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Rethinking Education
The Collins Institute for the Gifted is a new model of at-home education optimized for self-motivated young scholars who thrive when given freedom.
The Institute applies a PhD-level attitude toward knowledge acquisition to middle school and high school education through a first-principles approach.
How The Collins Institute Works
We do not educate; we facilitate education.
While not for all students, we serve as a tool that helps self-motivated learners reach new heights.
Self-Directed Learning
We divided all human knowledge into a skill tree / tech tree, with each node in the tree representing a mastery level related to a certain subject. As students complete individual nodes, more advanced nodes unlock, increasing the options they have about what to study. The system uses the opportunity to learn more as a reward for learning.
Focus on Real World Skills
While we offer traditional domains of study like math and history, we don't privilege them over subjects with practical application. These include skills such as sales, coding, hanging drywall, engineering, social dynamics, emotional mastery, self-discovery of purpose, and the development of an intentional, unique identity.
Student Built Platform
Each subject (node) in the skill tree offers (1) an AI-based tutor, with whom you can chat via text or speech, (2) built-in assessments, and (3) links to external study sources. Students can upvote, downvote, and add sources. This ensures each node is not a self-contained lesson but rather a map of the best sources ever created for every individual skill.
How we define gifted & success
We are focused on "I Will," not IQ. At the Institute, "gifted" does not refer to individuals who test well. Instead, we look for students with fire in their hearts and a desire to live life on the world stage: A combination of self-sufficiency, initiative, ambition, and a lack of contentment with the status quo.
The Institute is designed to consistently produce the next generation of world leaders in a post-AI world—not just send our students to top colleges. Our students are empowered to become elite movers and shakers in the domains they are most passionate about—ranging from mycology to Brazilian politics. Our goal is to have every student graduate as a “rising leader to watch.”
Expert Interaction
A cornerstone of the Institute's education philosophy is that the smartest, most ambitious kids are peers among best-in-class adult leaders.
- 1We maintain a network of leaders in various domains who are eager to collaborate with our students on projects, ranging from peer-reviewed research to the launch of new nonprofits.
- 2When a student's interests do not overlap with one of our community's existing experts, we work with the student to learn how to identify and contact world-class experts.
- 3As students become experts themselves, we help them translate their academic development into real-world projects, enabling them to learn by doing (e.g., publishing research in an actual, peer-reviewed journal).
About our founding team
Simone and Malcolm Collins have operated companies on five continents that collectively pulled in seventy million dollars annually, raised a PE fund, directed strategy at top, early-stage VC firms, written three bestselling books, and earned degrees in neuroscience, business, and technology policy from St. Andrews, Stanford, and Cambridge.
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