People are always talking about how they want the best of both worlds. Well, with this new company, KaiPod, you can! My guest on today’s episode, Amar Kumar, created a new learning environment of microschools that combines self-paced online learning with the social components of traditional school. He shares what led to this new way of school and learning and how you can be part of it as well.

After witnessing the vast difference in the academic level of his students and trying to find a curriculum that meets the needs of every student, he came up with the idea of KaiPod, a learning center of microschools that runs on student-driven learning. Amar describes what’s unique about his company, particularly in the area of learning, and how personalized learning benefits students and their motivation. With this teacher-led microschool, he shares how this can be a great opportunity for educators who are looking to move beyond the traditional classroom but still keep the connection with kids at the forefront.

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Lily

Amar Kumar is an education entrepreneur who is passionate about making learning more personal and more social and more engaging. He is the founder of KaiPod learning, which helps teachers start their own microschools. In his past experience. Amar was a high school math teacher and a principal at a high needs rural school in India.

Lily

Welcome, Amar. So glad to have you here.

Amar

Thank you so much for having me.

Lily

Well, I always start off with the same gigantic question when I started interviews, which is really tell me about your professional journey.

Amar

Thanks for, thanks for asking. And yeah, it is a gigantic question. I didn't start off as an educator, even though most of my adult life and even into like high school and college, I always loved teaching and tutoring, I didn't start off that way actually started off as a computer scientist, and worked in that field for a number of years.

Amar

But there was something just this itch in the back of my back of my brain that said, I gotta do something different. I gotta teach. And I think it was something in my mid 20s, where I said, Okay, I can't do this computer science thing anymore. Like, I got to actually you can get in front of kids and teach them. But I didn't have any qualifications or any certifications.

Amar

So I found a different way to teach, which is as a volunteer in a classroom in India, and it was a school of it was a school run by a nonprofit with kids from local villages and orphanage. And these really sort of kids who had struggled in life and their families had struggled in life, this this nonprofit created a school for them. And they were looking for volunteers to help teach.

Amar

And I said, I raised my hand, I said, I want to come to India. So I moved to teach them when I was in my mid 20s, a lot of flexibility. When I started off teaching high school math.

Amar

As a first time teacher, I faced all the things that first time teachers face of oh my goodness, like how am I going to create a lesson plan every single day, and I knew what the curriculum was, and I had books and content, but like, I had to create the lesson plan. And then I figured that out.

Amar

And then I faced what I think was, for me the hardest part of teaching, which is you know, I had 35 students in my class. And they faced this, they have this incredible range of skill sets in the subject that I'm teaching, right since high school math.

Amar

So I had kids who were probably in the 10th percentile who, you know, couldn't even add two digit numbers together. And they're in high school geometry. And then on the other on the spectrum, I had kids who are in the 99th percentile who are ready for college level math, but they were sitting learning the Pythagorean theorem.

Amar

And I only have one voice, one lesson plan a day, and I have to somehow reach all of the kids in that spectrum. And this is something that probably will resonate with every single teacher, this is probably the hardest part of teaching. For me, it wasn't all the extra work. It wasn't all the other duties it was every day, it just felt like I wasn't reaching the kids.

Amar

And so I became a school principal, eventually. And then in that role, I started to sort of more personally deliver learning through small groups. I would pull the kids out of the daily lesson and give them a preview for the next day, etc. So did all this small group stuff, which all held right, all of it sort of, you know, on the margins helped kids improve.

Amar

But the core job that I was being asked to do, I felt was broken. And so I said, Okay, teaching is not right for me. So I gotta do something else. And so I then did a bunch of other work in education that eventually, you know, fast forward, it led me to work for an online learning company, where teachers would create content and lesson plans in all the different subjects, but the delivery of that would be done online.

Amar

And so students could then watch your video at their own pace, they could move faster through the content, whether it was a video or a self paced exercise, they could submit homework when they were ready, or they could take a little extra time with it. And so basically, it was like sort of regular teaching and learning. But we released the constraints of everyone doing the same thing at the same time.

Amar

And of course, all of these wonderful things started to happen where kids who were accelerated and gifted, were making two to three semesters of progress in one year, kids who were struggling or remediate, or we wouldn't call them remedial, were actually starting to catch up at their own pace, rather than falling further and further behind.

