Mackenzie Price

She's learning research.

She's learning about editing.

She's doing all these really cool things that are happening.

And again, that's giving her time to do it and giving her the support to go explore these interests, which again, all kind of leads back to kids who show up and they are so excited about being here every day.

And

It's unlike the three of us who were like, oh, my gosh, please let us out of this prison.

In fact, it's kind of funny.

Last spring, our high school students came to us and they said we would like to stay open for the summer.

Can you please let us stay open?

And, you know, we're looking at it like, OK, who wants to go to school in the summer?

Like nobody wants to do that.

But when you realize, OK, they can come and hang out with each other, continue working on these projects that they have that don't stop just because the class is over and they get the support from their guides.

Why wouldn't you want to be hanging out at school?

Yeah.

I mean, it's really hard because what's happening is kids in schools, and it's not just happening in Australia, it's happening all over the world, are taught to become passive, to just sit back and do as they are told.

In fact, in the United States, I'll tell you one of the craziest things that I'm hearing about regularly from families is that their schools have implemented silent lunch rules.

which is when kids go to eat, they're not to speak.

They don't speak.

And it is like, I can't even... I haven't met one of these administrators yet to ask like, what are you possibly trying to do by forbidding children to speak during lunch, right?

When you think about also how important school is for socialization and you're not allowing kids to interact with each other at that table.