09/28/2026
What’s on my mind?
It’s a post I saw a few weeks ago:
“School spends 13 years teaching kids to wait for the assignment.”
Life is not like that.
No one assigns you a career. No one hands you a list of problems you’re supposed to solve. The people who notice the problems that need solving are the ones who get to solve them.
Those are the business owners doing the things you wish you would’ve thought of. 😉 They saw the need. They made it happen.
And it got me thinking…
How can this apply to my students, right now?
How can we prepare them for their future while they’re still young?
For the past few weeks, we’ve been assigning things to our students to supplement what we’re learning and help them master the skills they need. This is what I’ve always done, and it’s worked well. We use our themes and learning to take things even further, and there have been SO many hands-on opportunities.
But we’ve been changing how they do it.
Instead of giving everyone a specific time to complete something, they’ve had the autonomy to choose when it fits into their day. They don’t have to wait until everyone else is finished before moving on. They can work at their own pace.
My job becomes less about telling them exactly what to do and more about guiding them, checking in, and making sure they’re continuing to make progress.
They’re practicing time management. They’re making choices. They’re learning how to manage their time and their responsibilities.
That’s all great.
But this week, we’re making another shift. 🤯
I’m not assigning all of the things.
They’re choosing their own assignments.
I’m asking them:
What do you need to work on?
What do you need to accomplish this week?
What skills are you still working toward?
What do you need to do to get there?
They already know the tasks and activities available to them. They know the skills we’re working on. They know what they’re capable of doing.
Now I’m giving them more ownership over putting those pieces together.
And honestly, I think this is just the beginning. 👏
Because if we want children to grow into adults who can recognize a need, come up with an idea, make a plan, manage their time, solve problems, and actually do something about it…
we have to give them opportunities to practice those things while they’re still children.
This has genuinely changed the way I’m thinking about the way we do school. I’m already seeing possibilities for where we can take this next, and it is SO exciting to me.
And it makes me especially happy to be doing this kind of schooling.
This is exactly why I love The Ivy. There is no one else doing what we're doing. We are truly one-of-a-kind, and I love it. I love taking something, flipping it upside down, and creating something brand new and seeing it work so well!
It’s not just about learning differently & doing things differently.
It’s about giving children the space to become capable, independent thinkers who don’t spend their lives waiting for someone to tell them what to do next.
And I have a feeling we’re only scratching the surface. 💚
