Read the full transcript of Episode 46 of the NAIS New View EDU podcast, which features Global Online Academy Executive Director Michael Nachbar joining host Tim Fish for a discussion about creating teams, networks, and learning environments that leverage human connections in a tech-enhanced world.
Tim Fish: Our listeners know how interested we are in new models of school. They provide all of us with so many lessons that can guide our innovation work. Well, today, we get to talk to the executive director of a new school model that has inspired me for years.
Michael Nachbar has been leading Global Online Academy since it was founded in 2011. GOA is a leader in mastery learning, creative course design, and global partnerships. I have been inspired by Michael’s passion for building the schools our students need, and empowering teachers to design and lead. I come away from every conversation with Michael inspired, engaged, and even more curious. I’m sure the same is going to happen for you. Enjoy.
Michael, thank you so much for joining us today on New View EDU. Welcome to the studio.
Michael Nachbar: Pleasure to be here, Tim.
Tim Fish: You know, I'll tell you, I've, I haven't been so inspired by your work for so many years and I've got a good sense, as I think most of our listeners do, about Global Online Academy, and your incredible role there leading that organization since its founding. But I'm curious, before we jump into more about GOA and what you've learned, I want to know the Michael Nachbar story. I want to know sort of how you got to where you are and how you ended up doing what you're doing.
Michael Nachbar: I'd love to tell you, Tim.
So, you know, I think I always wanted to teach. When I was in college, I wanted to be an English professor. Or a psychologist, right? I did a double major of English and psychology. So it was kind of always, depending on the year, I was in one camp or the other. But as I went, you know, as an upperclassman, I think it was, the life of a professor was something that was alluring to me. Until I went with a friend to a Teach for America info session, and we sat in this lecture hall and there was a representative there and she was talking about her students in LA and what that experience was like for her. And I remember just being awestruck. And I remember I leaned over to my friend Brian, I said, we've gotta do that next year. And he looked at me, he goes, you're nuts, there's no way. I’m not doing that.
I was like, that's what I'm going to do. I just knew in my bones that teaching was, I, I just, it was a calling in that moment. And so I did, I ended up applying and getting into Teach for America. I taught high school English in Texas for two years. Yeah, I mean, then in a roundabout way, I ended up back in New York after that.
And I started working in an independent school and I loved it. I just, you know, again, fell in love with it. This was middle school though, this time. So I was teaching history, English and math, middle school and loved it. Like that was, that was completely different. But also more in line with what like I envisioned like teaching could look like. And so I, you know, was there for eight or nine years.
And I progressed through, I was then became like a, like a curriculum coordinator and then a director of technology. And I got my master's at Klingenstein and then was, went to Lakeside, where GOA launched out of. And I've been now doing GOA, working here and leading it for the past 12 years.
Tim Fish: Wow. So you wanted to be an English professor, and then you end up teaching high school math and TFA, and there was a magic moment. There was a moment of conversion. It makes me wonder about this, also this idea about sort of how you came into that profession. And I've heard stories about how TFA did the hiring and how they went through the process of figuring out who their next class of students would be. Because I imagine when you did TFA, as it is today, it was really competitive to get us to get a spot. Anything you would share from that experience that maybe school heads or school leaders today could hold onto, about how to find great people to join our communities?
Michael Nachbar: I think the calling was to find people who were passionate about something, right? I remember very clearly being in the room. I mean, back when I did it, it was a long time ago. But I remember the, and I don't know how it's evolved since then, but I remember the interview. One part of it was you were in a room with like 20 other candidates, and you had to teach a lesson to them. And you could just see it and feel the energy in the room, of people who, they didn't know what to do, but they knew the questions to ask, right?
And I think that the people who ended up being most successful and actually getting into TFA and, and I think even in our schools, like those people who just have that drive, who are raising their hand because they have an idea or they have an interest or they want to be involved, but they're leaning in, right? They're leaning into their experience and the institution or the organization and they're asking, you know, how can I help? What can I do? And I think that those are the people we always want to be looking for and creating a path for people to get to that point, right? Not everybody is automatically at that point. So how do we ease people in, but then how do we recognize when people are saying that they're ready and giving them a shot?
Tim Fish: Yeah, you know, that's, that's a really interesting piece for me because it's not, it wasn't clearly about how much teaching you'd done or how many years you had taught or what your philosophy was on classroom management. Right. It was, it was about presence. It was about passion. And in one way or another, it sounds like they figured out how to determine if you were a giver. Were you somebody who was going to, you know, that whole sort of Adam Grant givers and takers, right? Were you in the, were you in the giver disposition?
