How to Accelerate Learning & Improve Education | Joe Liemandt

1. 0:00 – 3:16

   Joe Liemandt

   1. AHAndrew Huberman0:00

      We don't do the basics. We need to nail the basics, just like in sports. My famous example I always use is if you lose the ball 20% of the time going down the court, the coach is not saying, "Let's work on the dunks and the alley-oops," or the, even the layups. Mm-hmm. They're like, "Ball handling. We're gonna get ball handling. 20% isn't acceptable. 15% isn't acceptable." Mm-hmm. You can't be 85, 80% accurate. In America, we're like, "You getting a B, man. Move on. We're moving on to dunks. You just finished fourth grade at 80%. Let's get you into that fifth grade stuff." And the answer is [laughs] no. No, 'cause then all those problems compound. Welcome to the Huberman Lab Podcast, where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life. [upbeat music] I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. My guest today is Joe Liemandt, the principal of Alpha School, which is a novel approach to education that strives to ensure that every child reaches the frontier of their knowledge and skill potential. Kids in Alpha School spend just two hours a day, two hours a day, learning what they need to in order to ensure no gaps in their cognitive knowledge. Then they spend the rest of their day learning to and actually starting their own businesses, learning financial skills as well as communication and interpersonal skills. The goal of Alpha School is to tailor learning to the unique needs of the child. But unlike so many other non-traditional forms of learning in schools, they don't let the child pick what is easiest for them, nor force all kids to learn at the same rate across all subjects, so it's a truly unique approach. The data on Alpha School kids are astounding. K through 12 students from Alpha School test in the top 1% of students in the US, and their average SAT scores graduating from high school is a nearly perfect 1530. In addition, while still in school, many of the Alpha students start their own businesses that are highly successful, meaning they generate hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars. During today's conversation, you're not just going to hear about how Alpha students do all this incredible stuff. It's really about how the ways in which they learn will allow you, adult or young, to learn better, and why filling in gaps in our basic knowledge that we all have at every age is both possible and can be done quickly with the correct lesson plans and understanding of neuroplasticity, the brain's ability to rewire itself. So some of today's discussion focuses on that as well. You'll also learn that no, Alpha School is not just for wealthy kids. They are changing education for students of all backgrounds and income levels, and Joe Liemandt and his colleagues are striving to teach educators the real data on how kids and adults learn best in ways that serve the student both in and after they leave school. I have to say, as a university professor who lives in the land of education, our conversation today completely changed how I think about learning in and out of the classroom, and it also provides tools that I now use to learn more effectively, and I'm confident that it will do the same for you. Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize that this podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford. It is, however, part of my desire and effort to bring zero cost to consumer information about science and science-related tools to the general public. In keeping with that theme, today's episode does include sponsors. And now for my discussion with Joe Liemandt.

2. 3:16 – 8:08

   History of Traditional Classroom Model; Education Milestones

   1. AHAndrew Huberman3:16

      Joe Liemandt, welcome. Thank you very much. Great to be here. Tell us about learning and education 100 years ago, because that sounds like a long time ago, but it wasn't that long ago. And then we'll use that as a contrast point to where you're trying to take learning and education and schooling for young people now. So 100 years ago, we were trying to say, "How are we gonna educate everybody?" Universal access to education 200 years ago was not a thing. Every person on the planet did not have access to education. 100-plus years ago, people said, "Let's start educating everybody." And we're talking K through 12. So they started the industrialized model. It started over in Prussia, right? And then was, was imported, and it was very controversial, actually, if you look back, of you have a rural society, and you're saying, "Get off the farms and get into schools." And the best way to educate people back then was, "Let's put them in a room. Let's teach them how to read and write. Let's have a teacher in front of the classroom." And that became the model. And that today is actually one of the things that's the most universal in the world, is the, the education model. You can go to the richest school district, you know, down the street here or the richest private school, and there's a teacher in front of a classroom of kids, and you can go to the poorest school district, you know, in India, and there's, the building's not as nice, but there's a teacher in front of a classroom. We have universal access. What we are trying to do is bring universal learning. [laughs] So there's a vast disparity in how much kids learn during that 12 years, that while they may have access to it, learning is very different. And so what we think is because of new things that have become available and things like AI and technology, for the first time in 50 and 100 years, you can revisit and change education. How we educate kids is gonna be radically different in five years, in 10 years than the last 50 and 100 years, and that's what we're out doing, building that model, building the set of schools around it, and then figuring out how we scale it and get it out to a billion kids so that everybody can have access to it. It seems to me that we think in terms of milestones. I mean, even before a child is born, if they can have an ultrasound, the parents are- Yeah ... looking, are they meeting milestones? Yeah. And then we think of biological milestones and cognitive milestones. How much of the current schooling system is based on milestones that make really good sense? Like, by time you finish a certain grade, you're supposed to be able to read. Yeah. You're supposed to be able to write. What we decide is a critical milestone can easily change, but I'm guessing there are still some milestones that are cemented in that don't make any sense any longer. Yeah. There's a whole set of milestones that people have, especially the ones parents understand and grandparents, is whatever you went through

   2. JLJoe Liemandt6:10

      Are the milestones that you understand. Kids should read by third grade. It used to be you memorized your multiplication tables by third grade. You'd learn cursive before that. And the standard, the books, right? You would read books. There was a book list in, in high school and, and you would read it, and you'd understand the content that was in that books. And what has happened, you know, and I think where a lot of the unhappiness in education is, is those standards have gone down. They've pulled those standards away around the academics for a lot of different reasons. And so when you think about development, there's behavioral standards. Well, how should I behave? How much should I know? And then what are the non-academic skills, whether it's vocational or life skills that you need to have, financial literacy, that have changed from what were true 30 years ago or 50 years ago to where they are, are today. And there's generally a view that there's broad unhappiness that whether it's the standard or the student's achievement of that standard and are they actually even hitting the standards that's causing this big demand for we need to change our education system. And that's sort of half of it. The other half is people are looking at things like AI and saying the world is really different. The world that's coming is really different, and it, it does put into parents' heads, the educational system I went through isn't gonna get my kids ready for the future one. We're building schools everywhere and doing education, so I, I talk to lots of parents. When I have, like, a 12th grade parent talking to me, they're at the finish line. They're just trying to get the kid into, you know, get them out. And so they, they're just like, "Whatever, just I'm done." But when you talk to the kindergarten parents, they are forecasting forward 12 years, and they sit there and say, "There's no way the current system is gonna get my kid ready." They have the high demands to say, "We need to do something different."

3. 8:08 – 10:25

   Sponsors: David & Lingo

   1. JLJoe Liemandt8:09

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4. 10:25 – 22:33

   Alpha School, High Standards & Support

   1. JLJoe Liemandt10:26

      I hear some very polarized views out there. Uh, one that you can get all the education you need off YouTube. I don't believe that's true. I think how one forages through technology, especially publicly available technology, is critical, right? 'Cause you can ruin your life or you can potentially build some of your life out, uh, uh, by watching YouTube videos, but that's a wide divergence and, and so I don't believe that statement. The other thing that I- I'd like to just set as a, as a context for our discussion is I think there are very divergent views on the notion of doing what you love versus doing things that are painful to learn. Yeah.

   2. AHAndrew Huberman11:02

      So in terms of milestones and standards, the idea is when I was growing up was that you have to have at least a, a, a certain level of aptitude in something if you want to progress forward. But you might be much more musical than you are whatever-

   3. JLJoe Liemandt11:14

      Mm-hmm

   4. AHAndrew Huberman11:14

      ... much more oriented towards the engineering, science, and math fields or towards something else, and that's okay, but everyone had to be above the bar-

   5. JLJoe Liemandt11:21

      Yeah

   6. AHAndrew Huberman11:21

      ... in order to move forward. I think nowadays because of this battle basically-

   7. JLJoe Liemandt11:27

      Yeah

   8. AHAndrew Huberman11:27

      ... between whether we're coddling kids too much or whether we're pushing them too much, I feel like this, the whole m- landscape is a bit of a mess. So what is Alpha School's philosophy with respect to what kids like to do-

   9. JLJoe Liemandt11:40

      Yeah

   10. AHAndrew Huberman11:40

       ... versus what they absolutely should do independent of whether or not they like it?

   11. JLJoe Liemandt11:44

       Yeah.

   12. AHAndrew Huberman11:44

       And I, I came-

   13. JLJoe Liemandt11:45

       Great

   14. AHAndrew Huberman11:45

       ... from the latter category-

   15. JLJoe Liemandt11:46

       Yeah, so like-

   16. AHAndrew Huberman11:46

       You do, you have to learn stuff-

   17. JLJoe Liemandt11:47

       Yeah

   18. AHAndrew Huberman11:48

       ... 'cause you have to learn it, and then you find the things you love-

   19. JLJoe Liemandt11:50

       Yeah

   20. AHAndrew Huberman11:51

       ... and then you eventually try and create a life.

   21. JLJoe Liemandt11:52

       Right.

   22. AHAndrew Huberman11:53

       You know?

   23. JLJoe Liemandt11:53

       These are great. So both of them, we have strong views on all of these. The first one of everything's available on YouTube or you can get MIT online. Why doesn't everybody-

   24. AHAndrew Huberman12:01

       Or Khan A- Khan Academy.

   25. JLJoe Liemandt12:02

       Yeah, Khan Academy.

   26. AHAndrew Huberman12:02

       Yeah.

   27. JLJoe Liemandt12:02

       Why doesn't everybody have an MIT degree? The open courseware is available. Libraries have been here forever. Every textbook you can just go to a library and read. School Is much more than just that. And I believe, and just to be really clear, ten years from now, twenty years from now, ninety percent of parents are gonna drop their kids off at a building, and in that building are gonna be other kids and adults, that the way school, that part of school... School's socialization, right? It's much more than, "I sat and watched a YouTube video." It's motivation. The m-material's available, the motivation isn't, right? Or the structure isn't. And schools provide a lot of that. And so that's when we look at it, we believe motivation is ninety percent of learning these days. Now, our view back to the day, if we do our job right, the six or seven hours your kid's in that, uh, s- building, it's gonna be radically different and ten times better than what we went through. Then the second part around standards and love school, do what you love. Wait, it's a grind. So this is a personal story for me. So I didn't start Alpha. I'm the principal going on my fifth year. Uh, it was started by Brian and McKenzie twelve years ago. And parents want the, to educate their kids the way they were, even if they didn't like it that much. I went to Catholic school. My-- I have two daughters, they were in Catholic school. McKenzie starts this school, and she's like, "You gotta come to my new school." And I looked at it, and I'm like, "This is a totally weird, janky school. Like, no way."

