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This series shines a spotlight on the innovative edtech companies working to make a difference for students and educators.
Through conversations with the founders and CEOs, partner organizations, and the educators who are using their products in schools today, listeners hear about solutions relevant to their chronic challenges and opportunity-expanding ideas to go into uncharted directions.
Eric Makelky: All right.
Welcome to our episode with Crescanova Global.
I'm excited to be joined by Sarah Murcht and Katie Kelly.
Welcome, ladies.
I'm excited to have you on the show today.
For listeners that have never heard of Crescanova Global before could one of you just give a quick overview of what is the program, what does it look like, and what does it offer?
Katie Kelly: Absolutely.
So when we started CrescoNova, the idea was that part of our program would be an online program and part of it would be an in-person program.
So the in-person program is now called CrescoNova Labs, and the online program is called CrescoNova Global.
And what we do is we actually contract a lot of really skilled master teachers former colleagues we've had, teachers we've met through our robust teaching network, and trying to figure out the best way to bring those teachers to more students.
So how we can multiply impact of these incredible teachers and the types of curriculum that they create.
So we-- we're really looking to not create a skills-based program, even though there are lots of skills embedded in what we do.
Instead, we're really looking to how can we provide classes that are really going to get kids to love learning, to, to be curious, to spark them so that when they start seeing the world around them as a place that is full of learning opportunities.
And I think that the teachers we have are so amazing at doing that and kind of not only figuring out the interests that the students have and tapping
into those, but just asking questions and getting this discussion-based classes that that really show them how learning can happen in a different way.
So that's been our overarching goal is how can we spark and excite learners beyond just like we wanna create lifelong learners, which I know everybody hears a lot.
It's like, how do we actually do that?
So that's kind of our goal.
And we're really more of an extracurricular program more than a co-curricular program.
So we serve a lot of homeschool families.
We serve kids who are in traditional schools or even in independent schools that maybe need something extra.
And we're always looking for ways to reinvent and to rediscover both who we are and what we can do as the education landscape continues to change.
Eric Makelky: Yeah.
And the first time we met I thought it was awesome, you know, with a name like Crescanova Global, you actually have students on five different continents, so that's not just a, like a fancy title, like it is literally a global school.
You're not up to six continents yet, are you?
Sarah Merkt: Not yet.
Katie Kelly: We're working on it
Eric Makelky: And then your physical school the labs component of Crescanova is in London, correct?
Yeah.
And so when we were talking about like a theme for today's episode, the one thing that I heard you mention, and you alluded to this a little bit with like your l-love of learning and building that community, but the way you phrased it was inspired learning.
So I'm just curious Sarah, maybe you could explain what does inspired learning look like for Crescanova students?
Sarah Merkt: Yeah.
And at the heart of Inspired Learning, I think for me, came down to Kitty and I talking and asking each other questions, which is the foundation of everything we do at Crescendo.
We always are leading with questions.
We want our students to enter a class and actually come out with more questions than answers.
We want them to be curious after class and have that curiosity continue to spread.
And so we asked each other, "What's the purpose of education?" And we've asked this to many people.
We've given presentations.
We've talked to parent communities.
I've talked to my friends, even if they don't have children.
And they've said, "Oh it's inspiration.
It's wonder.
It's inquiry.
It's social-emotional development.
It's discovery.
It's confidence." And then we looked at classes that had been developed and courses and curriculum. We were like, "Are-- is-- are these classes doing that?
Are they providing this?" So how can we kind of backwards design to ensure that the learning that we're providing at Crestonova Global is inspiring that kind of learning, that
kind of discovery, and that kind of, of course, there's important skills that students need to learn, we're not denying that, but really, like, how about these abstract concepts?
How can we do that?
And so we coined this term inspired learning because we were thinking about that question.
We were thinking about as a child learns, let's take a child that loves sharks, and everything that they do is related to sharks.
How did they get that inspiration?
How did they get that spark to wanna just for hours and hours consume everything about sharks, to know even more than their parents, maybe as much of a scientist knows by the age of seven or eight, and have this really specific interest?
And so we started thinking about, okay, for even our own backgrounds in education or for something that we're really passionate about, I'm a runner, I'm a yogi, I'm a reader.
