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Ana Lorena Fabrega Profile picture
Ana Lorena Fabrega
@anafabrega11
Author of 'The Learning Game' | Former teacher known by little ones as Ms. Fab 🤸🏽‍♀️ EDUpreneur & Chief Evangelist @synthesischool
31 subscribers
Dec 20, 2023 • 24 tweets • 5 min read
If you’re not *absolutely sure* that school is broken, just look at how we teach math.

I saw the problems firsthand 👇 In school, I watched my students ace worksheet after worksheet, but when they’d face a math problem in real life, they would freeze.

They had no idea how to apply what they “learned” in class.

My kids were winning the game of school—and failing the learning game.
Feb 18, 2023 • 6 tweets • 5 min read
Eternally grateful for everyone’s support with my book launch...I have no words to describe how I'm feeling!

Thank you, thank you, thank you 🙏🏼💛 I have so many people to thank for their contributions to this book.

The @harrimanhouse team for taking a chance on me and making it all come true.

@david_perell for inspiring me to write and supporting my work.

@chrismanfrank for believing in me and encouraging me all along.
Feb 17, 2023 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
The day is finally here!

I am thrilled to announce that my first book, THE LEARNING GAME, is available for pre-order 🙌🏻

amazon.com/Learning-Game-… After years of teaching, I made the hard decision to leave the school system.

There had to be a better way to prepare younger generations for the game of life…

How can we transform the game of school into the game of learning?
Jan 2, 2023 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Exposure to a healthy amount of confusion offers significant benefits.

The more kids experience confusion in the right context, the more they'll be willing to wade through the feeling of not knowing—a key survival skill in today’s world.

3 Principles for Exploring Confusion 👇 1. Expose kids to confusion

Encourage kids to solve that harder math problem or read that challenging book. Let them explore complex ideas and help them understand that when they do, they are going to feel confused—and that’s okay.
Dec 31, 2022 • 13 tweets • 3 min read
My top 12 threads of 2022

On how to raise successful kids, the power of video games, the school system & alternatives, lessons from kids and the Stoics, and ways to learn and love learning 🤸 1. Dangerous Lessons Taught in School

Dec 7, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Mental models are especially helpful when we face complex situations.

When new information hits us left and right, we need to know how to interpret it. We need a guiding light to lead us in the right direction when things get chaotic.

This is particularly true with parenting. Image Our kids change every day.

They’re leaping from one stage of development to another. And we’re overloaded with all sorts of data, from the opinion of your mother-in-law, the newest hot tip on mommy blogs, to the latest findings of childhood psych.

What should we do with it all?
Dec 5, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
In school, math is presented in a hierarchical sequence dictated by a curriculum that often doesn’t make sense to kids.

And here is the interesting thing about math… it’s a life skill to start with. Math is all around us.

And the best way to teach it is by using examples from the real world that kids are already curious about.

If your child is interested in buying something, this is the time to teach them about money and counting.
Nov 28, 2022 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
How much of the “learning” that happened in school stuck over the years?

I’m guessing very little. 

That’s because the learning that occurs in formal schooling is mostly an imitation of learning 🤷🏽‍♀️ Image Humans are designed to learn🧠

We learn through self-directed play, exploration, and trial & error. We learn by digging deep into our interests, making things, and reflecting on the impact and consequences of our actions.

These are inborn instincts that come automatically to us
Oct 3, 2022 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
Have you ever been told you’re either a visual, verbal, or kinesthetic learner?

When we label or classify kids (and adults!) according to a “learning style” we’re encouraging a fixed mindset.

We’re limiting them with self-fulfilling prophecies, despite our good intentions 👇🏼 Image Back when I was a teacher, I fell prey to a popular myth about the brain and how it functions.

By celebrating kids’ individuality—trying to find a learning style that was right for each kiddo—I swung the pendulum too far and ended up putting kids into boxes again 📦
Aug 12, 2022 • 11 tweets • 3 min read
Some eye-opening stats on the education system in America 👇🏼 The education system we know today started gaining steam in the 1960s.

