Meet Savannah F. (top middle in the photo above), a 15-year-old freshman at the Academy of Thought and Industry (ATI). ATI is a Montessori-inspired network for middle and high schools, where students have the freedom and support to learn in a way that respects their agency and curiosity. Savannah shares her take on ATI in her own words—why she was drawn to our Virtual School program, and why she wants to continue her journey with us.

At ATI, we’re not just allowed to ask questions; it’s encouraged! 

 was our main principle for science last semester. We learned how to use scientific terms, perform experiments, create laboratory reports, and of course, ask why!

Our math foundations course was built around the question 

 which allowed us to explore the principles of mathematics to truly understand its meaning and roots.

During the course, I came to the conclusion that while humans have discovered certain mathematical laws—for example, how 2 plus 2 

 equals 4, and can always be observed in the natural world—the way we actually use and communicate math is a human invention. For example, the Fibonacci Sequence is a pattern that can be observed in nature, such as in pine cones and sea shells. But the sequence itself is abstract and infinite. We will never see the Fibonnaci Sequence manifested in the natural world in its entirety, which proves it's something humans have constructed in their minds.

My realization about math inspired me to stay curious. It's deeply fulfilling, being in an environment where it’s ok to ask questions and take time to genuinely understand how the world works.

2) I choose which subjects I specialize in

Every year, we spend the first semester laying foundations in core subjects, like language, math, and science. Now that we’ve done that, I’m taking deep dives into the subjects that interest me individually.

This year I’ve been focusing on US History and Biology, alongside other subjects. I enjoy studying because we get to define the way we work. Last week, for example, I chose to create a new lifeform for Biology, drawing on everything I’ve learned so far. This new creature has its own biological characteristics that support its unique physical and behavioral traits. This project was fun, and it helped me consolidate my understanding of the interconnectedness of organisms.

I am also taking a typography course, where I get to work on my graphic design skills. And I’m taking an elective course in baking, so that I can hone my skills and knowledge to make more complicated and intricate cakes! My classmates have also been able to pursue their passions in various areas. Several friends of mine are pursuing the art elective 

 where they are guided by an art professional. Many of my friends are also pursuing interests such as photography, music, coding, and creative writing alongside experienced mentors.

3) I’m making a difference in the world

I’ve always been interested in Montessori education, so I started volunteering at a local Montessori school. This has given me insight into how the Montessori classroom setting nurtures childhood development. I worked with children individually, getting to know how they work and think, and learning more about how we can support their growth.

I’m also doing a marketing internship, where I am partnered with a mentor at Higher Ground Education. She, along with the rest of the marketing team has been able to give me insight into how marketing works and how a professional team functions. I get to engage with different team members, attend group meetings, and collaborate on different pieces of work with my mentor.

4) Individual life-coaching has helped me learn more about myself

This year, I’ve been paired with a coach who has helped me discover many things about myself and helped me find ways to become my best self. We discuss everything from details about schoolwork to my mission in life. Through our one-to-one and small-group sessions, I have discovered how I function, and how to improve upon my routines and habits.

Recently, I found that I have a strong relationship with time. I focused a lot on how to get things done, and when I was best suited for the task. This mindset limited me from achieving the things I was capable of accomplishing. I have since been working on how I can improve and acknowledge this mindset and others.

Through coaching I have been also able to create my mission statement and learn how to interact with others best. We meet frequently and I feel that I can tell her anything, from personal information to how I'm doing in school. I know that I can come to her to discuss my path forward.

5) I’m recognized and appreciated for who I am, while I create the person I want to become

As I mentioned, I've had a long-running interest in Montessori education, and I really like the way ATI translates Montessori philosophy to the teen setting. Maria Montessori said, “The adolescent must never be treated as a child, for that is a stage of life that he has surpassed. It is better to treat an adolescent as if he had greater value than he actually shows than as if he had less and let him feel that his merits and self-respect are disregarded.” This basic principle gives us teens the independence we need to be as self-sufficient as possible, while we also prepare for adult life.

Although Montessori is often thought of as a younger child's education, I think ATI has pioneered a new way of delivering student-centered learning in the digital setting. I feel like ATI was built to help me succeed, which is not how I feel about public school. ATI has given me the power, responsibilities, and tools I need to forge my path forward. I'm confident that when I walk away from ATI, I will have learned everything I need, from the practical life skills of how to pay my bills to answering the deep questions like what I want my place to be in the world.

Meet Savannah F. (the top middle square!), a 15-year-old freshman at the Academy of Thought and Industry (ATI). ATI is a Montessori-inspired network for middle and high schools, where students have the freedom and support to learn in a way that respects their agency and curiosity. Savannah shares her take on ATI in her own words—why she was drawn to our Virtual School program, and why she wants to continue her journey with us.

Five Reasons I Love ATI Virtual School

When the pandemic closed their local middle school in 2020, 13-year-old twins Iris and Sarah Beerman joined the Academy of Thought and Industry’s virtual school program out of necessity. Now they’ve re-enrolled for their second year, but not out of necessity. Their experience at ATI has given them something their traditional school couldn’t: A real connection to their learning, to themselves and to the peers they’ve met along the way.

How is it possible that adolescents — who are fixated on social independence — would find greater connection in a virtual space? The answer lies in the systematic, Montessori-oriented approach taken by ATI. Every student has the potential to thrive when they are given time and space to lead, create, and collaborate. And when this happens, we see a powerful transformation — one that we might not have even thought was needed.

“Virtual school saved my kids,” said the twins’ mother, Jessie Beerman. “Even though Iris and Sarah are twins, they’re two very different people with their own unique personalities … We honestly weren’t sure what to expect.”

Beerman is an experienced educator herself, having taught in Montessori early childhood classrooms for the last 18 years, but there were still unknowns around an abrupt leap to virtual learning in 2020. Most notably, could virtual lessons preserve hands-on learning and continue to foster community for both of her daughters? 

Right from the start, the ATI difference was clear. The admissions team wanted to talk to Iris and Sarah directly — not to their mother on their behalf. They connected with the girls and wanted to know their dreams, fears, strengths, and weaknesses. The twins now have access to individualized coaching where they meet weekly with guides to discuss their assignments, accomplishments, struggles. 

And the learning was truly individualized.

For Beerman’s more introverted daughter, the use of virtual breakout rooms made the group learning much smaller, allowing her to feel more comfortable speaking up. One-on-one coaching with the guides helped her connect to teachers in a way that she hadn't experienced; she felt seen and understood for the first time in a long time.

“In a virtual space, your friendships are more chosen and deliberate,” says Beerman. “For my extrovert, this meant she could connect with certain students on personality instead of geography or academic placement. These friendships lifted her up and, as a result, her confidence soared.”

The program, Beerman discovered, is truly built around the students.

“When you think about middle school in general, it tends to assume so much control over children and be adult-led,” Beerman said. “The value of having a team of adults who is behind them, believes in their perspective and gains their trust is a priceless piece of their development.”