Those are some of the questions, I'm just wondering, I'm a big believer—I don't know if we could spend the whole podcast on this, but I’m thinking we gotta figure out new ways to do hiring and finding and sustaining talent in our organizations, in our schools. And some of that stuff that you were talking about, I wonder if there's some ways. The other part I think is interesting is you were in a room with other candidates.
You know, we always do this, like, you can't see another person, right? There was this great organization. One of my favorite books of all time is called Joy, Inc. And it's about this little software company in Ann Arbor, Michigan. And they do hiring in this really non-traditional way, but I had the opportunity to go and watch them do hiring one day, way a long time ago. And they had all the, all the people that were competing for the position, all came in on the same day and they worked with each other. I just thought it was super interesting. I think sometimes we're much, we're like, there's these things that are immovable when in fact you could have, you know, some kind of where you're teaching a lesson to the other people that are competing for the same position you're competing for.
Michael Nachbar: I love that. You know, one of the things I do remember from that experience, I remember the way that people took on different roles when they were, you know, when they weren't doing their lesson, right? You were a participant for someone else's. And I remember there were people who thought that they should be like the problem student, right? Like people took on certain roles, but self prescribed. And I remember, like, thinking, that's not cool. You know?
Like someone worked really hard on this. And imagine that, right? Imagine that you are competing, but to support that person so that they can shine and do the best that they can and what that says about the other people in the room.
Tim Fish: Well, that was, that was the thing. This, this company called Menlo Innovations, and they brought the 30 people in and they said, you're going to work together on a project. We're going to watch the two of you, two candidates work together on a project. And here's the one thing we're looking for. Here's the only thing we're looking for. We're looking for how good are you at making the other person look really good? And they told them it, right up front. They said,
This is all we want to know. How good are you at making the other person look really good? And when I sat down with the founder, I said, what's at the heart of this organization, what's the most important thing you do? He said, putting others before yourself. That's the most important thing about working in this organization.
Michael Nachbar: I love that. We talk about, like, if you could hire for one thing, what is it? What is it? And it's good people. You want good human beings, right? Caring, supportive, good, kind people. And how do you interview for that? They figured it out. I love that. I love that that's the prompt, right? That you are thinking of others. And it's that level of empathy and, yeah, I mean, putting yourself in someone else's shoes, compassion, question asking. Yeah, but at the core of it is humanity. You're a good human being, you're a good person, yeah.
Tim Fish: Humanity, right? Right. I love it. And I think one of the things that I admire so much about what you've done at GOA, Michael, is the way you've built your team. You know, and I think it all comes from the mission as it does in all of our schools, right? And what was so cool about it is I actually thought, man, like I could say New View EDU podcast is an organization that reimagines learning. I mean, I almost could pull it all out. It's such a great mission. It's tight, it's tidy, and I think it drives where you're going.
And you know, it, it's the part I also like so much about it is through the work with GOA, you're able to build partnerships between schools, schools and students work with each other. Students are enrolled in a course from many different schools. And the same is true with the work you do with professional development. And I have to think with the hundreds of schools you've worked with, both in the U S and around the world, that's the other piece that I love is that Global Online Academy takes the global part really seriously. You know, you are really connected like very few other organizations, both internationally and in the US.
And I'm curious, Michael, like what trends are you seeing at this moment going on in all these international schools, the world of education, what trends are you seeing that are getting you really excited, and what are some things maybe that are, have you a little bit worried about the future?
Michael Nachbar: Oh, Tim, where do we begin? Um, I mean, one trend I think, and I'll kind of make it a meta trend is the idea of networking. Right? I mean, GOA as a network, I think, has been and continues to be innovative, especially in the way that it's student facing. Right? It's a networked student program, where schools are sharing a resource. I still think that is so cool. And I think that, you know, as schools are, you know, the demands on schools to provide more and more things for students and faculty, more and more programming, more, it's just this more, right? It just feels like there's a lot of more. Schools having a chance to work together is such a great opportunity, right? Where it's not about any one in particular, but it's about the collective. I think that that has been a growing trend, and I think it will be a growing trend, especially as we're looking at what's happening with hiring and things like that.
