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Meanwhile, at the Well-Trained Mind Academy, we discourage enrollment by students under fifth grade, because we believe that elementary aged children need actual human interaction.
Clearly, this is a very small initial experiment, with only 25 students joining the first cohort in Virginia. And there are some ways in which it shares our own philosophy of education (that is, minus the 65K per year).
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The pitch by Alpha School is as innovative as it is sensational: For $65,000 a year, students study for just two hours a day using adaptive apps and personalized lesson plans and spend their afternoons on life skills such as learning to ride a bike or financial literacy.
Instead of teachers, the students have “guides.” The AI-driven school, which is coming to Northern Virginia this fall and plans to enroll up to 25 students in grades K-3 at a campus near Dulles International Airport, sits at the intersection of two growing spaces in education: alternative schooling and an explosion of online learning platforms used in nearly every corner of the education sphere, from public school classrooms to at-home supplement work.
“What we realized is that kids do not need to sit in class all day doing academics,” said MacKenzie Price, co-founder of Alpha School, which with three campuses across the country has become a very public piece of the push to incorporate more AI learning in schools.
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But there is so much to question here, beginning with the observation that students who might benefit from this style of education are those who are already "highly motivated," which for elementary students generally just means "more mature".
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On social media and in brochures, Price touts the success of the existing campuses, saying test scores back that up. But critics are quick to suggest that the success of the model works for the self-selected group of students.
“Super highly motivated students, they actually are more actively seeking out more challenging materials to learn. So this kind of opportunities provided by AI platforms does accelerate their learning,” said Ying Xu, an assistant professor at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education. “But for students who are less motivated, what we have seen is that AI actually might present as a shortcut for their learning.”
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"Less motivated" is, I think, a fair description of 80% of K-3 students, who just need (I know you've heard this before) the earth to go around the sun again.
And then there's just this dynamic, which deprives children of interaction with actual human beings.
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As the students played on the app last month, a classroom “guide” using a chipper teacher voice stopped them every 10 to 15 minutes, gathering the group together for a brain break. A YouTube video was projected onto a screen, directing students to shake and jump for a bit before they went back to the iPads.
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(That's for 65K per year, folks.)
Anyway, read the whole piece at the link below and let me know your thoughts, as always.
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For $65,000 a year, a teacher-less AI private school comes to Virginia
wapo.st
At Alpha School, a new private school in Northern Virginia, students will study for just two hours a day using adaptive apps and personalized lesson plans.5 hours ago
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As has always been true in private education: the more you pay, the less your kids actually go.
All I can think of is WALL-E.
I guess my first thought is that I’m expecting an “April Fools!!!” 🤪 LOL, I can’t even imagine that anyone could be serious with this🤔
AI can be pretty impressive. And it is patient. And it can present kind words and offer helpful solutions. But it cannot supervise. And it cannot innovate. And it cannot understand. And it cannot love. And it cannot engage in play. Adults can walk away from AI when they want those things. Children don’t have the same control over their environments or schedules.
I have not read yet ... but I can tell right off that if ANYthing interrupted my flow every ten to fifteen minutes, I'd go mad. I suppose it depends on the subject and what they are being interrupted from, but ... my officially ADHD, probably autistic, officially gifted brain would have never lasted. It barely survived PS with the teachers who did care (and did not do well with the ones who did not, or who were overtly hostile, which is why we homeschooled ours, because genetics shows). Thanks for the link, and if I find any other more intelligent responses, I will share those too.
The Alpha in Austin is only 40K a year....
Rianna Ramsey
🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦♀️
🙄🤮
AI platforms using adaptive learning apps to teach adults desiring to further their education? —Interesting. AI platforms using adaptive learning apps to teach young children? —Absolutely not. Children need human interaction. It’s actually rather sad to think there is a market for this.
"What we realized is that kids do not need to sit in class all day doing academics." I wonder if they talked to homeschoolers to find that out? That price is outrageous for any grade school, but for two hours of AI? No thanks.
I Love that they’re claiming higher test scores….in untested grades.
I want to repost a blog entry I made in 2012, back in the days when we were all blogging (although Substack seems to be bringing a return to that format, about which more soon). Anyway, this was written at the point when I decided to halt my History of the World project while I figured out how to deal with modern history (just before the History of the Renaissance World publication date).
And here it is.
**
I haven’t made too many blog posts recently.
I used to post a lot more. About the writing process and about what I read in my spare time and about all the things that get in the way of work. Actually, a lot of that.
And about my other ongoing responsibilities for previous books and my publicity travel and the photos on the covers of my books and the book business from a writer’s point of view and the things that get in the way of writing. And about NOTHING AT ALL, when I felt like it.