As she recounted the moment when she knew her twins’ learning had been reinvigorated, Beerman welled up with tears. “My daughter Sarah came up to me after the first day and said, ‘Mom, these guides trust us. None of my teachers have ever talked to me like I am capable before.’”

In many ways, the pandemic made Montessori for Beerman’s adolescent daughters unexpectedly accessible and effective.

“I had a bias against virtual or distance learning,” says Beerman. “I always felt that, especially Montessori, needed to be done in person. I’m thrilled to say that ATI Virtual School exceeded our expectations. My twins were so happy with the experience that they’ve decided to stay at ATI Virtual.”

When the pandemic pushed Iris and Sarah Beerman into a virtual school program, they assumed it’d be a temporary solution. But they loved it so much, they decided to stay.

Why ATI Virtual School Was Just What These Twins Needed to Succeed

While shooting a brand film at the Academy of Thought and Industry in San Francisco, one of the students, Mica Manotoc, described painting as "entering into a dance."

We were instantly captivated by her wherewithal and sensibilities. We wanted to learn more.

Her mind clears, she said, and everything slows down and makes sense. She talked about Pollock, and how he liberated her from the easel, freeing her to see the world differently. Of course, we asked if we could watch her work!

Moments later, we were heading into the studio, and as any collaborative artist, she prompted us to select a color palette. Carefully choosing the paint, we helped her lay them out. Then, the magic started. We witnessed her "dance."

She loved it! Almost as much as we loved her.

Upon leaving, she handed us the painting as a token of her appreciation, inscribing her gratitude on the back.

We had to turn it into a logo. It's our new favorite thing!

During a recent visit to ATI San Francisco, we spent time painting and learning with students in the school's own makers' space

Dancing With Students: Meet ATI Student Mica Manotoc

We arrived at the Academy of Thought and Industry not knowing exactly what to expect.

We were there to meet the students, staff and parents, to learn their stories and share them with the world.

The first student we met was JP. He walked into the room with confidence and an artistic set of sensibilities, sensibilities that set our hearts ablaze.

Sitting down to chat with him, we were immediately surprised to learn that he’d only recently discovered his seemingly profound and intoxicating sense of self-assurance.

In speaking about his previous school, before he enrolled at the Academy of Thought and Industry, he said:

“I just ended up internalizing the idea that I was not that smart. Coming here I was able to regain that intellectual confidence and be more confident in my thoughts and critical thinking skills.”

JP went on to discuss how he now feels “more like a human”, expressing that he’s more confident in his studies, in his life, in his relationships.

His appreciation for photography, his passion, has also taken new shape.

Following him to a few of his favorite local spots in San Francisco, we carefully watched as he engaged in his craft, thinking deeply about composition. Taking everything he has learned, not only from his confidence, but also from his critical thinking skills, he composed the perfect shots.

“Once I started using film,” he shared, “the process of really considering what I was taking photos of, how I’m framing it, made me force myself into taking better photos. There’s more of an organic texture and there’s a unique color grading that comes along with that, which I really like.”

Here are a few wonderful samples of his work from that lovely and windy evening we spent together atop Twin Peaks. JP also exhibited a collection of pieces, drawing quite an audience. Smitten, we had to pick up an original ourselves.

We left the Academy of Thought and Industry completely inspired.

The San Francisco teen on rekindling his confidence and an appreciation for photography at ATI: "Coming here, I was able to regain that intellectual confidence and be more confident in my thoughts and critical thinking skills.”

The Confidence to Capture the World: Meet ATI Student JP Barbagelata

Who are you, and what do you stand for in the world?

Coming to understand personally-meaningful answers to core questions of identity can take years of seeking, honest conversations, and understanding relevant facts about the world in which we live—but for most teens, almost none of this vital process of self-discovery happens through the coursework they are exposed to at school.

The world we live in is radically pluralistic with respect to meaning systems, beliefs, norms, and core values. Any teen with access to the internet is a few clicks away from vast worlds of media that contradict or undermine any given belief system or set of moral norms. They hear their environmental sciences teacher talking about the harms of pollution, then watch videos about glamorous gas-guzzling cars. They hear about respecting diversity then watch movies with racist language. They hear about the importance of sexual consent and then watch videos in which sexual assault is the norm. This dissonance is extreme, and standard academic course work is almost entirely unrelated to the intense emotional and spiritual challenges faced by American teens.

In the typical high school, it is uncommon for daily academic learning to be connected to a student's sense of meaning. Academic courses are experienced simply as requirements to be completed. Even if a student does find academic coursework intrinsically meaningful, the homework load at most high schools prevents them from taking the time to think through the personal implications of what they are learning.

There is a profound tension between the idea of high-schools-as-transmitters-of-curriculum, on the one hand, and teens-as-seekers-of-meaning, on the other.

Our question is, should schooling contribute to a sense of personal meaning, and if so, how?

At ATI, we answer with a resounding, “yes!” Students who have the opportunity, through their schoolwork, to explore their own identities and develop their own unique perspectives on relevant and challenging topics are happier, more motivated, and more connected to their schoolwork.

When a school creates an environment in which conversations about meaning are encouraged and nurtured, the immense appetite that teens have for such conversations becomes apparent. Sometimes these conversations are at the highest levels of abstraction: What is “truth”? Is there a “truth”? Can we know anything? What is the infinite? Is the universe infinite? Does time exist? And so forth. Sometimes these conversations are very personal: Why do you make excuses for your behavior? Are you responsible for your own behavior? Do you want to be responsible for your own behavior? Do you respect people who make excuses for their behavior? On other occasions these conversations may explore an immense range of issues in between: Will war always exist? Are we by nature jealous? Are people naturally racist? How much can education change people? Are we biological machines whose lives are determined by our DNA? And so forth.

When teens are invited to engage in honest and respectful conversations that emphasize diversity and a variety of perspectives, they explore and develop their own identity in the process. Often, we see students who have been bored and listless at other schools come alive once they attend a school like ATI. In some cases, they may have been straight-A students at a conventional school–but they were uninspired by the curriculum and homework. In other cases, they may have been depressed or unable to function. Sometimes they were floating in the middle–still functioning at some level in school, but gradually drawn to more stimulating (and sometimes harmful) activities outside of school.

While we also offer courses that prepare students for College Board AP exams, our core curriculum, including life design, Socratic humanities, and mathematical problem-solving, along with individual mentorship of each student, meets this fundamental need of teens, and opens the door to exploration of personal meaning.

At ATI, we want to go far beyond what your teen knows—we want to know who your teen really 

Coming to understand personally-meaningful answers to core questions of identity can take years of seeking, honest conversations, and understanding relevant facts about the world in which we live.

Who Are You, and What Do You Stand For in the World?

