I Found the School For My Future Kids

Read time: 5 minutes

Welcome to The Ascend Archives, a weekly newsletter where I share a story about a transformation, revelation, or change in thinking that has improved an aspect of my life.

Last week, I was listening to a podcast with the principal of Alpha, a private school here in Austin.

Alpha’s model is radical:

• Make school fun (so fun that kids would rather be there than on vacation)

• Kids learn 2x times the amount of traditional school in 2 hours per day

• Push kids to do hard things with high standards and high support

That last phrase….high standards and high support really hit me.

Because it reminded me of Coach Griff.

I met Coach Griff when I was eleven years old, stepping into middle school basketball practice. Most coaches at that level taught the basics: a couple of plays, maybe a zone defense, a few shooting drills.

Not Griff.

He coached us like we were the varsity team. We ran the same motion offense as the high schoolers. We studied the same defensive gameplans. We pressed full-court while other middle school teams just tried to dribble the ball across half court.

And then there were the sidelines.

At the end of every practice, he lined us up for conditioning drills that the varsity team usually did. It was a progression from four lengths of the court in 15 seconds. Eight in 30. Twelve in 45. Sixteen in a minute. If one player missed the time, we all ran again.

It was brutal. But he knew we were capable. 

I still remember setting up cones in the street outside my house one summer just to practice those sprints on my own. I didn’t want to be the guy who slowed the team down.

Because of those sidelines, we became one of the best-conditioned teams in the area. We could press full-court the entire game, smothering teams that couldn’t keep up.

And Griff balanced the brutality of those sidelines with care.

After every practice, he sat in a chair at mid-court and had us gather around. He’d recap what we did well, what needed work, and he’d remind us he believed in us. Before we left, every player had to shake his hand. It was our ritual…a moment of appreciation and one-on-one feedback before heading home.

High standards. High support. Every single day.

That’s the same philosophy Alpha is built on.

At Alpha, kids don’t sit in classrooms for six hours a day slogging through worksheets. They master the core subjects in just two hours, thanks to AI tools that assess each child’s exact level and build a custom learning path. Instead of wasting time on material that’s too easy or too hard, kids move at their own pace and actually double the amount they learn. The rest of the time is for life skills and hard challenges.

One of the second-grade guides decided her students could all run a 5K in under 35 minutes. Parents thought it was impossible. But on day one, she had the kids walk the entire distance together. It took them over an hour, but suddenly the impossible looked doable.

Each day, they ran a little more and walked a little less. Slowly, the class built up their endurance. And by December, every single second grader crossed the finish line under the target pace.

The parents were stunned. The kids were ecstatic. And the deeper lesson was clear: kids can do hard things when you set a high standard and give them consistent support.

If I’d gone to a school like Alpha, I would’ve thrived. I did well in school, but I didn’t love it. Unless a subject really hooked me, I was just going through the motions.

Imagine learning probability not from a dusty stats textbook, but by reading books about poker legends and studying hands with your friends. That’s what Alpha is doing: teaching the same skills, but in ways that feel alive.

At Alpha, life skills aren’t an afterthought. The principal explained how most kids hate public speaking. I can relate as I never liked it either. But instead of forcing kids to rehearse a stiff speech, they reframed it as a post-game press conference. After a trip to an Austin FC match, each student had to step up to the mic and answer questions like a pro athlete. Same skill, totally different experience. I would’ve loved that.

It made me think about my own schooling. I’m grateful for public school. My classes gave me enough of a foundation to get into my dream college and build the life I have today. But there was a lot of wasted time. I still remember sitting in history class watching movies or clicking through online videos that were supposed to teach us major parts of history. My teacher knew there were better ways to keep us engaged, but the system demanded he teach to the standard curriculum instead of tailoring it to where we actually were.

That’s why Alpha’s values resonate so deeply with me.

For most of my life, I assumed I’d send my kids to public school because it worked well enough for me. But for the first time, I caught myself thinking: maybe there really is a better way.

High standards and high support didn’t just make me a better basketball player.

They gave me the belief that I could do hard things.

That belief carried me up Kilimanjaro. It got me across the finish line of a 70.3 Ironman. It’s what gave me the courage to walk away from a steady paycheck and start my own business.

And one day, when I do have kids, that’s the lesson I hope they’ll learn too: you’re capable of more than you think.

Thank you for reading! As always please reply and let me know what resonated, what didn’t, or what you question. I love chatting about this stuff!

Cheers,

Andrew

P.S. See below for the podcast episode on Invest Like The Best (It’s long but worth it!)