   28. AHAndrew Huberman13:32

       What did you see that led you to-

   29. JLJoe Liemandt13:34

       "Oh, there's no teacher in front of a classroom." I'm like, "This is totally crazy," right? And, "Oh, they're gonna learn on some apps?" The girls reciting their vocabulary words while they were doing handstands, and I'm like, you know, I, I grew up a standard, standard school system. [laughs] It was weird. And it took her two years, actually, of trying to convince me. I actually saw, you know, one of mine struggling in standard school. And then what happened was St. Gabriel got out at the end of May, and Alpha was still in session, and my kids were gonna go to summer camp. And McKenzie convinced my daughter, she's like, "Well, why don't you come to Alpha for a week before you go to summer camp? You know, my daughters are there. It'll be really fun." I'm like, "You wanna go to school in the middle of summer? Sure." So they went for a week, and they came back at the end of the week, and they're like, "Dad, we don't wanna go to summer camp. We wanna go back to Alpha." And I thought that was the craziest thing I'd ever heard in the world, that somebody wanted to go to school instead of camp. That was an indicator to me where I'm like, "They have something here." And the kids are in second and fourth grade. I'm like, "Let's try it out." And that was, you know, ten years ago, and it really worked out for us, and we can get to that later. But when I put my daughters in, I talked to Brian, and I was like, "What do I not understand as a parent?" He said, "There's two things. First, your kids must love school." And I was like, "Oh, that's not true at all. It's like spinach. You just grind it, right? That's what it's like. It's spinach, you grind it. I mean, sometimes it's okay, but you just, you grind your way through it." He's like, "Nope, and someday you'll figure this out, and you'll see with your daughters that kids must love school." I was like, "Anything else?" He's like, "Yes. Your kids have so much more potential than you expect, than what you think." And I was like, "Oh, that's not true." [laughs] I'm like, I'm sort of like a tiger dad. Like, I think my kids are gonna do a ton of stuff. And, you know, I have really high expectations. And he's like, "They're gonna blow you away." And that's sort of the dichotomy I think around Alpha that really confuses people is kids love school. Like, we make three commitments to the kids, and the first one is you will love school. And ninety-some percent of our students, we survey them, right? Say, "I love school." We actually, in the last year or so, have started asking a follow-up question, which is, "Would you rather go to school or go on vacation?" And depending on the vacation, the session, and how good our workshops were, between forty and sixty percent of kids said, "I'd rather go to school than vacation."

   30. AHAndrew Huberman15:55

       Wow.
5. 22:33 – 30:03

   Effective Support, Academics vs Athletics; Homeschooling

   1. JLJoe Liemandt22:33

      on education.

   2. AHAndrew Huberman22:34

      Oh, what you said is so rich with ideas. Let me organize them the following way. I've heard you say before, and you sort of touched on a bit a moment ago, that most of the way that we, uh, teach kids how to navigate life in the United States-

   3. JLJoe Liemandt22:49

      Yeah

   4. AHAndrew Huberman22:49

      ... is in sports, not in academics.

   5. JLJoe Liemandt22:51

      Yeah.

   6. AHAndrew Huberman22:51

      And I completely agree, and when I first heard you say that in a prior conversation with Patrick O'Shaughnessy, I thought, "Yes, absolutely." And the contrast with academics is, is really striking because I think there's this idea that kids are, you know, by the time they're in high school, they're gonna be good at certain things and oth- other things not so much. And, and the words "Do the best you can"-

   7. JLJoe Liemandt23:14

      Yeah

   8. AHAndrew Huberman23:15

      ... sounds like support, sounds like high standards, but it kind of avoids both. So maybe we could just drill a little more specifically into what support really looks like at the level of parenting, and maybe peers as well. So I can imagine high standards could, let's take a, like a zero to ten, uh, scale, arbitrary units, and say zero is, like, you'll never be anything. Everyone agrees that it's not a good model. Ten would be you can do and become anything you want. We believe this in America, and there are examples to support the ten model. It's not totally true, right? It's not totally true. I went to a very competitive public high school, and there were some phenoms in my class at sports. A pair of twins, Joe and John Cannon. People can look them up. One became a goalie for the San Jose Quakes. The other one had a hundred mile-plus fastball in high school. I forget who he played for. Maybe it was the Mariners or whoever, but anyway, he was a, he was a pro pitcher. Their younger brother, Colt Cannon, picked up a skateboard. Eight months later, he had a pro model, or he was on a team, then he had a pro model. Maybe it wasn't eight months to that, but there's something going on in that family, okay? And they were good at academics.

   9. JLJoe Liemandt24:26

      Yeah.

   10. AHAndrew Huberman24:26

       But none of them became- Dare I say professors at Stanford, but they probably could have, but we don't know. So we have this model that like in sports, some genetics plays a role.

   11. JLJoe Liemandt24:36

       Yeah.

   12. AHAndrew Huberman24:36

       Family lines play a role. We're kind of okay with that conversation now.

   13. JLJoe Liemandt24:40

       Yeah.

   14. AHAndrew Huberman24:40

       But you can become anything.

   15. JLJoe Liemandt24:42

       Yeah.

   16. AHAndrew Huberman24:42

       That's v- that's the highest standard. Somewhere in between is probably what you'll tell me is most effective 'cause we have to put reality into the picture sometimes.

   17. JLJoe Liemandt24:51

       Yeah.

   18. AHAndrew Huberman24:52

       But the support thing is the one that's completely opaque to me because we know what the zeros are, right?

   19. JLJoe Liemandt24:58

       Yeah.

   20. AHAndrew Huberman24:59

       Figure it out on your own. Make yourself breakfast. Get yourself to school. That's not support, right? [laughs] And then the other one is, "I'm gonna try and get in there and do everything for you. I'm gonna climb the rock for you."

   21. JLJoe Liemandt25:09

       Yeah.

   22. AHAndrew Huberman25:09

       "I'm gonna do your homework for you," and we know that's not good.

   23. JLJoe Liemandt25:11

       Right.

   24. AHAndrew Huberman25:11

       We haven't really defined clearly-

   25. JLJoe Liemandt25:13

       Yeah

   26. AHAndrew Huberman25:13

       ... what real, truly useful support is-

   27. JLJoe Liemandt25:17

       Yeah

   28. AHAndrew Huberman25:18

       ... and standardized that.

   29. JLJoe Liemandt25:20

       Great.

   30. AHAndrew Huberman25:20

       So maybe you could enrich our thinking about what it might look like or what you think it looks like.
6. 30:03 – 34:31

   AI, Individualized Learning & Mastery

   1. JLJoe Liemandt30:03

      so let's, let's go on this 'cause we, we haven't talked about, like, the academic side and what is the breakthrough that allows us to change education from fifty and a hundred years ago. So learning science, there's a whole field of learning science, right? You can... cognitive load theory, cognitive science. There's a famous paper from the '80s, Bloom's Two Sigma program, where he's, he's like, "If you give an individual tutor to mastery level, kids can learn at two sigma," right? Two sigma, it is top two percent. We could get everybody. So when you talk about the frontier- He's basically claiming you can get everybody to the top two percent performance today.

   2. AHAndrew Huberman30:42

      Assuming high levels of motivation.

   3. JLJoe Liemandt30:44

      Correct. Mastery is actually the part everybody forgets about on that. If you have a tutor that's not mastery-based, you won't get to the top two percent. One sigma came from the tutor, one sigma comes from mastery. Which once again, we'll talk about we all accept mastery in, in athletics, but we reject it, explicitly reject it in education. And you actually need both. You need individualized instruction at a mastery level to get that performance. And now with AI tutors at cost effectively, you can give every kid perfectly tailored lessons at their level for them at a mastery level, and that is the magic that then allows kids to learn ten times faster. In our schools, when we talk about we're the best academic performing school, we're top one percent. We do it in two hours a day. Our average student does not sit in class for six and do homework. They sit at an AI app and they spend two hours a day. The average kid spent a hundred and twenty-one minutes last year in the apps and learned more than two X they, what they would have in sitting in class for six and doing homework. So when you just look at those standards, it's, you know, depending on the class and stuff, between five and ten X normal speed, 'cause you have six hours a day in homework versus two, and you're performing at a level that's exceeding them the, how much the average student learns by two X.

   4. AHAndrew Huberman32:09

      Could you enrich the picture in our minds a bit of, of this kid for a hundred and twenty-one minutes? Just the, the top contour of, of what sorts of things they're doing. Is it a, is it a human face that's teaching them-

   5. JLJoe Liemandt32:19

      Yeah

   6. AHAndrew Huberman32:19

      ... or is it text prompts? What does it look like?

   7. JLJoe Liemandt32:21

      So the first, just to be really clear on this, when people think AI, chatbots.

   8. AHAndrew Huberman32:25

      Mm-hmm.

   9. JLJoe Liemandt32:26

      It's not chatbots. If you take a chatbot and put it into a standard school, ninety percent of the kids use it to cheat. Doesn't matter what grade level you're at. I can't remember which Ivy League professor gave a final that he made in person, right? He made an in-person final, and literally everybody except like two people failed the exam. They're just ChatGPT-ing their papers up. They're not reading books. They're getting ChatGPT summaries of them. And there's a whole push to ban them and things like this. And, you know, while we're at AI school, used incorrectly, just like any technology, they can be bad. Here's how you wanna think about it, is what you know is the basis of what you can learn. And so being able to have a foundation and then building on that foundation is critical. And so if I am in material that's too hard and it's just too hard for me, you can give it to me all day long and I'm not going to learn it. Back in my world or your world, if you gave me an MCAT, I don't know the words on the page. You can tell me to have grit or growth mindset or you can tell me whatever you want. I'm not gonna pass that test. And you need to roll me back to freshman bio and say, "That's where you are," and then build me up from there to be able to do that. And that's the problem in our current education system today, is we are taking eighth graders and we are delivering them eighth-grade content 'cause that's what an eighth-grade teacher does by law. They need to stand up and deliver the eighth-grade content. You know, if you look at the stats, we have people who need to be in seventh grade in that classroom, sixth grade, fifth grade. Because of COVID, you even have some who need to be in fourth and third grade. Because of all that learning loss that happened, they never learned it, right? We have kids who didn't learn how to read in third and fourth grade.

