Thoughts from Our
Leadership Team
In 2014, I embarked on a highly challenging mission. There were two very specific problems I identified inside of education back in those early days of Learn to Start.
The first was that academics needed to be balanced with more real-world experiences for students if we expected to build a generation of people capable of living empowered lives inside of a 21st-century economy. Moreover, I found that entrepreneurship programming being taught in both high schools and higher ed was very academic in nature, driven by the concepts of process and funding. This misrepresents a discipline that, when properly researched, seems to be far more about failure and that may just be the polar opposite of academia. Moreover, real success in entrepreneurship may be about the hardest thing any human being can attempt to do.
The second observation was that school leadership, no matter how innovative they sought to be, seemed to have a difficult time bringing about real change inside a system that has for so long been heavily scaled and institutionalized. I saw great school leaders struggling to bring about real change – the kind of change that would offer their students a transformational experience, capable of developing real agency in their lives. In my observation, school leaders are often held accountable to metrics that are not fully preparing their students for a world that is becoming more and more unpredictable as we delve deeper into this new digital age. They are fully aware of this and want innovative solutions.
Today, I am beyond proud of what we have achieved. Learn to Start’s Model is that solution, and it is with the highest level of conviction that I can promise all our school partners around the world that the outcomes of alignment, productivity and competitiveness are available to all their students through the Learn to Start experience.
As a former classroom teacher, who now mentors teachers and students through the Learn to Start program and platforms, I am dedicated to creating relevant student outcomes. I am asking, encouraging questions, and challenging teachers and students to share their stories, embrace their failures, build relationships, and seek out mentorship so that everyday they are living within and iterating on their answers to the only three questions that matter: Who am I? What can I do? How do I prove it?
Students deserve a learning environment defined by trust and transparency to engage in authentic formative development that offers them daily opportunities to answer those three questions. The Learn to Start program facilitates that environment and provides the market-based resources for students to engage in experiential learning necessary to grant them the pathway towards free agency and to become the best version of themselves.
Sincerely,
Anastasia Hall
Director of Human Development for Learn to Start
