Transformative Principal

Welcome to Transformative Principal, where I help you stop putting out fires and start leading.

I'm your host, Jethro Jones.

You can follow me on Twitter at Jethro Jones.

Okay.

Welcome to Transformative Principal.

I am very excited to have Benny.

I didn't even ask you how to say your last name, but I'm not even gonna use your last name because I don't when it's students.

This is one of my favorite things about the podcast is when I can have a student on the show and talk about their learning experience because it is so stinking powerful.

So, uh, Benny is a 16-year-old student sophomore who's at Alpha School, which is something that I have talked about before and they're doing really cool stuff.

And he likes playing video games, playing instruments, and debating a variety of topics.

He's been, uh, in Austin his whole life and been at Alpha for three years, and the Alpha students complete an Alpha X project, which is an individual project based on their passions.

When he was in middle school, during his first year at Alpha High, Benny's project was based on music therapy.

However, as he progressed through high school, he began to change his project to a YouTube channel that explains how video games are educational.

And this change was inspired by the first thing he does when he gets home from school, which is naturally playing video games.

So Benny, welcome to Transformative Principal.

Great to have you here.

I'm glad to be here.

Excellent.

So first, let's talk about what Alpha School is for people who don't know and tell us about what it is and what your experience there is.

So Alpha School is a private school.

It's, um, located in a variety of places Alpha School is a school where.

It's all, it's mostly AI based, but you spend three hours in the three to two hours in the day learning about, um, academics.

And then the rest of your time is spent on things like workshops which help you build your real world life skills that, uh, help you grow as a person and an Alpha X project, which is where find their passions and turn that into a business that they believe can be successful.

I'm getting a little bit of plosives from you.

So if you just move your, uh, microphone on your headset up so it's more aligned with your nose than with your mouth.

That should be good.

Alright, how's that sounding

Good.

say?

Yeah.

Okay.

Very good.

When you get excited, then your voice comes up quite a bit more, so I'm excited about that.

Um, don't worry, we'll cut that part out.

Um, so, so, uh, why.

First, why did your parents send you to Alpha School?

What was their idea there and why do you, did you wanna stay going there?

Uh, my parents sent me to Alpha School because I've been homeschooled my whole life, and they saw a school that had like a lot of skills in AI-based learning, and my parents aren't like huge on academics.

They believe that, like that's one of the least important things that schools teach, and they put me into Alpha School because they saw that I could learn passions and learn life skills that I struggled with before.

Awesome.

Very good.

Uh, and so tell me about, uh, other Alpha X projects and some something that you've seen somebody else do.

So there's a lot of other Alta X projects.

I think the best ones that have been like the most well developed are from the Because, uh, they have projects like building a safe teen dating app and building a therapy stuffed animal that, gives that listens to you.

I think those projects are really incredible because they show how people have, like a passion and a drive that they need deal with and use it to create a business that they, that's.

Being extremely successful.

Yeah, so, uh, I think that's really cool too.

When I was a principal, one of the things that I focused on was giving kids opportunities to, to do these kinds of projects.

And what I saw from the kids doing these kind of projects was that they're,

Oh, you.

the things they learned were so much more than, that's all right.

So what I learned is that the things that the kids learned through doing these projects were so much more than they could've learned if we would've taught them those things directly.

Are you seeing anything like that?

What does that look like for you?

I think that like not only does like building a project help them become like a better or find a good business strategy for that they could do for their their entire life.

But I also think that it's, um, a good way to.

Their speaking skills because have to talk about and present it.

Um, we have a lot people who go to.

Yeah, that's, that's very cool.

Um, so public speaking is one of those things, but there are so many other things as well.

Like you are doing stuff around, uh, YouTube channel and, and you're learning how to create content that get.

Its attention and gets people to watch it.

How to market yourself, how to write effectively.

Like you wrote to me and said, I want to come on your podcast, and like you've gotta figure those things out and you maybe use some AI tools to help with that.

Maybe not.

Did you use AI to help you find podcasts or write emails to hosts to get on their shows?

Uh, we were told to.