Amar

And everyone else in between said, I love working at my own pace. I love choosing my adventure. But then, of course, in the pandemic hit, and everyone realized some of these challenges of online learning, which are lack of social opportunities that are consistent. Parents have to play a very active role in supporting these online learners, etc.

Amar

And so that's where this idea for a KaiPod which is the company I founded came about which is what if you could pair the learning experience of an online school with all the wonderful social experiences of an in person school.

Amar

So we create these small microschools or small learning pods, where students are on their own academic pathway in any curriculum of their choice moving at whatever pace is right for them. But they're sitting together in a room with a learning coach, fighting them all those just in time supports that they need. So that's what brings me to today.

Lily

Yes, I love that so much. And I identify with so many parts of your story. I think as a teacher, I also I taught kindergarten, but it was the same deal. You know, sometimes kids came in really never seen the alphabet before. And other kids came in reading novels.

Lily

And I think some of the internal frustration that I found as a teacher was just knowing that all of the kids in my classroom needed this personalized support. And also knowing that as one person, I couldn't give them all the things that they needed. So I appreciate kind of your opening up that question of like, what does personalized learning really look like?

Lily

And also the flip side of the limitations of it of like, yes, the social part, and the school experience, also has value. So I think it's really interesting putting those both together into these microschools. So can you tell us a little bit about how KaiPod learning works?

Amar

Yeah, happy to. So there's a couple of things that are unique about us. Essentially, we run a network of these learning centers across the country. And so when a family finds out about us, or is interested in learning more, the first question we sort of navigate with them is, what is the right curriculum or learning experience for your child?

Amar

And that can involve things like, you know, are you interested in the College and Career Pathway? Are you interested in some other passions for the child? Are they more self paced? Are they do they require more executive functioning support? So we ask them a lot of questions that help us understand, okay, let's pick the right curriculum for your kid.

Amar

And that curriculum could be an online school, it could be workbooks, it could be something that's a hybrid of the two. That's the first thing that families pick with us as the curriculum for the child. And that's part of goal setting.

Amar

And the second thing we say, okay, we invite them into a KaiPod Learning Center. So then the child sort of brings that laptop or that workbook with them into that learning center every day. And then they start to sort of integrate with the rest of the pod.

Amar

And so the pod could be 10 to 12 kids supported by learning coach, and these learning coaches are all classroom teachers, former classroom teachers, who said, the thing I loved about teaching was being with kids, it wasn't lesson planning, it wasn't homeworks, or tests, it was being with kids and helping them sort of understand the right next thing for them, and providing them those social and emotional support circuits.

Amar

So we look for educators for whom that is their core passion. And we invite them to become learning coaches, instead of learning coach tested a child who's just joined, okay, like, you know, today, you're going to start lesson one of your new online curriculum, let's set a goal for the day, let's have you start working independently.

Amar

And that learning coach is starting to build that child's skills, that child's executive functioning skills, their understanding and mastery of their own content, eventually getting to the point where the child directs their own day, and they're out there kind of on their own pathway.

Amar

And then, of course, throughout the day, these kids aren't on computers all day, right? Like, the academic part is only about two to three hours of the day. The rest of the day is lots of enrichment activities, social time, board game time, outdoors, time, self directed project time, right?

Amar

So feels like a full school day where you're doing academics and you're very engaged in the things that kind of drive passionate for kids. So that's what KaiPod does. So that's my type of learning environment and our microschool looks like.

Lily

Yeah, so interesting. I mean, I think that seems really fun as a kid to be able to have both the academic freedom and agency and also the social support and community that goes along with learning.

Lily

I'm curious, a little bit just for my like, love of curriculum of the curriculum behind like, what are kids working on? Is that something that is created by KaiPod? Or is it self direct? You know, does students have some freedom to bring things in? How does that work?

Amar

Yeah, we don't we're really clear that we don't want to create our own curriculum. Because one, I believe that there is a lot of great high quality content already out there. And it's continuing to get better by people who really care about that.

Amar

And then number two, I very much believe in family and student choice and agency when it comes to curriculum. And if I built my own, then there would be sort of a pressure to use my curriculum.

Amar

And so by not creating our own curriculum, we're intentionally saying to families, we value your ability to choose, and we have lots of options. We have lots of opinions on what works well, what doesn't work well. We give recommendations, but ultimately the family decides what's right.

