Elon Musk has opened the oddest school in California, that place requires no fees, it has no grades, and offers no fixed curriculum. The most unusual school named Ad Astra, The Times understood, and here is why.
The eccentric Elon Musk whose versatile nature astounds everyone and everywhere opened the new school. The American billionaire’s other interests include not only technical developments like the revolutionising transport, tunnelling under Los Angeles, colonising Mars and linking human brains to computers to repel a robot takeover of Earth. Father-of-five opened Ad Astra school in California. Ad Astra means “to the stars” in Latin.
That oddest school has no sport, no music, no fixed curriculum, no grades and no marketing but that has not stopped it becoming an obsession with certain Los Angeles parents. That is because Ad Astra’s founder is Elon Musk, no doubt.
For parents and teachers disillusioned with existing academic models, the prospect of Mr Musk applying the disruptive approach to education that he has brought to the car industry through Tesla or to the space race via SpaceX is fascinating.
The secretive school: Elon Musk founded it in 2014
In fact, Ad Astra was founded four years ago when Elon pulled his five sons out of one of common Californian school, and Musk hasn’t spoken publicly about the school since 2015. He was waiting for results patiently together with other parents. The families at the school have remained similarly tight-lipped. The secretive school has no public website, phone number, or reference of the administrators and teachers who work at the school.
But Peter Diamandis, chairman of the X Prize Foundation, toured Ad Astra and shared the ethos of that uncommon educational place. Diamandis’ unique access to Ad Astra is likely due to the fact that Musk sits on the board of trustees of X Prize.
“One element that is persistent in that small school of 31 kids is the conversation about ethics and morals, a conversation manifested by debating real-world scenarios that our kids may one day face,”
Mr Diamandis wrote for the Huffington Post last autumn.