I, I didn't really want to though because it, it kind of just felt automated, so, uh, I changed up a little bit, but, uh.

In terms of my actual project, I'm, I'm not gonna use AI as much because people, uh, especially on like social media and YouTube, don't enjoy when people use AI in their content.

Yep.

Yeah, that's very true.

I get, I get a lot of pitches for people to come on my show because I've been doing it for 13 years and so.

There's a lot of people who email me and your email stood out mostly because it looked genuine and it looked like you were a real person writing me instead
of trying to like cleverly tie in somebody else that I recently interviewed, which, you know, because I get so many, uh, I can see those very quickly.

And they just go in the junk because that person obviously didn't put in the time and effort to do that.

So these are, these are other skills that you're learning as well of how to relate to people, how to reach out to them and, and get, uh, get action from them when, when you're trying to get something from them.

And I think that's really valuable.

So tell me, uh, what is the name of your YouTube channel?

Uh, I haven't actually uploaded any, uh, videos

interesting.

I've been like hard researching on how to perfect, like an entire roster of videos.

I've

Ah,

like started editing my first video.

I'm almost done with it.

It'll probably be out in December.

okay.

All right.

And this, this podcast is not gonna come out until.

January.

So, uh, so you'll have, it will be out.

Your video will hopefully be up.

So do you have the YouTube channel already or are you still building it?

I haven't, I, I'm

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay, so it, can I give you a little feedback?

Is that all right?

All right, let me, the first thing, this is why I tell everybody who, 'cause I help people start podcasts also in the beginning, nobody's gonna see your early stuff.

Yeah.

So the thing that is the best source of feedback for you is actually putting stuff out there, and if you don't put something out there, then you don't know how well it performs.

So my challenge to you, Benny, would be to upload something by the end of this week.

Got it.

Don't worry about it being perfect and you don't have to take my advice.

It's fine, but get something out there so that you see how it performs and you can share it with people and they can give you feedback about it, and that is gonna be your best way to move forward and grow.

So let me, let me ask you a question.

Uh, have you ever done ceramics or pottery or anything like that?

No.

Have you ever done any painting or drawing or anything like that?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay, so how many paintings have you painted?

Like not a lot, like seven.

Alright, so did you improve from the first one to the seventh one,

Yes.

obviously, right?

If you're doing something that you.

Uh, like painting or videos or whatever, you get better as you practice more often, right?

Like

Yeah.

if you draw the same thing, you're gonna draw it better.

If you draw something different, you're gonna learn different skills and different styles and all that.

So doing something and getting it done is, there's a real value to that.

The same thing goes with creating videos and a YouTube channel and all that kind of stuff.

You can spend hours researching, but there is nothing as good as actually getting the thing out there and making it live for people to see.

So, so imagine that you spent, uh.

You spent a year and every day you researched how to make the best painting and, and that was one path you took, and then say you took another path and you painted something every single day, who do you think would be better?

The better painter, the one who researched everything and did one masterpiece, or someone who created 365 pieces of artwork.

Yeah, absolutely.

And, and that's not just like wishful thinking that is very real.

You can demonstrate that.

So I would actually encourage you to, instead of, uh, researching anymore.

Just start publishing stuff.

And I would challenge you Benny to, to publish so much that it's kind of crazy.

Like get out a video every single day for an entire year and just see what happens.

And, and I say that Benny, because I know somebody who did that and he ended up getting millions of views on TikTok.

And he had no idea what TikTok was before he started doing it.

And, and he just every day put out a video no matter what, whether it was good or bad.

And then he started to see, because he had so much information, what was working and what was not.

So how does that idea resonate with you to just get something out by the end of the week?

Is that scary?

like that idea that, that's good feedback.

I, I, thank you.

All right.

So, so what you're arguing for with your videos is that video games can teach you stuff.

Is that right?

Yes.

Okay.

So, so walk me through that.

What do you, why?

Why do you believe that and how do you know that?

So, um, video games actually teach important things because like people are placed into situations where learning is put like.

Into an active world and thinking critically has a meaning.

like when you're playing a game, you're constantly being asked to solve problems.

um, these problems like matter towards how you progress.