But I think some of the other trends that we're seeing that are really exciting, I mean, we've seen an explosion over the past few years in competency-based learning, right? Thinking about mindsets and skills for students. I think we're hearing and seeing schools doing that for faculty now. Right? Thinking about what are the mindsets and skill sets that teachers need to be practicing, demonstrating and learning while they're employees at a particular school. And do schools have a unique fingerprint that, as it relates to educator competencies for that, right? Imagine the conversation that you're interviewing for a job at a school, and the school is saying, you know, teachers here practice these skills all the time, and we will help you develop those while you're employed here. That's what we believe a great teacher looks like, what they can do. It's not magic, right? I mean, teachers bring a lot of that to the classroom, and talents of all different sorts, but the idea that we can teach you how to be a great teacher here.
Another big trend obviously is, you know, relates to AI, which we can dive into more, but I actually wouldn't even call that a trend. I don't think that's a trend. I think that's like a…it's not going anywhere. So, but what that means and what it means for schools, teachers and students, I think is something that everybody is going to be thinking about. And I am excited about that. Also terrified, right? I think you have to hold AI, that tension of AI between, like, what AI might mean for society on one hand and what AI means for education on the other. And I have to box the society one up and put it to the side so that I can be excited about what this means for schools and our kids. So that's another one.
And then I would say the last is just everything that happened over the past few years. I think during the pandemic, we talked about that moment as being like a slingshot moment, right? I mean, when we were in it, I think that was a little naive. I mean, I was one of those people who was looking at it as, this is the time that we get to rethink and reimagine, right? And redo, but that was too much. It was too, there was...it was like food, shelter, water, right? I mean, we needed to address and meet those needs of teachers and students first. So, you know, that idea of like art, dance and music and like reimagining and rethinking, like there was just, that wasn't the time or the place. And I think in hindsight, we can see that now.
And then I thought perhaps last year was going to be it, but this past year did what it needed to do, right? It was like the year of the warm hug. It was the year of relationships and being together on campus. Um, and that was again, like exactly what everyone needed. But what I am hearing now from heads is that now they're ready, right? Now they're ready to think about what did we learn? What does it mean? What are we going to do with this? And so this coming year feels like the year of the strategic plan. Right?
If a school had a strategic plan over the past three or four years, they abandoned it, right? And if they did it before COVID, it's probably no longer relevant. And so they're redoing them. And if they hadn't done it, they're starting them now. And so that feels really exciting to me, that schools are ready to engage in the, you know, what now, what if conversation. To think about what they've learned and what it means for, again, them as an institution, for their faculty, and then ultimately for their students.
Tim Fish: I love it. I think the way you put it for this past year, where this is the year of the warm hug, and I think it was the warm hug for students, I think it was the warm hug for staff, I think it was a warm hug for families, people getting back on campus, doing things.
Michael Nachbar: Totally.
Tim Fish: So imagine, this like if we were to get, you and I, Tim and Michael come up with kind of five questions, ish, that a head of school or a division head or an assistant head or a classroom teacher might ask themselves about their school. So based on what you were saying about the trends you're seeing, one of those would be when our students graduate, have they had an opportunity to network, to network deeply within our school community and network outside of our school community?
With other students, with other communities, with other people around the world, right? So that'd be, in my mind, that's question one. It's a question you have to ask yourself. So what do you think another question might be, that someone should just put on that list of big questions to ask yourself as you're sort of beginning this new school year?
Michael Nachbar: I think another one is, you know, can you—and you being kind of everyone in the learning community, students, teachers, administrators—reflect on your own learning? Like, what did you learn? How did you learn it? How did you demonstrate that you understood it? I think that's a really, really important skill. And I also think it's a really important accountability question for the learner, right? You're accountable for your own learning in some way, right? So can you reflect on that?
Tim Fish: Yeah. How does reflection happen here? Right? How do students reflect? How does staff reflect? How do I reflect? How is that reflection tied to accountability and conversations? How is that reflection personal and how is it public? And what do we do with it?
Another one based on our earlier part of the conversation, maybe for me, might be, how are we telling the story of our school in a way that both inspires us to move forward, holds us accountable as a community, and attracts people, students, families, staff, to want to be part of our community. How are we telling it? What story are we telling about who we are and who we want, who we hope to be in the future?
Michael Nachbar: I love that. I had jotted down another one that feels very similar to that, which is, you know, how have I been a good member of this community?
Tim Fish: Mmm, I love that.
Michael Nachbar: And those are the stories, right? It almost relates to that earlier story of the interview of how are you making other people look good, right? It's kind of related to that, but it's about, this is about you in service of others, right? What was your role? What did you do in your time here? And that's for everyone, I mean, anybody.