Where did that come from?
Where was it that first time that I saw someone run a marathon and I thought, "Ah, hey, I can do that"?
So we started thinking about these sparks for ourself and then also for students and came up with this idea of inspired learning, that all it takes is that spark.
It could be a question, it could be a provocation, it could be a picture, it could be meeting someone.
This spark that then takes-- that student takes that spark and then is inspired to do something more with that, maybe to build, maybe to read, maybe to study, maybe to connect.
But they're doing something with that spark.
And so we kind of are creating curriculum based on that spark, based on that idea of like, let's have a, an amazing question that maybe drives a whole 15-minute conversation based on the other questions that come off of it.
But it really is this idea of the teacher is there as a facilitator, as someone that is providing some of this provocation, but the students are really then taking it and driving.
They're really driving the learning with their thoughtful questions, with what they're creating, with what they're brainstorming.
And the teacher is there, of course, as a guide to kind of help drive conversation, to challenge, to make sure that child that might be thinking, "Oh, this is really a rigorous conversation," can still be included.
But then that student that is a really high flyer is feeling really challenged at the same time.
So the teacher is a really critical component of it.
But it really is this inspiration that students have so that after class, like I said, maybe they're going back in And continuing to build and design.
I'm teaching a class right now on, on alien design.
It's called Designing Life Beyond Earth, and I have students that are making alien skin after class.
Not something we've ever, we were ever talking about yet.
But just they were excited to continue exploring and engaging with ideas.
So really that's what we're looking for with inspired learning, and this can happen in one moment in a class.
This could be something that Katie and I both have taught in third and fourth grade respectively for a number of years.
This is something could be a whole year inspiration and spark or turn into your career and your life.
And so we've not only do that in our classes, but we also do, as a mission of Crescanova, we do wanna provide this kind of education to students like you were mentioning globally.
And so we've come up with, it's a free program that we run once a month called the Student Sparks with that exact mission to show this inspired learning.
And we bring in experts in their fields that can come in and talk about where they found their spark.
This past month two days ago, we had a rollercoaster engineer that came in and talked about just her love of playing video games and her love of rollercoasters, and then talked about how that spark initiated and inspired her career and her continued learning.
So it's something that's really important that we're able to provide in our classes, but then also to the broader community.
And our st- our Student Sparks have been really fulfilling for not only us but our entire student body.
And our next one is a little-- we'll give this away in the podcast, but our next one is going to be an Olympic athlete.
So I think that will be really exciting to have the students who now have watched someone on TV really hear about yeah, how did this person become an Olympian?
What was their spark?
What initiated that?
What inspired them?
And really that word I think just holds so much emotion and energy and action of inspiration and taking that the power of that word and helping students understand what that means and then where they can go to from there.
Eric Makelky: Yeah.
And I love your description of the inspired learning when you talk about like what happens with the student after the class.
You know, asking more questions, doing more research.
My, my favorite when I've seen this happen with my own kids is they will want to immediately come and teach me.
Like, "Dad, did you know King Tut…"
And I'm like, "Where did you get this?" But you can tell as a parent, like the fire has been lit. The kid is excited.
They wanna sh- they wanna share their learning.
They wanna see if you know what they know, because that's really a proud moment, I'm sure for your staff that are leading those learning experiences, but also for parents.
Like, that's what I want school to be for my kid and how I want my kid to act after class, as opposed to me asking, "What did you learn today?" "Oh, nothing." You know, that's not inspired learning.
I'm curious, you talked about this a little bit, Sarah, and maybe Katie, you would wanna jump in to elaborate a little more.
But I'm curious, how do you guide your staff through that process of planning for the inspired learning as opposed to what most schools do, which is take the standards, break down the skills, create an assessment?
Because what Crescando Global's doing is really the opposite of that.
So I'm just curious how does the staff approach that and build that in intentionally?
Katie Kelly: I think Sarah could speak more to actual the teacher training because she's been a huge part of creating working with our teachers and creating teacher training that's focused around like how do we personalize for students?
How do we connect with them and instead of having this whole plan of your lesson and how it's going to go, step one, step two, and then here's the ending finale,
that you're really being responsive and in the moment, which, which requires you to really be able to listen and to change and to pivot where you are on the spot.