For the last six months or so, I haven’t really blogged at all. So now I’m going to tell you why.
BECAUSE WRITING THE HISTORY OF THE WHOLE WORLD IS A FULL-TIME JOB.
Let me “nuance that,” as one of my least favorite lit professors used to say: Writing the history of the world is a job that becomes more and more consuming with time, until there is nothing left but a huge stack of primary resources and an Everest-sized pile of secondary research that Must. Be. Looked. At. Or else you’ll miss something that everyone in the world but you knows.
(“I don’t know if you’ve realized this,” remarks Starling Lawrence, my esteemed and sometimes-compassionate editor at Norton, “but this project is wearing on you.” Or words to that effect. Uh huh, I had indeed noticed that.)
Let me recap.
Ten years ago, I started writing the History of the Entire World. This was a project that grew out a children’s world history series I wrote, The Story of the World. And that was a project that grew out of the 1999 book on classical education that my mother and I co-authored: I couldn’t find any world history resources I liked, so I wrote my own.
The Story of the World series did very well, and so one day my editor called me and said, "You know, I snagged a copy of The Story of the World from the mailroom and I've been reading it. This is very good!"
Me: Er, thanks.
SRL: Have you thought about writing one for adults?
Me: A history book?
SRL: Yes, a history of the world.
Me: You mean the whole world?
SRL: Yes, of course.
Me: In one volume?
SRL: No, in four volumes.
Me [thinking that it took Will Durant something like 28 years to do this]: A four-volume history of the world? Well...
SRL: Fine, write a letter telling me how you'd do it and we'll take it from there.
So I called my agent and said, "Star Lawrence thinks I should write a history of the world."
Agent: The whole world?
Me: Er, yes.
Agent: Sounds like a great idea. Good follow up to the last book. How long would it take you?
Me [having no idea]: Eight years?
Agent: OK, send me a letter telling me how you'd do it and I'll take it up with Norton.
So then I go talk to my husband.
Me: My agent and Star Lawrence think I should write a history of the world.
Husband: The WHOLE world?
Me: Yes.
Husband: Cool.
Me: It'll take eight years. At least.
Husband: Is that all?
Well, no, not exactly. The original contract for the History of the World series had, I think, a much briefer and breezier kind of history in mind, a Story of the World for grown-ups that had more detail, of course, but the same tone as the kid’s series.
The problem was: I couldn’t do it that way.
When I started writing, I wanted answers to all the questions I had always asked myself. Like: When we say that an “empire fell,” what does that mean, exactly? How did happen? Who did it?
Or: If a medieval country “became Christian,” does that mean that everyone was baptized, or just the king, or just the aristocracy? And if the latter, how exactly did the king convince them? And what was the king’s name? And why did he do it? And who were the aristocrats, anyway?
Or: If the peasants revolted, which ones started it? Why did the revolt reach critical mass instead of fading away? Who corralled all the rebels and got them to march in the same direction? Why did he do it? Were they hungry? If they were, how much did a bushel of wheat cost? What is that in contemporary U.S. dollars?
I needed to know these things. Kids need a general survey; they need a structure, an outline, a scaffolding to build on. I’m a grown-up. I needed to know why. Why meant who, how, where, on what day. “Corroborative detail is the great corrective,” wrote the amazing narrative historian Barbara Tuchman, in a quote I have parked on my home page. “It forces the historian who uses and respects it to cleave to the truth.”
I love finding corroborative detail. All at once, generations of the long-dead come to life. And speak (so not in a creepy Walking Dead kind of way. Yes, I’m an addict. But never mind that).
It takes an enormous amount of time to find corroborative detail. I have spent entire days tracking down a single bit of the past (the day a rider started out from Point A, headed for Point B; the weather at the moment a fleet launched; the exact price paid for a ransom) that doesn’t even make it into the final book; but a detail that I needed to know, or else the story wouldn’t make sense to me.
I love doing this. But it didn’t take eight years for four books; it took ten (so far) for two.
There’s only so much detail about Sumer in the third millennium. Frankly, there’s only so much detail about the Roman empire. Or about ninth-century Germanic tribes stomping around near the Rhine. But the detail starts to ramp up sharply around the end of the first millennium. And from then on, recorded history expands outwards, like the blast radius of an ever-growing explosion.
It’s no coincidence the the History of the Ancient World, covering over five thousand years of recorded history, and the History of the Medieval World, covering seven hundred years, are the same length.
So I’ve been running constantly up against two problems.