Amar

And there's a lot of public online curriculum available. There's lots of private options available, there are fully sort of curriculum and a box options available, there are some that are more ala carte options that families can pick.

Amar

A lot of families actually like creating it on their own. Like, you know, we have some families in our network, like, for example, one who's a history professor, so at a university, so she actually wants to create the history curriculum for her child, and that she's like, I can do it better than anyone else. Right.

Amar

So we love that flexibility and agency for the family. And we have seen that allowing them to pick actually increases the students buy in on the learning. It's not because some some faceless bureaucrat somewhere decided what they're going to learn. It's that child and their family decided, and that has really helped increase student's engagement and motivation.

Lily

Yeah, so interesting. I mean, I can imagine that because also, it's like, so limited, any type of curriculum, and I say this as a curriculum developer, is limited in that the scope, but you know, and in what kids will connect with, and all the things.

Lily

So I think giving the freedom from the beginning and giving lots of options is a really interesting model and allows all the different interests and strengths and areas of growth to be kind of captured along that spectrum.

Amar

Exactly. There's no one perfect curriculum, right. And there's certainly there's no one perfect curriculum for every child. I think that's not controversial.

Amar

But even for any one child, no one curriculum will meet all of their needs. So we should be open to more of an ala carte approach, and more pluralism in this space. And I think hypotheses really leaning into that, that model.

Lily

Yeah, interesting. So tell me a little bit just about the creation of KaiPod. I'm sure that you know where it is. Now. It's not necessarily where it started in your brain and kind of how it's evolved over time.

Amar

I think initially, in my brain, it was going to be a full replacement for all learning for every kid. And then of course, within like, 30 seconds, I realized, no, of course, that's not what I'm doing. You know, I'm trying to create something that's right for a certain segment of kids. And no one should try to claim that they're building something that's right for everyone.

Amar

You know, when I started KaiPod, I interviewed probably 200 families about their education pathways, what they chose, why they chose it, whether they made it as an active choice, or they kind of just stumbled into it because of the neighborhood they lived in, or what their neighbor once told them, right.

Amar

I learned a lot about how families make decisions on schools, or sometimes don't make decisions and just stumbled into something. And then I use that to design this model.

Amar

And what the model looks like today is not too dissimilar from where we started with one very big addition to it. And that addition is we started to realize that we could never meet the demand for this type of learning model nationally, ourselves.

Amar

Amar

And so we just launched this program this year called KaiPod Catalyst. And we'll be sharing more about that. And the idea behind catalyst is, KaiPod doesn't have to be the company that's creating these new learning environments. educators who are from that community who are passionate about learning in their own community can actually create them.

Amar

And they are actually much better equipped to create them than KaiPod is. And so we're doing with Catalyst is running an accelerator or an incubator to help any educators start their own microschool. And crucially, it doesn't have to look and feel like KaiPod, you don't have to, you actually cannot call it a KaiPod. It's your own vision, your own dream, you're in the driver's seat.

Amar

As I mentioned before, we have lots of opinions on what works. And we will happily share all those opinions with you. But we don't dictate anything. It's your vision. And so through that accelerator program, we help you take what is sort of a germ of an idea in your brain, and help you incubate it and develop it into a real life microschool by next year.

Amar

Microschools are so wonderful and unique, because they can start with very little capital, they can start with very little time, like heads up and get started within three to four months. And they require one passion educator with ten to twelve kids.

Amar

And so if you could find 10 to 12 kids join your microschool, you can actually earn a better income for yourself, control your the way you show up as a teacher, and have much greater impact on students. And we feel really good about this.

Amar

So we ran one cohort of this program like a pilot cohort this earlier this year. And we helped 10 people start brand new microschools this year, there are nine different states. And so we're really excited about these 10 new schools that have just been opened across this country. And they're now serving families and kids who previously weren't happy with their alternatives.

Amar

And now they're able to be in a much, much more adaptive and flexible environment. So now we're running this cohort again, so running a second cohort with more educators. With a vision to help many more people launch their own schools next fall.

Lily

I love that. I think that's so cool. And I think that, you know, as teachers, sometimes you have an idea of like, Oh, I wish I could do this, but don't really know the steps that you should take to get there.

