKER_01 6:54

Is that an access thing? Like it gets warm enough in a lot of places, but does it get cold enough for the winter you think?

SPEAKER_00 7:00

You would bring up a very academic reason for this. It could be because like how large are these cold weather countries.

SPEAKER_01 7:06

Like I'm wondering, like the countries that are usually warmer consistently. Right. Like you're not going to see a whole lot even from the states, you're not gonna see a whole lot of skiers coming from Florida.

SPEAKER_00 7:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:16

You could do all the summer sports in basically every state in the US.

SPEAKER_00 7:19

Bring it back to education. Like you were saying, the Phillies just this week signed an 11-year-old shortstop for$1.8 million. Shut your mouth. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:27

An 11-year-old?

SPEAKER_00 7:29

An 11-year-old. It's the youngest. Let me get it.

SPEAKER_01 7:31

What is this 11-year-old gonna do?

SPEAKER_00 7:32

They're gonna hold on to him until he's I'm not exactly sure about what the content is. He's not gonna play anytime soon, but it's called a Philly, yeah, pre-agreement with 11-year-old shortstop.

SPEAKER_01 7:42

What happens if this kid gets injured? I'm sure there's a clause.

SPEAKER_00 7:50

Basabe is now the youngest player in history to sign a pre-agreement with MLB organization. I'm not sure what how this I'd assume they would have to wait till he's like 18, right?

SPEAKER_01 7:59

Like an adult.

SPEAKER_00 8:00

It says additionally, there's no guarantee that Basabe, I'm I'm hoping I'm pronouncing this young man's name correctly, actually will sign with the Phillies. Deals like this are not official, and international free agents flipping commitments are not uncommon. But he just got a 1.8 signing bonus here. Like maybe he has a long way to go to develop his game. There's no telling how he stacks up with the rest of the 2031 signing class. But so far, he is the only one to reach any sort of agreement with the club.

SPEAKER_01 8:22

Holy cow.

SPEAKER_00 8:23

So if this is the youngest and this is the first, I'm sure other teams are not far behind.

SPEAKER_02 8:28

Uh-uh. So I think one of the interesting connections is that our world is evolving. And as is evolving, what are we as educators trying to instill in our students? It hasn't changed from the standpoint of like, as you said, those that are going to go pro. And and if you're if you're competing in the Olympics, at some level, you're a professional, right? Like you've you've really honed in your craft. But I would say for a US athlete, you're chasing glory at some point more so than you are the funds. Although you might get signing bonuses, you know, you might get contract deals to do different things and appear on things. But this is what our students are looking at saying, I want to do that, I want to be on that stage. So what are we doing to help prepare them for their life? Because the statistics behind that, you probably know this better than I would. I mean, I think it's less than 1% of all college students who play football actually become professionals. Like you have a funnel and you keep getting it smaller and smaller and smaller. The heart of humans is like, but I can do this, which is amazing. But the reality of it statistically is, you know, it really gets smaller. Now, for baseball, when you're looking at the whole world, not just in this area, not just this area in the United States, you're looking at the whole world. Now that statistic becomes even more bleak. So how do we still empower students to say, yeah, this is amazing?

SPEAKER_00 9:47

Now, maybe this is a stretch, but I'll go one step farther with education. I'm privileged enough to work at RIU with our eLearn 21, is what we call it. But it's online learning that we provide for all of our district so that they have so students that attend a public school district can attend and still stay enrolled at their school, but have an online component to it. So for whatever reason, we have so many different illnesses for for travel because of parents' work, for for their own sports. We have a bunch of parquets, which is gymnastics up near us. We have students that work at their family business, but want to still graduate from high school. So we offer those online classes. Some of those classes are very tough. There's also the two-hour learning academy that's been all over the news recently. It's called Alpha School, where they condense a school day into two hours and it's completely based on AI. And there's guides, there's the teachers are called guides, but it's completely personalized learning. And this starts as early as it's a K-12 curriculum. So our more and more students, because of how much they're getting paid in college, or even maybe an 11-year-old gets signed for baseball. And I'm sure if you have children that you know how intense youth sports has become, are there gonna be more students that are transitioning to an online education, more personalized, shorter days so they can focus on a skill or trait or maybe start even business early? Like we've we've done this warehouse factory style, 30 kids in a classroom, sitting in and in desks for years and years and years. So is this a new shift that's gonna happen?