So you can h- you can have a basic outline of where you're gonna go, but you also have to be willing to abandon that.
And I had a moment when I was early teaching at Nueva where I'd h- you know, spent so much time coming up with this perfect lesson plan, and I was teaching kindergarten and the lights went out in the middle of the lesson.
And only thing that the kids could think about was the fact that the lights were out.
And I so badly wanted to continue with my lesson, but I had this moment where I was like, "Why am I not going down this path that they're already so excited about?" So instead we just abandoned ship.
We ended up talking about where power comes from.
We walked around the school and tried to figure out what, where's-- how do we get power?
What could have happened to the power?
And it ended up being this, I think, pivotal moment for me in terms of understanding teaching is that it's, that it really shouldn't be coming from the teacher that
it really is about how we respond to the students and that a truly masterful teacher is somebody who actually can sit in the back seat and let the students drive.
And it can be kind of scary to do, but that's where the most meaningful learning comes from.
And I think that's really what builds intrinsic motivation, which is what we're so missing in schools.
And I think part of the way that we really work to do that is also not trying to put in a lot of those external rewards that, that schools do give to students,
whether it's like a check plus, you completed the worksheet, or here's an A because you lined everything up on the poster exa- and you followed directions perfectly.
That it's more about, well, how did you feel about what you did?
You know, bring, building in the self-reflection and that actually it's the process, not the product.
And I think that's really what we kind of strive to do in all of our classes, that it's not-- we're never building up to this final huge beautiful end project or poster board that's gonna wow everyone.
Instead it's gonna be like the messy, sticky learning and the sticky questions that, that really get the kids excited.
So I think it's this it's a shift in how you think about teaching and what the role of the teacher is, I think is a big piece of it
Eric Makelky: Yeah.
Well, I gotta tell you, I had a similar experience as a first-year middle school English teacher where the power went out, and I quickly realized there was no natural light coming into my classroom.
And it sounds like you handled that situation much better than I did.
I don't think I pivoted to conversations about electricity.
I think I just panicked and went and looked for a flashlight so we could get back to reading, reading books.
Sarah I'm curious, do you feel like this is something that you can teach teachers to almost let go of that control and allow students to help drive the ship?
I'm sure some of this has to do with the individuals that you hire to teach for Crest Canova Global.
Like, you have to have some experience with that approach, which is very different than traditional, you know, sage on the stage, I'm gonna, I'm gonna lecture, and you're gonna comply and get a check mark.
But do you wanna elaborate a little bit on, like, how you develop that with your staff and how-- I'm just curious how much of that is inherent and how much of that is taught and learned with teachers?
Sarah Merkt: Yeah.
Comp- such, such a great question.
I mean, we have some teachers who truly are master teachers and are in their 70s and 80s, and so I'm learning from them still.
And they would-- I'm sure that they would say they're learning from me in some ways but truthfully, they are master teachers.
They've been doing this for so many years.
But some of our younger teachers I've started to kind of co-teach a few classes, which has really provided me a really good glimpse into how are people going about planning their lessons and how are they actually doing this in the classroom.
Because as much as, you know, I wanna be in the classroom seeing what's going on and talking with the, to the students and everything, that's kind of distracting sometimes to, to have someone else sitting in class.
So it's been really foundational for me to understand that, and I think recently my class will bring up Designing Life Beyond Earth, the alien-focused class.
The spark for that was that a student said, "How does Hollywood design aliens?" And so it came from that question.
And we do know that students love space and aliens, but I think that specific question, how do they design for aliens when we don't know if they exist or not?
And so I reached out to one of our science teachers We started planning.
And I was watching her plan as we were planning our first class together, and I was like, "This is very different seeing a science-based teacher." I'm humanities, but I try to do as much interdisciplinary learning as I can.
Because even though she's just such an incredible teacher, there was a lot less kind of that inquiry that was being brought in that I was like, "I think we can do more of this."
So I kind of shared with her how I would set up this type of provocation for the beginning of a class.
And she since has just, like, taken off with some of how I helped to structure this with her.
So, we were talking about aliens, and so I was like, "Instead of just talking about how we define a living thing, let's put up some pictures and ask students if they think they're living or not."
