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.