Everyone should be able to answer that question. You know what's funny, we're not focusing on, obviously, right? Not focusing on, you know, what were your grades, what were your test scores.
Tim Fish: That's right. That's right. What was, how many AP, what were the AP scores? How many students took AP US? Like those aren't the top questions that are coming to mind. And you know what's amazing? When I go out to schools and work with boards, and I know you've done the same work, and I say, what's at the heart of this place? That's where I often start off, right? I do this exercise called, We're At Our Best When, and I have people tell a story of a time that they can remember, and they tell it in as much detail as they can give, that in their mindset that, when that happens, we are at our best when that moment happens, right? Board members do it, gets everybody going, chart paper, the whole thing. And what's amazing is nobody ever tells a story about college placement. Like that's never, we are at our best when X number of students get into the Ivy league. Nobody ever says that, right?
It's this amazing thing. They tell the stories about what we're talking about. We're talking about humanity. They talk about giving back. They talk about people putting others first. They talk about creation of character. They talk of all these things. That's the stories they tell. And yet, I wonder how can we be more, to your really good point, how can we be more intentional about that?
Michael Nachbar: You know, one of the things that I have learned being on a bunch of different boards is, the questions the board asks define the work to provide those answers, right, for a team. So while they're not necessarily driving program and things like that, they are definitely setting a tone and setting a North Star, which is what I think a good nonprofit board does. I think that what they don't realize is that they do it through the questions that they ask. So while they may not cite college matriculation lists and all of that, the next meeting, when the director of admissions presents an update on the college process that year, the first question is how many students got into, right? Or some variation of that, not everywhere.
And I'm also, I'm talking out of both sides of my mouth because I don't think that's totally bad, right? I mean, in many ways, like our schools, there is a bigger purpose than a lot of the things that we were defining, right? I mean, it's a yes and. Yes, we need to do all of those things. And we need to, you know, get our students into, you know, college, and prepared for the next phase. But those questions really, I love this one, right? “We're at our best when” might be a great opening for every, every board meeting, administration meeting at a school, right? Just start there. Tell a story.
Tim Fish: Start there, keep track of them and see what they start telling you, what themes emerge, right? When, you know, it often has to do more with community than it does with outcomes and achievement, has been my sort of general sense. And one of the things I often talk about is this idea that we have to be, we have to get really good at telling our story. I often say this to schools and heads and boards, what are you obsessed with? Like, what do you get up in the morning and you are just obsessed with the pursuit of that thing? The radical pursuit of an idea. What are you after? You know, and that often is faced with folks that, they're doing good work, but I don't know that they know what they're obsessed with.
Michael Nachbar: Yeah, I love that, right? And that drives so much for me of what I hope for kids, that like, getting kids to be passionate about something. And there's so many things that they feel like they have to do that it's part of a puzzle that they need to solve rather than, you know, taking classes and having access to courses and topics that, like, light them up and excite them and get them interested in learning and curious.
Tim Fish: I love it. New question, a new one of our questions is: What about the daily lived experience for students is getting them lit up and excited about learning? What aspects of what they do every day is doing that, right? And there are places where it's happening. And what aspects of the day, daily lived experience, the schedule of the year, is not doing that? It's in fact working at odds with that idea of getting kids excited, right?
And it gets back for me, the number one word that's come up in every episode of New View EDU is agency. That idea of self-determination, that idea of being in control of my own destiny.
Michael Nachbar: Yep. And distinguishing between choice management and agency, right, are different things.
Tim Fish: Oooh, tell me more. Yeah, what do you mean?
Michael Nachbar: Well, you know, that idea that, you know, choice management of, here are like different options for you to explore, versus like true agency of what is it that you want to explore, how are you going to explore it? And it comes kind of to a question that I would add to this list, which is what are you curious about?
Tim Fish: Yes!
Michael Nachbar: What's interesting to you? What do you want to know more about? That's the question, right? Like, what do you want to know more about and how are you going to find the answer? I remember Kevin Mattingly, he was a professor in Klingenstein and taught for a while at Lawrenceville and then at Riverdale. And one of the questions that he was always kind of talking about was, what do you do when you don't know what to do? Right? And I love that question, right? What do you do? How are you going to figure it out?
And it comes down to, do you know the question to ask? And then, are you curious enough to find the answer? What do you do?