So, you know, we had things like a fire, and some students, like, thought a fire was living because they're like, "It's growing.
It's burning.
It's, like, it can take things over.
It can…" So we started talking about that, and then we put up bacteria versus a virus.
Then we put up a fossil.
So then we put up these provocations where people are like, "It is living."
Well, it was, but now it's not.
But so then we have things that it's, it-- there are, like I said, there's more questions than answers that are being left with.
And so from that, that could have been almost an entire class of us just trying to define what a living thing is, and then us at the end saying, "Could aliens break these rules?"
Once we had defined what it was, then we're like, "Are aliens breaking rules?
We don't know.
What rules could they break?
C-could they be different?" So, you know, kind of, kind of just driving, for example, science, which I do think as generally being a lot more like, here are some things that we do have to learn, then we can engage and learn with those things.
Sometimes people come up to us and be like, "How are you really differentiating with science and with the math focus? How are you really embracing
wonder and inquiry with science?" Which of course is filled with hypothesis, but there also are a lot of facts and things to learn and engage with.
So for me, I really sit down with teachers, and I'm looking at how are you introducing this topic?
How are you bringing in questioning?
How are you relating this, you know, philosophically to what the students are doing themselves at this developmental stage and where they are in understanding, for example, what makes something living or not.
And I think the beauty of good questions like that is I could teach this class to six-year-olds, I could teach this class to 10-year-olds.
And if you have a strong enough class and question and things like that, it naturally just differentiates 'cause I would just push the 10, 11-year-olds.
They might have different ideas, but I might just push it more.
I might-- maybe I'll throw in a different, maybe I'll throw in AI, I don't know, and see if they think it's living or not.
Just j- I would maybe add some more different examples.
But really k- I do have, like, an actual formula of eight steps that I take when I'm planning my own curriculum, so they can see that.
I share all of the different lesson plans that I've done, that I've taken time to write up.
I did not do that, I will say, at the time that I was teaching these things many years ago, but I have since gone back and kind of shared then my process of that.
And I think so much of it is mentoring them to come up with their own way of doing it.
Katie and I actually do have a really similar way that we plan curriculum but there are teachers that do things very differently than I do.
So I, I think I'm also honoring what they do and what they bring in while also then providing feedback on, like, a really interesting way they might approach that or coming up with another idea.
But them knowing that, of course, like, with how they are teaching their class, there's complete autonomy.
I'm there to provide a suggestion.
Just like I'm giving feedback to children, I always say you know, "This is a suggestion for you. It's not something that you need to definitely incorporate into your poem or into your writing, but here's a suggestion of how it might be better."
But it is an actual formula, and it also is an abstract process of me sitting down or going on a walk and talking with a teacher about ideas that we could have for future workshops or future classes.
We ask students ideas for sparks and then guide them through that process, really beginning with that question a- kind of adding in some
more questions throughout that could really structure the different weeks that we have of classes and then kind of building in those skills.
So, so what skills do we have in this Designing Life Beyond Earth, right?
We do have some science-based skills that you could see in the standards.
We do have writing skills.
We do have reading skills.
We have collaboration skills.
So there's so much that if we did need to look at California state standards or whatever state we're looking at, we easily could do that.
But that isn't something that we're leading with.
We're leading with that curiosity, that wonder, that spark, and then we bring bring those skills in later and ensure that there is something that
the students are going to be grappling with and that's going to really enrich what they're already learning or what they're bringing into the class.
Eric Makelky: Yeah.
Which contrasted to traditional public education.
You know, you walk in a classroom and not only is the skill the focus and the standard the focus, that's the objective on the board, and the teacher is saying, "Today we will learn how to describe the steps
of the scientific process." And I've always, as a former administrator, I've always chuckled 'cause I've worked in districts that have required that, and it's like, do you really think that's benefiting kids?
Because I can tell you with 100% certainty it is not.
When you were describing the alien course, Sarah, you mentioned like this could be taught to eight-year-olds or could be taught to 10-year-olds.
You had me thinking, this sounds like it could be a college course.
Like these are some really high level abstract concepts that I don't remember from child development what age students formulate the object permanence part of the brain.
But I think when I was seven I would've had a hard time juggling that.