The theme was standardization and efficiency by putting kids on a learning assembly line:

Move them from class to class with specialized teachers, limit play to reduce waste, and control quality with tests.
Jul 29, 2022 • 34 tweets • 8 min read
Mental models are powerful tools for business, investing, and career decisions.

But there’s another area where mental models are especially effective: Parenting.

Let’s dive in 👇🏼 Mental models are general rules of thumb about how the world works.

Every discipline has them: biology, physics, economics, psychology, etc.

They’re the most basic ideas from each discipline that we can use to understand the fundamentals of life.
Jul 1, 2022 • 28 tweets • 6 min read
Memorization without meaning is useless.

Here’s a framework for contextual memorization that works👇🏼 Before the internet, memorization was the centerpiece of education.

We had to remember things because we didn’t have the tech to look things up online.

Our options were either to take lots of trips to the local library or commit facts to memory.
May 27, 2022 • 28 tweets • 6 min read
Parenting is an incredibly difficult adventure.

It helps to have a playbook.

5 tactics to nurture your child’s developing brain 🧠🪡 All parents have moments of difficulty with their kids.

Maybe they’re refusing to put on their shoes or get ready for bed.

But with the right tactics, you can turn these challenges into opportunities for growth and connection.
May 20, 2022 • 13 tweets • 4 min read
Contrary to what you’ve been told, the education system isn’t broken.

It does exactly what it was designed to do.

But the purpose of that design might surprise you 🪡👇 When I left the classroom about three years ago I started questioning the origins of our current education system.

How is it that almost every industry has changed over the past 100 years except for education?

May 13, 2022 • 22 tweets • 6 min read
5 simple lessons to raise independent thinkers 👇🪡 Esther Wojcicki is a teacher with 40 years of experience, Silicon Valley legend, and mother of three successful daughters:

Susan, CEO of @YouTube
Anne, CEO of @23andMe
Janet, professor at @UCSF

How did Esther raise so many successful kids?
May 6, 2022 • 13 tweets • 4 min read
Today is a big day: Announcing that I’ve signed a publication deal with @harrimanhouse 🤸

Look for Ms. Fab’s first book next fall 2023!

Here’s what I’m cooking up 🪡👇 In the book, I’ll map lessons we need to unlearn and challenge us to rethink education.

The big idea: school should look like a startup lab, not a factory.

It's for anyone whose job involves learning and teaching: parents, educators, managers, coaches, entrepreneurs, and more.
Apr 29, 2022 • 19 tweets • 5 min read
How to help kids develop character with the Stoic framework 👇🏼🪡 For hundreds of years, educators used Stoicism to teach kids character development.

They used the Stoic framework to train responsible citizens equipped to do the right thing, even when times got hard.

But what does “the right thing” mean?

Let’s unpack the 4 Stoic virtues:
Apr 21, 2022 • 16 tweets • 6 min read
Today is a special day at Synthesis 🚀

Proud to announce that @balajis and @amasad are co-leading a $12 million investment in the company.

We are thrilled to accelerate our mission to build the future of childhood education. What a journey it’s been over the past year and a half 🤯

It feels surreal to have transitioned from a traditional classroom to the edge of innovation in education.

Here’s the story of how it happened:

Apr 14, 2022 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Love @josh_dahn Conundrums.

You can use these questions to kick off a class or to spark rich conversations over dinner and discuss ethical dilemmas with your kids 👏🏼 Conundrums push kids to understand tradeoffs, forcing them to make decisions in a world of "no right answers"

It can be as simple as:

If you could pay a teacher, a firefighter, a soldier, a police officer, or the mayor between $1 and $5, who would you pay the most and why?
Apr 1, 2022 • 18 tweets • 7 min read
8 ways kids can exit the system (without leaving school) 👇🏼🪡 I talk with parents every week who feel trapped.

They aren’t in a place to take their kids out of school.

Nevertheless, they still see the major problems with the traditional system.

Mar 25, 2022 • 10 tweets • 3 min read
7 ways to help kids WANT to learn👇🏼🪡 1. Encourage Projects of Their Own ⚒️

We tend to see education as something we do to kids: designing lessons, assigning books, making worksheets.

But kids learn best when they voluntarily tackle projects of their own.