From Olympics To Education Access

SPEAKER_01 11:04

I think it would be interesting too to look at it from a gifted and advanced learner perspective. Like I remember my son Micah when he was in kindergarten, COVID hit, and he said to me, Mom, I can do school in an hour. Why do I have to sit here for six? And so as a kindergartner, so he learned, he already had all these skills. So when we're thinking about this kind of this kind of shift in our learning and the shift in schooling, is it something that we should consider for students like actually compacting the learning or pre-assessing and figuring out what you need or doing all of these things? Because maybe it doesn't have to be to get into an athletic field. Maybe it's so kids could get into college sooner so they could become doctors faster or physicists or all of these other things that they could possibly be. I think that it's a huge cultural shift. One to be able to trust an AI bot to be able to do the things that we as humans do. I think there is some concern for the lack of humanity that comes along with having a teacher in the space, because I think there's also some things to be said about what socially emotional learning takes place when you are in the space with other adults or other humans or other people. So I think it's not just about the academics. And so I get concerned about compacting schools so much that they don't have access to the other socially emotional pieces that help them become humans because you can know everything you need to know and really struggle with the human piece. I see it a lot in kids where they're isolated, like they're just playing games all the time or they're online or they're just in their spaces, which is fine to an extent. But like I'm also seeing the inability to interact with other humans in a positive way.

SPEAKER_00 12:42

I completely agree. And I think the AI thing was I was stretching it there. Like, I don't understand.

SPEAKER_01 12:46

No, but I think it's definitely a possibility. And I think it's actually beneficial academically.

SPEAKER_00 12:50

I agree. So let me tell you about this unbound academy real quick. I would just want to get your take. No, I feel like a No, I love this. This is fun. Okay, so here we go. AI powered academy. So students spend two hours on adaptive software using 25-minute sprints, Pomodoro technique, to master subjects like math, science, and language arts. Okay. The guide model is used. So instead of a lecturer's human guides provide motivation, social emotional support and monitoring of student progress. Okay. Afternoon activities. The remaining day is dedicated to workshops, sports, arts, real world skills, aiming to reduce, they call it academic burnout. And this is being done right now at Alpha School. It's a private school and uh proposed at Unbound Academy, which is a virtual charter. So what do you think of that model?

SPEAKER_01 13:30

I kind of love that model. Honestly, it depends on the kids. I love the model. I mean, maybe it doesn't depend on the kids. I love the idea of this model because if you're getting all of the things academically that you need in two-hour sprints, one, the attention span for most of our kids is super, super low. So getting it in a condensed version of things. And then a lot, what I like the most is if the second half of the day is real-world skills, problem-based learning, doing all these other things, now it's shifting to. I really am kind of sad that my oldest decided not to go to the Western Center because I feel like that's where a lot of really good learning is taking place because it's hands-on, like put it in practice kind of stuff. So I think that if we shifted, I actually kind of like it because it's putting, it's actually you're learning something and then you're doing something, which is what we've always talked about here. Like you learn something, you do something. And I think that if they're applying their learning differently in the afternoon than just sitting and lecturing, I actually think you're going to see score skyrocket.

SPEAKER_00 14:27

And you get that relevant content. Right. Like I said, we're going to learn about math. Oh, well, then we're going to go apply math. Right. Which is ideally what we're trying to do as teachers in a classroom every day, too.

SPEAKER_01 14:34

I mean, it's a huge, huge, huge shift. It's a huge shift. And I hear all the time, especially at the elementary levels, I don't have time to teach science because I'm so focused on teaching literacy skills. I'm teaching the basics of math. But I always wonder a little bit, do we actually know what the kids do and don't know? And are we targeting their learning? And if we targeted their learning a little differently, maybe we wouldn't have to spend so much time teaching ELA and math skills because we'd be applying it in science and social studies.

SPEAKER_00 15:04

And I don't I don't know the data behind it. Like this has been around for a little while now, maybe like two or three years. I'm curious to see like, are they learning faster than kids in in regular education? Are they what do the grade levels look like? Like, are we are we finishing first grade early? If it's adaptive software, are we meeting the needs then for those students that struggle and for the students that are exceeding?