And I was curious if you could lay out explicitly for listeners what are the age ranges for Crescanova Global Courses and what would the differences look like in an age band in a typical class?
Sarah Merkt: Yeah and I think of course there's we do have from time to time students that are in both bands at the same time, depending on their needs, because I think something that we really
try to fit is if we have students that are, let's say, the really high flyers in STEM, but it- maybe they need a little bit more support in humanities, we might offer different things to them.
But our classes right now are six to eight years old for lower elementary students, and then we have eight to 11 year olds for our upper elementary students.
We've dabbled with 12 to 13 year olds being in another band.
And as we've began, you know, three years ago, now our eight-year-olds that started at that time are ready for the slightly older band.
So that's currently our state of offerings.
As Katie said, we are constantly iterating, so who knows what that will be in the future.
But for right now that's where we are.
And yeah, I think just the asynchronicity that we can see across students is something that we're really thoughtful of.
And with the ages, Katie and I had many conversations and questions about this when we started, of how to do that best.
And I think so much of it is socially.
We've had classes where, you know, our youngest six-year-olds were with-- There was, like, a nine-year-old in the class, and just socially that didn't feel, maybe that six-year-old didn't feel as you know… They're- it's, like, one of their
first Zoom classes, and they're with this nine-year-old that's carrying themself, and they're playing around with the Zoom filter at the beginning of class before the teacher has, you know, said, "Okay, that's not one of our expectations."
But we just try to be thoughtful about that because we want every student to feel successful, and we found that grouping them in this way has been the most successful.
Of course, there's outliers, but majority are in those two bands.
Eric Makelky: Great
Katie Kelly: And we originally started looking at starting at age five was kind of what we were originally thinking.
And just like you were saying, Eric, there are some developmental things that happen in younger kids, five, six, seven that s- in some ways we found that most five-year-olds aren't ready to attend.
There are cases where they are, but I think that some of the skills that students do have, you know, even as their prefrontal cortex develops they're able to sit and attend to things a little bit longer.
They have the reading and writing skills that to be able to access some of the higher level information.
So we found that six is kind of a sweet spot for starting, but we have had parents who have said, "I have this five-year-old who's already taken some online programs, and I think they'd be really
interested." And usually what we'll do is I'll just set up a time to sit on the computer with the child and have a conversation and see, and sometimes it is a great fit and they are ready to start early.
So I think that we did set ages, but we w- with everything we wanna, we do wanna be flexible with it because there are stages, you know, we're, we're-- that we're trying to look at versus the exact age of the child.
Eric Makelky: Yeah.
That make, that makes total sense.
One, one other question about the kind of course offering format.
Can you explain to listeners, you know, how long does a typical class last and how often are they meeting?
'Cause I'm sure that's a question that you get a lot from parents is, does my young elementary age child have the, you know, computer stamina to stay engaged in a virtual setting?
So can you talk a little bit about those details?
Katie Kelly: Yeah, absolutely.
Our courses generally meet for about six to eight weeks and they meet once a week.
So depending on what works best for your child's schedule, it could be an after school during the week.
We do have some classes that meet on the weekends.
We always are trying to hit multiple time zones.
That's one of the things about being a global program is, you know, sometimes we'll have a class and someone's in a time zone, they've said, "Oh, I really wish I could take this class,
but it's at 2:00 in the morning for us." So that's something that Sarah and I are always creatively problem-solving is how, if there is a need for a class, how do we f- how do we fill it?
But so we do-- we are very open to parents always reaching out to us and saying, "I'd really love to see this.
I have a group of a couple kids who would be interested," and we'll say, "Oh, absolutely, we'll make it happen." But we structure our classes, most of our classes meet for 50 minutes, which we've found that for
elementary age students, 50 minutes is kind of the sweet spot in terms of really 50 minutes, I think even as an adult is probably kind of the max of a really strong attentiveness during a class or during any- anything.
But what's interesting is that even with those 50 minutes, I'm teaching a class right now called Future City Design, and we consistently
go over an hour just because the kids are so engaged in what we're talking about that they just, they're not ready to end the class.
And I'm, I think our teachers are always willing to stay on for those extra conversations.
But I think that we've found that we've tried to do some longer classes.
