What If Learning Started with Curiosity Instead of Curriculum?

Guest host Jennie Jones, an Entrepreneur-In-Residence at the Education Entrepreneurship Lab, interviews Tanner Bowman, founder of Optio, a quest-based learning platform that helps homeschoolers and microschools document and personalize student-directed learning. After teaching across public, private, charter, online, and microschool environments, Tanner concluded that traditional education's standardized structure made meaningful personalization difficult. Inspired by experiments with increased student autonomy during and after COVID, he left his public school position to build Optio. Tanner explains how Optio grew out of an in-person lab school where students pursued entrepreneurial and passion-driven projects while earning accredited high school credit. He shares how the platform evolved from a one-size-fits-all learning management system into a customizable tool that adapts to each microschool's unique philosophy and teaching style. Throughout the conversation, Tanner argues that teaching is fundamentally an art form, that students are naturally motivated to learn when given meaningful ownership over their education, and that families deserve systems that recognize authentic learning wherever it occurs. *** Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at edentrepreneur.org. Kerry's latest book, Joyful Learning: How to Find Freedom, Happiness, and Success Beyond Conventional Schooling, is available now wherever books are sold!