   10. AHAndrew Huberman34:09

       Oh my goodness.

   11. JLJoe Liemandt34:09

       And so now we're wondering why all the, the curves are going down. It's like, well, because they're in eighth grade and they're being told eighth-grade content and no one ever taught them how to read. Or other things when you talk about lower standards. They took away memorizing your multiplication tables and science of reading, teaching phonics, teaching... They took away some of the basics that as you get into higher level grades, as a kid, it just kills

7. 34:31 – 40:52

   Teacher Education, Standardized Tests, Role of School

   1. JLJoe Liemandt34:31

      you, right?

   2. AHAndrew Huberman34:31

      What was the rationale behind doing that?

   3. JLJoe Liemandt34:33

      That it gets into a lot of, a lot of debate around why that happened.

   4. AHAndrew Huberman34:38

      Mm-hmm.

   5. JLJoe Liemandt34:38

      I don't think there's a clear answer. I believe at the end of it, they didn't realize how important it was. Like the science of learning, if you talk to your average, you know, teacher and you look at what's taught in schools of education, cognitive load theory, right, and cognitive science and how all this works is not a main part of what the curriculum is. And so these teachers don't know. Like, you know, we just had our staff days before school starts, so I have hundreds of teachers. These are the best teachers in the world, right? We're the employer of choice for, for teachers around the country. And I was like, "How many of you guys, like, learned direct instruction?" Which is one of these concepts. You know, five percent raised their hand. There's this Project Follow Through, a big project in the '70s that was like the largest educational study ever about effective ways to teach kids. I was like, "How many of you guys, like, read Project Follow Through, like, when you were getting your master's?" And, like, none.

   6. AHAndrew Huberman35:29

      Wow.

   7. JLJoe Liemandt35:29

      And so there was, uh, she was, she was a big teacher, uh, in Houston School District, and she came and, uh, she's an Alpha guide now. And she... I saw a Twitter post after the staff day. She's like, "I learned more in w- listening to Joe's six-hour presentation," which I have the world's best learning science team who, you know, helps educate me as well. "I learned more in six hours of listening to Joe about how kids learn than I did getting my master's or even my PhD." And just that curriculum, we don't have that knowledge, and we need to. We need to fix that. We, it's not there.

   8. AHAndrew Huberman36:04

      Is there not a textbook for, for teachers? I mean, like, if somebody wants to become a neuroscientist or even just get a neuroscience degree, they read the book Principles of Neurobiology by Li-Huei Tsai or Principles of Neuroscience, which used to be by Kandel, Jessell, and Schwartz. I think there's someone else on there. But, like, everyone gets those books. You learn e-electrophysiology from Bernardow Hill. You get the biochemistry book from Stryer. Like, these are the books used everywhere, so that it doesn't matter if you're in a, you know, state university and wherever, um, or you're at Stanford Pretty much everyone is educated at the front end from the same textbooks.

   9. JLJoe Liemandt36:39

      Correct.

   10. AHAndrew Huberman36:39

       So you can go to a big n- international meeting and, like, everyone understands more or less the action potential.

   11. JLJoe Liemandt36:44

       Yeah. Education is not that. So-

   12. AHAndrew Huberman36:46

       Hmm

   13. JLJoe Liemandt36:46

       ... our educational system is not fact-based, which seems crazy, but, uh, there's, there's a dean of a school of education for one of the best schools in the country who, when he was talking about the state, the status of facts in education, put up a picture of Galileo's trial, where he's like, "This is a religious war. This isn't a fact-based trial about these things." There's a lot of evidence behind it. Like, take the UC system.

   14. AHAndrew Huberman37:14

       Mm-hmm.

   15. JLJoe Liemandt37:14

       There's a huge debate on whether the UC schools should use standardized tests or not, and do standardized tests help, and are they good things-

   16. AHAndrew Huberman37:23

       To get in or to progress through?

   17. JLJoe Liemandt37:25

       Yeah. To get in.

   18. AHAndrew Huberman37:25

       Yeah.

   19. JLJoe Liemandt37:25

       Like, should you... Well, there's whole things of should kids have a standardized test to get out of high school? To graduate high school, should you be able to pass a test or not? And that's a debate. That's not, like, a fact. Now, when you're letting someone into your university, there's a view of should we require standardized tests? 2,000 professors, I think, I don't know exactly what it was, but 2,000 professors are like, "Yeah, we should use these." But the board of regents voted, "Yeah, no, we're not gonna take them." Whatever decisions are being made-

   20. AHAndrew Huberman37:56

       Mm-hmm

   21. JLJoe Liemandt37:56

       ... around this stuff is not a fact-based decision. It's an opinion. It's I care about different goals. I'm trying to optimize on something besides academics. The goal of a school is not academics. When you look in education, it's a really complicated thing. And right, what is the purpose of a school? What is developing a child? Does academics matter? So when you think of these basic things like, well, the kid was struggling on his multiplication tables, and I was worried about his mental health, so I just told him, "Don't worry about it," you know, and you're like, "Well, that's really gonna hurt him to learn algebra. He's not gonna do well in algebra" [chuckles] , it's like the homeschoolers, like, "I don't care about academics," or there's parents at schools. And one of the things I've learned in education, especially in being a principal of school, is, first of all, I have massive empathy for everybody running these schools. So you know, I, I was watching in Austin, we're, like, closing a bunch of schools, right? A lot of public schools are closing and, and it's being closed because it's not hitting academic standards. Five years in a row it's failed. It just literally is not teaching these kids. These are eighth graders who can't read at a third-grade level. And so the state and the school district's like, "We, we need to close the school and put the kids in a school that's, you know, teaches them." And there's a mom who's just furious, right? And she's at the meeting, and she's like, "I don't care about that. What I care about is my older daughter in seventh grade had teacher ABC," right? "Had this great teacher who changed her life, and I want my younger child to have that same teacher. And if it means they're not good at math, whatever." And the rules of the government, right, the government school system is we are funding this to educate them on academics. Parents' demands are very different. If you're the head of the s- you know, school, your parents are saying, "Well, I don't, I don't care about that." Now, I believe you can do better and do it all-

   22. AHAndrew Huberman39:44

       Mm-hmm

   23. JLJoe Liemandt39:44

       ... and, and those kind of things, but fundamentally, why is the regents at UC saying, "Yeah, I don't know. We're not gonna, we're not gonna take standardized tests"? 2,000 professors say it. There's also a bunch of professors who say, "Don't do it." And you get into all these debates on what the role of school is, and then that's in the air, and then the, even the learning science. Inquiry learning versus direct instruction is a huge, huge religious war around education on which is better. And so those kind of things are why it's not obvious. It's also part of being new into the space as coming in. Part of my magic is, and part of why Alpha's getting all this, you know, hype and talk is we're teaching kids five to ten times faster. There is a set of the learning science that hasn't-

   24. AHAndrew Huberman40:29

       Yeah, the results are there.

   25. JLJoe Liemandt40:30

       The results are there. And there's a set of learning science that we're proving that hasn't been able to be implemented before-

   26. AHAndrew Huberman40:35

       Mm-hmm

   27. JLJoe Liemandt40:35

       ... that people are like, "Wow, if that's really true." And so why we're, all these great learning scientists are coming and working with us is they're looking at this data and they're like, "Holy cow. This data is breakthrough level that we couldn't do before."

   28. AHAndrew Huberman40:51

       Mm-hmm. Yeah.

8. 40:52 – 43:42

   Sponsors: AG1 & Helix Sleep

   1. AHAndrew Huberman40:52

      I'd like to take a quick break and acknowledge our sponsor, AG1. AG1 just launched their newest formulation called AG1 Pro, and right now you can get an extra twenty percent off your first subscription. AG1 takes the clinically backed AG1 formula, which is a blend of vitamins, minerals, probiotics, and adaptogens, and adds three important new ingredients: creatine monohydrate, calcium HMB, and zinc carnosine. It has five grams of creatine monohydrate to support muscle strength and performance along with brain health. Calcium HMB to support muscle recovery and reduce muscle breakdown, and zinc carnosine to support and improve the lining of your gut. Some of these ingredients I personally was already taking separate from the AG1 formula, so it's great to see all three of them now in the new AG1 Pro. As you may know, I've been taking AG1 every single day for about fourteen years now. That means I discovered it and started taking it daily long before I even knew what a podcast was. I continue to take it and back it here on the podcast because it is an excellent formula, and it's now even better with the AG1 Pro formula. For a limited time, you can get an extra twenty percent off your first subscription to AG1 Pro by going to drinkag1.com/huberman and using the code BACK2ROUTINE. So that's with a numeral two. Back, numeral two, routine. Just go to drinkag1.com/huberman. Today's episode is also brought to us by Helix Sleep. Helix Sleep makes mattresses and pillows that are customized to your unique sleep needs. Now, I've spoken many times before on this and on other podcasts about the fact that getting a great night's sleep is the foundation of mental health, physical health, and performance. When we aren't getting great sleep on a consistent basis, everything suffers. And when we are sleeping well and enough, our mental health, physical health, and performance in all endeavors improve markedly. Now, the mattress you sleep on makes a huge difference in the quality of sleep that you get each night. How soft it is or how firm it is all play into your comfort and need to be tailored to your unique sleep needs. If you go to the Helix website, you can take a brief two-minute quiz, and it will ask you questions such as, "Do you sleep on your back, your side, or your stomach?" Maybe you know, maybe you don't. "Do you tend to run hot or cold during the night?" Things of that sort. You answer those questions, and Helix will match you to the ideal mattress for you. For me, that turned out to be the Dusk, D-U-S-K, mattress. I've been sleeping on a Dusk mattress for more than four years now, and it's been far and away the best sleep that I've ever had. If you'd like to try Helix, you can go to helixsleep.com/huberman, take that two-minute sleep quiz, and Helix will match you to a mattress that's customized for you. Right now, Helix is giving up to twenty-seven percent off their entire site. Helix has also teamed up with TrueMed, which allows you to use your HSA, FSA dollars to shop Helix's award-winning mattresses. Again, that's helixsleep.com/huberman to get up to twenty-seven percent

9. 43:42 – 52:41

   AI, Scaffolding Learning, Mastery; Working Memory & Fluency

   1. AHAndrew Huberman43:42

      off.