The first is a research problem. I have to know the details; otherwise I don’t know which ones fit into the particular story I’m telling. I have to find out exactly what happened before I can write a summary. Relying on the summaries of others is a stop-gap solution; you can’t do it often before you’ve lost any sense of the time itself. So it is taking me longer, and longer, and longer to sort through the ever-expanding written resources and figure out what I need to use. It took me three years to write the history of five millennia. It’s taken me three years to write the history of four centuries. This is only going to get more complicated. By the time I get to the twentieth century, I’ll be finishing off one decade per year. If that.
The second is a consistency problem.
This third volume–of what was originally meant to be a four-volume series–was supposed to cover 1100 through 1700 A.D. It’s become increasingly clear to me that it can’t, not in a way that sounds consistent with the first two volumes, at the same length. To keep on with the pattern I established with the Ancient World and the Medieval World, this volume would have to be…um…fifteen hundred pages long.
Or else suddenly turn into a breezy surface survey, very unlike what came before.
This problem will only get more acute. If I try to do the fourth volume, 1700 to the present, on the same pattern, do you know how many pages I’ll have to do all of World War II?
Four. Yep, that’s right. Four.
I can’t do World War II in four pages, and I can’t imagine that the readers who’ve enjoyed the first volumes will find it even the tiniest bit satisfying. There’s just too much detail: too much they already know; too many lives already recorded that must be paid the proper respect.
We started out this project by imposing a structure on the material. It won’t work. The material itself–the history of the world–won’t be contained. It keeps bursting out.
So what’s the solution?
If you’re very alert, you might have noticed that, a week or so ago, the description of this blog changed from “my progress as I write…a four-volume history of the world” to “my progress as I write…a multi-volume history of the world.” (Yeah, don’t worry about it, I didn’t really think anyone would notice.)
The always-supportive folks at Norton have agreed to a restructuring of the contract. First, the current volume–the one I’m trying to finish up now–will be the History of the Renaissance World, and it will cover from the end of the First Crusade to the end of (you guessed it) the Renaissance–which, in my view, is when Vasco da Gama rounds the Cape (stay tuned for more on this). That’s four hundred years, 1100-1500. That’s eight hundred pages, in tune with the first two volumes.
So my kind readers will then have three parallel volumes to enjoy: The History of the Ancient World, The History of the Medieval World, and the History of the Renaissance World.
What comes next?
I’m not sure yet. I have to stop and think. The Renaissance is the last easily-defined historical period, the last one on which there’s wide agreement among writers that yes, this may be an inaccurate name, but it’s a useful way to designate a period of the past. After the Renaissance, there’s Exploration, Discovery, Colonization, Reformation, Early Modern. It’s a free-for-all, and that’s just the west; none of those labels work east of the Oxus River anyway.
The material needs to dictate the form of the book, not the other way around. When I finish the History of the Renaissance World (which will happen very shortly), I will now get to stop. And think. And breathe. And read. In the last two years, I’ve read four or five books per week, at the hyper-speed developed by my academic training and demanded by my current writing pace. That’s fine, but it doesn’t allow for a lot in the way of creative thought. You become a pragmatic reader, not a curious one; a utilitarian reader.
So that’s the plan. I’m going to take a breath.
I’m not going to stop writing. Oh, no. There are SO MANY THINGS I want to write. They just aren’t fitting, neatly, into a four-volume-history-of-the-world format. They spring off into all sorts of fascinating and untidy directions.
And there are a couple of other things I’m planning on as well. Check back a little later this week, and I’ll tell you all about it.
In the meantime…if you haven’t read about the ancient and medieval worlds, what are you waiting for? Go forth and do so. The History of the Renaissance World is about to descend upon you. (I think.)
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So after the History of the Renaissance, I did take a good long break. I wrote several other books. I wrote and edited curricula for the Well-Trained Mind Press. I sold a completely different kind of book to St. Martin's (due out in January, please go preorder! www.amazon.com/Great-Shadow-History-Sickness-Believe/dp/1250272912). And eventually, I figured out how I wanted to tackle the world history project.
There will be two volumes covering the time from the fall of Constantinople until the present day: essentially, the History of the Modern World 1 and 2. It's still going to be a while before you see these, people, and I do have a couple of other projects in the works. But ultimately, I will finish the project that Star and I began twenty years ago. ... See MoreSee Less
5 days ago
I did not homeschool my kids, but we listened to the History of the World audiobooks on the 30-minute drive to their private elementary/middle school and greatly enjoyed them. They graduated from high school this year, having each won the class history prize, respectively, in junior and senior years. On another note, I think of you from time to time now that classical education seems to be gaining a kind of (IMO dubious) popularity among people who are attracted to it for the wrong reasons. I always think of the great respect with which you treated the history of the WHOLE world—not just the western portion of it—and can't help shaking my head at how good things can become so twisted.
