Internships with hat designers, ski manufacturers, film and designs school and community organizations is one way 14-year-old Logan LaPlante approached learning.
Today at the Arizona Innovation Summit, this teen, known for his TEDx Talk with over 6M views on You Tube, discussed his concept of Hackschooling and how to stay happy and healthy while you learn.
“Think of Hackschooling as a mindset,” LaPlante said. This is a method for a student to weave health and happiness into their educational journey by developing skills around their area of interest via technology, community and getting outside.
For LaPlante, he loved art & design. This interest led his parents to find a cool place to learn skills about designing clothes and landed an internship at Big Truck hats. During his experience, LaPlante learned the process of designing hats, crunching numbers, manufacturing, even to sew.
While not every company is going to open their doors to a teen intern, LaPlante said there are so many other ways to engage kids and nurture their interests, or “Hackschool.”
LaPlante shared his formula for Hackschooling which included a blend of nurturing creativity, enrolling in classes and camps, using online resources and technology, and finding people in ones’ community that are willing to share their knowledge and time.
During the talk LaPlante acknowledged the simplicity of the Hackschooling concept, and that he was simply exposing something “so obvious,” to many kids-they would like to learn by experiencing the world, not just from behind a desk.
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LaPlante shared that while people out there have labeled him “different” for his educational approach, he feels the opposite, “I realize that I’m no different from my peers,” he said.
LaPlante summed up his talk with his motto of “Less Talk, More Walk,” and encouraged the crowd to get outside, be active, keep your kids stoked on learning-and explained that Hackschooling can happen anywhere. Learning is learning wherever you do it.
Watch Logan’s TEDx Talk