   2. JLJoe Liemandt43:43

      When you think about science and the development of sciences, chemistry, biology, physics, they had times which I'd call like education, where there's debates and it's, you know, it's the, it's Galileo's trial, right? It's, it's unsure. Their doctors are bloodletting, you know, and leeching people. This is really a good idea.

   3. AHAndrew Huberman44:02

      Drenching.

   4. JLJoe Liemandt44:02

      Right. And you're just like, "Oh, this is really good."

   5. AHAndrew Huberman44:04

      Phrenology.

   6. JLJoe Liemandt44:04

      Right. No, like, that's the best guy, and he's saying to do it. The same way you're like, "Oh-"

   7. AHAndrew Huberman44:08

      There's a little bit of that going on now still.

   8. JLJoe Liemandt44:09

      It's unsettled.

   9. AHAndrew Huberman44:10

      Mm-hmm.

   10. JLJoe Liemandt44:10

       Now, in each of those, there was the invention of an instrument and a technology or an instrument that radically changed and inflected those sciences. So the microscope, right? The light microscope, the telescope. Chemistry, the analytical balance. You didn't blow yourself up. Those inflected those sciences, and now for the first time with education, AI allows us to get... It allows that finer measurements. What those allowed was finer grain measurements, right?

   11. AHAndrew Huberman44:43

       Mm-hmm.

   12. JLJoe Liemandt44:43

       The microscope, it let me see cells, right? I'm like, "Oh, I'm starting to understand this, of how this works." AI, because it's on a one-to-one basis, is giving us a data loop that nobody in learning science, no one in education has ever had, and we have it. It's a closed loop, and that magical data loop is what's allowing us to get the five to ten times improvements in education because it's our microscope, it's our telescope. Now, it's not a chatbot. That's not getting you that. But if you generate a personalized lesson for every kid. Let's step back and say what, what's a teacher in front of a classroom? The problem with a teacher in front of a classroom is it's so dirty, right? Your data, your effect size is driven by random classroom elements, not the learning science. So if I come up with a learning science idea and I give it to a teacher in front of a classroom, first of all, do they even teach it the way, right? Is the instruction done the right way? It's going to thirty people. Pre-req matters. If I don't know algebra, you sh- don't give me a chemistry lesson. And do the students have the prerequisites needed? Second, are the students motivated? Are they spinning in their chair, not even paying attention? The effect size is dominated by all of that, not actually the learning science concept. And in our world, right, where we have kids super engaged for two hours in the app, I know when I give a lesson, I can measure their engagement. I can see if that lesson was good because I know how they did on the questions right afterward. I can then test them later 'cause I'm getting spaced repetition. I'm getting recall later. I can say whether that really was transferred to long-term memory, and I can say, "Wow, that really works." So there's different theories of, of learning science. You have, there's concepts of direct instruction. Like should you have the kids struggle or should you just teach them directly?

   13. AHAndrew Huberman46:34

       How can you teach them directly without struggle? I mean, m-m-my understanding of neuroplasticity-

   14. JLJoe Liemandt46:40

       Yeah

   15. AHAndrew Huberman46:40

       ... which is an area I come from-

   16. JLJoe Liemandt46:41

       Yeah

   17. AHAndrew Huberman46:41

       ... but not specifically in the, in the context of education, is that if a brain or a body can execute a particular thing, a movement or a cognitive process, a math problem, there is no reason for it to change. That the error signal is what actually drives the opportunity for change.

   18. JLJoe Liemandt46:58

       Mm-hmm.

   19. AHAndrew Huberman46:59

       And so without errors, there's no struggle, and therefore, without struggle, there's no learning. So I don't see a world where you can teach without a kid or an adult-

   20. JLJoe Liemandt47:09

       Sure

   21. AHAndrew Huberman47:09

       ... feeling some degree of like mild agitation. They might learn to think of that as excitement and curiosity.

   22. JLJoe Liemandt47:15

       Right.

   23. AHAndrew Huberman47:15

       But there's got to be some level of arousal, like I have to think, right? You know, it gotta b- be brought to the edge.

   24. JLJoe Liemandt47:19

       Engagement.

   25. AHAndrew Huberman47:20

       Yeah.

   26. JLJoe Liemandt47:20

       Yes. Engagement and attention, right?

   27. AHAndrew Huberman47:22

       Right.

   28. JLJoe Liemandt47:22

       You have to have engagement and attention, exactly what you're talking about, and errors definitely do matter-

   29. AHAndrew Huberman47:26

       Mm-hmm

   30. JLJoe Liemandt47:27

       ... and we, we can talk about that side. But let's just take, take an example, which is I'll give you a math problem. No instruction. Figure it out. That's one way to try to learn. The better way to learn, the faster way to learn is to give you, them a worked example where you show them, and then you progressively remove the parts of the example where they're having to progressively go up, and then by the end, they can solve the problem with no scaffolding.
10. 52:41 – 1:00:30

    Working Memory, Focus; Gifted Kids

    1. JLJoe Liemandt52:41

       There's a third dimension that really matters, and this is back to cognitive science, which is, you know, the way the brain works is you have a n- a certain number of working memory slots and then you have long-term memory. And your working memory slots are limited. You have limited attention and you're, that's, right, that's computing, right? That's where you're thinking. And the concept is, though, of fluency is this magical concept about brain science, right? It's magical. Which is if you memorize something to fluency, when you use it, it doesn't take a working memory slot. When working memory slots are a function of IQ, it's like the best way to be farther on your frontier curve independent of, you know, whatever your brain chemistry is, which is if I c- have memorized something to fluency, and here's the example to, to think about it. Let's take multiplication tables and why is algebra hard if I haven't memorized my math facts. If I know seven times eight is fifty-six, that takes nothing, right? I, you just know it. I have it to fluency. If I have to calculate seven times eight, I'm actually using my working memory slots. The problem is I only have a few of them. So when I'm in algebra, I'm in a multi-step word problem, and I'm using my slots up for something that I can't 'cause I need it for other things, and that's why when kids get to algebra and they start to struggle, the issue is not the algebra. The issue is the third grade math facts they didn't learn, and the way to fix the problem is not pound them with more algebra. It's to go fix the third grade problem. You want the most crazy example we have is we had a girl who's low seven hundred math SAT. She kept taking the test and kept getting careless errors. So Andrew was like, "Focus. Focus. You need to focus." And then we figured out you don't know your math facts. So we had her go back and learn Right? Memorize your multiplication tables. And first of all, back to, like, changing education, you can't convince someone with a seven ten that the problem's a third-grade lesson. You definitely can't convince their parents, right? That took a lot of motivational pushing on our guides to do that.

    2. AHAndrew Huberman54:47

       What about the student? What was-

    3. JLJoe Liemandt54:48

       But then-

    4. AHAndrew Huberman54:49

       ... her attitude toward-

    5. JLJoe Liemandt54:49

       Her attitude's like, "I can't, I don't need to do that. Look, I'm good in math. I'm in advanced math." Seven ten is not a bad score. It's not eight hundred, but it's, it's-

    6. AHAndrew Huberman54:58

       Mm-hmm.

    7. JLJoe Liemandt54:58

       But she's like, "It can't be I, that I need my multiplication tables." And she's like, and, you know, everybody's telling her, "It's careless. You're being careless." She was just running out of working memory slots. And so she went back, memorized her multiplication tables, and she got a seven ninety on her SAT.

    8. AHAndrew Huberman55:12

       Which, uh, speaks beautifully to what we know about neuroplasticity of learning. I mean, like, like you're saying, I mean, memories, people always go, "Oh, it's like the hippocampus."

    9. JLJoe Liemandt55:20

       Yeah.

    10. AHAndrew Huberman55:20

        "It's passed to the cortex, the fluency piece."

    11. JLJoe Liemandt55:22

        Yeah.

    12. AHAndrew Huberman55:22

        I think that this notion of freeing up working memory slots, maybe we just d-

    13. JLJoe Liemandt55:25

        Yeah

    14. AHAndrew Huberman55:26

        ... double-click on that for a second. I think people assume, well, you, even if it would take this-

    15. JLJoe Liemandt55:32

        Yeah

    16. AHAndrew Huberman55:32

        ... this young woman a little bit longer to do the multiplication, then she could then move to the next step of the problem.

    17. JLJoe Liemandt55:37

        Yeah.

    18. AHAndrew Huberman55:37

        There are two issues there, right, as I understand, and you'll, you'll, you'll tell me that there's probably more. One is that there's a, a time pressure-

    19. JLJoe Liemandt55:44

        Yeah

    20. AHAndrew Huberman55:44

        ... on the test. And the other piece is that we know that ability to focus is also constrained by the things that you're not consciously thinking about. Like, we know this from the phone, for example. I'm curious how Alpha School treats phones.

    21. JLJoe Liemandt55:59

        Yeah.

    22. AHAndrew Huberman55:59

        We know that if the phone is upside down on a table, based on a good study, in a bag under the chair, performance drops. But if it's out of the room, performance is rescued. It doesn't get better. And we know that in every case, the student can focus or the person can focus. I believe this was done in adults. But the issue is they don't have enough cognitive space to be able to elaborate on ideas, come up with novel solutions and things like that. So it's not really a focus issue. It's that the, the brain is computing consciously and unconsciously. So my guess is that she could iterate but that there's some higher order concept is not coming-

    23. JLJoe Liemandt56:31

        Yeah

    24. AHAndrew Huberman56:31

        ... becoming clear.