, the Vice President of Pedagogy at Higher Ground Education, works closely with the leadership team at ATI on program development and teen support. We sat down with him recently for a bit of background on ATI and to get his thoughts on what makes the school — and its students — special.

Could you start by introducing yourself? Who is Matt Bateman?



I am the Vice President of Pedagogy at Higher Ground of Education. I work very closely with the leadership team at the Academy of Thought and Industry team on program development and program support. I'm very interested in high school education. My background is actually in higher-ed, so I was a college professor. I taught in a psychology department at Franklin and Marshall College. My PhD is from U-Penn. I have a philosophy PhD, so I've taught a variety of science and humanities courses at the college level.



What is it about teenagers that interests you?



It's the age at which you're not an adult as a teenager, but where you're first capable of being an adult in all the particular aspects of your life. The difference between a teenager and an adult is essentially one of maturity. And so the cognitive faculties are online, the capacity for relationships is online, and the capacity for work is online. A teenager can be doing anything an adult is doing, they're just not practiced at it in the same way yet.

It's an incredibly exciting age. It's a foundational age intellectually, socially, emotionally, professionally. Everything that we think of as a core part of our life has roots in childhood, and I'm also very interested in early elementary and early childhood, but a teenager is when it's all there. It's all happening.



What is the Academy of Thought and Industry?



The Academy of Thought and Industry is a network of high schools for adolescents, taking a radical approach and asking, what do adolescents need at this age? What kind of education do they need?

I think everybody basically agrees that it's crazy to have teenagers and adolescents sit at a desk for eight hours a day, doing what people tell them and going through the motions. So, what is the right approach? Like, if you want teenagers to go out and work and get real-world experience, what is the high school experience look like? If we think teenagers are actually deeply, intellectually capable and deeply curious, what does a program look like that engages that and fulfills the teenagers' needs for knowledge, the adolescents' need for knowledge and curiosity but in a way that's fulfilling their fundamental activity as a human being in those ways?



How does the Academy of Thought and Industry prepare children for the 21st Century? What are these skills?



Schools in the 21st Century are things like creativity and literacy in a broad sense — not just the ability to read, but the ability to read situations and different kinds of media. There is a certain kind of resilience, a certain kind of adaptiveness and flexibility or thinking communication skills. Every single thing that's a 21st Century skill is actually a 20th Century skill, a 19th Century skill. I think what educators need to do is to widen their context and think about teenagers in a more fundamental sense. These things like creativity and adaptability and critical thinking, it's not like the information economy, and our modern economy now makes it so that we understand why these things are valuable.

Look at Steve Jobs, who is a great model for, "Wow, what are the 21st Century skills that allowed him to integrate art and technology and create all these things?" But, then look at Frederick Douglas. It's the same thing, and, these are two men who were separated by 200 years. Both of them are fundamentally autodidacts. They taught themselves in a context where the traditional education wasn't serving them for very different ways and very different reasons. But, something is common there. They both had a deep knowledge and perspective on the world in a broad sense. They both were humanistic and understood communication — things that people say are 21st Century skills, but put that through a lens where you're understanding that more deeply in terms of human nature, and that is what we want for children.



How does ATI prepare students for college, or what role does college play for ATI?



That's a great question. As I said before, I come from higher ed. I was a college professor. I've seen it from the other side, and I had really good students who were excellent on paper and who were getting into great colleges, Ivy League universities. And these students were brilliant, but in certain ways, also really ill prepared for college and for life.

I can't tell you how many times I would introduce the coolest thing in the world in neuroscience or in philosophy to a student, and the No. 1 question in the class in a group of 18-year-olds was, "Is this going to be on the test? Are you going to be grading this? Are you going to be assessing this?" Something is wrong with that approach, but I don't think it's like an intrinsic property of being an 18-year-old. I think that something is happening in high school and in middle school, earlier in education to make it so that our best and our brightest aren't equipped to ask the questions they actually need to be asking to live a full life.

A lot of college professors feel this way, and a lot of what good college education does is remediate that issue, rekindling curiosity and critical thinking and reorienting college students in a way that's corrective for traditional education.

But, why have that problem? I think solving that is a lot of what the Academy of Thought and Industry is about, is, solving what is actually needed for college readiness. It's not that good college professors want students who are coming in having taken a bunch of AP courses. We do offer AP courses and we do offer a lot of college prep, but what's needed is something much more fundamental, and we do that. At ATI, we support those fundamental skills, that fundamental approach to knowledge, to critical thinking, and creativity. Our students are already doing interesting projects, and ATI gives them the things they need to check the boxes to get into college — test scores, AP scores, things that are actually pretty decent — third party assessments of certain things, even if you don't want to overly rely on them. But, you're not gaming it here. You're actually going into college as an interesting person ready to go.





The idea in the Socratic seminar is that the phrase comes from Socrates, so that you're learning to ask these increasingly deeper and meta level questions about what's going on with an idea to get to the bottom of it. And the ideas come from these texts, the classics, the greatest hits in the history of human civilization. Students are learning to ask questions of the text, to ask questions of each other in a way that gets at increasingly deep levels of understanding and engagement. And the guide's role is to kind of facilitate these questions, to kind of step back and to nudge in certain ways.

A big part of Socratic is this critical thinking component — philosophical thinking, intellectualism. How do you develop these skills to generate real understanding? But it's also really important to think about what the students are reading in Socratic. You can do Socratic with anything, and part of what we're doing with Socratic is we take a lot of inspiration from the great books approaches. We have our own kind of take on it, but you are engaging with the greatest hits in the history of human civilization.

There's a knowledge outcome here that you would get when you go to a good liberal arts college or from humanities education at the college level, and it's that you understand intro to philosophy and Kant and modern literary theory. You are prepared to think about trends in the humanities, trends in society, evolutionary psychology, the great debates, classical liberalism versus Marxism versus social versus ... What about disagreements in theories about how we deal with racial injustice? About sexism? There's these trends in the history of thought, and all these things are baked into the Socratic curriculum, so what the students are debating is not just, "Yeah, they're engaging their critical thinking skills in a general way." They're getting this content that's going to let them understand everything in the world through this lens of deep intellectualism, and we're really trying to refine that curriculum and to make it so that everywhere the students look, they see ideas. They see school of thought. They see the debates, and they're in command.

They know how to think about this stuff for themselves, and they're not beholden to getting sucked in to the perspective of some tribe or another or their parents or their teachers. It's like, "Okay. I see the issues here. I see where people are going to disagree, and I know how to think my way through this."

To me, that is what Socratic is about. How do you think your way through these areas of life that everybody else finds confusing or perplexing, because they are complex! It's successful humanities education in this really applicable way that lets you think about yourself and your world.





The ATI core courses are Socratic, Math Problem Solving, and Life Design.