Tim Fish: When I, and I'm sure you found this teaching middle school math as well as I did. I taught middle school math for a bunch of years and as well as a bunch of other things. And the thing for me was always the thing that I think I screwed up on. There was a lot of things that I screwed up on teaching middle school math, but the one that I screwed up on the most was that I don't think I helped students get to a place where they knew what to do when they didn't know what to do. They just got stuck.
If they're working on a problem, they're working on something in math and they didn't know what to do. They just went (frozen noise), and they were like, I'm stuck. And I think that, that's the big regret. If I could go back and teach again, that would be my quest, is how to teach middle school math so that students are much more comfortable knowing what to do when they don't know what to do.
Michael Nachbar: And you have me thinking about, I loved teaching middle school math. I was not a math major. I ended up teaching, it was sixth grade math teacher. And I remember one year they were doing construction at the school I was working in. And we had to combine classes. And I combined classes with this woman, her name was Ana.
And she was like a mathematician, like true mathematician, she had like a Ph.D. in math. She understood the math inside and out, and I knew how to teach. And so like when we combined that, she helped me see like the way to scaffold some of that in a way that I just wasn't aware of. It was amazing.
It was, I think I learned more about teaching that year than ever before. And I loved it more than I've ever loved teaching anything else. So there's something about that. Um, but I hear you, I know what you mean, right? It's like, how do you kind of, there's a scaffolding of the discovery process that you need to create and you really, that fundamental understanding of, like, how all of those different topics kind of fit together has to be really so carefully laid out.
Yeah, you have me reminiscing.
Tim Fish: You know, Michael, this podcast was founded on the idea really of what's the purpose of school now? Like, why do we even have school? Right, and so that first question was, what's the five or six questions that a head of school should ask, you know, or a division head or classroom teacher should be asking about their school?
The second one for me is why do we even have them? Like at this moment, what does school really need in your mind? What are a few things that school really needs to be about, fundamentally?
Michael Nachbar: Someone asked me that too after a presentation on AI and talking about what this might mean for schools, right? What's school going to look like in the future? Like, what are we going to concentrate on? I mean, in many ways it emphasizes that social emotional learning aspect of school, right? The relationship piece.
You know, understanding different perspectives, like working with other people, developing a sense of empathy and care, exhibiting care for others. Like I think that's a huge piece of what we're going to need. You know, I can't help but think that, you know, on the eve of an election year, the, you know, critical thinking and digital literacy are going to be tremendously important. You know, discerning fact from fiction is going to be, I mean, this goes to that other side of AI, right? Like the non-education side of, you know, that makes you want to crawl into your bed and, you know, crawl into the fetal position.
Tim Fish: Yeah, yeah, it's going to get very hard.
Michael Nachbar: It's going to get very hard and it's going to, so I think that's a big piece and will continue to be a big piece for what school is. Right? Credibility of sources, understanding biases, like distinguishing information from misinformation. I think those, we've been talking about that for decades.
You know, and then you get into, I think, thinking about like, skills development, creating opportunities for students to like practice and hone skills. I think too, you know, providing opportunities for students to have experiential learning opportunities, I think that's going to be a major part of school.
Tim Fish: It's, it is, it's really interesting. Cause I think you're right. I think skills, I think knowledge, I think understanding how to ask great questions, how to evaluate, how to think critically, these are going to be super, super important. And I think, as we mentioned this, relationships, the getting to know kids, the sort of being there for them, being part of a community, is going to also be… working with others, right? This notion of interdependence, being part of something that's bigger than me. Right.
Michael Nachbar: Yep, community.
Tim Fish: It's going to be about the development of the individual and the development of the community and the development of the individual in the community. I think there'll be some really important things.
You know, one other just sort of off topic question. When I was reviewing your LinkedIn profile for this, getting ready for today, I noticed that you are, I believe, a graduate of the alt MBA, Seth Godin's cool, amazing experiment.
And I wonder if you might introduce our listeners to what the Alt MBA is, and are there any lessons from the way learning happened in the Alt MBA that independent schools could hold onto and maybe integrate into how we think about school?
Michael Nachbar: So Alt MBA was started by Seth Godin, who is an author. And I think his background, like professionally, he's like a marketer.
Tim Fish: Yeah, I think so.
Michael Nachbar: Yeah. And he's, I mean, he's, he's brilliant. And so he created the Alt MBA kind of, it's like an active subterfuge in a way. Right? I mean, he was like, nobody needs an MBA. You don't need to go to graduate school to spend, you know, a hundred thousand dollars on an MBA. We can, there are concepts there that you can be taught and practice. And he developed this online program that, that was designed to do that. It was designed to introduce you to some of the topics and themes of a business school, but to also make it really applicable.