Lily

And so having this kind of validated process that you all have gone through to launch these microschools seems like a great next step of really empowering teachers to take that, and I love that you're, you know, saying and make it your own and personalize it for them as well.

Amar

Yeah, we spoke to dozens of teachers as part of this research to start catalyst. And that's exactly what they said. And it came down to three big C's they miss.

Amar

One is the content, they're like, I don't know what to do. I don't know, like how to create an enrollment handbook, I don't know how to apply for regulation, I don't know how to build a financial model, etc, etc. So content.

Amar

The second is community, I want a group of other people to do this with because I don't know what I'm doing, I need to learn from others. And then the third was coaching, which is I need an expert to help guide me, I need someone to tell me what to look at next.

Amar

You know, having built this company are very much realize that your to do list always gets longer and longer and longer. Right? All entrepreneurs, your to do list is never going to get shorter, it's only going to get longer. And the secret to success is knowing how to prioritize knowing where to focus next.

Amar

And so as part of our coaching for our catalyst founders, we sort of help you say, Okay, it's December, six months ahead of your school launch, this is the most important thing you gotta be doing right now. Then, as January five months to go, this is the most important thing.

Amar

So really actively coach our founders to start working on their school models, and giving them the confidence maybe that's the fourth C's confidence, to say they can do it like they are absolutely capable.

Amar

Teaching in a classroom is one of the hardest things you can do. And it's one of the most meaningful things you can do. Sometimes when you feel like you're not having impact, you deserve to build a place where you can have that impact. And we hope we can do that through catalyst.

Lily

Yeah, absolutely. That's great. And I think that thinking about that transition to entrepreneurship, like, there are many things in those statements that remind me of being a teacher, right? Like the never ending to do list and being an entrepreneur now being a teacher before you know, same, right, that list goes on and on. And there are always more things you can be doing.

Lily

But I think thinking about teachers transitioning to entrepreneurship, you know, I'd love to hear your thoughts on what makes teachers great entrepreneurs.

Amar

Yeah, the number one thing about any entrepreneur is passion to solve a problem, like really believing that I have identified a problem in my community that I really care a lot about. That's the first signal.

Amar

The second signal is I have excitement around a solution on how to solve that problem. Now, importantly, you shouldn't be wedded to that solution, you shouldn't say this is the only way to solve that problem, you've got to be flexible.

Amar

So one of our coaching notes in our catalyst program is we want you to have a vision going into the program of what your microschool is going to look like. But as we go through the cohort and the program, your vision is going to evolve, and you're going to learn that some of the initial assumptions you held actually won't work.

Amar

And that is okay, don't be so sort of afraid of changing your vision, that you're gonna build the wrong thing. So the second thing we look for is someone who has a strong vision, but is willing to be adaptable.

Amar

I think the third thing is someone who understands that entrepreneurship and starting a new microschool requires trade offs. And you're not going to get everything you want. Right. So as an as a real life example, there are some entrepreneurs in our cohort who say, I want a micro school that's incredibly affordable, that has a small student teacher ratio, super high quality outcomes, and is in this beautiful facility.

Amar

It's like, okay, how are you going to do that? Right? Like, you know, if you're only going to have, say, five kids per teacher, and you only want to charge $5,000, a kid, let's say, and you want to rent this beautiful building that costs, you know, $2,000 a month, you know, when you do the math, it's not going to work.

Amar

So what trade offs are you willing to make? Are you willing to give up on price on the number of kids on the type of space you're renting, etc. So we help them really come to terms with those trade offs.

Amar

And the strongest entrepreneurs appreciate the need for financial sustainability, right, then they appreciate that they've got to be able to pay themselves sustainably, they've got to be able to pay staff have to have them sustainably. And they've got to run an affordable high quality model. And those things can be intention.

Amar

And so one of our most important coaching notes and catalyst is that trade off and really coming to terms with it. And the entrepreneurs that do best are the ones who say, Okay, I got it. I know which trade offs I'm comfortable making. And that is still aligned with my vision.

Lily

Yes, that's so valuable. And I think it's so interesting, too. It's like nobody's trade offs are necessarily going to be the same, right? But it's also facing the reality of the situation and matching it with The Dream and kind of being the path in between the bike how does it actually happen?

