Greetings!

Ben Somers was 11 when a teacher—frustrated that he was a foot tapper and wiggler—sent him to a psychiatrist. He was put on 70mg of Concerta (that's a pretty hefty dose of amphetamines for a kid who weighed about 100 pounds).

The medication wasn't prescribed to help Ben learn better. It was prescribed to make him easier to manage.

And he wasn’t alone. In Ben’s town that year, 25% of all the boys were on some kind of ADHD medication. How many of these prescriptions were written to make the classroom run more smoothly?

Fast forward: Ben dropped out of high school, worked his way into education technology, and now runs a platform called Recess that's trying to solve the problems he experienced firsthand.

On the latest podcast, we talked about what he's learned—including a surprising data point that should make every parent who's agonizing over curriculum choices relax a little.

Let's dive in.

‍THOUGHT: The Education Designer
TREND: High-Status Homeschooling
TOOL: Where Kids Design Their Learning

The Education Designer

Did you hear about the guy who tried to make a chicken sandwich completely from scratch?

This isn’t the setup for a corny joke. Andy George spent six months and $1,500 dollars growing the wheat for the bun, raising the chickens, harvesting salt from the ocean—all of it. In the end, he had... a mediocre sandwich.

Most parents think homeschooling means becoming that guy—digging your own soil, growing everything yourself, and hopefully not producing a terrible sandwich after six months of exhaustion.

My guest Ben Somers has a different take: you're not supposed to be the teacher of everything. You're the education designer.

You don't need to personally deliver every lesson. You need to curate the right mix of resources, experiences, and relationships that work for your child. Some families cook every meal from scratch. Most people want to pick their meals and occasionally cook. When you make it easier to be involved, parents actually want to design the experience—they just don't want to grow the wheat.

The tools exist now. Are you designing, or are you trying to be a one-person school system?

Listen to the full conversation 

High-Status Homeschooling

In San Francisco, homeschooling is now high-status.

Why? Ben gives two reasons.

First, it signals you're dissatisfied with the quality of conventional education—which means you have high standards. Second, it means you've organized your life in such a way that you can solve childcare and instruction yourself. You've carved out enough time and figured out how to make it work in an expensive city. High standards plus life control equals status.

Of course, this feels a bit elitist—and it is. But the reason homeschooling is easier now isn't just resources. It's realizing you don't have to do everything yourself.

OpenEd families are proving that you don't need to be wealthy to be an education designer. You just need to care enough to start curating.

Watch the clip

Where Kids Design Their Learning

Recess is what happens when you build a platform around kid choice and friend-making.

Here's the insight that shaped it: when Ben worked at Synthesis School (the SpaceX school), they spent $10 million a year on developing the best educational games possible. You know what beat all of it? Whether the kid had a friend in their class. Not teacher credentials. Not curriculum quality. If a kid had one friend in class, they stuck around forever and performed better. Without a friend, they churned in 3-6 months.

So Recess built around that.

Kids browse a marketplace of classes (taught by YouTubers and professionals) and request the ones that excite them. Parents approve or deny. When kids join a class, they meet others who like the same stuff. After class, Recess suggests those kids as friends and gives them Discord-style chat to stay connected.

Your kid picks the classes. You approve them. Friends form naturally. That's Recess.

Learn more at recess.gg

Word of the Day: Verschlimmbessern

verschlimmbessern | /fɛɐ̯ˈʃlɪmbɛsɐn/ | verb

To make something worse by trying to improve it; to "improve" something into a worse state. German *verschlimmern* (to worsen) + *verbessern* (to improve).

Example: "When Ben's fifth-grade teacher decided the best way to help an energetic 11-year-old focus was to prescribe him 70mg of methamphetamines—not to help him learn, but to make the classroom easier to manage—that was peak verschlimmbessern. They took a kid who just needed to move around and turned him into someone dealing with anger issues, constipation, and long-term side effects."