My oldest has enjoyed your first three volumes so much. When I tell him to read for fun, he grabs Renaissance. In fact, it was what he asked for in a gift exchange with friends. I didn’t even buy the latest volume for school. I wish there was something comparable for US history specifically, to more easily count as a US history credit.
I LOVE this. Used your Story... series for my own kiddos, and then while teaching private school classes. The 3 big girl volumes are tagged and highlighted for myself and former high school students... I have supplemented with a modern time, not yours, however. And now, you'll continue your serious yet slightly snarky adult version of the modern era. Huzzah! I await your new creation with patience and wine.
Thank you so much, first, for sharing your blog post, and, secondly, for the story behind The History of the World. I have been curious what happened since we bought the first three books and, very poorly assumed, that the next one would likely come out when we needed it. At the time, we needed it the next school year!! My oldest two loved the three HOTW books and all my kids love the SOTW books and will randomly pull one out and sit to read it any day of the week! Thank you again �
Exponential increase of people, exponential increase of historical events
I remember this post! I was in the thick of homeschooling my 7 children. I now lend out my SOTW audio and hard copies to my kids for their own homeschooling. Your new book looks amazing! (Floridalisa on the boards)
Susan, the audiobooks of SOTW have been a mainstay in our home from the inception of our home ed journey 10 years ago. You taught me history as a young mother beginning her homeschool journey. Even thought I was a straight A student who liked history, I had NO CLUE. My 10 year old son adores history, it’s his passion. So much so that he asked to go Fort Snelling on his birthday last week. He has most of SOTW memorized from so many re-readings. They are his favorite books, especially Vol 4. Adults are regularly impressed at my boys’ historical literacy and that is due to SOTW! As we moved into our homeschool high school journey your books are still at the heart of our studies. Thank you for sharing your gift with the rest of us.
Since you are one of the few people to ever mention Will Durant outside my family, what do you think of his series? (I'm named after Ariel Durant).
My father passed away a year ago March. He and my mom had downsized (severely) already when they moved into assisted living, and even moreso when they moved again, back to Ohio to be nearer family. Among the things they kept was their copy of History of the Ancient World. Near the end, Dad could no longer process enough to read, but he still kept yours, along with his bibles and CS Lewis. When he passed, I took back your history volume and tucked it away. While home on furlough, I found it again; it was incredibly (and tearfully) sweet to open it and see my dedication to my dad on the flyleaf, and the words of love he wrote underneath. Of all the things we shared, love of story was one of the greatest, and, for him especially, to have the world's lifestory laid out so beautifully was a marvelous gift. Thank you that I could give him such a beautiful experience, reading your book, and he could give me such tender evidence of his love, responding to that gift. Keep writing.
I didn't purchase the first 3 volumes for home schooling, but as a treat for myself since we were nearing the end of that journey. I love them and have re-read them! I am looking forward to the rest of the series. Thank you 🙂
Happy to hear it! Any chance your new book is available to preorder anywhere else?
We have used History of the World as the first part of our high school for years. My entering eighth grade by state rules this fall started Ancient in June, sporadically, as summer tends to be. She went from foot dragging to "I think I'll read more history, Ma." Always nice when that happens. (Except for when they read a year's worth in two days!)
My son is going into highschool this year, and I asked him about History textbook thoughts. I suggested some options could be Streams of Civilization or Grassroots, both of which he has used and we didn't love. He asked, "Can't I just do SOTW?" He's been cycling through them since 1st grade (so much so that we refer to Jim Weiss as a friend!). I found these World History volumes and he was so happy! Thank you!
Story of the World was very formative for me as a child, and I read the four volumes many times! It played some role in my eventual career getting a doctorate in classics and writing a dissertation on Herodotus.
Thank you for the first three of the History of the World series, I love the format of each chapter, it makes it easier to follow almost simultaneous history across different parts of the world, the history I had been taught at school was more like Lord of the Rings ( in which you had to reason out simultaneous events ). These books made me follow better the history of ancient Egypt, I mention because other books throw at you a wall of concepts supposing since you are reading it, you’re familiar to them or that you’re a peer of the author. I liked the inclusion of Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Indian and Mesoamerican cultures. Reading your 3 books was a reset of learning history for me and loving it, making me able to enjoy so much more material, like those books of Barbara Tuchman, or novels like Umberto Eco’s, so I can’t thank you enough.