So that's a good question of like, what could schools learn from that? I think one of the things was, the expectations were really clear. Like the time expectations of what it would take that you'd have to commit to this. But also like the work expectations, like what they wanted you to do and what they wanted you to get out of it were very, very clear. That was like, always very clearly articulated. And then the way they broke the work up, everything was done with a prompt, right? So the prompt might include some background information or videos that Seth made or resources that they wanted you to read, but it was kind of a playlist of sorts. And then coming back to apply it to something personal that you, an experience or work that you were doing. And then you took that to the group and you took it to the group for feedback or to bring everybody's work together to create something bigger, right? So you might look at your personal experience, but then as a group, you were creating something new based on everybody's unique experience and perspective. So it was very action oriented, like very action oriented and also really high expectations, right?
Tim Fish: There's a very quick timeline of a prompt that's high interest, high energy, high expectation, minimal essential content, high personalization and high interdependence and production, making a thing, doing something. Is—I don't know if that's an accurate restatement of what you said, but it's, that's a pretty interesting model. And back to our questions that school leaders can ask, if we take that as one pedagogical model, how much is school like that today for our kids, right?
Michael Nachbar: Yeah, I agree. Right? You know, what does that look like in schools? And, you know, one of the things that we often reflect on at GOA is like, you know, why did we land on…Because one of the things I was struck by was the things that Seth and Alt MBA were doing were very much the best practices that we were doing at GOA in our online classes. And one of those big initial lessons that we learned and still practice today is, the role of the teacher is not necessarily as the guide or…But thinking about the teacher as a learning designer. And that's what Seth did in the Alt MBA.
They designed a learning experience that again, here are our favorite words, deliberate and intentional. It was so deliberate. Like there was no teacher coming in and doing these things, right? They had designed it ahead of time. It was incredibly well thought out. The resources were all curated and/or created, but they were minimal. And the work was making meaning through practice.
Tim Fish: And it's a great example. It's a great example of what I call structured agency, right? There was a lot of agency. There was a lot of ability to bring personalization to it. There was a lot of like putting it in my own personal context, and there was incredible structure. It was, it was extremely intentional and it's designed, right? So it's designed structured agency, right? And I think too often agency gets paired with like, free for all. And I think that's exactly the opposite of what I'm often thinking about.
I'm often, I think as you said, it's, it can, school can be intense. Right? It's like smoke’s coming out of your ears. Like your brain is lit up. Like, yeah, I'm all for that. Right? But in order to get that, and wellbeing at the same time, you've got to let agency in. It's gotta be personal. It's gotta mean something. We had the guest, Mary Helen Immordino-Yang on, and she talked about the fact that you cannot learn about something you don't care about. Like neurologically impossible.
School can be rigorous and challenging and exciting and joyful. These are not ends of some continuum that we have to give up one to get the other. In fact, we can have both. We just have to design for it, is what I'm hearing you say.
Michael Nachbar: We have to design for it. My daughter, she just turned 15 the other day. She's going into freshman year. And one of the things that her school does, it's a pre-K to nine. So she stays, she's going to stay for that ninth grade kind of capstone year. They have these three projects that students need to do. One is a Ted Talk. The other is a thesis, like a research, like thesis, essay.
And then the last is like an independent project that they can pick. And she is already like, thinking about it. She would go and see the previous year's students present theirs, and for months she's been thinking about like, what am I going to do? And not in like a dreading, oh no, what am I going to do? But what am I going to do? Like I can do anything. That's really exciting. And it’s funny because they don't use the language around agency, but that's what it is, right? It's like a year of agency. It's a year of students leaning into their own learning and leading their own learning in areas that are relevant and important and that they're curious about. And they have to go find the answers. And I love it. I am so excited for her.
Tim Fish: I love it. I'm so glad she has that opportunity. Michael, this, I could talk to you all day long. Our conversations, as always, could go on and on. This has been so great. I just want to say thank you for spending some time with us. Your insights, your ideas, your experience, I truly believe, are going to mean so much to our listeners. So thank you.
Michael Nachbar: Oh, thanks, Tim. You are the embodiment of a curious person. I love our conversations. So anytime.
Tim Fish: Well, you too, you too, and look forward to having you back again at some point on New View EDU. I hope you have a great day.