And you have to adjust them if they fail and like consistently try them again.

Um, and this like.

Cycle of experimentation.

It helps like build problem solving skills and resilience.

And it's good to like normalize failure and because like school's like it's a bad thing if you fail in school.

But if you fail in the game, you're like constantly learning and trying something new to like push that forward.

Um, I found a study like a couple of weeks ago that shows that.

people who are put into active worlds they, or into like active worlds where they can learn, do 1.5 times better on tests than students who, uh, are put into like traditional learning situations.

And this is beneficial in things like math and science games.

But, uh,

I think that this can also be used for like.

Proper life skill teaching.

Um, I think that some games that like require communication such as or Rocket League or any team-based game can like teach you how to talk with people and work together
with one another and stay calm when like things get stressful and like you'll quickly learn how to give instructions to others while like supporting your teammates.

These skills are like used in everyday situations, like in.

Yeah, they definitely are.

So, uh, you talked about life skills a little bit and that's a area that I'm really interested in because, um, so I call those life skills organic skills, and I call the academic skills mechanistic skills.

So life skills are organic because they grow over time and they can be different depending on the needs that you have.

And depending on the circumstances you're in, you may need a skill more than a other times and, and that kind of thing.

And then the mechanistic skills are, we have a right answer and we know that two plus two equals four, for example, we know that the Pythagorean theorem is A squared plus B squared equals C square.

And so we can deal with and handle that, all that kind of stuff.

That's all mechanistic and it's very clear what the outcome is, but the organic skills, the life skills, uh, that's not quite as clear and it's a little bit more difficult to measure.

What other skills do they teach and how do they teach that instead of, 'cause they're not, they're not saying, here's a life skill and here's how you actually do it.

They're, you're learning through experimenting and, and the experience of it.

Yeah, so like I would like to categorize them into like.

Different, uh, skills and categories in what, in what games teach, what skills, like for Logic games, I think Portal one and two are great because they teach,
uh, logic and experimenting with things over and over again, and more obscure, uh, puzzle games like the Professor Laton franchise, they include puzzles that.

Really get your brain to get to think because they get harder and harder as you go.

And it puts a story in there that makes it more engaging to want to continue solving those puzzles.

I think there.

That's okay.

All good.

So what, what, um, when you come up to a point of failure in a video game, what makes you give up and walk away instead of persevering and sticking through it?

In video games, people usually, usually takes longer for them to like give up on a thing than it would in real life because.

People like feel motivated to get to like a task in a video game or complete some side quest, but like this benefits the player for completing the side quest 'cause they get something from it.

like, I think this could be put into real world situations because they'll learn how to constantly try and try.

The, the, the, uh, the consequences for failure in real life seem much heavier than the consequences for failure in a video game.

So, so it it, it's important to develop that skill of, of having resilience and stuff, but it's not quite the same because if you die, you just start over and you know you can get back to that point.

Or if you can't figure out the puzzle.

You can just restart it and, and start fresh and try again.

So how does that translate though to the real world where, you know, you, you run into an obstacle and you can't overcome it?

So let's say you're like stuck on a let's, yeah.

Let's say you're stuck on a math problem.

You can either like continue trying to find a solution to that math problem or you can just give up.

And the, the benefit of continuing is like the satisfaction of knowing that you did a good job 'cause you continued trying and, uh, the.

This ties like directly to video games, or not directly to video games, but this ties into video games because if you feel like you achieve something, you're, if you
feel like you're going to achieve something from doing it properly or professionally, then you're gonna feel more rewarded if that, if that, uh, answers your question.

Yeah, so you, if you, what you're talking about then is the benefit of video games is that they, uh, give you opportunities for some sort of reward for the efforts that you're putting into it.

Yes.

And, and sometimes those are intrinsic, which is, I feel good about accomplishing something.

And sometimes those are extrinsic, like solving the puzzle or getting, uh, first place or whatever the case may be, or being the last band standing.

And so, so those things are real.

But the challenge is, is when you're doing a math problem and you just can't get it, you feel dumb.

