Embrace the Chaos

“There are so many accents dad!” Olive exclaimed while muted during her first ever online class with Synthesis school. I did not bother explaining to her that she also has an accent, just a Canadian one.

Synthesis school is the evolution of Elon Musk’s experimental school from SpaceX.

The Synthesis philosophy includes preparing students for a complex and rapidly changing world by ‘embracing chaos’. The latest iteration utilizes one hour simulations to foster collaboration, problem solving and the scientific method.

We enrolled Olive as an experiment to help her build resilience and confidence, and after two sessions she is loving the experience.

It is refreshing to see people bring innovative ways to challenge the ‘status quo’ and the sameness of institutions like our industrial revolution style school system.

While playing a simulation game the students

Step 1 - Conjecture - Make a guess

Step 2 - Criticism - Analyze your guess (where is it wrong?)

Step 3 - Repeat

A simple process that we could all embrace more frequently in any of our challenges.

It seems almost too simple, and yet so obvious and logical.

It is exciting to imagine the many other areas where people may challenge the ‘sameness’ within their own industries.

• Now that’s a peak ethos.