I have written a couple of posts about Alpha School over the past year. And some of them are a little sharper than what I normally write. In fact, there are three rants (1, 2 and 3) and one more moderate post. Benjamin Riley has written much more about this.

So I was quite surprised when one of my children sent me this video. While I initially thought the video would mainly be based on Benjamin’s work, I quickly noticed a few things:

• There is a whole political dimension to the story.
• There is much more nuance in the video.
• It makes a very interesting and justified link to Illich and the idea of deschooling, which now seems to be embraced by Silicon Valley and tech bros but is, in fact, at odds with what Illich stood for.

I think the video makes a crucial mistake by suggesting that Alpha School is something new in this respect. Over the past 15 years, we have already seen at least one earlier ‘wave’ of schools like these, such as Carpe Diem or the school started by Zuckerberg and his wife. You could even point to the Steve Jobs schools.

By now, all of these schools are also gone, but that does not necessarily mean that the same future awaits the Alpha schools. At the same time, I remain more than critical…