We have, we do have some classes that have gone for 12 weeks long, which is, which has been nice.
And then during the summer, we actually change our programming a lot in terms of that we do one week long workshops, or we'll do just one day, kind of couple hour workshop seminars that
are a really great way when the chaos of all of the scheduling of the summer, you know, if there's a holiday, that would be a day that we would definitely have some workshops be available.
So if there's not camp, that there's another way that your child could be engaged during the year.
So we're just like during the year, we're looking to kind of be a supplemental program versus you're not sending kids to an online camp for the whole summer on the computer because that's not what we would want either.
Kids need to be with other kids and get out and play and experiment and so we're just looking to how can we add that extra, especially during the summer, add that extra spark that maybe you're getting during the school year but are missing during those summer
Eric Makelky: Yeah.
And that's a big need on parents' list for sure.
Not just what is my kid gonna be doing, but I wanna make sure they're still intellectually challenged and engaged and developing.
I'm curious the courses you've mentioned sound fascinating.
How do you come up with the topics for the courses you're teaching?
Sarah Merkt: Yeah, kind of like I was talking about with inspired learning, like provocations that I have walking down the street, listening myself, listening to podcasts and being inspired.
So like I think there's a podcast Everything Is Alive, I believe, and then I'm like, "Oh, I could teach anthropomorphism. Oh, could we come up with a podcast inspired by that?"
So it can be honestly anything, and that is the best thing.
Right now we're preparing for a talk that we're doing, and we're going to prove this to our community.
We're going to be giving them a variety of objects and ask them to create curriculum based on these objects.
And so this is something Katie and I love doing ourselves, but it really comes from listening to the students.
We always are asking them what they would love to learn about.
We've had parents come to us and say we have a lot of parents asking us to teach about government and politics, which has been interesting.
But they you know, but we have.
We've had, we had a teacher that took that request and taught like the dawn of ancient civilizations and did an entire an interesting class just about like the origins of government, and the students absolutely loved that kind of going back far into time.
And so I think it can come from our entire community, but also from the teachers themselves things that they're interested in.
And I think that's something that, that our teachers are phenomenal at, being like, "This is a really novel new idea.
This is innovative.
This isn't something I've seen before," or, "This is a twist on a different topic."
And just like being in community with them, since I kind of am holding together all the teachers I see all these ideas, and so I'm easily able to kind of
shoot them off ideas, be like, "Oh this person said this. What do you think about developing that for that?" And kind of try to bring together this community.
We work with all contracted teachers at this point, so it's not, you know, we don't have a full staff outside of Katie, myself, and a few other people that are running the organization.
All of our teachers are contracted.
So, if and when we grow just a little bit more, we might get some full-time teachers on staff.
But right now it just kind of comes internally from our own interests, from our parents, and of course from our students and from Ka-Katie
herself has a few children, and she's always like, "You know what a really interesting idea they came to me with?" And then she'll share that.
And oftentimes we have a teacher that's excited to develop curriculum around that.
So, that freedom, that autonomy that we provide our teachers themselves being really interested in creating these novel classes for kids, our parents being a really big part of our community, constantly in contact with us
and sharing just how much their child's enjoying class or new ideas and us just being generators and being, we do re-offer classes, but it might be like once every three years, so it really is all new classes all the time.
Katie Kelly: And I think this also speaks to a little bit about what you were saying about how we find our teachers or how we train our teachers.
I think one of the things when we hire teachers is that we're looking for people who aren't just passionate about teaching, but are passionate about learning.
We want people who are going to go out into the world and say, "Oh, this is interesting," or, "I can learn a new skill."
We have one teacher who did have background in teaching, but she also worked as an ambassador at the San Francisco Zoo, and before that was a marine biologist, so has this really specific scientific content knowledge that she's super passionate about.
And so she's able to, you know, kids are interested in sharks, she can sit down and talk about sharks for five hours, probably more than that.
So I think that there's a piece of it also that, you know, just as adults we model how to be this type of learner by showing them how we do it ourselves too, and that we are those types of people who love to keep learning and love to keep growing.
So I think that there's a piece of it, this passion piece that we look for in the people in our community, that the best way we can get kids to be passionate is if we have adults who are passionate.
