Dear Reader,
This is my monthly update email. Just like companies send updates to their investors, I send updates to you because you have invested in me.
I am grateful for you.
Right now I am sitting on the couch in my girlfriend’s apartment. Today is our one year anniversary. As I type away on her computer, she is cooking Turkish meatballs with spices that sneak up my nose. Smells GREAT.
The contents of this update are:
1. TLDR
2. The month in a story
3. Decisions I made
4. Actions Taken
5. Gratitudes and Reflections
6. Feedback Requests
7. A Poem
TLDR: Lots of study and writing, Going to Third Door Alpha.School
My Last Month In A Story
1 month ago I was in my room after a wild weekend of work and sports, blinking the sleep from my eyes and wandering my way through update #9.
1 month ago I had just finished The Sonder Series and done a potluck.
I was speculating and exploring a move into ‘education’, or at least that’s what I was calling creating a business that makes kids better than their parents.
An assumption that I dove deep into this month by studying the history of social mobility, the history of education, and then diving deep into the frontier education. I also wrote about it in this piece.
While I was at it I had some fun doing an event called a Pithy Party, catching up with some friends, and winning a game of risk I had no business winning.
Decisions Made
Study Social Mobility → Education is the top controllable for mobility.
Study the history of education (because all greats know the history of their space)
Dive into the frontier of education (Built a dashboard of the 30 fastest growing, promising startups/innovations in education)
Decided to Third Door Alpha.School
Began writing children’s book and building a learning algorithm for teachers based on learning science.
Actions Taken
- Wrote a summary of the history of social mobility
- Wrote a summary of the history of education
- Wrote a piece thinking through What’s Next for me and Why.
- Built an education dashboard and researched Alpha.School Principals. (This is cool and thorough, but hasn’t been moved onto my website yet, will do this month)
- Began writing children’s book and building learning algorithm for teachers (to third door alpha.school)
Reflections and Gratitudes
- “A man with a why strong enough can bear almost any how” - Nietzsche
- The word ‘School’ comes from the greek word for leisure because learning art, rhetoric, and other such skills was the only accessible to the upper class people with free time.
- Moreover ‘Liberal Arts’ etymology comes from a translation of ‘the arts of the free people’ meaning upper class people with rights in Greece. All other people if they could even study, studied mechanical arts or the arts of the working people.
- The teacher in front of a classroom model was created before the study of learning. It was created in Prussia to help the Prussian people read the Bible and therefore be saved.
- It was adapted to the rest of the world before women had rights, black people were treated humanely, the internet was invented, or cars, or electricity.
- A unshakably positive attitude pulls everything and everyone towards it.
- “Be a goldfish” - Ted Lasso
Feedback Requests
Who was your favorite teacher when you went to school?
What do you think about the current education system?
What else would you like to see in these updates?
What’s your favorite experiment you’ve run on your life?
A Poem -
Written when I was in highschool and presented here unchanged:
I come from a bubble, a bubble of green, a bubble of athleticism, a bubble of pressure and high expectations, a bubble I have explored in every which way. From the thump of shoes on the pavement to the grinding of gears on a bike, racing to go play video games at a friend’s house, to the pounding of bass in a car speeding to get to a faraway place. I come from a hand reaching through the confines of his prison yearning for the cereal that was just out of reach, timid because of the warden and his abuse, timid because of his cellmate. I was scared to imagine, to dream of the things that will be accomplished when he’s allowed to fly. Of freedom of cool shoes, of close, loving relationships with people, of bettering the world one smile at a time. I come from the sweat that drips off of a sculpted muscle a passion growing from fear of hurt from a feeling, not so far from that of prey. I come from the pitter-patter of feet on the pavement a wave of working, throbbing, machines rolling over every hill in their way. I come from the bruises and bumps of bodying up But no more do I play. Life took that away. I now come from building myself quietly Readying myself for the next chapter in my story. I come from a life of laying my own foundation because there was no one to build me up. I come from nights with red and blue lights. I come from locked doors and nightmares. I come from a survival mindset. I come from a slowly rotating disc readying my sustenance. I come from warm, soapy water and the clinking of dishes. I come from brown confetti stacked in a pile waiting for someone. I come from flowing and changing like a raging river. I come from vivid memories seared into my brain. I come from a life constantly reminding me of my past. I come from talking to people, bettering myself because I will always be constant. I come from building my mind like legos, working and reworking my habits every time I get a new set. I come from being mellow in my bubble.
From my heart,
James Floyd
Past Updates:
The James Update #1
The James Update #2
The James Update #3
The James Update #4
The James Update #5
The James Update #6
The James Update #7
The James Update #8
The James Update #9