Entrepreneurship by Students, Educators, and Networks

Shiren Rattigan joined me to talk about her work as a founder of Colossal Academy and the Innovative Educators Network. We discussed the motivations, challenges, and opportunities of starting a microschool and connecting microschoolers in her area. We also dove into how Colossal is preparing students to be similarly enterprising through its entrepreneurship-focused curriculum.

Michael Horn:

You're joining the show where we are dedicated to building a world in which all individuals can build their passions, fulfill their potential, and live a life of purpose and to help us think through how we get there, I'm really excited because we have Shiren Rattigan. She's the founder of a school we're going to hear a lot about today, Colossal Academy, as well as the Innovative Educators Network, which we're going to discuss what that does and the ecosystem, really, that she has built around helping a lot of school founders build meaningful places for kids to learn. So first, Shiren, great to see you. Thanks so much for being here.

Shiren Rattigan:

Thank you so much for having me. You're one of the people. I have very little accolades, and you're one of the check marks. I'm like, I’m on Michael Horn’s podcast.

The Origin Story of Colossal Academy

Michael Horn:

That’s very kind of you to say, but you're the one doing the work. So let's dive into that. Introduce folks to your origin story of Colossal Academy. I'm excited to hear it.

Shiren Rattigan:

Yeah. So I am a fifth-generation teacher. My great grandmother, my great great grandmother was a one room schoolhouse teacher on a farm in Illinois. My great grandmother was a teacher. My grandfather was a superintendent of schools in rural Illinois. My mother, special education in an urban setting for 35 years. And then I came in, and I was like, no way I'm breaking the cycle, right? And all signs pointed always back to being a teacher. And so I finally submitted to the fact that that's my calling. And I went into public school because that's where you go when you're a teacher. You get trained. You become a public school teacher. And then I swiftly found out that it was physically dangerous for me to be there. I was breaking up fights. I was pregnant, and I was like, this is nothing… What I saw, I saw myself as Miss Frizzle. And we're going to go to the digestive tract, and we're going to learn all these things. And when we get there, it was like, mandates, here's your curriculum. How come they're behind the test? Here's the state. And it wasn't what I thought. So I said, okay, let me go to private school. It must be better there, right? Really elite, very expensive, top 2%, very elite. But there were bodyguards for different reasons, right? Cause these kids could be taken right? At the school that they had their personalized bodyguards.

And I was like, this isn't it either. I'm still checking in badges. There were still some expectations there that I just was like, this isn't it either. Something's wrong. We're not outside. We're not going on field trips. We're not in the real world.

Maybe Montessori is it. Let me go find Montessori. So I went to Montessori, and that was lovely, but I felt like something was missing for the future, that I felt like students really needed to have some future forward competencies in order to be successful. Computations, coding, programming. And I know that many Montessori schools do that, but I felt like it needed to be real and relevant and actual. The pandemic hit, and I decided I really love teaching. I didn't want to be a people manager and asking how long they're washing their hands for and mandating the mask and making sure it's up past their nose.

It's not what I wanted to do. I don't know if I got fired or if I quit, but short end, I no longer had a job at my school, which meant that some of the families that wanted to be a pod hired me to be their full time teacher. And I said, okay, well, if they're paying a little bit less than what they're paying as tuition, they could pay me to be... All I need is four kids to make my salary. And then I started with four kids. We moved to six and 10 and 12. And so that's kind of the genesis. But what I found out there is like, I get to do whatever I want, and when I mean whatever I want, it's whatever the kids want, whenever they want in real time. You want drones? Look at drones. It'll be here on Thursday. Let me Amazon. What do you want? You want to learn how to code? You want to go surfing? Whatever you want. I can be that, and I can give it, and I can create those opportunities for you. And I was like, this is it. This was the Miss Frizzle that I had imagined, and it took me so many stops along the way to get there, but I found it, and I found where I was able to be the teacher that I knew I needed to be for young people.

Colossal’s Education Model