SPEAKER_01 15:22

And then if it's adaptive, if they're at significantly different places in the morning, what does their afternoon look like? Or are those less grade levels and more bands where like you're going based on your skills, which is what we try to say MTSS is really about, right? Like if we're targeting their skills in the way they actually working on it. I don't hate it.

SPEAKER_00 15:41

I would love to see it in action.

SPEAKER_01 15:42

I would love to go with it one day. And to your point, I would love to see what the data looks like.

AI Schools And The Two-Hour Model

SPEAKER_02 15:47

It it sounds like it's uniquely poised for a lot of things that we talk about, that we need to consider different models. We need to look at things differently, and that you know, we have this constant challenge of time. And they found a way to embrace that differently, but also it's it sounds like a big project-based learning model. And you know, if if the focus is not we're gonna make you a professional of this, right, but the focus is we're gonna learn all these skill sets and put them into action through this, what you're doing. You pick what you want to do and you do it that way, there's a lot there. I think that's the key right there. I think this could lead to careers down the road that people wouldn't even know about. We're teaching teamwork differently instead of creating an artificial scenario in a classroom, which can be done, but if if you're not able to do that, well, now I'm working on a team and we have this goal and we're trying to complete something. We always talk about relevancy and and meeting students where they are. So this sounds like it has that opportunity to be able to do that. And I think that it's also hitting on these skills that we have been talking about that are so important in this world of AI. We need to know how to be human beings. We need to know how to interact with each other and value each other so that when we're important critical decision points, we're connected to other people and we understand the impacts of those decisions versus going through life isolated, and then you you're left with this important decision that impacts potential millions of our lives, and you're like, Well, I don't really have a lot of relationships, right? Like we it's important to bind us together. So finding those commonalities is important, and I think it's not which I I thought I was hearing from you, it's not just about the sports. There could be other things that you're passionate about that you get into, and that's that's really important for our students too.

SPEAKER_01 17:29

Including the arts, like that's the piece that also gets cut really quickly is the music and the art and the all of it.

SPEAKER_00 17:35

Everything that we're cutting with public funds, they're they're trying to re-engage.

SPEAKER_01 17:41

That if you learn music, you do better. It's so frustrating.

SPEAKER_00 17:44

So we went from Olympics to AI Academy.

SPEAKER_01 17:47

Well, because it makes sense. Like, if you think about it, a lot of our potential future Olympians would use something like this to be able to become better at their craft. So I see I it wasn't a far leap.

SPEAKER_02 17:56

Conversations I've definitely had is that wouldn't it be interesting if what we do for our elite athletes is something that was available to everyone? How would that change the world?

SPEAKER_01 18:06

I kind of feel that way about what we talk about and gifted too. Like we give a lot of kids and gifted a lot of opportunities that if we gave it to all of our kids, I think it would transform the way we do things.

SPEAKER_02 18:14

I wouldn't throw another thought out there, and I don't even know if it's a complete thought, but we all know that it will be a good thought, so I'm gonna put it out there anyway. I can tell you're both not paying attention because neither one of you commented on that. What did you say? I said I'm gonna throw a thought out there. I don't know if it's gonna be complete. However, we all know it's gonna be a good thought because I'm the one giving it. Yeah, that's how it's sometimes. Even our listeners like those fools weren't listening, or they would have jumped right all over that. Anyway, what I was gonna say was I'm trying to be quiet. As educators, we by and large, generalizing educators, we are rule followers, we follow the rules. So when we talk about the curlgate that happened, the what? Curlgate. Oh, if I said Colgate, I'm like, no, they are one of our sponsors, but I'm not mentioning them right now. Anyway, when curlgate happened, that could be very much seen as like a how can I push the limit as much as possible? So there are individuals, I think a lot of our athletes, who okay, these are rules I have to play in, but how can I push that limit as far as humanly possible? Where often for us as educators, we're like, no, no, no, no, back up from that line. No, no, no, no. That's that's the rule. We can't we can't do that. So when in our work with with students, are we encouraging them all to be rule followers or are we encouraging them to, you know, we say think outside the box to expand beyond that? And what does that look like?