You feel like you can't ever figure it out.

And those are, those are tough things to overcome, especially if you don't figure it out.

And there's, there's a hard.

There's a hard lesson to learn there about how to overcome that.

And, and so what advice would you give to somebody if they're, if they're struggling with that and they just want to give up and think they're dumb and can't do math, for example?

They should continue trying because if they don't think that they can do math, they should at least try a little harder to go into the tools and resources they have to solve that problem because there's like multiple sources online that they can use to find formulas and solutions to the problem.

So they should just continue trying, but with like adding on knowledge over time.

Yep.

So, uh, so what are some of the things that, uh, in your Alpha X project that Alpha School is doing to help you, uh, be successful with it?

What resources or supports or what, what things are there to help you keep going when things are tough?

Um, we're given a lot of AI tools and, uh, guide our guides.

I like.

Essentially teachers, but they're not exactly teachers.

They're more of like support, uh, emotional and moral supports.

And we also have a thing called a mo, things called motivational models.

And these are like motivating a student for doing a certain amount of task or achievement.

Like if I said, Hey, can I have a motivational model of having whatever new headphones I want?

I could say, Hey, can I have a. new headphones if I achieve this goal, like uploading my video within the next few weeks,

Yeah.

Yeah.

Not the next few weeks, Benny.

The end of this week.

this

Yeah.

So like you got four days, man.

I'm serious be because you don't need any other outside motivation to do that, except that you're gonna get much better the more videos you upload.

And if you want to create a YouTube channel that actually explains how it, how video games are educational and makes an impact with anybody, then nobody's gonna be able to watch it if you don't upload something.

Right.

Yes.

So, so you gotta get out there and start doing it, and your first one is really gonna suck, and you have to be okay with that because no matter how hard you work on it, your 10th video is gonna be better than your first video.

Hundred percent.

Yeah, so, so like, you just gotta get out there and do it.

And, and, and I believe in you, man.

And once you do get out there, I'll, I'll share it and I'll let people know and they're gonna say, this sucks at first.

And then later you're gonna get better and you can always go delete whatever stuff you put up and redo it.

There's nothing wrong with that.

Yeah.

So, uh, so what videos are you.

Uh, what's the framework and, and how do you want to create the videos and what do you want the videos to be about and stuff like that.

So I'm gonna create, uh, long commentary videos, which are just like videos explaining how certain things work and like, I'm gonna go like topic at a time.

My first video is gonna be how Minecraft raised us better than, uh, better than our schools.

And.

Correct.

And, uh, I'm just gonna go, like, go in depth on certain topics for each video.

Okay.

So, uh, so I would say, is that your first video?

How Minecraft raise us.

Better than our schools.

Awesome.

Very provocative title.

That's good.

That'll get people interested.

Um, but, uh, how long are you expecting that to be?

10 minutes, 10.

10 minutes.

Okay.

then after I upload that, I'm gonna like upload shorts of the clips in the same video.

For sure.

Definitely wanna do that.

Um, so that, that sounds really good.

And how, have you recorded that yet?

Are you writing a script?

What's your process for creating the videos?

Uh, I usually write my scripts first and then record the audio and then edit the video after I record the audio so I can put the.

The visuals over the audio,

Gotcha.

And what are you using to edit the videos?

uh, premiere Pro.

Premier Pro.

Okay.

Very good.

Um, very cool.

That's exciting.

I'm looking forward to seeing how Minecraft's Minecraft raised us better than our schools this weekend.

That's gonna be really fun to watch on Monday.

So, uh, so how do you write the scripts?

Do you use AI to help you or do you write all yourself or you, do you have friends that you write with or?

Um, so at Alpha we have a thing called a brain lift, is like, like a bigger Google doc that stores all our, uh, researching information and to go, add stuff to my brain, lift every like 30 minutes in the morning, and.

With like the new knowledge that I gain, I write my scripts using the, the knowledge that I gained

I

Hey.

write it in a convincing way.

Yeah.

Could you, could you start that over?

I lost your audio for a second.

I just wanna make sure I get your answer.

