Analog Schools Are Failing Digital Minds
We need a new category of school for a new category of human.
In 1440, a goldsmith’s son named Johannes Gutenberg changed the world that you and I live in today. With his invention of the printing press, he cracked open the gates of knowledge. Ideas no longer resided solely in the minds of scholars or the vaults of monasteries — they could spill across borders, throughout homes, into the hands of ordinary people. It was a revolution. But revolutions take time. While pamphlets spread across Europe, universities clung to old ways. Professors still read aloud to students from hand-copied texts, even as printed books piled up on their shelves. The medium of the future had changed; but many people’s mindsets were still stuck in the past.
Sound familiar?
Right now, we’re living through another Gutenberg-moment in history. Technology and AI have cracked open new gates of knowledge. They are advancing society in new and novel ways. Some of us are advancing with it, while others cling to old ways, hesitant to jump onboard. I get it. Change is scary! It’s also inevitable. And when you look at how technology is affecting today’s students, change becomes necessary — because what we’re witnessing in the classroom today is two different categories of human beings colliding. Ultimately, we need a new category of school for a new category of human.
Let me explain.
Native Digitals vs. Native Analogs
Christopher Lochhead coined two terms for this phenomenon:
Native Analogs — people over 35, who grew up when technology was merely an accessory.
Native Digitals — people under 35, for whom digital life is fundamental to reality.
We Native Analogs grew up in a world where the real world came first. Tech was simply a supplement to our lives. If you were active on MySpace, cool. But culture was not happening online. You didn’t miss out on life because you failed to use a certain app or check your email. Technology was startingly laissez-faire — take it or leave it, up to you.
Native Digitals, on the other hand, are born into the cloud. Their digital and physical worlds are intricately woven together to form a complex web of reality. Much of their primary life happens online. If a Native Digital is cut off from the digital world, they are, quite literally, cut off from the social and cultural scene around them.
Take a Native Digital and plop them into a Native Analog classroom. Should you expect the same outcomes? Will you get the same results? Of course not. Remember: we’re talking about two different categories of humans here. Two different definitions of reality. Which means, the current traditional school system was designed for a category of human that no longer walks its halls.
It makes sense then, that in recent years, traditional classrooms have experienced a shift. And by “shift,” I mean:
Record-level anxiety and depression
Students graduating high school functionally illiterate
And kids dropping out to build million-dollar startups.
There’s a clear incompatibility, right? That’s because Analog schools are no longer relevant to Digital kids. They speak entirely different languages. Even still, we Native Analogs control many spaces that Native Digitals live in — and rarely do we do them justice. For example, a Discord server is a community. AI tools are thought partners. Minecraft is a canvas for creativity. But the traditional school system sees all three as frivolous distractions, even threats.
This is far more nuanced than a debate about “screen time.” In many ways, it’s a battle for identity.
Psychologist David Yeager has shown how students disengage when school feels irrelevant to their identity and values. Case in point. Native Digitals have an identity that Native Analogs simply cannot connect with. And most of the time, we don’t even try. This is where the discrepancy comes in. The future of education looks vastly different than the fluorescent halls of our adolescence — and yet, many of us still cling to old ways, wanting to squeeze Native Digitals into our Analog molds, getting frustrated when they don’t fit.
Lochhead calls this “category neglect”:
“Category Neglect doesn’t come from people being stupid or lacking sufficient data and resources to spot the headwinds and tailwinds of the future. It comes from a refusal to acknowledge which direction the wind is really blowing.”
Until we reverse category neglect, we’re not doing today’s students any justice. We’re just translating the wrong OS.
Here’s how we can fix it.
Remaking Education for Digital Minds
First, what the solution is not.
The solution is not to drag Native Digitals backwards into an Analog past — passive lecture-based learning, mindless homework, and absolutely zero attempts to prepare students for a future job market saturated with tech-heavy skills. Just think: in 20 years, will fear of AI help our kids thrive in an AI-powered world? Of course not. Tech is the future. AI is the future. It is far more beneficial in the long-term to teach our students how to master technology rather than fear it.
Nor is the solution to drop iPads into a traditional classroom and call it “innovation.” No, plopping students in front of screens will not make them technology-fluent. No, students do not need ChatGPT to help them with their homework. No, we do not need to hand students a Macbook and say, “Let us know when you’ve finished high school.”
If we want to remake education for Digital minds, we need to remake education entirely — creating new systems that merge Analog and Digital realities.
Here’s how we’re designing education for Digital minds at our schools:
Two-hour core learning. We compress the academic day into two hours of intense, focused work rather than six hours of drawn-out, distracted work. Not only do students learn to mastery, they now have time to pursue passion projects and develop life skills on top of their education.
Personalized learning plans for every student. Thanks to AI, the golden method of teaching (one-on-one tutoring) is now available at scale. Each student learns the same curriculum (Common Core), but they master topics at their own pace. A student can fly ahead in language arts — devouring new knowledge and challenging themselves — while also receiving extra time and support working through a particularly murky math chapter. Education at its best, tailored to the individual.
Tech fluency. Students learn how to master technology; getting it to work for them, not against them. For instance, our high schoolers learn how to build and scale online audiences. They learn how to perform credible research, with and without AI tools. (They do this for their AlphaX project, which you can read more about here!)
Real-world readiness. While students hone their skills for potentially tech-savvy jobs in the future, they also build irreplaceable life skills to stand out against the AI wave. Public speaking. Resilience. Critical thinking. Entrepreneurship. The list goes on. Our goal is to ready students for the real world.
Teachers who coach instead of lecture. Our teachers don’t deliver content to twenty-five kids at the front of the classroom. Instead, our teachers “move about the cabin,” coaching kids one-on-one or mentoring them in a small group setting. This helps kids set goals, work through obstacles, and take ownership of their learning.
Ultimately, here’s the gist:
We trade passive lectures for hands-on learning. We swap hours of distracted work for intense bouts of mastery. We reject one-size-fits all instruction to embrace individualized learning. We refuse to villainize technology and help students master it, instead. The result is students who love school. Not because school is Disneyland (it isn’t), but because they feel like their school actually understands who they are. They feel seen, known, and understood. In this Gutenberg-esque moment in time, we are investing in the future.
Native Digitals don’t need to be forced into an Analog system, and they certainly don’t need more screens for the sake of more screens. What they need is a system that speaks their language. What they need is a new category of school for a new category of human.
Heads up — Alpha School may be coming to your city!
If you live in any of the following cities, come attend our in-person “info sessions.” You can talk directly with our guides, mingle with Alpha families, and bring any and all questions you may have. (I’ll be there, as well — I’m looking forward to meeting you!)
Here are the dates and locations for our info sessions:
Folsom, CA: July 9th
Lake Forest, CA: July 10th
Chantilly, VA: July 15th
Charlotte, NC: July 16th
Raleigh, NC: July 17th
Plano, TX: July 23rd
Palm Beach, FL: July 24th
(P.S. Shortly after the info session, you will be able to sign up for a “shadow day,” where your kid can come experience a full day-in-the-life as an Alpha student. It’s like a test run of our educational model. Kids love it. We’ll tell you more about it at the info session. These are super special events, and I really hope you can make it!)