Life Design is this course that I think is especially important for teenagers as they start to hit the high school age and get a little bit older. We're really teaching students how to think about their lives in a way that's conceptual and big-picture and exciting, but that's not directive. Each student has to come up with their own life plan. You've got 15 students in the room, which means you're going to have 15 very different conceptions of what the good life is, and so how do you scaffold that process?

There are certain things that are in common to all life plans. You have to start to think longer term. That doesn't mean you know exactly what you want to do in 10 years, but you're setting yourself up so the experiments that you're doing and the path you're exploring are informative for your thinking 10 years from now and kind of help you think.

The name for the course is based on this class that's taught at Stanford called Designing Your Life. The approach is asking questions like, What do I want? How do I get it? What are the experiments that are going to get me more information? How do I iterate on this thing that I want? What does a nonstandard path look like? What does a standard path look like? How am I going to figure out between them?

Life Design is a class where we're really trying to help students think about that. It's got content, but it also has a heavy, heavy coaching component. A lot of the stuff you think about in a very individualized way in relationship to the students' current interests and projects so it's less a class than a supportive coaching structure where we are pushing students to think about themselves in a deep way and think instead about their future in a deep way.



Who are these students, and what is the nature of adolescence?



Our students are high school students. ATI takes students starting at eighth grade and continuing through twelfth grade. They come in to us from many different places, and we meet each student where they're at. The thing in common to students at the Academy of Thought and Industry is that they tend to be a little bit more curious and a little bit more purposeful about where they're at in their lives.

Even if they don't know the answers to what they want, they're reflective about why they are in school and what they want out of the process. That's where we engage. What does the student need academically? What do they need in terms of their personal development, their social development, and how are we going to give it to them?

The structure of ATI is half this core set of classes and then half options, where it's adaptive. You're going up to the world and working. You're taking additional classes. You're preparing for college. That structure is meant to provide both a common basis for all these students while also offering core critical thinking, academic, humanities, and math skills, and that's part of the grounding of the community. That's part of what the community all has in common. While at the same time, we're adapting. What does this particular student need for the path they're on? How are we meeting the student where they are?





ATI is a radical program. The families and the students who come to ATI have to be willing to take a risk. I think you have to be willing to say, "The standard boxes that everybody checks in high school — get on honor roll, get a good score on the SAT, join student government, have some sort of charity project, be in a varsity sport — that is not actually the thing that results in a successful life."

For some people, it does. For some people, it helps, but fundamentally, this is not the solution to the problem in education. What teenagers need is a way to ramp up toward being adults intellectually, socially, and in terms of their work, and that is what ATI provides. It's like direct practices for adulthood, and it's education rethought so that students can be provided with the structure they need to ramp up very quickly to be really successful instead skirting around it and trying to overly operationalize it.



What would you summarize the key differentiators for ATI?



The key differentiators for ATI are in the name: The Academy of Thought and Industry. These two components, thought and industry, and what it takes for both.

Thought is intellectualism. It's being able to see deep ideas and how they shape your world, your life, the life of the others around you, society, and really taking that kind of liberal arts education seriously in its best form. It is being able to engage in both understanding and disagreement with others.

Industry is shaping your world. It is this sense of career but also, What actions are you taking? What things are you doing? You're building a life for yourself. You're shaping the world. What does that look like? Are you getting an internship? Are you doing a film project? And, also, it's not a school project. It's a film project you're doing in school. Are there things you need to learn before you get into that world? What are they, and how can we help you with them?

I think those are the things that teenagers need while also an integration of the two into a life that's meaningful, fulfilling, one that's full of fulfilling work and relationships, and where you're really responding to these things, you're motivated to do these things. It's thought and industry, mind and body, and it all comes together in one person and in one unified, fulfilled life.





So much. When I was a college professor, I saw that college students aren't really that different from high school students. They're a little bit more mature, but, whatever you love about humanity, it's possible to see in a teenager. You haven't kind of gone down the path of mistakes and screw ups and, you know, wasted potential. But, it's all there, and teenagers know it. They know it's all there. They know that the future is open to them.

It's also terrifying. They're almost insecure about it at some level, but it's in some ways the most exciting time to be alive. When you think of these times in civilization, like in ancient Greece or in the Islamic Golden Age or the Enlightenment period, when everything old was new again, that's what being a teenager is like all the time! (laughs) I try to keep that alive in myself, and it's harder for me now. I like engaging with teenagers for whom it's just the natural state of being.



What are the core values you hope students walk away with?



That's a great question. Part of what we want is not for students to adopt particular values. We don't have a set of values that we want students to adopt, except at a very high meta level. So the values are all almost structural. We want students to care about who they are and to care about the life they are building for themselves and to see that as important.

But you have to choose what that looks like, and every life is different, so we are very non-prescriptive about it. Are you going to be an artist? Are you going to go down a fairly standard path? Are you going to go down a very nonstandard path? We think that what we offer supports students, no matter what they're doing.

Being able to work hard and to love it and to find meaning in the work is a value we want all our students to be able to engage with and have those kind of meta skills. We want students to be able to iterate an experiment and have a baseline knowledge of where it all came from — what is the history of civilization, where do I fit in to that, and how do I ask these questions? There are different narratives out there about where we are in history, so how do I decide between them? And, this is something I think is badly lacking in society today, but can I disagree with others and draw value from that disagreement?

These are all skills in a certain way, but they're also values. It's a commitment to living a life of action that is guided by thought and in a way that's fearless, but what that looks like is up to each student.



Can you talk about the relationship between the teachers and the students? How is it special? How does it build a sense of community unlike another program?



We hold very high standards for our students. We're asking a lot of them. We're asking them to do adult level work. We're asking them to read the great texts of civilization and to debate them. It's a very demanding program, and what enables that is a culture of trust and a culture of benevolence. Students have to feel like they can take risks. They have to feel like they can fail. They are going to fail. They're going to say something in Socratic that they're embarrassed by a week later. Why are they embarrassed? How do you get underneath that? They're going to get an internship or do a startup and then fail or get fired. Great, how do you turn that into a learning experience?

It takes a really special culture to support that, and a lot of what our teachers are doing -- in addition to being content experts and experts in coaching students through the particular things we want them to learn and through these processes that make up our school -- is creating this community, being really warm, being really welcoming, problem-solving social issues and making sure this is a place where students want to come and want to take risks.



Is there any unique advantage that ATI has over other schools as far as their ability to recruit teachers?



I have been astounded by the kinds of people who are applying at ATI to be educators. The number of people who were professionals or were academics and who were thinking, "I've always wanted to get into education, but I've always been afraid of getting into traditional education. This is what I've been looking for, this kind of serious approach to adolescent education, where you really treat the teenagers more seriously and in an elevated way."

We get an incredibly high caliber of applicants to this job, and that makes sense to me. I think what we're offering at ATI is not new in the form we're presenting it, but it's the kind of thing that everybody's talking around. Everyone who's interested in adolescent education thinks adolescents need to be doing real things. Adolescents need to be trusted more. Adolescents can be exposed to these college level ideas earlier. There's a way to approach college application and next steps in life that's healthier.