    25. JLJoe Liemandt56:32

        Yeah, correct. The number of working memory spots, slots is the number of unique, you know, chunks that you can think about. And I'll give a different example, and maybe this, this also helps. You just have a limit, and you run out, and if you're using them for something, you can't use it for something else. And a certain math problem takes a certain number of slots. Like, so I can predict are you going to struggle with this math problem and is it too hard for you based on whether you have fluency or not. Even if I know you know the problem, even if you've taught the material and you know how to do it, I can tell whether you're going to struggle. You can take gifted kids as an example. They have the most working memory slots. But every gifted kid goes through this in math, which is they do everything in their head. They never write down their work. And everybody's always like, "You're going to have to write down and show your work." And they're all like, "Whatever. I just do everything in my head." And then every gifted kid at some point in their education hit their wall because there's some math that you just can't do in your head and you have to start writing down, and they haven't learned it. They've learned all the bad habits. They haven't learned the good habits, the good traits of actually how do I do a multi-step problem where I'm working it down. And they hit a wall, and for the first time they're like, "I can't do a math problem."

    26. AHAndrew Huberman57:46

        Is that one of the reasons why child prodigies don't continue on a linear trajectory to hyper-performance? I mean, I was once told by a child prodigy-

    27. JLJoe Liemandt57:54

        Yeah

    28. AHAndrew Huberman57:54

        ... because he was referred to as a child prodigy and, and had performed, done something incredible. I don't want to reveal who this was. And he corrected me immediately. He said, "Former child prodigy."

    29. JLJoe Liemandt58:02

        [laughs]

    30. AHAndrew Huberman58:02

        I was like, "Okay, get it."
11. 1:00:30 – 1:06:57

    Basics Mastery, Grade Level Catch-Up, Individualized AI Lessons & Pace

    1. AHAndrew Huberman1:00:30

       we can get them to their frontier.

    2. JLJoe Liemandt1:00:31

       Correct. We can get them to their frontier.

    3. AHAndrew Huberman1:00:33

       Yeah.

    4. JLJoe Liemandt1:00:33

       And so, and that's what this system does, where you're like, "Well, get them to the frontier," which is reading is just fluency, right? If you're, when you're learning how to read, you're struggling 'cause you don't know the words, and then eventually it becomes fluency, and then you don't have to think about it, and you can crush through it. And then reading becomes much more fun, much more enjoyable. And so a lot of this is just we don't do the basics. We need to nail the basics, just like in sports. My famous example I always use is if you lose the ball 20% of the time going down the court, the coach is not saying, "Let's work on the dunks and the alley-oops or the, even the layups."

    5. AHAndrew Huberman1:01:06

       Mm-hmm.

    6. JLJoe Liemandt1:01:06

       They're like, "Ball handling. We're gonna get ball handling. 20% isn't acceptable. 15% isn't acceptable."

    7. AHAndrew Huberman1:01:12

       Mm-hmm.

    8. JLJoe Liemandt1:01:12

       You can't be 85, 80% accurate. In America, we're like, "You getting a B, man. Move on. We're moving on to dunks. You just finished fourth grade at 80%. Let's get you into that fifth-grade stuff." And the answer is no. No. 'Cause then all those problems compound. And let's go the other way. If you're struggling in chemistry, I can give you an algebra test and tell you how you're gonna do in chemistry. 'Cause chemistry is basically algebra with wor- cool word problems. And if you don't know algebra, the time to try to learn algebra is not in the middle of a chemistry problem. You need to know it. And so algebra, I can give you a fraction test. Algebra is basically can you do fast manipulation of fractions? And so what's your fluency on fractions? Fractions are just have you memorized your multiplication and division tables? You know, math more than anything, but even reading on stuff with vocabulary words, it's all just a layer. And if you don't have the foundation and you just keep pushing kids higher, that's... The learning curves in this country slow down. If you take our learning curves, relatively, you know, kindergarten, by the time you get to middle school and high school. High school, the median student in America doesn't learn anything. There's a test, there's a bunch of them, but you can use this one, which is NWEA map test. It's a 300-point scale. The average eighth grader to 12th grader goes up one point from a, you know, it depends on the subject, but 233 to 234 four years later. They don't learn anything. And the reason is because if I'm in the advanced math, I'm like, "I don't know my multiplication tables." And if I don't know it and I don't know it to mastery, I'm not gonna able to progress, and it's gonna eventually catch up with me. The same way in basketball, if you said, "I have a player who's a B player, 80% across every function," they're not gonna score one point in a basketball game.

    9. AHAndrew Huberman1:03:08

       Mm-hmm.

    10. JLJoe Liemandt1:03:08

        'Cause they're gonna miss the pass. They're gonna [laughs] lose a dribble. It's just there's too many things you have to put in sequence. And you put all those things in sequence, right, around education, and that's it. And before, we just didn't have the system. Now an, an AI tutor can sit there and be like, "I know exactly what you know," right? I can give you an assessment. I, I can know exactly what you know, what you don't know. I can give you a lesson personalized to you that says, "You need this lesson," and then I give it to you. And then I'm gonna hit you to mastery. I'm gonna-

    11. AHAndrew Huberman1:03:37

        Mm-hmm

    12. JLJoe Liemandt1:03:37

        ... keep you in that loop-

    13. AHAndrew Huberman1:03:39

        Mm-hmm

    14. JLJoe Liemandt1:03:39

        ... to mastery. And then you're mastery now, I'm like, "I'm gonna let you go on to the next one." Last year, right, we starting open lots of campuses and, you know, we're high in private school, so we have... You know, these are kids coming from $50,000 private school. These are our best schools in the country they're coming from. The average student, when they transferred into Alpha and took our assessment test, were 2.2 grade levels behind. And what does that mean? I got in front of all the parents, you know, and I'm like, "Look, two, this means two things. First, don't freak out. You are gonna freak out 'cause we're about to send you the scores, and it's gonna show that your eighth grader can't answer some sixth-grade questions, some fifth-grade questions even." And when it got to writing, like, it was even lower 'cause everybody's been using ChatGPT to write their papers. And so you're gonna freak out 'cause you're like, "Oh my God, my kid's two grade levels behind or three grade levels behind." But you're thinking that takes, like, 200 hours, 180 school days, right, all this. Our average student can do an entire grade level, one subject, between 20 and 30 hours-

    15. AHAndrew Huberman1:04:39

        Wow

    16. JLJoe Liemandt1:04:39

        ... in K through eight. Twenty to thirty hours back to the 10,000 hours.

    17. AHAndrew Huberman1:04:41

        So they can catch up.

    18. JLJoe Liemandt1:04:42

        Do an hour a day of homework-

    19. AHAndrew Huberman1:04:43

        Mm-hmm

    20. JLJoe Liemandt1:04:43

        ... to catch up, and you're three years behind, that's 90 days. The most positive use case, if you said, you know, "What's the number one thing we could use AI for?" It's not giving kids chatbots that's gonna work. It's giving them an individualized lesson plan based on their level to catch them up to grade level, and that would be the single best thing we could do to fix education in America. Let's talk about motivation and why it matters. And if you take an eighth grader, you can't go put him in third-grade classes.

    21. AHAndrew Huberman1:05:12

        Right.

    22. JLJoe Liemandt1:05:13

        And if you leave him in an eighth-grade class, he can't learn. She can't learn. And so we have this system where it's, it's not the teacher's fault. They're like, "I, I, I have to teach eighth-grade material. I, I, I'm not teaching the third and fourth grade stuff-

    23. AHAndrew Huberman1:05:25

        Mm-hmm

    24. JLJoe Liemandt1:05:25

        ... and the fifth-grade stuff." And so this is where if we gave each person individualized lessons, right? AI could generate individualized lessons for everybody in America, and we could then go catch them up because it's not that hard. It doesn't take that many hours. It takes lots of hours when you're teaching years ahead of their capability. It, it's 20 to 30 hours per grade level if they're motivated. And that's the problem with edtech when we talk about that, of when we talk about motivation's 90%.

    25. AHAndrew Huberman1:05:52

        Mm-hmm.

    26. JLJoe Liemandt1:05:53

        When we design our schools, we are like, "We need to design a school that they love so that even when it's hard and they don't like the subject..." Look, when you love a subject, it's all easy, right? Like, we don't have to worry about those problems, right? They, they solve themselves. You're like, "What about the STEM kid who doesn't wanna read the book, right, and doesn't like it, or vice versa? I have the arts theater middle schooler who's like, 'I can't do math.' How do we get them to do that?" And that's why we say motivation's 90% of the problem or the solution because you have to be able to motivate the person to engage with these personalized lessons to learn it. And the first step that we do on that is we show them it's tractable

    27. AHAndrew Huberman1:06:33

        When you're like, "I'm three years behind," you're like, "I'm out. It's too far. I'm a year behind. I'm two... It's too much work." When you're like, "You're 22 hours behind. It's 22 hours."

    28. JLJoe Liemandt1:06:45

        Totally-

    29. AHAndrew Huberman1:06:45

        Hour a day

    30. JLJoe Liemandt1:06:46

        ... totally different message.
12. 1:06:57 – 1:08:17

    Sponsor: LMNT

    1. AHAndrew Huberman1:06:57

       I'd like to take a quick break and acknowledge one of our sponsors, LMNT. LMNT is an electrolyte drink that has everything you need and nothing you don't. That means the electrolytes, sodium, magnesium, and potassium, all in the correct ratios, but no sugar. Proper hydration is critical for brain and body function. Even a slight degree of dehydration can diminish your cognitive and physical performance. It's also important that you get adequate electrolytes. The electrolytes, sodium, magnesium, and potassium, are vital for the functioning of all cells in your body, especially your neurons or your nerve cells. Drinking LMNT makes it very easy to ensure that you're getting adequate hydration and adequate electrolytes. My days tend to start really fast, meaning I have to jump right into work or right into exercise. So to make sure that I'm hydrated and I have sufficient electrolytes, when I first wake up in the morning, I drink 16 to 32 ounces of water with an LMNT packet dissolved in it. I also drink LMNT dissolved in water during any kind of physical exercise that I'm doing, especially on hot days when I'm sweating a lot and losing water and electrolytes. LMNT has a bunch of great-tasting flavors. In fact, I love them all. I love the watermelon, the raspberry, the citrus, and I really love the lemonade flavor. So if you'd like to try LMNT, you can go to drinklmnt.com/huberman to claim a free LMNT sample pack with any purchase. Again, that's drinklmnt.com/huberman to claim a free sample

13. 1:08:17 – 1:20:55

    Shame, Motivation, Growth Rate; Overcoming Mental Blocks & Paying Kids

    1. AHAndrew Huberman1:08:17

       pack. It seems to me that one of the really wonderful features of what you're describing is also the removal of the, the shame component, right?

