"The reality is you want kids to have fun when they learn. You want them to have a space and time to develop, but I'm on the strict end of the spectrum. I believe that diamonds are created under pressure, so you need to offer a challenging environment. It's not just a case of everybody at their own pace. If you're not being pushed a little, or sometimes a lot, you're going to have a very hard time in real life. You're also missing the chance to stretch yourself and learn. You don't want to push kids until they're unhappy or they're burning out, but there always has to be room for going the extra mile, learning something new, and learning a bit faster." - Henry Motte-de la Motte
"Education is a very traditional industry, so it’s slow-moving. People tend to overestimate how much it changed with digitalization, even with COVID, and they are underestimating how much is left to change. So it means that the industry is both less advanced than people realize, but also a lot more exciting than people realize.It has very long sales cycles. It's multi-stakeholder where there's a lot of risk aversion and belief that it's someone else's problem, which is insane because if you think about it if a child is not getting the right education, it doesn't matter who you blame. The window passes once that child turns 18." - Henry Motte-de la Motte
"There are some great studies which help understand a lot more of the political perspectives that we have as we get older, which is for lack of a better term, your brain ossifies and your patterns become more established. It's evolutionary and it allows you to make faster decisions because you get past recognition. That’s why typically, as people get older, they get more conservative. Your brain is biologically less open to change and more likely to want to take shortcuts. And that's why there's this whole field around psychedelics that essentially break those pathways and give your brain the agility, quote, unquote, of someone 10, 20, 30 years younger. So that's why I'm such a big believer in getting K-12 right." - Henry Motte-de la Motte
In this episode, Jeremy Au speaks on education startup challenges and gritty reality, the standardized testing debate versus true life skills, and personal passion for learning.
Keywords: Henry Motte-de la Motte, Education Startup Challenges, Gritty Reality, Standardized Testing Debate, Personal Passion For Learning, Southeast Asia, Founder Story
