Josh Dahn
@josh_dahn
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ad astra. astra nova. conundrums. synthesis.
Los Angeles, California
Joined April 2021
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I had the chance of a lifetime to start Ad Astra School with
@elonmusk
for the kids of
@SpaceX
employees.
To share the best of Ad Astra with kids around the world, I started
@synthesischool
with
@chrismanfrank
My thoughts on creating enthralling education & a brighter future 👇🏼
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When I started Ad Astra School at
@SpaceX
, I kept coming back to the same conclusion:
The world needs more ethical and efficacious problem solvers.
A thread on the origins of
@synthesischool
:
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Regardless of the future we imagine for our children, and the one they imagine for themselves, we hope that they:
• Exercise good judgment
• Make sense of the world
• Collaborate to solve difficult problems
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If we want to accelerate human progress, we need a better method for training problem solvers.
At Synthesis, that’s what we’re building:
a network where students learn to think together.
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So, how do you design experiences that make for good practice?
To begin, you need an environment where mistakes are opportunities.
You need to be wrong a lot before you can understand what it feels like to be right.
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Some students want to be physicists. Others want to be poets. Some want to be both.
Most aren’t sure yet, but they want to be people who make a difference.
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We know that students want the real thing. They crave creative challenges that reflect our world.
In essence,
@synthesischool
is where students become problem solvers.
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We did not have the limitations of tradition nor any mandated structure or curriculum.
My only directive from Elon was to "make it great.”
From the terror and opportunity of that request, Synthesis was born.
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You need practice.
Unfortunately, practice is hard to come by, especially as a kid. Practice happens in sports and music, but the greater focus tends to be on discipline and execution.
If students get to exercise true agency, it often happens by accident rather than design.
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In all possible futures, these three traits stand out as essential.
Not only to prepare for the future, but to live a life of meaning and joy.
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I considered a few different approaches, but I kept returning to how Elon solved complex problems.
He could go into meetings and collaborate with employees, audit their reasoning, & communicate priorities, even when he didn't have all the context.
How can kids learn that skill?
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You need experiences that are complex yet welcoming. Collaborative yet competitive.
And more than anything, you need experiences that are highly engaging and student-centered.
Experiences have more meaning if you reflect on them and use those memories to tell your own story.
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So, how do you develop good judgment?
How do you make better sense of a complex world?
How do you learn to navigate competition and collaboration?
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So I started a class at Ad Astra called “Synthesis.”
The idea was that we need a space where everything converges:
The ability to think and work together on complex problems.
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At
@synthesischool
, we use these principles to host practice arenas for judgment, sense-making, and teamwork.
We design compelling experiences so students *feel* high-level concepts while navigating the complexities of teamwork.
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I called these experiences "simulations,” fearing parents might think "games" didn’t sound serious, but they were, in fact, games.
Not “gamified” content, but real games:
Novel challenges without instructions that required kids to practice forming and testing hypotheses.
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Students need an opportunity to face challenges together.
They need space to connect the concepts they are feeling in the tension of the game with how these concepts play out in their lives and the world.
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We offer opportunities for students to grow as collaborators and problem solvers through:
• Finding the best networks in Constellation
• Curating collections in Art for All
• Managing ecosystems in Fish
• Confronting the challenges of efficiency in Proxima
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Games help develop intuition around complex ideas.
You have to test tactics to figure out how the game works.
Then you have to evaluate the efficacy of your decisions based on how well you fare in relation to other teams.
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We feel confident that over time, our students will collaborate more effectively and be better equipped to solve thorny problems than anyone (adults included).
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Conundrums spark conversations about humanity: our values, our ideas, and our squabbles.
They capture the shades of grey inherent in the thorniest problems that schools so often miss.
Thanks to
@classdojo
, they've reached millions of kids in classrooms around the world. 🧵
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Our location at
@elonmusk
’s rocket factory made Ad Astra one-of-a-kind.
But beyond the hype and hyperbole, we had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to design a school from first principles.
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Unfortunately, traditional courses do not make you feel all that powerful of a problem solver.
Even with "world-class" faculty, it wasn't clear to me that any collection of math, science, and classics would help you accomplish much of anything in the wild.
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The path to understanding a Synthesis game is rarely linear.