    2. JLJoe Liemandt1:08:25

       Yeah.

    3. AHAndrew Huberman1:08:25

       Like, like here we're, we're thinking about and talking about students not as robots because we-

    4. JLJoe Liemandt1:08:29

       Yeah

    5. AHAndrew Huberman1:08:29

       ... tend to, but, but sort of as like these, the ch- generic young woman, young man-

    6. JLJoe Liemandt1:08:33

       Yeah

    7. AHAndrew Huberman1:08:33

       ... who would like gap in, in algebra. They're gonna learn algebra. But there's a whole social psychological context here. And I'd like to touch on that just a little bit-

    8. JLJoe Liemandt1:08:41

       Great

    9. AHAndrew Huberman1:08:41

       ... because as you're explaining Alpha School, I'm, I'm seeing, and to some extent remembering [laughs] the many times I or others were either not in keeping or were ahead or bored.

    10. JLJoe Liemandt1:08:52

        Yeah.

    11. AHAndrew Huberman1:08:52

        I mean, I think-

    12. JLJoe Liemandt1:08:52

        Yeah

    13. AHAndrew Huberman1:08:52

        ... we've all experienced being in the different positions.

    14. JLJoe Liemandt1:08:54

        Exactly.

    15. AHAndrew Huberman1:08:55

        Like, if every kid is behind in something and, and so-

    16. JLJoe Liemandt1:08:58

        Yeah

    17. AHAndrew Huberman1:08:58

        ... or most every kid is behind in something, the idea that you're 22 hours behind in something, that, that, that can be, that gap can be made up not in total isolation, but not with peers observing.

    18. JLJoe Liemandt1:09:09

        Right.

    19. AHAndrew Huberman1:09:09

        I have a friend, he's, he's a brilliant and very successful musician.

    20. JLJoe Liemandt1:09:13

        Yeah.

    21. AHAndrew Huberman1:09:13

        And he describes an experience in the sixth grade where he got called to the board to do math, and he's dyslexic. And he wrote his seven backwards, and the whole class laughed. And he told another friend of mine, they went to s- elementary school together. Maybe that was middle school, but this was in the East Bay, California. And he said, "What happened?" And this older kid said, "Well, if you think sixth grade is hard, seventh grade is like way harder."

    22. JLJoe Liemandt1:09:38

        [laughs]

    23. AHAndrew Huberman1:09:38

        And you know, he told himself at that moment he was terrible at math.

    24. JLJoe Liemandt1:09:41

        Yeah.

    25. AHAndrew Huberman1:09:41

        Turns out he's brilliant in music and he's actually exceptional in math because music and math-

    26. JLJoe Liemandt1:09:46

        Yeah, very much

    27. AHAndrew Huberman1:09:47

        ... certain music is very mathematical. So these key moments in people's childhood-

    28. JLJoe Liemandt1:09:51

        Yeah

    29. AHAndrew Huberman1:09:51

        ... getting picked last for the kickball team-

    30. JLJoe Liemandt1:09:53

        Yeah
14. 1:20:55 – 1:31:21

    Suffering & Motivation, Kids Goals, Sports; Doing Hard Things

    1. JLJoe Liemandt1:20:55

       coach.

    2. AHAndrew Huberman1:20:55

       The shift in self-perception piece is, is the most important, right?

    3. JLJoe Liemandt1:20:58

       Yes, 100%.

    4. AHAndrew Huberman1:20:59

       Because, because we were talking about the importance of the slope of the line as well as meeting standards, but ultimately it's that recognition, I can do hard things.

    5. JLJoe Liemandt1:21:07

       Yes.

    6. AHAndrew Huberman1:21:07

       Or maybe that, that phrase should be changed. Maybe it should be, I can do what I thought were hard things if it's delivered to me in the correct context and the correct way, I can learn. I spent a lot of time on this podcast over the last, whatever, six years trying to convince people to get morning sunlight and hydrate and like-

    7. JLJoe Liemandt1:21:25

       Yeah

    8. AHAndrew Huberman1:21:25

       ... exercise, and then I try and teach them neuroplasticity, and I try-

    9. JLJoe Liemandt1:21:28

       [laughs]

    10. AHAndrew Huberman1:21:28

        ... not go too deep. But there's this great Na- Max Tegmark saying, I think it was Max Tegmark, which was, "Assume zero knowledge and infinite intelligence." The dirty secret is there isn't infinite intelligence, right? But there's always some place where somebody has-

    11. JLJoe Liemandt1:21:41

        Right

    12. AHAndrew Huberman1:21:41

        ... zero knowledge.

    13. JLJoe Liemandt1:21:42

        Right.

    14. AHAndrew Huberman1:21:42

        And what you're saying is the motivation piece is really the recognition that learning in one context-

    15. JLJoe Liemandt1:21:47

        Yeah

    16. AHAndrew Huberman1:21:47

        ... has some similarities to learning in other contexts. Like, it's gonna hurt a little bit, but we don't have to make it hurt a lot-

    17. JLJoe Liemandt1:21:53

        Correct

    18. AHAndrew Huberman1:21:54

        ... if it's delivered correctly. And forgive me, I wanna, it, well, seems like a tangent, but, like, being the child of at least one parent who's a first-generation immigrant-

    19. JLJoe Liemandt1:22:02

        Yeah

    20. AHAndrew Huberman1:22:02

        ... I was told my entire life how lucky I was. You were born at this time.

    21. JLJoe Liemandt1:22:06

        Yeah.

    22. AHAndrew Huberman1:22:06

        You're in the United States. You went to the best public schools, you know, one of the best public schools in the country.

    23. JLJoe Liemandt1:22:11

        Yeah.

    24. AHAndrew Huberman1:22:11

        You know, it's true, I didn't make as much of it as I could've or should've, but eventually I like to think I made up... There's probably still a few gaps, maybe I'll go back.

    25. JLJoe Liemandt1:22:18

        [laughs]

    26. AHAndrew Huberman1:22:18

        But the point being, I was told by my European, uh, relatives, you know, in, in many countries in Europe, it's just thought, like, you're good at something or you're not good at something and your life trajectory is kind of set. That might be changing now, but the United States has always had this idea that you can become anything.

    27. JLJoe Liemandt1:22:36

        Right.

    28. AHAndrew Huberman1:22:37

        But I do think, as beautiful as the Spud Web examples are, right?

    29. JLJoe Liemandt1:22:41

        Right.

    30. AHAndrew Huberman1:22:41

        This quite shorter guy winning the slam dunk competition-
15. 1:31:21 – 1:42:44

    Founders High School, Life Skills; Kids' Goals

    1. JLJoe Liemandt1:31:21

       examples, you know, on this-

    2. AHAndrew Huberman1:31:22

       Please

    3. JLJoe Liemandt1:31:22

       ... that we do on motivation. So we just announced, um, a high school, our high school program. So we didn't... We do our three commitments: love school more than vacation, 2X in two hours, and then third, learn all the life skills you want. And we have five stacks: leadership and teamwork, entrepreneurship and financial literacy, socialization, relationship building, storytelling, public speaking, grit, hard work. We have a stack starting in kindergarten for each one. And so when you talk about hard things, right, our grit, hard work, our kindergartners climb rock walls. Our second graders all run a 5K. By eighth grade, you have to do a Tough Mudder, it's a teamwork one combo, and cross the finish line at the same time as everybody, which is actually the hard part in eighth grade 'cause someone always wants to finish first. But it's a teamwork and tough, and so you have these standards of, of grit and hard work. But here's one of driving it is on our financial literacy entrepreneurship stack. We just announced, and it's opening this year for the first time, a high school program called Founder's School. It's an entrepreneurial school, and its promise is you'll earn a million dollars in profit. You'll start a business, earn a million dollars of profit, or you get all your tuition back. You know, across-

    4. AHAndrew Huberman1:32:32

       Each kid?

    5. JLJoe Liemandt1:32:32

       Each kid earns a million dollars. And just life skills are trainable just like other skills, right? And you can teach grit and hard work. You can teach financial literacy. All of our kindergartners learn how to earn, save, spend, invest, and donate, and they just start that. Financial literacy is the number one thing parents request that schools don't teach. We just start it in kindergarten. And if you go up the stacks, we have, you know, middle school kids who are running Airbnbs and launching food trucks. We have vending machines. They learn gross margin trying to what products do I put in the vending machines, and how do I get it placed somewhere where I can earn money?

    6. AHAndrew Huberman1:33:05

       So cool.

    7. JLJoe Liemandt1:33:06

       And so but then b- a million dollars-

    8. AHAndrew Huberman1:33:08

       Mm-hmm

    9. JLJoe Liemandt1:33:08

       ... but by high school. It's, it's totally trainable. Alex Hormozi is helping, like, design the program.

    10. AHAndrew Huberman1:33:13

        Yeah, he's perfect for this.

    11. JLJoe Liemandt1:33:14

        Yeah.

    12. AHAndrew Huberman1:33:14

        Yeah.

    13. JLJoe Liemandt1:33:14

        And p- all the kids love him, right?

    14. AHAndrew Huberman1:33:15

        All the kids wear the little nose thing.

    15. JLJoe Liemandt1:33:17

        Yeah, and they all love him, right? He's like in- influencer central, and they, they, they are like, "He is the one who I want to learn from."

    16. AHAndrew Huberman1:33:22

        Very cool.

    17. JLJoe Liemandt1:33:23

        But for that, if you go to that website, go to Founder's School website, and you look at the academic standards, they are har- as hard as any school in this country. This isn't gonna be creating crypto bros who are just hacking the world to make money. This school is building philosopher builders, is their framework, right? And the academics, if you ask AI, "Analyze this book list," they're like, "It's different than a classics book list that you'd get at Exeter or, or the best schools." But it's not less rigorous.

    18. AHAndrew Huberman1:33:51

        Mm-hmm.