SPEAKER_01 19:32

I think a lot of our teachers actually are at least the ones I come in contact with, maybe because I like to deal with the riff raff, but I think they do like to push the limits. It's just that we've been conditioned and there's a stigma for being the one that pushes the limits and pushing the boundaries. And if you are okay and very secure in who you are and what you're doing, then who cares? But I think that it's a fine line to walk, similar to your curl gate example. But I also think that I know that teachers want to do what's best for kids. And what we've been programmed for a long time to believe is what's best for kids is all of this data-driven instruction that's using these curricular materials. And again, there's nothing wrong with using data. I think it's actually really informative to help you move forward. My struggle is only sticking to the materials that are in front of you and not allowing for any of that little touch on the granite.

SPEAKER_00 20:26

One of my biggest pet peeves of being a fourth and fifth grade teacher was here's my envisioned textbook for math. I have to get through all 15 chapters for the PSSA. If some students don't get it, I have to keep going.

SPEAKER_01 20:39

Same page, same date.

SPEAKER_00 20:40

In this, and now, you know, now I'm completely dove into this whole alpha advantage here. They progress students on million advance if they have mastery in a subject, and then they go on. There's no grade bands and time-based progression like in our normal.

SPEAKER_01 20:52

I think the whole idea behind the adaptive piece is huge. Right. Which is what I again I think all of our teachers want to do. For sure. We can't do it in a 30 kid classroom without adaptive things to be able to meet us there. So because of constraints and all these other things, that's what we talk about. Good differentiation is, but because of the way our system is set up, it's really hard for us to navigate out of that. And without the adaptive piece to actually know where they really are.

SPEAKER_00 21:19

Because it's very difficult to adapt for 30 children and 30 different minimum of 30 different needs.

SPEAKER_01 21:24

It's adaptive, it's hard to adapt for six different tracks of kids, but it's hard for me to adapt for Andrew. Well, that's a special. So that's really hard for everybody. I think his teachers just gave up on him. That's why they had him read the same book for years.

Personalization, SEL, And Human Connection

SPEAKER_00 21:36

We can't have this whole conversation about how awesome this alpha school would be without also saying that it's not free. Yeah. So I would be crazy if I didn't mention the next part as far as cost, because our teachers are working with kids that are attending school for free.

SPEAKER_01 21:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:52

So after doing some research, there's about 20 schools across the US, and they generally cost between$40,000 to$75,000 per. year depending on location. Now there is a micro school option where if it's not available in your area, it costs anywhere between 10 to 15,000. But then I feel like there is a guide assigned to you, but you're doing almost kind of like a homeschool type situation. I don't have more facts than that behind it. But essentially what we're looking at here is between 40 and 75,000, which is per kid. Per child per year.

SPEAKER_02 22:22

It definitely impacts the conversation and needs to be part of the conversation as well. They they have different, let's say, limitations and resources available to them than the vast majority of those who are in education.

SPEAKER_00 22:34

Correct. And that and that comes with you know the AI adaptive software that comes with all the materials and whatnot for the workshops. That's the second half of the the day. They have also a one-on-one coach one time per week with students where they get to spend the whole day with that coach working on whatever is is needed. So I'm not trying to to say that the 45 to 75 is worth it. I haven't seen one of these schools up and running, but I'm just saying it's very intriguing and we can't have the discussion about public free and public education without adding that these private schools are reasonable point being like that's double or triple what we might have access to on average, right? Like that's not even but I also think accurate with the advances of AI.

SPEAKER_01 23:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:14

So maybe we could get there one day or at least do some kind of adaptability software or something to meet kids where they are and take a little bit of stress off the teacher of trying to to meet the needs of every kid.

SPEAKER_01 23:25

And again, I think if we are able to meet kids where they're at with the adaptive piece, I think teachers might enjoy teaching again if they have the ability to do more of the quote unquote fun stuff later on that's actually applying things. Like that's why a lot of people got into teaching to begin with if the AI is there. If we're comfortable using AI, because that's also a systems shift and then moving us away from which we've been talking about a lot of direct explicit instruction where a teacher's standing in front of the classroom and just talking or just trying to impart knowledge based off of the materials they have then I think if we can make some of those shifts then we can be a little more flexible in what we do and don't do in the afternoons or vice versa. Right.

SPEAKER_02 24:07

And we can look to other systems other things to see how this might play out. If this is something viable it will continue to grow and the cost will continue to drive down. It will change. So a good example might be making this up at this point but like Tesla they were very Tesla's were very expensive originally and then their cost kind of came down and and they became more affordable. And I don't know if they are affordable but I guess what I'm saying is once once well there was competition. Correct. Yeah. So you know that's actually what when we were talking about supply and demand that's actually a good good part of the capitalism where you know if right now this is kind of the only model that's out there.

