by

Tim Ferriss

Accelerated Learning and Mentors – My Personal Story (#240)

22 comments

Topics:

This episode is by request. You have asked me many times for an episode on education, accelerated learning, and my mentors. It will all be covered in the following conversation with Charles Best (@charlesbest), the founder and CEO of DonorsChoose.org, a non-profit website that enables anyone to help a classroom in need. It is one of my favorite companies — profit or non-profit — in the world. (And I’m not just saying that because we used to be wrestling partners in high school.)

Charles founded DonorsChoose.org back in 2000 at a public high school in the Bronx where he taught history. Flash forward to 2017, and DonorsChoose.org is one of Oprah Winfrey’s “ultimate favorite things” and made the cover of Fast Company as one of the “50 Most Innovative Companies in the World,” the first time a charity has received such recognition.

To date, teachers at more than seventy percent of all the public schools in America have created classroom project requests on DonorsChoose.org, and more than two million people have given to those projects.

Charles joined me for a conversation at SXSWedu in front of an audience of educators and administrators to talk about learning things faster, good teaching versus bad teaching, the value of tough love, and much more. Enjoy!

You can find the transcript of this episode here. Transcripts of all episodes can be found here.

#240: Accelerated Learning and Mentors – My Personal Story

Want to hear another episode about accelerated learning? — Listen to my interview with Luis Von Ahn, the co-founder of Duolingo. In this episode, we discuss what 2-3 books and resources he’d recommend to entrepreneurs, language learning tips, early mentors and key lessons learned, and how to recruit and vet technical talent (stream below or right-click here to download):

#135: Luis Von Ahn on Learning Languages, Building Companies, and Changing the World

This podcast is brought to you by Alibaba and Gateway17. If you’re an entrepreneur or business owner in the US, the stars don’t always align — but this might get close. Alibaba (if you’re not familiar with it, imagine Amazon and Google having a baby in China) is hosting Gateway17, a conference designed to help US businesses tap into the five hundred million consumers of China’s growing middle class.

Gateway17 takes place June 20-21 in Detroit, Michigan, and it puts you in direct contact with experts who want to help you grow your business into the booming Chinese marketplace. Speakers include Alibaba founder Jack Ma (in his only speaking engagement of the year), UPS CEO David Abney, and master interviewer Charlie Rose. As a Tim Ferriss Show listener, Alibaba is offering you a ticket for $125 (they’re usually $500) if you sign up at gateway17.com by May 25 and use the code “Tim” at checkout.

This podcast is also brought to you by Soothe.com, the world’s largest on-demand massage service. Because I’ve been broken so many times, I have body work done at least twice a week — so I have a high bar for this stuff. I do not accept mediocrity, and I wouldn’t expect you to, either.

After much personal testing, I can affirm that Soothe delivers a hand-selected, licensed, and experienced massage therapist to you in the comfort of your own home, hotel, or office in as little as an hour. I was amazed at the quality of service and convenience. Think of it as Uber for massages, available in fifty cities worldwide. Download the app at Soothe.com and use code TITAN20 to get $20 off your first massage.

QUESTION(S) OF THE DAY: What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.

Scroll below for links and show notes…

Selected Links from the Episode

  • Connect with Charles Best:

Twitter | DonorsChoose.org

Show Notes

  • Charles discloses our shared history and asks me to recall a teacher who made a really big difference in my life. [07:56]
  • We’re both very grateful to our wrestling coach Mr. Buxton. [09:34]
  • I talk about my framework for accelerated learning: DiSSS (deconstruction, selection, sequencing, and stakes). [10:46]
  • Which of my personal experiments could a teacher safely assign to a kid to “try at home?” [22:11]
  • During experimentation, do I ever go by intuition over data? [26:37]
  • Of all my podcast guests, who would I nominate to design the ideal school? [30:07]
  • What subject would I teach at such a school, and what might the first day of lessons look like? [33:26]
  • In this school, what other podcast guests would be a virtuoso teacher? [36:16]
  • How has technology enriched — and hindered — the pursuit of learning? [39:25]
  • My one-minute primer on Stoic philosophy and how Stoicism could inform our public school system. [43:22]
  • Why am I such an advocate for DonorsChoose.org? [48:55]
  • What is the number one skill I think our students need to learn today that isn’t taught enough? [51:27]
  • Is there any skill I wouldn’t recommend learning rapidly? [53:41]
  • What purchase of less than a hundred dollars has changed my life in the last six months? [54:07]
  • How tools and systems I’ve helped develop can be used to address inequity in public schools. [54:39]
  • When does the transition between memorizing and internalizing/learning happen in my framework? [57:06]
  • How do I recommend teachers address students who struggle with competition tasks due to anxiety or learning disabilities? [59:27]
  • What legacy do I hope to leave in the field of education and learning? [1:02:19]
  • Farewell from the benevolent army of learners. [1:03:17]

People Mentioned

Subscribe
Notify of
guest

Comment Rules: Remember what Fonzie was like? Cool. That's how we're gonna be — cool. Critical is fine, but if you're rude, we'll delete your stuff. Please do not put your URL in the comment text and please use your PERSONAL name or initials and not your business name, as the latter comes off like spam. Have fun and thanks for adding to the conversation! (Thanks to Brian Oberkirch for the inspiration.)

22 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted

Keep exploring.