    19. JLJoe Liemandt1:33:51

        These kids are like, "I'll absolutely do all that." A- Coming in, they were not thinking, "This is what I need," you know, "This was my path, was to crush academics." But back to the standards, they're like, "I will totally do it because I get to start a business and earn a million dollars," right? "And I get to do what I love."

    20. AHAndrew Huberman1:34:07

        All the adults listening are like, "I wanna go back to school," right?

    21. JLJoe Liemandt1:34:10

        It is. Yeah.

    22. AHAndrew Huberman1:34:11

        You probably hear this all the time.

    23. JLJoe Liemandt1:34:12

        No, it is. Uh, we have an event, uh, this weekend, uh, uh, for this Founder's School and, you know, we thought there'd be like 10 or 15 people who wanted it, and there's 150 people who are showing up.

    24. AHAndrew Huberman1:34:23

        Amazing.

    25. JLJoe Liemandt1:34:23

        We literally have people moving to Alphas in cities 'cause they're like, "My 10-year-old's gonna go to Alpha, so they're ready for Founder's School" or... and stuff. But focusing on designing a school, we have them for 12 years. Let's build schools where the kids are like, "I wake up every day, and I rush to school 'cause it's so awesome." And, you know, back to Sports Academy, you know, there's a great testimonial where a mom is basically like, "Look, he used to skip school 25% of the time. I could never get him to go to school. Today, he wakes me up and is like, 'Mom, we can't be late ''cause I gotta get my two hours in ''cause I can't keep coach waiting.'" And that whole picture, that's when we look at the problem. It's not just make kids work harder. It's be aligned with what they want, and they will willingly work harder. And as long as we, as the adults, set the high standards for what that is, they'll totally do it.

    26. AHAndrew Huberman1:35:16

        So it's suffering with a purpose-

    27. JLJoe Liemandt1:35:18

        Yeah

    28. AHAndrew Huberman1:35:18

        ... and the purpose is internalized in them-

    29. JLJoe Liemandt1:35:21

        Yes

    30. AHAndrew Huberman1:35:21

        ... is what I'm hearing.
16. 1:42:44 – 1:47:21

    Reimagining Classroom Education

    1. JLJoe Liemandt1:42:44

       And let's step back a little sec. When we sit and say we, we think people should reimagine education, right, for the next decade, i- over the next decade, for the next 100 years versus the last 100 years, it's development of the whole child. McKinsey, who's the founder, right, the co-founder, her favorite line, which we believe super strongly at Alpha, is, "This is the best time in history to be a five-year-old," which is our ability to make that first 12 years awesome and unlock their potential on all dimensions. They get to love school for 12 years. Their academics, they're gonna learn 10 times faster. These kids are gonna have a head full of knowledge that's more than what their parents had. We're gonna be able to fill their head with knowledge. The learning science shows that the more you know, the faster you learn, right? And so it's, like, increasing. And then the third part is the life skills that we think are important, they're gonna have most of their day to work on this. They're gonna be able to sit here and say, "This AI world's coming. Things are gonna change, and I get to go live and experience in that, and I get to do things." That framing we use about philosopher-builder. Like, who are kids that are gonna come out of school? On the philosophy side, o- one, it's a proxy for good academics. You can crush your academics and fill your head. The other part is philosophy, which alternates over history between the most important thing and the least important major. I believe with AI is coming back into the fore, which is what's humans' role when there's all these AIs around, and what's the ex- existential debates and what did all the great thinkers think about? And so you're gonna have things like that on the philosophy side, but the second part, and I believe sc- schools really need to do this, and this is what... when we think about the life skills, it's the builder side. We need to create builders. That is what kids need to be doing. That's what adults need to be doing. You can't just be thinking. Schools can't be just sitting in class all day. You have to build, and when kids get to build, whether it's physically in sports, and I'm climbing or I'm building drones and robots, or I'm building a business, I'm, I'm writing books, I'm making videos, whatever those programs are, that's what engages kids. That's what they love, and we need to bring that back. There's whole vocational programs now for high schoolers where it's like, "We're gonna have you learn how to do advanced manufacturing and build robots or things like that," in, you know, 100 years ago or 50 years ago, shop class.

    2. AHAndrew Huberman1:45:04

       Mm-hmm.

    3. JLJoe Liemandt1:45:04

       You know, build things. We are very strong believers in the build philosophy, which is... And let's take middle school again, right, this time of transition. We get a ton of transfers into Alpha who are consumers. They're on the dopamine loop. They're caught on TikTok. They're caught on Fortnite, right? And they're just caught in the loops. Causes mental health issues. They're isolated, right? All these problems. And what we do is we have a program called Dream Launcher, where we're like, "We have to break these kids out of this loop," right? We have to develop them. You can't develop a kid who's in that loop. And so Dream Launcher is do your vision board. Who do you want to be? And kids, even the ones in the dopamine loop, have great ideas of what they want to do. Not only do they think they're awesome, they're like, "I am awesome. I'm great." You know, do a Japanese Ikigai, right, if you know, which is, and back to these, what do you love, but what are you good at? Back to you can't just follow a passion. You have to be good at stuff. And yet, if you can develop the skills, great, but you can't do things that you're terrible at because in your Japanese Ikigai, the world won't pay you for that. What does the world value? What does the world pay you for? What are you good at, and what do you love? And you, you help them understand, and they can figure out how to find their sweet spot there. So they have these great visions of, "This is who I want to be," and they start thinking about it in middle school. These Alpha X projects, you know, sort of in high school, they, they, they do it more. And then we hit them with reality. We're like, "Now you have to do the 168-hour project. You gotta track every hour you're weak." And that's when they come back, and they're like, "Ugh, I guess I'm gonna be the world's best..." 'Cause you are what you do. "I guess I'm gonna be the world's best TikTok scroller."

    4. AHAndrew Huberman1:46:42

       Yeah, their thumbs are, are like really-

    5. JLJoe Liemandt1:46:43

       And they're depressed.

    6. AHAndrew Huberman1:46:44

       Yeah.

    7. JLJoe Liemandt1:46:44

       No, and they're depressed.

    8. AHAndrew Huberman1:46:45

       Yeah.

    9. JLJoe Liemandt1:46:45

       They understand it. They're like, "I just draw my vision of who I want to be."

    10. AHAndrew Huberman1:46:48

        Mm-hmm.

    11. JLJoe Liemandt1:46:48

        "And now I realize my day-to-day habits aren't gonna get me there."

    12. AHAndrew Huberman1:46:52

        Yeah, that's a big delta to internalize, which is just nerdy speak for, like, that hits hard.

    13. JLJoe Liemandt1:46:58

        Yeah.

    14. AHAndrew Huberman1:46:58

        But it's great to get the lesson at the time they're getting it. I mean, actually, in addition to this notion of motivation and suffering and the sort of concepts around that, and I, I think you illustrate beautifully how one can reconcile those and hold high standards, still feel supported, still come at things from an intrinsic place of, "I can do hard things," um, even if there's a lure-

    15. JLJoe Liemandt1:47:18

        Yeah

    16. AHAndrew Huberman1:47:18

        ... of cash-

    17. JLJoe Liemandt1:47:18

        Right

    18. AHAndrew Huberman1:47:18

        ... or a D1 or a scholarship.

    19. JLJoe Liemandt1:47:20

        Yeah.

    20. AHAndrew Huberman1:47:20

        Whatever it is.

17. 1:47:21 – 1:58:04

    Importance of Building & Creating, AI & Humanity

    1. AHAndrew Huberman1:47:21

       I feel like this is the piece that I want to, you know, double-click on because most of the world are consumers. And, you know, it only occurred to me, like, five years ago that even though I wasn't a particularly good high school student, the friends I was skateboarding with, even though I wasn't good enough to turn pro, they either turned pro or started companies or were dead or in jail. And the ones who started companies started big companies.

    2. JLJoe Liemandt1:47:45

       Yeah.

    3. AHAndrew Huberman1:47:45

       And the ones who, you know-

    4. JLJoe Liemandt1:47:47

       Yeah

    5. AHAndrew Huberman1:47:47

       ... made it through the chute 'cause, you know- [laughs]

    6. JLJoe Liemandt1:47:49

       Yeah, right

    7. AHAndrew Huberman1:47:49

       ... uh, varying levels of support at home and elsewhere, like They built really big things.

    8. JLJoe Liemandt1:47:54

       Yeah.

    9. AHAndrew Huberman1:47:54

       Like huge companies. Like part of our staff here we recruited from, like, DC and, like, these action sport companies that are, like, huge companies. Those-

    10. JLJoe Liemandt1:48:01

        Yeah

    11. AHAndrew Huberman1:48:01

        ... were started by, like, kids we knew.

    12. JLJoe Liemandt1:48:03

        Yeah.

    13. AHAndrew Huberman1:48:04

        And so there was always this model embedded in my mind that, like, yeah, there was Apple Computer, there was Steve Jobs nearby, but that wasn't really my, my proclivity, like tech. But, like, if you wanna build something, like, oh yeah, you wanna make a movie, you film your friend skateboarding.

    14. JLJoe Liemandt1:48:15

        Yeah.

    15. AHAndrew Huberman1:48:15

        This was before fr- you know-

    16. JLJoe Liemandt1:48:16

        Yeah, right

    17. AHAndrew Huberman1:48:16

        ... camera phones. So I realized a few years ago, like, oh yeah, like building a podcast, we, like, set up cameras and, like-

    18. JLJoe Liemandt1:48:23

        Yeah

    19. AHAndrew Huberman1:48:23

        ... let's go. Like, and, like, get a team together and let's do this. But I think for a lot of the world, this feels very much out of their reach. And yet they hear about it, and you can learn about it all day from-

    20. JLJoe Liemandt1:48:33

        Right

    21. AHAndrew Huberman1:48:33

        ... from Rosie or from-

    22. JLJoe Liemandt1:48:34

        Yeah

    23. AHAndrew Huberman1:48:34

        ... whoever online. And so there's this gap between what people are being told they can do and I believe actually can do.

    24. JLJoe Liemandt1:48:41

        Yeah. Yes.

    25. AHAndrew Huberman1:48:41

        But then how they're spending their time.

    26. JLJoe Liemandt1:48:43

        Yes.