Everybody knows this, and the question is just, What does it look like? ATI's a stake in the ground that's saying, "This is what it looks like," and that is very exciting to people.



If you could work anywhere, why do you work here?



I'm a philosopher at heart, and there aren't many places and industries and jobs that you can have where the questions are fundamentally philosophical. What is human nature, and where are teenagers at in relationship to it? What is the nature of knowledge and character? How is it that teenagers are building this for themselves in a way that is drawing upon existing knowledge and content? There's this engagement process and this reciprocity between the entire world of civilization and each particular individual and their agency and their authorship over their lives.

Everything about education is incredibly philosophical, and nowhere is that more apparent than with teenagers who are, themselves, philosophical. I can't imagine any other job or any other way I could be impacting people and helping people. This is one of the ways I think intellectuals and philosophers can really help is to think about these issues and to provide structures in which teenagers are free and enabled and empowered to create themselves in a really profound way.



How do you provide a framework by which to have healthy discussions and conversations with disagreements at ATI?



Healthy conversations come through having a shared commitment to the truth, believing that we can get at the truth and believe that every single person in the room has a mind that is powerful, that is capable of being objective and rational, and that it is capable of engaging in arguments that are conducive to the truth.

Once you get all those ingredients together, you get this magic that happens where people really care about the ideas. They aren't worried about disagreeing with one another because, disagreement is one of the ways you get at the truth. Also, it's not about the disagreement, at the end of the day. It's about trying to figure out something together, and even when you disagree, that shared sense of camaraderie is just so powerful.

I think good philosophy classes at the college level have this feature, and good humanities classes have this feature, and this is something we're really trying to systematize and bring to the high school level. And that perspective is different. It's different than the criticism that Socratic seminars and progressive education sometimes get. It's bull sessions. It's students who don't know anything. They're not ready to have an opinion on something, but they all have opinions, and they're all coddled. It's all like, "Wow. That's a really interesting perspective. Thank you for sharing it."

That is not the perspective at ATI. That is not conducive to taking risks. It's not conducive to a warm culture. It's not conducive to trust. It's conducive to trust, it's just like, "Let's get in it and figure it out together, hash it out," and that is the spirit of Socratic seminars.



So, you're a philosopher. Euripides, Spinoza, Kant, and all these people. How do you cultivate that magic of learning for high school students?



The magic of having epiphanies that are at the level of like, "Wow. This is about the meaning of life and society. This is about the relationship of the mind to the world. This is about what ethics is." I think it comes through engaging with great content in a way that's connected to something you care about, and so the structure of our pedagogy is, yeah, you take the classics, but you also take contemporary takes on the classics, and you make sure the way you're teaching it is engaging the students where they are.

There's a way when you're reading the history of ideas, in which you put on your wooden shoes and get into Leibnitz's system. You kind of have to empathize and get into that perspective, but our approach is also that these are living questions. There's intellectual work involved in understanding these ideas, and part of the reason why there's work involved is that they're relevant to your life, and you have to kind of do the thinking of application, the thinking of thinking fresh about the entire history of civilization and what it means to you and how it applies to you.

When you care and you're exposed to people who are really good at thinking about the things you care about, you see that connection. That's what fosters epiphanies.



So, this is your opportunity to denounce Kant for once and for all.



The starry skies within us! Kant changed philosophy. There's no intellectual work after Kant that isn't affected by Kant. He saw things in a really deep way. All the great philosophers saw this in some way, but Kant saw it in a way that was particularly applicable in the modern times. He saw the is-ought gap was a big problem, and that the length between experience and conceptual abstract thought was a big problem in a way you have to really grapple with. And he provided a framework for thinking about it.

I agree with a lot of the critics who came right after Kant and his approach. He saw the problems, but his answers to those problems are misguided. They're wrong, and there's a kind of corruption of Kantian thought that still permeates things where all of our ideas theorialate in a way that makes experience really inaccessible, like that's a Kantian idea. He himself was trying to address skeptics, but he made it very difficult to address skeptics.

The same thing is true of ethics. He was reflecting on these ideas and common sense ethics about our sense of duty and obligation, but the way that he did it permanently severed ethics from its consequences, and there's been a lot of people who have written about this. I think the critics of Kant are right, but, that said, I think he was a great thinker, and I think everybody should read him and engage with him.



"The Academy of Thought and Industry supports fundamental skills as well as a fundamental approach to knowledge, critical thinking, and creativity."

Q&A with Matt Bateman: VP of Pedagogy at Higher Ground Education

Education affects not only the student himself, but everyone in his family and community. If the student is thriving, the family feels that, too. At the Academy of Thought and Industry, we are incredibly grateful for the support and investment we receive from our parent community. How has ATI made a difference in your family's life?

“We feel lucky to have discovered ATI. We toured many San Francisco high schools in search of a good fit for our son, who is creative, social, and passionate when it comes to filmmaking and art. However, he needed a different approach to academics. At ATI, he gets the customized and personalized support needed to build his confidence and navigate his dyslexia, enabling him to explore a variety of courses and ideas that might otherwise have been unavailable to him in a traditional classroom setting.

our son has been able to pursue his passion for filmmaking as part of his educational path, and ATI teaches to his strengths

. ATI has been a wonderful community, too. It's a small school and all the students seem to support one another and get along. We are happy with his experience so far, and the bonus is, he enjoys going to school every day!”

“I love this school. I was a steadfast believer in public schools, until my daughter reached middle school. She spiraled through her three years at middle school, not being heard or listened to and was pushed aside for numerous reasons. By the time she got to eighth grade, I had watched my daughter go from a bright student who loved school and learning to a student who thought she lacked all intellectual capabilities and hated going to school. I was at my wits end.

“I started looking for charter schools and private schools who embraced a growth mindset and were not pushy in their academics. She needed someone to work with her and respect her boundaries. It took quite some time to find a place that met those requirements -- and most who did only wanted perfect students who had no issues, which did not fit our family (we are quite the anxious bunch).

Then one day, I found ATI, and we have never looked back.

 The guides are some of the most compassionate educators I have ever met. We were lucky enough to tour the school with Michael Strong, and I was in love not only with the school, but with him the moment he told me he felt artists were important pieces of society and he wanted to teach artists how to make money. BOOM! He had me - all I had ever heard as an aspiring artist was to find a fallback career. The guides have helped my daughter to believe in herself and her capabilities again. She has rediscovered her intellectual spark and her creative passions. 

“Rather than being left in the dark as parent, we keep in close contact with her guides and her coach. 

I feel more supported as a parent than I have ever felt throughout my daughter's career as a student. I know I can only be a guiding light in my daughter's life, and it is comforting to find a school that is willing to help shed some extra light for our entire family.