And I even feel it myself sometimes, and I know other teachers too, if we teach a class more than once I'll be like it was a great class, but I'm ready for something new." You know, like I just taught codes and ciphers again.
It was a great different different way to look at cryptology and, but I'm ready to move on.
I'm ready for a new topic.
So, I think that's, this can be the same way with kids sometimes.
Eric Makelky: Yeah.
You're making me think what I've told teachers my whole career.
Above all else, your responsibility is to be a good role model to your students.
And, you know, there's been a lot of talk in the last five to 10 years about, like, teacher shortages.
And as I've had those discussions with current teachers, I've asked them, like: Do you think kids look at you every day as someone who loves their job?
Because if you're stressed and miserable, you're not really inspiring kids to wanna follow in your footsteps.
And I think above the content knowledge and the pedagogy, like, do you enjoy, and can kids tell you enjoy teaching when you're leading student learning?
Because I think that's really what separates great teachers from just teachers.
So those are hard to find 'cause when you have teachers like that they're worth their weight in gold.
And then they can teach anything, especially with your cross-curricular approaches with the different topics.
Sarah Merkt: It also, I think is the students wanting to take our classes, because oftentimes our homeschool learners, of course, are-- this is a piece of their puzzle, but we also have students, like Katie said, that come in after school.
And normally students are not wanting to jump back on and re-engage with something that's very, you know, similar to school but a little bit different in terms of enrichment, potentially depending on their school.
But we have parents saying for our Saturday classes saying, "My child would never have wanted to take a Saturday class, and now that's all they wanna do." And so I think it's also like our students are self-selecting to stay with the teachers.
Once they meet a teacher, they stay with that teacher until they kind of maybe age out or age to the next band if that teacher only teaches in one band.
So I think it's also like the students are seeing that in the teacher.
They're seeing that excitement and that interest level in what the t- what the teacher is bringing, and they are giving up their Saturday morning.
So they might sleep in if they're in an earlier time zone or the middle of the day.
They might be rearranging their sports practice.
So they also are choosing that, and that's something that we also really say to our parents, like, "You're ch- we're asking that your child is choosing this. Not only
you but your child is wanting to do this." And yes I think it's very clear we've been very lucky with our students in our classes that they actively want to be there.
They don't want class to end.
And that is just such a gift as a teacher to have that interest and that excitement around what you're doing.
Eric Makelky: Yeah.
And I'm glad that you brought up the parent perspective.
I'm curious, do you hear a lot of apprehension from parents when they're-- they, they know that their child would benefit from this inspired learning, and there may be kinda lack in that spark in their regular school experience?
Is one of the big hesitations from parents that my kid's never been on a Zoom course, and maybe I'm almost punishing them in their own mind by going to school on a Saturday?
How do you navigate that conversation with parents as they're considering Crescanova Global?
Katie Kelly: Well, I actually as a parent, even though I've been with Cresco Nova since the beginning, I have a s- just turned just
seven-year-old who actually started taking Cresco Nova classes, well, right before he turned seven and I was also very wary of this.
He has not been on a computer very often.
Didn't know if he would enjoy going on a class when he got home from school.
And I think that the biggest thing is if the content is interesting enough, the kids will be engaged.
And It's what I saw from him.
He very quickly went from wanting to sit at my desk in more public space to, "I wanna take your laptop back to my room and sit at my desk 'cause this-- I'm-- I have a very important class I need to attend to."
And I think that it is not for everyone.
We do have some kids who will say, "You know, maybe this wasn't quite the right fit for right now, and maybe we could try it again when they get a little bit older." Or maybe it's not the right class.
I think that sometimes if the parent selects the class versus the student being a part of the class selection, that also can can play a role in how interested they are.
But one of the things with… we're a small enough program, and we really value the community, so that once you become part of a Cresco Nova parent, you'll be hearing from Sarah and from me pretty regularly.
And the last thing that we'd ever want is for a student to be in a class where it wasn't the right fit.
So if a student does try out a class and it's not the right thing, we absolutely will, you know, refund the money to the parent or figure out is there another class that they could try out instead.
Another thing that I, as a learning consultant for Cresco Nova Global, that's another piece of what we do, is we offer free learning consultations for parents.
