ReFABricating School with Ana Fabrega

2 Cent Dad Podcast

Ana joins me to chat about why kids need to be creative ini the classroom
(and at home!). Creativity is the name of the game in many cases. Not only has Ana had experiences that has shown he that kids work best when they are creative but finds that most schools just don't cut it in the creativity department and lack learning that gets kids excited.

Where to find Ana:

• Her YouTube page!
• Her website!

Podcast

Transcription (May contain typos…)

[00:00:00] Ana: [00:00:00] kids are not interested in learning. They're interested in doing, they love creating. They love using their hands. They love exploring things. And again, it's very counterintuitive in school.

They do the opposite, right? Kids are sitting down with you. And they were listening for hours to a lecture. They have little opportunity to really engage in the content that they're learning, quote unquote. and that goes against everything we know about kids, right? Kids are very active kids love to explore.

So giving kids a chance at home to get really like hands on the things that they want to do. [00:01:00]

Mike: [00:01:09]

today on the podcast, I have a very special guest, miss fab, herself on a fiber guy, who is an edge opener, former teacher. but one of the things that she does is she, teachers, I think just really a different way to approach education.

And, I wanted to have her on to hear her a little bit of her story and how she can open up our minds a little bit on how we think about education for our kids. So Ana, thank you so much for being on the

Ana: [00:01:34] show. Thank you, Mike. Thank you for inviting me over. I'm excited to be here.

Mike: [00:01:38] Yeah. obviously a lot going on in the education space, given COVID and anywhere from elementary school, all the way up to higher education, there's a lot of disruption happening as much as I hate to overuse that word.

But, I know on a, you speak a lot on some of those trends that are happening, whether it's micro schools or other things that are Busting into the scene. [00:02:00] And I, one of the things that maybe you could give your background a little bit, the listeners, cause I know you have a teaching background and then we can jump into some of the things that happening.

Ana: [00:02:08] Yeah, sure. I think that's a good idea. My add typical school experience provided a springboard to, me wanting to transform this. so yeah, I was born in Panama, but due to my father's job, we had to relocate Kate a lot when I was a kid. So I was born here, but we moved to Colombia, Venezuela, India, Mexico, Brazil.

We lived in Panama and the U S yes. so by the time I was 14, I had been to. Seven different 10 different schools in seven different countries. And in regions, those specs, I know, realize that. a lot of my wanting to change things comes from what I saw in all this different placements. and it was, it looked pretty much the same, regardless of what school, what type of school, what country would continent the learning experience K through 12 doesn't really change.

and [00:03:00] I had this love for working with kids. I really wanted to be I'm a teacher and being the education space. So I studied childhood education. Special education at NYU. And I have the opportunity to be a student teacher, five different placements there while I was studying. And that was really the first time that I got to see teaching in its purest form and seeing what, they would consider great teachers doing what they do.

And it was evident, that kids were not really engaged. Kids were not really learning in terms of, they're not retaining the information after the tests. they're leaving school without an idea of what they want to do or what they're good at because they have very little opportunities to explore this and to build things and create things.

so I was seeing all these things, even from great teachers and I was wondering, what am I going to do when I have a classroom? So I then became a teacher and I taught in Boston for a year while my husband finished his MBA at a small private school. And I taught first and third grade there. And then I moved to [00:04:00] Panama.

I taught for four years at this big American in schools and I taught third and fourth grade. And that's when it really hit me. I don't really know what I'm doing here cause I love teaching, but I can't really do the things that seems valuable inside the system. I realized that schools worry too much about the specifics of what kids are learning and too little about whether kids are learning at all or the kinds of attitudes that kids hold toward learning.

it was really concerning to me that the kids were just not engaged and they didn't really want to be there. They wanted to leave school so that they could start playing sports and engaging in all this things that they wanted to do. It became evident to me that we're asking the wrong questions, we're making the wrong assumptions.

And the best thing that I could do as a concerned teacher was to just leave and try to find alternatives and start asking those hard questions that are often overlooked. And I realized that this is something that many parents don't consider, because they don't really in part because people tend to [00:05:00] just do what they did when they were kids.

They try to replicate their learning experience. It's easier to play it safe. And they often think, why risk blowing up the system and not just add a little bit to it. And, this resistance to change is precisely why we have this system that we have today. That's how we get stuck with the status quo.

and I know that for you, it's different. I've heard that you've you homeschool your kids and, and that's great. That's one of the trends that I am really inclined toward. and we can talk about that in a bit, but, I really feel like by, I started asking questions. I started, putting different topics out there.

And people started to resonate with my content. And I think that deep inside we can all connect with this child that we were when we were in school and how we did not really enjoy learning when we were in this enclosed space. And considering that there are so many alternatives out there, it's just a matter of being open to them and seeing what really works for your kid and what doesn't.

So that's how I transitioned finally, last year in August. Out of a school system and I started exploring the [00:06:00] alternative education space. And I can talk a little bit about that in a bit yeah. Of what I'm doing now, but mostly I've been just voicing my ideas and I'm trying to talk to people who are interested in different paths and understanding why the system, not every kid is cut out for the system.

so yeah, so that's what I'm. like my background.

Mike: [00:06:20] Yeah, no, thanks you, thank you for that. you went into quite a bit of detail and, hit on quite a few things that we want to discuss. one of which being, the things that you saw, the system that were broken.

I think is important and we're seeing that even now, like the option is going away of in-person schooling, with COVID and that's causing all of these shifts to, remote learning or virtual, or some people are opting for micro schools or they're opting for homeschool.

And one of the, maybe what, where we can start is, I'd really like to hear. what are some things, my audience is primarily dads. so there may be less involved than the moms and th...