    27. AHAndrew Huberman1:48:43

        And, and that's just stating the obvious. But so how do you embed in people's minds-

    28. JLJoe Liemandt1:48:48

        Yeah

    29. AHAndrew Huberman1:48:48

        ... that the ultimate experience in life at the level of personal life, family, learning, and business is to create something?

    30. JLJoe Liemandt1:48:56

        Yeah.
18. 1:58:04 – 2:05:26

    Science & Redesigning Experiments, Kids' Interest-Led Projects

    1. AHAndrew Huberman1:58:04

       you about biology and medicine? 'Cause I'm heavily-

    2. JLJoe Liemandt1:58:05

       Sure

    3. AHAndrew Huberman1:58:06

       ... biased here.

    4. JLJoe Liemandt1:58:06

       Yeah, yeah.

    5. AHAndrew Huberman1:58:07

       But when I was in middle school, I dissected a frog.

    6. JLJoe Liemandt1:58:09

       Yeah.

    7. AHAndrew Huberman1:58:09

       It wasn't my favorite biology experiment, but-

    8. JLJoe Liemandt1:58:11

       Yeah

    9. AHAndrew Huberman1:58:11

       ... getting in there and seeing things and, and feeling things with your hands-

    10. JLJoe Liemandt1:58:15

        Yes

    11. AHAndrew Huberman1:58:15

        ... is a very important experience in becoming a biologist.

    12. JLJoe Liemandt1:58:18

        Yes.

    13. AHAndrew Huberman1:58:18

        And when you said the microscope changed everything, and I totally agree, the ability to sit at a microscope and you're the one panning around-

    14. JLJoe Liemandt1:58:25

        Yep

    15. AHAndrew Huberman1:58:25

        ... and to actually stain cells or do a dissection of a brain or this kind of thing-

    16. JLJoe Liemandt1:58:30

        Yeah

    17. AHAndrew Huberman1:58:30

        ... there's a lot of tactile learning inside of what we think are often just intellectual pursuits.

    18. JLJoe Liemandt1:58:35

        Yes.

    19. AHAndrew Huberman1:58:36

        So do they get the opportunity to do experiments?

    20. JLJoe Liemandt1:58:39

        Totally. Yeah. So-

    21. AHAndrew Huberman1:58:40

        'Cause it's an amazing thing-

    22. JLJoe Liemandt1:58:41

        Yeah

    23. AHAndrew Huberman1:58:41

        ... to see a brain, and it looks all white and gray.

    24. JLJoe Liemandt1:58:43

        Mm-hmm.

    25. AHAndrew Huberman1:58:43

        And then you, you put on a particular label. You explain to somebody, doesn't matter what age, what it's labeling.

    26. JLJoe Liemandt1:58:49

        Yeah.

    27. AHAndrew Huberman1:58:49

        And then they get to see, and it lights up like artwork. And you go-

    28. JLJoe Liemandt1:58:52

        Yeah

    29. AHAndrew Huberman1:58:52

        ... "You have these inside your brain, and here's what they do."

    30. JLJoe Liemandt1:58:54

        Yeah.
19. 2:05:26 – 2:06:14

    Huberman Lab Live Events

    1. AHAndrew Huberman2:05:26

       Hi, everyone. I'm delighted to share that I'll be hosting three live events very soon. I should say our past live events all sold out, so make sure you get your tickets for these events soon. The first live event is in New York City at the iconic Radio City Music Hall on September 17th. The second live event will be held in Los Angeles at the Dolby Theatre on October 8th. And the third live event is in San Francisco at the Masonic on October 28th. At all three of these events, I'll be discussing topics from my new book, Protocols, and my favorite part, taking questions live directly from you, the audience. To get tickets, please go to hubermanlab.com/events. That's hubermanlab.com/events. I hope to see you at one of these live events, who knows, maybe even several. And as always, thank you for your interest

20. 2:06:14 – 2:18:32

    Learning Predictors, Gender, Income; Redesigning the School System

    1. AHAndrew Huberman2:06:14

       in science. I have a question. Throughout today's conversation, it almost seems that Boys and girls-

    2. JLJoe Liemandt2:06:20

       Yeah

    3. AHAndrew Huberman2:06:20

       ... are equally supported by this program, like, like maximizing potential, whatever you wanna call it.

    4. JLJoe Liemandt2:06:26

       Yeah.

    5. AHAndrew Huberman2:06:26

       I haven't looked at the latest data on-

    6. JLJoe Liemandt2:06:28

       Yeah

    7. AHAndrew Huberman2:06:28

       ... on the discrepancy of, of male to female performance. But when Scott Galloway was on the podcast-

    8. JLJoe Liemandt2:06:33

       Yeah

    9. AHAndrew Huberman2:06:34

       ... or you flip on today's New York Times, or you actually can look at even, like, a Fox News thing, right?

    10. JLJoe Liemandt2:06:38

        Yeah.

    11. AHAndrew Huberman2:06:38

        And you're gonna hear about this gender gap in performance. And-

    12. JLJoe Liemandt2:06:41

        Yeah

    13. AHAndrew Huberman2:06:41

        ... it almost seems like that's been eliminated at Alpha School. Is that true?

    14. JLJoe Liemandt2:06:45

        Yeah, I, back to the frontier-

    15. AHAndrew Huberman2:06:47

        Mm-hmm

    16. JLJoe Liemandt2:06:47

        ... and wherever it is, most of these are, uh, self-imposed constraints that at least in the framework of K-12 don't exist on whatever stuff. So if I have ADHD boys who now aren't doing as well as the girls on one dimension sort of broadly, when you only take two hours a day, you know what happens to ADHD? Wow, what happened to it? They're building all afternoon. You know, there's a set of things which is, one, you take those kids, those kids can lock in for two hours-

    17. AHAndrew Huberman2:07:16

        Mm-hmm

    18. JLJoe Liemandt2:07:16

        ... in the apps. Like, we always tell the parents when they come in and they have their A- ADHD diagnosis, we're like, "Can he play a video game for 25 minutes straight?" And they're like, "Yes." And I'm like, "Well, we do 25-minute Pomodoro blocks."

    19. AHAndrew Huberman2:07:28

        Mm-hmm.

    20. JLJoe Liemandt2:07:28

        "It'll be fine."

    21. AHAndrew Huberman2:07:29

        Mm-hmm. Yeah, this is all a mark of ADHD.

    22. JLJoe Liemandt2:07:30

        Right.

    23. AHAndrew Huberman2:07:30

        The kids can focus if it's engaging enough.

    24. JLJoe Liemandt2:07:33

        If it's engaging.

    25. AHAndrew Huberman2:07:33

        Yeah.

    26. JLJoe Liemandt2:07:33

        And so we just make it engaging and motivating.

    27. AHAndrew Huberman2:07:35

        Mm-hmm.

    28. JLJoe Liemandt2:07:35

        If on the worst case, like in our sports academy, they run them before the apps.

    29. AHAndrew Huberman2:07:39

        Mm-hmm.

    30. JLJoe Liemandt2:07:39

        It can get fairly, you know.
21. 2:18:32 – 2:28:36

    Success; Sports Academy, Alpha School Expansion

    1. AHAndrew Huberman2:18:32

       of all this, I just, this is not a pushback, but it's-

    2. JLJoe Liemandt2:18:34

       Yeah, go ahead

    3. AHAndrew Huberman2:18:34

       ... something that I, I imagine a number of people are thinking, and part of my job is to-

    4. JLJoe Liemandt2:18:38

       Yeah, sure

    5. AHAndrew Huberman2:18:38

       ... to reflect that. At risk of editorializing too much, but I hit 50, so I think I can do it a little bit. I've lived in this country my whole life. There seems to be a kind of cultural stance that has been around a lot more in recent years-

    6. JLJoe Liemandt2:18:54

       Yeah

    7. AHAndrew Huberman2:18:54

       ... which is if somebody didn't suffer and have disadvantage, we don't really want to see them succeed. We're not-- I'm not saying people have a problem with it per se.

    8. JLJoe Liemandt2:19:04

       Mm-hmm.

    9. AHAndrew Huberman2:19:04

       But if you look at the stories that are celebrated, they are stories of the underdog.

    10. JLJoe Liemandt2:19:08

        Mm-hmm.

    11. AHAndrew Huberman2:19:08

        Right? That's like an American tale, right?

    12. JLJoe Liemandt2:19:10

        Yeah.

    13. AHAndrew Huberman2:19:10

        You know, and we have many of them that we could select from. But there almost seems to be a, a pushback against-

    14. JLJoe Liemandt2:19:16

        Mm-hmm

    15. AHAndrew Huberman2:19:17

        ... people who had things mostly right-

    16. JLJoe Liemandt2:19:19

        Yeah

    17. AHAndrew Huberman2:19:19

        ... getting to their, their frontier. I realize that's not your stance. That's not the stance at all that Alpha School takes. In fact, it takes quite the opposite stance, which is, "Let's develop everyone to their frontier."

    18. JLJoe Liemandt2:19:29

        Yes.

    19. AHAndrew Huberman2:19:29

        And I think the big question here in a lot of people's minds is probably this everyone piece.

    20. JLJoe Liemandt2:19:34

        Yeah.

    21. AHAndrew Huberman2:19:34

        You're saying we have to start here before this can wick out to the entire educational system.

    22. JLJoe Liemandt2:19:38

        Right.

    23. AHAndrew Huberman2:19:38

        I totally understand and support that. But I, I think there's this opportunity I think we have here in this discussion to embed in people's minds that, like, seeing somebody succeed is not necessarily taking from anyone else, especially if the way they got there can be exported to anyone. Like the specific-

    24. JLJoe Liemandt2:19:56

        Yeah

    25. AHAndrew Huberman2:19:56

        ... circumstances that we've tended to focus on in this country have been the outliers, right?

    26. JLJoe Liemandt2:20:00

        Yeah.

    27. AHAndrew Huberman2:20:00

        The Spud Webs and, and these are remarkable stories.

    28. JLJoe Liemandt2:20:03

        Yeah.

    29. AHAndrew Huberman2:20:03

        But there's not a lot that's exportable about that story, except if you really want it and work really, really hard, you can have it.

    30. JLJoe Liemandt2:20:11

        Right.

Episode duration: 2:33:42