How Elon Musk’s Secret School Works | Paper Help Research

The famous engineer, entrepreneur, inventor, and multibillionaire opened his school several years ago. The SpaceX and Tesla founder’s children do not have traditional classes or a predetermined curriculum. PaperHelp tell you why the businessman needed his educational institution.

How the School Came to Be

In 2015, Elon Musk created his school, which he named Ad Astra. It is part of the Latin proverb Per Aspera ad Astra (“Through thorns to the stars”).

The entrepreneur had been looking for an institution to send his children to for a long time. Musk has five sons: twins, born in 2004, and triplets, born in 2006. The boys went to Mirman School for Gifted Children in Los Angeles for a while. But Musk was unhappy with the quality of the education and took the children out of there.

The businessman criticized the traditional U.S. educational system and invited only one teacher from the former school. Then he bought a private mansion in Southern California and opened his closed-type school there.

What is Known About It

Although the school was founded two years ago, there is very little information about it. The school has no website or phone number. But there is a confidentiality agreement that the parents of the children sign.

Journalist Christina Simon, who writes about private schools in Los Angeles, believes that Ad Astra is the most closed school she has ever known.

In addition to Musk’s five sons, about 20 other children attend Ad Astra. Presumably, these are the children of SpaceX employees.

In Ad Astra teach, only three teachers. There is no traditional division into classes according to the age of the children — all work together. Also, the school has no predetermined program and plans; children themselves choose what and when they want to learn.

The school is experimental, and Musk does not know how long children will be interested in studying there.

What and How They Teach There

Musk spoke very little about the school, mostly in an interview with Chinese television. According to him, the school’s main idea is for children to study areas that interest them and learn to solve various problems.

It’s extremely important to teach children how to solve problems. We have to discuss the problems, not the tools to solve them.

“Take, for example, a class that talks about how an engine works and works. A traditional school will tell you to learn all the screwdrivers and wrenches that can help repair an engine. This is the wrong and complicated approach. It is better to show children the engine and suggest that they take it apart. But how to do it? That’s what we need a screwdriver for,” Musk says.

Children can choose the area of knowledge that interests them most.

“Some like math, some like languages, and some like music. It makes much more sense to connect the curriculum to what draws a child to the moment they learn, rather than forcing them to go through everything in the curriculum,” Musk says.

Peter Diamandis, chairman of the X Prize Foundation, recently visited the school and gave new details about it. According to him, one of the subjects that all children there necessarily study is ethics and morality. Teaching takes the form of a talk, where they discuss real-life scenarios of events the children might encounter.

“Here’s an example of that role play I heard at Ad Astra in the ethics and morality module. Imagine a small town on a lake where most of the residents work in the same factory. It pollutes the lake and kills all life in it. Closing the factory means that many people will lose their jobs. And if the factory is kept, the lake will gradually disappear. The children are asked what they will do in this situation. It helps to develop critical thinking,” he says.

What is it All For

Musk is sure that the cheap labor force, which only carries out orders and performs mechanical actions, will not be necessary for the future.

Automated processes will replace it.

“The future challenges will be very different from the problems we faced in the past. Creativity and experience will be the determining factors of success,” Musk believes.

Schools, he said, must reflect a model of the real world. Project-based learning will foster children’s healthy curiosity, creative thinking, teamwork skills, and self-confidence.

These skills are very important for the tasks they will face in adulthood. Ad Astra students will be prepared for challenges because they are not trying to be put into the “optimized version” of the world taught in traditional schools.

Moreover, according to Musk, one of the main tasks of adults now is to teach children to think about and care about the ethical implications of technology.

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