I loved this "insider's glimpse" into your thought process and perspectives on undertaking such a massively overwhelming task! I teach math, and often struggle with overwhelm in balancing the "real life" demands of teaching 10 courses a year with the "big picture" goals of writing about the current issues in math education and advocating for meaningful reform. It is HARD to be overflowing with good ideas and a clear vision of what you want to offer the world, but struggling to "pare down" and produce what is realistically possible.... In any event, thanks for the inspiration to persist over many years. And thanks for your books! I loved Story of the World for my little ones, and with much trepidation, put History of the World volumes in my kids' hands in early high school... they thrived with the challenge and have excelled in later dual enrollment history courses at our local college. Thank you for what you have given us!
I recently started reading The History of the Ancient World. I have the other two as well. I like the detail but also that the chapters are short. It makes it easy to sneak a chapter in when I have a small amount of reading time. 🙂
I used your Story of the World for my kids and have read all three volumes of your History of the World. You are a gifted writer and a thorough historian, both of which I appreciate as a sometimes writer and student and teacher of history. Now more than ever your work is needed. Thank you for the effort and all you've contributed in telling the story well.
Hope Charles Martel gets a star turn. I was asked to stop talking about his painting in Versailles as I was not a licensed tour guide. I explained I was just speaking to my family. I enquired after they got even more frustrated with other tour guides in the hall of battles, and sure enough, they are skipping that painting universally…. Yuck.
My bachelor’s degree is in history and my Master’s degree is a degree in teaching special education. I still love studying history, which I do in my free time. Your process sounds like a lot of work, it also fun and fascinating. Your problem is modernity and the invention of the printing press. I would put the cut off at the invention of the printing press since that is when to flow of primary and secondary sources exploded. Of course, dealing with editors is a separate challenge.
Before I bought my own copies of Story of The World, I borrowed Volume One from a friend to see whether it was worth buying… I got engrossed and ended up reading it cover-to-cover. There was a lot in it that I had not covered at school - we got a sprinkling of Ancient Greece & Rome, a dollop of Ancient Egypt. Then we got a dose of the Industrial Revolution, and a mention of the American War of Independence as background to British colonisation of Australia. I’m sure there were dashes of other stuff, but very scattered. Anyway, a couple of weeks after reading SOTW vol1, an ancient history topic came up in conversation, and in amongst, I was desperately trying to remember where I had read about it… “Oh yes, the ‘grade 1’ history book!” 😆 Listening to the audio series with my son has filled in a lot of gaps for me since, too! 😊 Thankyou 🙂
♥️♥️♥️I love every word I’ve read that you’ve written and have been dying for more of the history series as a small group of adult ladies that I led on World History by Susan Wise Bauer, hungered and thirsted (did I mention we all thought we hated “History” as we knew in through high school) as I did for more of your FABULOUS COVERAGE of the history of the world. I would gladly be your research assistant as that’s something that I love to do but I likely do not have the necessary skills… Keep them coming as there are many of us counting on you!♥️♥️♥️
I have immensely enjoyed your History of the World project, so much so that when a volume is published I start from the first book and read through the prior volumes then read the newly released book. It is rare for a person to have the ability and gift of making history breath and come alive in print as opposed to typing out a dull, monotonous chronicling of facts and dates, even rarer to write in her voice without it getting in the way of the task of documenting those events. You do both magnificently. Every time I read one of the books I am conscious and grateful for the unimaginable juggling act it must have been to go through the mountains of research, put your own words to paper, and weave together a literal worldwide tapestry. Thank you for the update, sharing the plan for the conclusion of the series, and your dedication to finishing it. I look forward to reading through the entire series once the final volume is published. As far as I’m concerned, the series should be essential and required reading in every household and history class. We’d be collectively the wiser for the effort (no pun intended!).
My youngest read your three history books in high school for enjoyment. Then he went on to get a BA and MA in history ❤️ I’ll let him know that the series will be continuing in the coming years!
I own the first three and presently, I'm working through the History of the Ancient World. Thank you for explaining how much work you've put into trying to include as much significant people and events that you could. I love all the little extras, the primary source quotes that you've included in your texts. Looking forward to the last two!
Honored to be mentioned in Starling Lawrence's obituary.
Grappling with yet another great loss. I worked with Star for nearly thirty years. I owe him so much (beginning with his decision in 1996 that Norton WAS going to publish The Well-Trained Mind, no matter what the rest of the editorial board thought). I will post more when I've had a chance to gather myself.
May light eternal shine upon him.
lunch.publishersmarketplace.com/2025/08/star-lawrence-dies-at-82/ ... See MoreSee Less
6 days ago
I am so sorry.
So sorry for your loss.
I'm sorry.