Lily

And I'm curious, a little bit just about like, how micro did they school stay? Do they were how do they start? I guess are they usually one teacher, one group or the teacher sometimes have multiple teachers within their microschools?

Amar

It really depends. In most of our cases, we recommend don't think too big in year one. It's the first time you're doing this entrepreneurship is a is a journey of ups and downs. And you don't want to feel like you're taking on too much risk. So we generally recommend target 10 to 12 students and you as the lead microscope founder or you as the lead educator. And so most of them start that way.

Amar

In some cases, I think about three or four of our first cohort, their waitlist was just enormous. Like they had all these families who said, yes, I've been looking for such an option in my community, you I know you from the school, or I know you from being my child's tutor, and I can't wait to send my kid to school.

Amar

So we have three, I think three founders who just had his enormous waitlist as soon as they open. So they decided to sort of almost double down and hire an educator or two, to open multiple microschools and multiple learning pods. And so then they oversee sort of the overall enterprise.

Amar

And in these in all of these cases, these these schools are thriving, kids are happy families are happening, the waitlist continues to grow. And these entrepreneurs are now saying, okay, like, now I can see how my impact is scaling to more kids, and how myself, I'm earning a sustainable living doing this in this new way. So they're just super happy with this.

Lily

Yes, that's awesome. So thinking about teachers who maybe are considering doing something beyond the traditional classroom, you know, whehter they're starting a microschool or exploring other avenues in education? And what advice would you give them?

Amar

Yeah, the first is, it's not right for everyone, right? You know, entrepreneurship is a, it's never been easier to be an entrepreneur, but it is still an incredibly difficult path that is full of rewards, but also full of risks. So you got to ask yourself your own tolerance for that.

Amar

Because the first piece of advice is like, are you serious about this journey, which is going to be probably even harder than when you were a teacher? Because now you're also a business owner?

Amar

I think second advice for would be ask yourself, why you're doing this, like what is in it for you? Sometimes it's I have two kids who I want to be educating in my own microschool, right? So I'm doing this for my kids in my community.

Amar

In other cases, it's teachers are saying, I'm fed up with my classroom, I'm really tired of that. And I still want to stay in front of kids. And this feels like the right next step for me. So ask yourself seriously, why you're doing this?

Amar

And then I guess third is, if you want support in this, and you say, I want to do this with a community of people, with coaches, who are experts in launching new schools, then consider joining catalyst, we'd love to have you.

Lily

Yes, awesome. That's great. And I think that community piece, I mean, from my experience, leaving the classroom and trying all sorts of things, is really key.

Lily

You know, I think that having that support of people who've done things that you want to do, and people who are building things alongside you, really can propel you forward and give you that accountability and make it okay, when you have both the ups and downs to just keep going forward.

Amar

Exactly. And teachers are used to having community, right, there's Professional Learning Communities in Schools, you have other teachers in your grade level or your subject that you are collaborating with and planning with. And when you go to sort of micro school, you can sometimes be like you lost that you just kind of feel like you're on your own most days.

Amar

So we spend an incredible amount of time and effort in Catalyst, ensuring that you feel connected to other people who are on that same journey. Some of them might be in the same city as you. But even if they're not, you're connected, virtually and sort of feel part of each other's story. And that can increase the likelihood that your microschool succeeds and you find satisfaction in this path.

Lily

Absolutely. So for people who are interested in maybe learning more about Catalyst or about KaiPod, can you tell them where they can connect with you?

Amar

Yeah, absolutely. So you're welcome to just Google KaiPod Catalyst, or just go to our website, kaipodlearning.com. And there's a link on top, which is, basically if you're an educator, click here. And so there you can learn about the program.

Amar

We're accepting applications now. And the applications end at the end of October for our next cohort. So if you if you would like to start a school next fall, this cohort might be the perfect opportunity to do so.

Amar

The way it runs is it's in the evenings part time, so you kind of do one call a week with your cohort. And then the rest of the time, you're sort of working asynchronously to work towards launching your school. And so it's meant to fit right alongside your current role as a teacher or a school administrator, or whatever you might be doing today. And sort of prepare you to full time run your own school next fall.

Lily

Awesome. Wonderful. Well, thank you so much for coming on. We'll put all the links in the show notes as well. And it was really great to hear about what you're building and providing for teachers as well.

Amar

Thank you so much for having me, Lily.