 I had the extra benefit to sit in a few classes and help when they needed it, and I was amazed with the students. They had more accountability and responsibility than most of my co-workers. They are respectful, kind, helpful, and very funny! It is a small community with the largest heart I have ever seen from a school. I can't recommend them enough to everyone. It is an amazing environment that makes me wish I could be in high school again (and I hated high school!)” 

“The Academy of Thought and Industry is like a Trade School for CEOs. Really it is much more than that because the school inspires students with a clear trajectory toward how to create a magnificent life at the intersection of their passions and skills. I found ATI during a deep search for the right environment for my two very different gifted children who bring unique talents to the world, who were lost in public school's common core.

“The Academy of Thought and Industry personalizes the programs and approach for each individual student and provides a personal coach who is in close contact with the students and parents for academic guidance and socio-emotional support through a vitally developmental time in children's lives to ensure success all along the continuum of learning...not just at semester end. 

The school is filled with brilliant, open-minded people with no boundaries of learning opportunities for the students.

“Coaching students with a big-picture view of the world and encouraging them to contribute to it is a gift to our future. The students are grounded in math, science, Socratic social studies, and the arts. They customize students' educations to reach their individual goals. If a student desires an invitation to an Ivy League school, their education is chiseled in that direction.

“We visited the Academy of Thought and Industry in Austin, Texas, before enrolling in the San Francisco, California, location. 

The students are well-adjusted, self-motivated, proud of their diverse and impressive accomplishments and confident they were working toward their personal desires to contribute to society in a positive way. 

Architects, Engineers, Photographers, Investment Brokers, Choreographers, Mathematicians, You-Tubers, Producers, Designers, Inventors, Artists, were all sharing their skills and ideas with their friends at school, sharing partnerships and collaborations capitalizing on each other's skill sets.”

“Three and a half years ago, our family moved across the country to be part of the unique educational experience that has now evolved into the Academy of Thought and Industry. Jeffrey Wood, Eva Claire Albion-Wright, and Michael Strong are guiding this school with their exceptional intellects and talents, kindness, and integrity. 

They are dedicated to seeing the beauty and potential in every student and creating a learning environment where each student feels safe to explore. My son has evolved and matured into an incredible young person as a result of his experience here. 

ATI has created a solid foundation for him during the challenging years of adolescence and we are excited to see where the road takes him next.”

“ATI is a precious jewel in the San Francisco independent high school scene. My son is getting in-depth academics, the choice he craves in how to spend his intellectual time, college prep testing/training, 

an intimate community of peers that values kids who walk off the beaten track

, incredible mentoring from committed teachers, and the time to pursue his non-school interests. He has just the right amount of homework, allowing him to connect to activities in the whole city and to develop not just as a student but as a well-rounded citizen. The school expects a kind of independence from students that is both age appropriate and liberating."

“I am a teacher at Academy of Thought and industry. The first thing I noticed when I visited the school for training was the Socratic dialogue and improv demos the students performed for new teachers. Students were given a Charles Darwin post they had never read before, read it aloud together and discussed it intelligently using the Socratic method. With this method, students only discussed the author's point of view while keeping out the personal stories that tend to come into discussions. No teacher facilitated. It was completely student led. Afterward, they demonstrated a student led improv that was better than most intro adult improv classes I had seen. I was also attracted to the philosophy of guides instead of teachers. This means that I am helping students achieve their self-selected goals instead of prescribing everything to them. 

I have watched the community circles go from being guide led to being completely facilitated by students. This is a place that students can take charge of their education and really play a big role in their school

I could not imagine a more incredible place to teach

. Every day I get to spend with my wonderful students and colleagues is one for which I feel deep gratitude. All educational models and schools are not created equal. However, no matter whether your child is getting what they need or missing out during an essential time in their development, the lessons they are learning in High School are critical for their academic, personal, and future success. 

ATI is a consciously created community of learning that provides personalized coaching and other resources to help students gain autonomy and strive toward excellence in all they do

. Being part of a community that helps students grow and learn in this way is a dream come true.”

ATI parents are inspired by the student-led discussions, respect for the students and compassionate educators

ATI Testimonials: A Parent's Perspective 

We all respond to learning differently. Something that might interest me might not interest you, but, if I continue to immerse myself into whatever it is that brings me joy, it might inspire you to dig more deeply into your own interests. One's own genuine desire to engage can be extremely influential to those around him.

At ATI, each student is seeking and trying to understand their own fulfillment. But, they do so in a beautiful, honest, and collaborative way. Amid their individual journeys, they talk among their peers about their thoughts and experiences, they ask vulnerable questions, and they trust one another to be supportive along the way. Perhaps, this is how we thrive.

For Ty Childs, a sophomore in Austin, the intimate discussions around Socratic texts energize him deeply. Even though he identifies himself as more introverted in everyday life, when it comes time to gather around with like-minded fellow students, he feels safe, and he opens up in a way that not only nurtures his path, it encourages others to open up, too.

“Socratic is about having your own ideas,” Ty says. “And I love discussing these ideas with engaged voices at the table.”

 is a daily course at ATI, where students sit down together to analyze complex tests. A lot of the dialogue is inspired by “The Habit of Thought,” a book written by ATI’s founder, Michael Strong, but students will read poems, plays or essays and then gather to form an opinion on what they just read.

“Some of us like to annotate, then we just ask questions and try to clarify within ourselves what the author might be trying to say, or ideas are brought up tangentially from the text,” Ty says. “I read a lot, but I had never independently analyzed text like this before, so I find it very interesting to see other people’s takes and talk about ideas I hadn’t considered otherwise. It’s a lot of fun for me.”

Ty says the hour-long Socratic conversations inform far more than his opinions on established text.

“Socratic has really changed how I look at a lot of things — analyzing media, for example,” he says. “I’m developing a greater grasp of context in my life and a greater understanding of why things are the way they are. There’s a lot of problem-solving opportunities here as well.”

And this wider exploration happens because the student-led conversations are not contained to Socratic. Rather, students are encouraged to trust that wherever ideas go, it’s okay to follow.

“Our questions are usually related to the text, but it can also lead to unrelated, inspired conversation that is wide-ranging and might even spill over to lunch sometimes — from nature of the universe to what a character’s motivations might be, but all of us take it seriously.”

Ty says the guides at ATI are tremendously supportive in this environment.

“ATI is all about self-direction, which greatly helps us learn about what we are passionate about, and the guides are great in that,” he says. “Their attitude toward teaching and mentoring is very awesome.”

Outside the classroom, Ty is in the process of achieving Eagle Scout rank as a Boy Scout, in which he’s participated in since he was nine years old. To complete the Eagle rank, he needs to complete a large, self-motivated project, and he says his guides at ATI are supportive.

“Kristina, a guide here, along with a parent of the school have helped me to think of ideas,” he says. “They say, ‘How can we support you?’ ”

ATI also encourages club activities by treating the students as leaders in their community. For Ty, he not only participates in a Dungeons and Dragons club every Wednesday afternoon, he leads the club.