SPEAKER_01 24:45

Once others get a hold of this idea it might start to impact the overall and I think some of the resources that we have are kind of going there. I feel like there's a lot of adaptive at least assessments to be able to figure out where kids are. I mean the CDTs are adaptive to figure out where kids are based off of Pennsylvania standards. So I think we're getting there in terms of the resources I think the bigger and the harder part is going to be the system change that's going to need to take place because it's a massive massive shift. We've been teaching this way since public ed in the US started.

SPEAKER_00 25:18

Gemini already released that guided learning where kids can type in what they want to learn and it'll walk them through step by step. So that's the free version that we all get if we're a Google school. So I it it's coming. I wish it was here already as I always because I'm very impatient. But I think um just something to strive for maybe in in the future without having to charge 40 to 75 thousand dollars.

SPEAKER_02 25:37

And I think but the amount of time that it takes for systems to change is important for us as educators to already have a good vision of what's out there and what's on the horizon so that we're prepared and so that we don't actually slow the system down further. Because again it takes a while. If the system's ready to move and we're like whoa you can't do that you know then we're not nope we're not ready. So a way that we can help accelerate it from where we're at is if we are forewarned is forearmed. So you're ready for the possibilities out there. We're knowledgeable so that we can be helpful as the system prepares to adapt. Tony I want to hear your favorite moment in curling from this year's Olympics.

SPEAKER_00 26:17

Probably the the last 15 minutes I just watched with you.

SPEAKER_02 26:21

Do you want to hear my final thought right now Tony what is your final thought on curling we'll comment I already called out the Canadians earlier I don't want to do it again. It's just not nice. Yeah it's we have listeners in Canada so salt in the wound.

SPEAKER_00 26:33

Philadelphia fan so I can take it my final thought is still a huge mass start by Athlon fan. That's my number one and as of right now Norway has the most medals and that's of February 19th so go USA. Hopefully we can make a little bit of comeback here.

SPEAKER_02 26:47

Go USA. What is your final thought?

Adaptive Learning, Mastery, And MTSS

SPEAKER_01 26:51

That's not how I say it is it really I mean I think still listen to these podcasts and see how you say your name I think that the feature of education is both exciting and scary at the same time. I think there's going to be or needs to be a lot of change that takes place and change sometimes is exciting and scary. I think our kids are different. I think our way of teaching should be different to meet their needs and to find them. And if we can lean into some of these tools in terms of adaptive AI or figuring out how we can meet the kids' needs so that they can either accelerate or dive deeper into their sports or their arts or all of these other things to encourage them to be more well-rounded humans. I think that for me sounds like a really exciting place to go.

SPEAKER_02 27:39

A lot of what we talked about today is a very interesting cart horse scenario which which is leading who's is the cart pushing the horse or is the horse pulling the cart? And as we talked about it using football as an example it was a small paradigm shift but even in this conversation when you said they don't they used to be student athletes and now they're athlete students that is a shift so for Sislam's work what is that implication on its way from the collegiate level working its way backwards a lot of times the work that's done at the K-12 arena impacts up into universities and now this is one of those things that can kind of be reversed. So how are how are coaches preparing their athletes for that arena? And now you're talking about business in a different way than you were before when it comes to football. So it could be a lot of positive things that come out of it. There could be a lot of concerns and challenges that come of it too but it has an impact on us as educators. So the more that we're informed the more that we are knowledgeable about what's happening out there in the world and we're having these conversations we're engaging in this discourse will empower us when those things are considered within the system and they're looking to make the changes the more knowledgeable we are the more that we can provide constructive input that will help shape whatever those changes might look like in the future so thank you for tuning in. Thank you for listening make sure that you'll continue watching curling it's on all the time make sure you are tuning into us keep listening share it out like and subscribe and Tony what's what's the last word you get it go.

SPEAKER_00 29:06

Email you've never given me the last word I'm completely don't know what to say.

SPEAKER_01 29:09

Email email email us or fan mail us on Spotify or Apple look be on the look for you got this new email address where you can email us directly in the works get excited it'll come out soon. Woop whoop that right now it will come out by the end of this episode it's now we just made it we just made it