So, anyone who is homeschooling or maybe they're wondering is the public school the right place for their student or am I in the right independent school that just as, you know, with
our background in education and in consulting, that we do offer that as part of what we do complimentary for parents who are either considering or already a part of Cresco Nova classes.
And that can be everything from recommendations for how to build certain skills in a non-worksheet way at home or even other programs that do something similar to Cresco Nova, because we aren't
trying to be everything, and I think that was really freeing for us, is that instead of trying to be an entire school program, we really get to pick which parts of it we want to focus on.
So that's something that I think with any of our classes, we always try to work with parents, make sure it's the right fit.
Another suggestion I often have for parents is that a great way to try out Cresco Nova is our Sunday Sparks.
We have them once a month.
They're completely free, so you can go onto our site And register and you'll get the Zoom link.
And that can be a great way to start because that's more of a webinar style format where someone's presenting, but it does at least have the student first be used to and comfortable with what Zoom looks like.
It can be a way that parents can show them some of the little functions of how to turn, you know, how to mute yourself or unmute yourself if you wanna ask a question how to use the raise hand function if you wanted to do that.
So I, I do think I'll often suggest to parents that's a great way to start if those times work.
And if they don't, as I said I'm always willing to meet with a student online and just to gauge their interest.
How does it feel to sit online?
What are you interested in learning?
And even just a 10-minute conversation can usually spark the kid to say, "Oh, that was kind of, that was kinda interesting. I'd like to try it again." So that's usually-- It's not a one-size-fits-all.
No, no education is.
I think that's why we're trying to do-- What we're trying to do is we're trying to fit, we're trying to fit for some kids where maybe they just need, they need something more.
So we're always willing to work with the parents, and I think just l- we're always looking at what's in the best interest of the child.
Eric Makelky: Yeah.
And I love how you mentioned that consulting piece with the parents, 'cause I'm sure that's a question you get often 'cause parents, if they're choosing to homeschool
or explore other online opportunities just trying to figure out how do I put all those pieces together as a parent to make sure my kid's getting what they need.
There just aren't a lot of resources for parents who are in that situation and making those decisions, and I know there's a lot of apprehension.
Just, you know, friends I have that have made changes with their own kids' education tell me repeatedly, like, "Eric, we'll see how it goes. I don't know if I'm doing the right thing."
And that's really scary as a parent.
So I love how that's offered complimentary to all of your parents.
I would assume do most parents take advantage of that?
Katie Kelly: We do have a lot of parents take advantage of it.
And I-- everything from having me look at all of the programs that their homeschool child is doing and saying, "Is this too much?
Is this not enough?
Am I leaving anything out?" I've also worked with parents who are in schools and they are having a hard time advocating for their child within the school, and so I'll actually help
them to write an email or to look over an email that they wanted to send to the school administration and coach them through the process of, you know, going and asking for extra help.
'Cause I think that what's so hard for any parent is that you can get advice from other parents, but no, their children aren't the same as yours.
So it's everybody's speaking only to their own experience in a school or a place, and that doesn't always translate.
And then there's the teacher perspective, where I think without having the teacher perspective, you don't know am I being too demanding as a parent?
So I think that we were able to offer a little bit of a different perspective for them and just really to be a sounding board, 'cause I think that's one of the things about being a parent with kids in
school who need something else and realizing they need something else, is that it can f- it can feel very isolating sometimes as a parent and not really knowing, not really having someone else to talk to.
Eric Makelky: Yeah I hear that a lot from parents just feeling like they're on an island and, you know, "I've tried to bring up some topics or requests with my kid's teacher, but I'm afraid that then they're gonna be mad and take it out on my kid, and
then they'll have an even worse experience." And sometimes that ball just gets rolling in the parent's head, and they end up not advocating for their child or not finding what their kid needs even though they know they're lacking or struggling in school.
Katie Kelly: Mm-hmm.
Sarah Merkt: Yeah
Eric Makelky: Well, thank you ladies.
I'm really excited about our first episode together, and I think our next episode we're really gonna dig in on w-what does Crescanova p- Global look like for parents which I'm excited to have that conversation next.
So thank you for joining the show today.
Katie Kelly: Thank you so much, Eric