“I was excited that even a couple of the guides joined!” he says.

Ty is thinking about what’s next, considering a career in physics or education. But, for now, he’s thriving in a school that sees him for who is today and among peers who are influenced by who he is, too. They all support one another, and they are all on their way toward something great.

“I’m really excited about ATI,” Ty says. “This is a great place to learn and a great place to learn 

 to learn. The culture and relationships here really help us to focus and feel like things are worth learning about and worth doing."

Student Ty Childs is encouraged and motivated by ATI's intimate discussions around Socratic learning

Meet ATI student Ty Childs: Discussions Inspire Learning 

After Ann Orsinger finished high school at a Waldorf school in Colorado, she longed to teach at Waldorf. After she finished her undergraduate work at St. John’s College, she wanted to become a professor at St. John’s. But it wasn’t just that she loved the schools. Rather, she loved the way they approached education.

“I have always loved education that has a powerful and rich pedagogy and themes of developing the human being,” says Ann, who is lead humanities guide at ATI: Austin. “I was lucky to have so many of my teachers play a really significant role in my life, and I want to be able to do the same for others.”

Ann learned about ATI last spring, at a time when she was longing to find an educational community she could truly love and make a difference. She had been teaching philosophy and government at Austin Community College in Texas, but something was missing.

She was helping to put a pilot program in place, where students would read great texts and have deep, meaningful conversations to build community and intellectual engagement, all in their first year of school. There was excitement there, Ann saw potential, but the structure of the school left her feeling disconnected. She wasn’t building the kind of relationships she enjoyed as a student.

“I wanted to get my intentions clear,” she says. “I needed to reflect on my values, goals, and dreams. Was I actually doing what I wanted to be doing? Was I happy?”

Two days later, she happened upon an ad for ATI.

“And I couldn’t believe everything I would get to do as a guide and coach at ATI,” she says. “It was a 100 percent manifestation of my wildest dreams for a job. It was an amazing, amazing thing.”

There is so much power in the adolescent years. These students bring so much, they are wide open and just waiting for something to give their power to.

Ann teaches eighth through twelfth grade at ATI, spending time with students in both Socratic Humanities and Life Design, but she also created a new class, on art as a human narrative, where students create art and reflect on the creative process — both in art and in life.

And, she’s coaching students, too. Each week, she meets with them one-on-one for 30 minutes to check in and help them to navigate issues in academics, their social life, their family life, and to think about their broader goals.

“It’s been wonderful,” she says. “I really enjoy the process of developing close and trusting relationships with these students. It is incredibly rewarding.”

She understands the value of personal coaching, because she’s receiving it, too, working alongside her Head of School to focus on her own development as a teacher.

“It’s a very personal experience and powerful thing to have this time every week just to focus on my own development, and I see the students responding in the same way,” she says.

She's grateful to the students for the participation they've had in her own personal growth.

“There is so much power in the adolescent years," Ann says. "These students bring so much, they are wide open and just waiting for something to give their power to, and that’s a really big responsibility on us as guides and coaches, but it’s also really rewarding to be able to provide inspiration and to know that you could potentially affect the trajectory of their lives by helping them to consciously develop into who they want to become.”

Ann says the guides and staff at ATI make a great team for this endeavor.

“I feel like I’m part of a community of people with a shared love for education, building this thing we are all passionate about,” Ann says. “And we are all very different. We have different strengths and we are different in how we approach things. That could have been a challenge, but it has actually been really fantastic. We have created such a rich learning environment, not only for the students, but also for each other!”

At ATI, Ann has found the education and community of learners she was looking for all along.

“There is nothing more I want than this,” she says. “We are all working together, building something that really matters, and life just doesn’t get any better than that.”

How the Austin Guide found her ideal learning community and camaraderie among staff and students at ATI 

Meet Guide Ann Orsinger: Learning Community Inspires Personal Growth 

With backgrounds in philosophy, phenomenology, liberal arts, and life coaching, Alex Gilman hasn’t had much experience working with teenagers. But the students at ATI: San Francisco would never know that. He treats them like an old friend.

“I really care about the students,” says Alex, who teaches Socratic Humanities and Life Design. “I care about their well-being, and I want them to do well.”

When he found ATI, it was a perfect fit for his diverse experience in both philosophy and personal growth.

“While in school, I found myself in a lot of rich, rigorous discussion and intellectual investigation, but there wasn’t a lot of understanding of emotional intelligence or pursuing the good life,” he says. “Then, on the other hand, the personal growth world is not very rigorous. ATI was the community that integrated the two for me and supported these different dimensions wonderfully.”

And he’s delighted to see how well the students engage.

“We are doing something so differently than the kids are used to,” Alex says. “In a lot of ways, it seems students weren’t taken seriously in their previous schools and almost expected 

 not to take them seriously, so we had to first give them the space to trust us before teaching them.”

Alex says that building trusting relationships between the teacher and the student is the core of his work.

“ATI relies on students being real and authentic. We’re inviting them to be their most honest self, not just whatever persona we think they need to be successful. But that means that we as the teachers need to authentic and vulnerable, too — not only to build that trust, but it’s more enjoyable to be real in the classroom. We all challenge one another, and I’ve seen tremendous transformation in both the students and the school. We really are building this sense of community.”



Relating to students, asking bigger questions



In teaching Life Design courses, which helps students to build self-awareness, Alex says he has to start by getting to know who his students are and what excites them.

“With teenagers, I have to meet them where they are at and really speak into their own life experiences before considering philosophical questions about life,” he says. “I also want to get to know the students on their own terms and support them individually as they work to become the best version of themselves. It doesn’t matter to me whether they complete the tasks I set forth for them, it matters to me whether they are actually benefitting from it.”

And all of this takes time.

“Working with students, I’m so much more involved than I was working with an adult one hour a week,” Alex says. “Even though I see these students every day, you’re still having to navigate moods and circumstances, and adolescence has the capacity to change overnight, so we’re really working slowly together. Every question we pose is a slow deepening. I have seen growth over the semester already, but it takes years to master these things, and I love watching how content and engaged the students continue to be.”

Along with being patient, Alex relates to his students.

“If I ask students in regard to relationships, ‘What’s challenging when it comes to communication?’ That’s too abstract for them. They don’t think about their friends as ‘relationships,’ they don’t think about interacting with people as ‘communication.’ But, if I ask them instead, ‘Do people annoy you?’ Everybody has something to say, and I can easily continue the conversation with, ‘Ok, what do you do when people annoy you? Do you talk to them about it, or do you gossip? What’s your contribution to those dynamics?’ Once I figure out how to speak to their experiences, then I can start to have a rich conversation, pushing those edges and stretching them into new learning.”

The conversations taking place in Life Design classes not only help students to better engage and understand the people in their life, they help to inform the conversations they have in the Socratic classes with Alex, too.