Okay.

Uh, can you ask the.

Yeah.

So go ahead and go through your process of how you write the scripts and whether using AI and or friends or whatever.

So when I create my scripts, I look at something that Alpha has called a brain lift, which is essentially like a big Google doc that stores all of the knowledge that we research.

And I take, uh, what I learn from like the every 30 minutes in the morning that we use for our brain lift.

And I use that to write our scripts or to write my scripts.

I use that to write my scripts and, I try to write everything in a convincing way That's.

Appeals to like a modern generation while still being listened to, while still being

sorry, while

It's okay.

easy to listen to for older people.

Gotcha.

Okay.

So, um, so how much are you, uh, as you go through this, um, you're creating this brain lift and how much are you, uh, using AI in the research or the writing?

Uh, I use AI for the research, like finding, uh, different websites and sources for me to find like good, proper knowledge.

And then, uh, I also use AI for experts and like experts are the people who we look to for like new knowledge and information and the insights that they share.

Okay, so who are some of the experts that you're looking at for this kind of stuff?

Um, I, I have a, like around 30 excerpts, but uh, one of my favorites is named Scott Novice.

He uploads videos on YouTube and he shares like really good insights about.

How video games should be given to kids, and that parents should allow every kid to play games as long as they're monitor, monitored properly, and they talk with their kid about like what they're playing.

another, uh, expert I follow is they success.

He explains how to create content without showing, uh, your base and still being successful.

I'd highly recommend checking them out, but, um.

Every Alpha student has around like 20 to 50 experts that allow them to research and and their insights.

Fascinating.

So, um, so tell me a little bit more about the Alpha School model, how its academics with AI in the morning and or rather, what I heard Mackenzie Price say about that is that.

You probably shouldn't be using AI to help you in the morning, but you should be using it in the afternoon.

And if you're not using it in the afternoon, you're probably not living up to your potential.

And if you are using it in the morning, then you're probably using it to cheat because those two areas are, are separated, right?

So the morning is about the, the way the AI helps is that it tells you the areas where you need to work and the skills you need to focus on.

And, and that's the extent of it.

And then you're practicing and learning, and then the afternoon you should be using it to, uh, to help you, um, like figure out how to do research effectively and, and find things and stuff like that.

And then go ahead and explain that in, in your own words and what your experience is.

Well, I like the way that Alpha is structured a lot.

I like how majority of mine is spent towards our Alpha X projects and the way that I think that the, the way we use AI in the morning and, uh, it.

We use, the way we use AI in the afternoon and then we're, we shouldn't be using AI in the morning is like a really powerful thing to say it shows that while you can be smart on your own, you should use the resources you have to increase your brain power, but when you need more.

Facts and research.

You should be using AI to help grow your brain and find facts that have already been shared.

Yeah, absolutely.

I, I think that's a really powerful way to look at it and having that information.

Uh, at your fingertips is, is really good when you need it to accomplish a task.

But if you're trying to learn something specific, you just need to do the actual work to learn it, because your brain doesn't learn it from looking it up.

Your brain learns it from taking action with it, which goes back to what we were saying about the video games and the learning and video games being so much higher.

The value and your, uh, ability to do good with with your videos is going to be so much better when you are producing lots of videos all the time.

Much better than if you just tried to do one great one, you know, every couple weeks.

But you know, 10 crappy ones over a week is much better for your learning than one great one over two weeks.

Does that make sense Benny?

Yes, yes.

Okay.

Uh, so this was awesome.

Uh, I really appreciate your time and, and what you are doing and your, your desire to get out and share what you're doing with the world.

Uh, like I said, this is gonna come out in January, and so when it comes out, how can people find your YouTube channel?

Uh, I think you could just put a link in the description.

Great, so I'll have a link at the show notes at Transformative Principal dot org.

I encourage everybody to go check it out and give Benny feedback because hopefully by the time you hear this, Benny has like 10 videos up on his YouTube channel and I'll have a link to it in in the show notes, so you can check it out.

Benny, this was awesome.

I wish you nothing but success.

Thanks so much for being here today.

Having me.