It’s absolutely breathtaking to behold students testing their assumptions and making course corrections as they develop deeper understanding.
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Even if you understand what to do, your team has to organize around solving the problem,
and articulating a clear plan to your teammates is very hard under time constraints.
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The first experiences I designed were simple conundrums and case studies. Questions like:
“How would you allocate a moonshot investment in America's future?”
“How should
@Tesla
approach building out a supercharger network in South America?"
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The school was exclusive because it was small.
It was secretive because it wasn't properly zoned.
Some kids were brilliant, but kindness and eagerness to learn (& parents that worked at SpaceX) were the only criteria for admission.
We had a chemistry lab but no flamethrowers.
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Kids missed the emotion of difficult decision-making & ownership over the outcome of their choices.
So I started designing interpersonal experiences with higher levels of collaboration.
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We often hear “That’s impossible!” from new Synthesis students.
But as the game progresses, students realize that they are not alone.
They realize the expectation is not to understand everything all at once.
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I committed to listening to kids’ feedback, even when it was tough to hear.
After years of trial, error, and calamity, the investment in Synthesis started to pay off.
You could hear students talking strategy over lunch, after school, & sometimes late into the night.
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With practice, we see extraordinary growth,
not only in a student's ability to size up a novel situation and form testable hypotheses,
but also in their disposition toward the problems themselves.
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These initial Synthesis questions supported reasoning and constructive disagreement.
But once the allocations were made or the creative solutions shared, there was very little left to do other than give some feedback and move on.
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The first article written about Ad Astra called it "the most exclusive school in the world."
A few years later,
@washingtonpost
said that we "created a secretive ‘laboratory school’ for brilliant kids who love flamethrowers.”
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I’m hugely grateful to
@classdojo
for funding, marketing, and hosting Conundrums on their network.
More information on my work can be found at and
@synthesischool
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questions designed to help you disagree, constructively
conundrums seasons 1-3
*wider release this fall with
@ClassDojo
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It’s easy to despair about polarization.
But how can we improve the level of discourse at school and in our homes?
Let’s start by asking better questions.
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Conundrums are far from exhaustive, but they help kids (and us) do our own thinking.
Delight in disagreement!
Here are some highlights of newly released Conundrums👇
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The Conundrum Conundrum
Thorny problems require super collaborators.
What are the qualities we need most in our leaders?
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If you watch a Conundrum, chances are that you will not see eye to eye with your partner, friends, parents, or children.
Differences of opinion are expected, but can you disagree constructively?
Are you open to changing your mind?
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The Art Conundrum
A new art museum wants to attract the most visitors.
What collection should they acquire?
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Teachers use Conundrums to kick off a class and create space for reasoning and student voice.
Families use these questions to spark a conversation over dinner as a frame to discuss ethical dilemmas.
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The Arctic Conundrum
Three companies compete to mine the world’s most valuable mineral.
What strategy should each team pursue?
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The Tree Conundrum
Only one tree of the world’s tastiest fruit remains, and the owners want an exorbitant price for a single seed.
Should the government give in?
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The Moonshot Conundrum
Money is made available with the intention of making the world better.
What areas of investment are most likely to create the best possible future?
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The Weather Conundrum
New technology allows for the manipulation of clouds.
Under what conditions should it be used?
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The Island Conundrum
Three cooperative islands are thrown into disarray when a new island is formed between them.
What should happen next?
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The Masterpiece Conundrum
An attention-seeking industrialist wins a famous work of art at an auction.
Do they have the right to alter the painting?
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The NASA Conundrum
A space agency has to decide what programs are worth expanding.
How should the funding be allocated?
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The Speed Conundrum
A city struggles to curtail reckless driving.
Which remedies, if any, are likely to be effective?
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💛
An article from my dissertation finally getting out there - Voice as an interactional accomplishment in art making about social issues ✨
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The Ferry Conundrum
Two growing cities badly need to upgrade their dated ferry system.
Which infrastructure plan makes the most sense?
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The Light Conundrum
An explorer shines a light down the world’s deepest darkest cave.
How does light travel through darkness?
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The Game Conundrum
A non-human is the best player in the world at a popular game.
Should the robot be allowed to win a tournament originally designed for human players only?
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