“There is a bridge between Life Design and Socratic Humanities — we are engaging with the students in a similar way,” Alex says. “But in Life Design, we are learning how to skillfully navigate our own inner experience with people, relationships and disappointments, while in Socratic Humanities, we’re learning how to skillfully navigate a text or an idea. Life Design is all about working with their experiences, whereas Socratic, we have real, established content to dive into, and students love to talk about their own ideas and opinions around this context. These conversations have huge influences on how we live day-to-day.”



Students are the expert, not the teachers



Alex is still in his first school year with the students at ATI in San Francisco, but he’s invested, he’s curious, and he’s taking the time to learn how to better connect with adolescents.

“This feels like a dream job,” Alex says. “I find it really fulfilling. I get to know all these students who have rich lives and different personalities, and teenagers have this certain spirit to them I really appreciate. I get to watch them grow and transform and be excited about something, and that feels really important to me.”

Alex says that, above all, he wants to cultivate within his students a strong sense of emotional literacy and self-reflection.

“The best expert in the world for these students is not me or their parents. It’s themselves. They need to learn how to support themselves based on their own strengths, challenges and passions in life, and they need to learn how to navigate all of that as their own unique person. I feel so excited to have an impact on that and help them to succeed and grow on their own terms.”

In his first year at ATI, Alex Gilman invests in his students with empathy and trust. "I get to watch these students grow and transform and be excited about something, and that feels really important to me.”

Meet Alex Gilman: Humanities Guide in San Francisco invests in his students with empathy and trust

What are students learning at ATI? How are students growing? What matters most here? We sat down with EvaClaire Wright, the Head of School at ATI: Austin, to answer some of these questions while discussing her role and her passion for the work. Meet EvaClaire Wright.

I'm EvaClaire Wright, I'm the Head of School in Austin, Texas, and I have a unique journey to this position. When I was in middle school, I went through an experience that's very similar to what many of our youth in this country face, which is, as I gained more autonomy and independence, rather than kind of reveling in that, my anxiety and depression levels started to increase. And as a result of that, I grew depressed, wasn't able to function, and went from being a straight-A student to a failing student.

Like many of our parents experienced, I suddenly wasn't the child my parents knew. I was at a top private school, but we were suddenly willing to look at options that were more alternative. At the time, I thought that was going to mean sacrifice. Instead, I found a place that was willing to see me for who I am, adults who actually wanted to get to know me. In response, I began to thrive. I was given leadership positions and ended up in my top-choice college.

What that showed me was that what our country's teens need are people who are willing to love them, care for them, give them responsibility, and true respect will work. And in response, they will be able to thrive and take on the autonomy we want them to. So rather than being a sacrifice, I gained the skills I needed and had the outcome I wanted. This role is me giving back and staying in that space I love and believe in.

There's such a sense of community at ATI, where everyone genuinely cares about each other. How do you develop these relationships with students?

My work is about community building. What I am passionate about is personal growing and community work. And we built a community between adults and students by being present and interested, and it actually is that easy. But the reason we have such a strong student community is because our students want it. They see what other high school spaces look like and they see what it does to people, and they wanted something different. So as the buy-in of every single student, it is that every single student is 

 to be at ATI, not being forced to. That creates such an incredible space.

What makes ATI special is that we treat teens like human beings. We treat them with respect and responsibility that allows them to rise up and be their best selves. ATI is special because of the relationships and because of how the adults treat the teens and how the teens treat each other. And it is desiring to be our best selves and being willing to do the work to get there.

If you truly care about someone, you hold them to high standards, because that communicates that you respect them and you believe in them. Thus, we have very high standards for our students. But you set high standards based on where a student is, so that they're realistic while also encouraging them to dream big.

My rule and my commitment is that we do not sacrifice. That means our students have a prom, they have dances, they have these big high school experiences. It also means that if they want to go to MIT, they will have the chance to go to MIT. Our program is uniquely developed to challenge students and to support them in developing as much as they're capable of, because we set goals individually and there's limitless room for growth. For instance, in math, a student could potentially move through multiple years of math if they are prepared for that level of intellectual rigor. For most students, there's going to be one area in which they are superb in and they're ready to run. Our role is actually taking schools out of the way. And there's going to be another area in which they're challenged. Humans are perfectly balanced, so this make sense.

How do you know that a student is flourishing at ATI?

Great question. A student is flourishing at ATI if they are in a space in which they are challenged, but not overwhelmed. They're doing good work, they are genuinely engaged, and they're both challenged but also working at things they're passionate about. They have strong relationships, and I think the metric for this, actually, is how they talk about themselves in their lives.

How do you see them talking about themselves in their lives?

The reason I love teenagers is because teenagers are at this very unique space in their development. They are old enough to see the world in its totality, and yet they're seeing it for the first time. It's a very unique perspective. They're seeing it all and they're trying to figure out how it all fits together and what their place is within it. And I think that, as adults and as organizations, we can benefit a lot from seeing: What do they reflect back when they see our world from this new and fresh perspective? Now, for many teens, that can feel overwhelming, and that's why the real work component is so important.

I believe that what teenagers in this country need is genuine coaching and mentorship, and real work. Students are ready to begin taking on the responsibilities of adulthood, and the only way we can support them in being strong adults is by giving them the work of adults and structuring it so that they're able to take it on slowly, little by little.

If ATI would've existed for you, what do you think your experience would've been like, knowing what you know now on the other side?

My high school experience was, in essence, version one of ATI, which is now version three. I went to a school that is the primary basis for the program. I had a very similar experience to our students, which is why I am in a unique position to be able to communicate between teens and parents. Being the parent of a teen is a big thing as students begin to individuate. It can be hard for them to communicate with their families, and it's developmentally appropriate for them to push on the edges of their independence. This is why a mentor is so important, someone who can support them in making strong decisions, because they are going to be making independent, huge decisions, while also supporting their family and making sure their family is aware of what's going on in the teen's life.

If you had to describe ATI in one word, what would it be?

ATI is adults willing to be on the front lines of an epidemic that is facing our teens in this country. Very few people, very few adults, are courageous enough to try and fix a systematic and huge problem, which is that our teenagers are suffering. We are an attempt at a solution, and we are the belief that teenagers not only are suffering for themselves, but also that they are an untapped resource, and our world is suffering because we are not tapping into it. My commitment is building the best high school in the world, and I believe we are on the pathway to that.

What gives you the most amount of joy in doing what you're doing?

Every single one of our guides and every single one of our leaders, including myself, is a coach. And that is the most important role to me. I have had students who I've seen since sixth grade, who I am with as they are sophomores and juniors, and I get to be a part of a young person's life and see them grow and see them develop. And it's the biggest honor of my life.

An interview with ATI Austin Head of School EvaClaire Wright: "What makes ATI special is that we treat teens like human beings, with respect and responsibility."

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