Ep 4: Consent-Based Education: How Dr. Erin Flynn’s Hedge School Prioritizes Student Autonomy

Dr. Erin Flynn:
If I had a student in my classroom who was asleep and I handed them work to do and they woke up, did the work, and then went back to sleep, I would let them sleep.
Nicole Jarbo:
Today on Pitch Playground, we have Dr. Erin Flynn, the founder of a microschool in Texas called the Hedge School. Erin's approach to education is based on what she calls consent-based education.
Dr. Erin Flynn:
If a student wanted to go take a five minute walk, that wasn't a problem for me.
Nicole Jarbo:
Imagine what learning could look like if students could learn in an environment that worked for them.
Dr. Erin Flynn:
I would let students go out into the field next door to our school and scream.
Nicole Jarbo:
And what if students could choose what they wanted to learn?
Dr. Erin Flynn:
If I am giving them a prompt to a poem and they're like, I don't do poems, that is absolutely fine. If their heart lies in places other than what I have dictated, then they get to follow that.
Nicole Jarbo:
Hey. I'm your host Nicole Jarbo, and this is Pitch Playground from 4.0. This season, we'll hear 10 ideas from entrepreneurs reimagining the future of learning, and we'll put them in the hot seat with funders who help them strengthen their pitch. In this episode, Erin receives mentorship from Kelly Smith. Kelly is the founder of Prenda, a venture-backed education company that runs and supports microschools.
Kelly Smith:
Let's talk a little bit about balancing these business objectives. With the learning objectives. You can do education the way you feel strongly that it needs to be done, so how do you make sure that that stays strong even as you scale?
Nicole Jarbo:
At the end of the season, you can cast your vote for which one of these ideas you think should win $50,000. Erin Flynn's story begins in England where she was born.
Dr. Erin Flynn:
I had a lot of teachers in my family growing up. The notion of being knowledgeable was really, and still is, highly valued in my family and we're a working-class family. The idea that was kind of put into me as a very young person was it is good to know what is going on in the world around you because if you don't know, then you won't be aware of the injustices that are occurring in your neighborhood, let alone in the world at large, and that's a problem.
Nicole Jarbo:
Erin moved around a lot growing up. It gave her the opportunity to be exposed to many different education systems.
Dr. Erin Flynn:
My dad was US Navy and so I've lived in three different countries. I've lived in, I think, eight different places in the US and in each place I was able to meet educators who valued not just the education but the people they were educating and they treated us as individuals, as human beings, as a group of people who actually wanted to be in the space we were in.
Nicole Jarbo:
Erin was fortunate that when she went on to university, she was exposed to the same kind of helpful attitude from professors there, people who accepted her style of learning.
Dr. Erin Flynn:
I had professors who accepted my foibles, if you will, you know, my little quirks, my tendency to do work from midnight until 5:00 A.M, have a little weep, print everything up, and then run in and get it handed in on time.
Nicole Jarbo:
Erin's love of learning led her to pursue a Ph.D. in philosophy of religion in Ireland. After graduating, she moved to Texas with her Texan husband. She found a job teaching English, philosophy, and humanities at a high school. She realized she loved teaching high schoolers in particular.
Dr. Erin Flynn:
The teenage mind has so much plasticity. It's really important to help them grow and use those muscles that take them into their compassion and their empathy and their critical thinking skills and their ability to get back up once they've gotten on the floor. These are the shaping times for our human beings and each and every one of them has a space that they get to take up in this world, and I want them to know that and go out into the world and take up their space.
Nicole Jarbo:
As Erin shared earlier, she benefited from teachers who gave her a lot of agency to approach education in a way that worked for her. Erin applied that same philosophy in her early teaching experiences with high schoolers.
Dr. Erin Flynn:
I had a student who completely convinced himself that he could not write, that he wasn't able to do it, he was really bad at it. There was no point in starting. He didn't know where to start, and I asked him to stay after school, and so I sat down next to him and he said, "I can't write."
Student:
I can't write.
Dr. Erin Flynn:
I said, "Okay." I said, "Well, here's the prompt. What do you think about the prompt?"
Student:
"I can't think of anything about the prompt."
Dr. Erin Flynn:
And I said, "Oh. That's fine. Write down. I can't think of anything on the prompt." And he kind of looks at me and he's like...
Student:
I don't, what?
Dr. Erin Flynn:
And I said, "Write down. I can't think about anything on this prompt."
Student:
Okay.
Dr. Erin Flynn:
So he writes that down. He goes...
Student:
And now what do you want me to put?
Dr. Erin Flynn:
I was like you can put that. "And now what do you want me to put?" So he was like...
Student:
This is really dumb.
Dr. Erin Flynn:
And I was like, "Okay. Write that." And so we kind of started chuckling there and I started talking with him about how sometimes you just got to start writing, even if you're writing nonsense, because the process of writing, like even the physical act of writing does help your brain kind of focus on the question at hand.
Nicole Jarbo:
This student started writing more. He did his papers. He handed assignments in.
Dr. Erin Flynn:
And I think what was stopping was that he had a brain that went so quickly that he didn't know how to slow it down so that he could get his thoughts onto paper.
Nicole Jarbo:
As the student progressed throughout the rest of high school, he excelled.
Dr. Erin Flynn:
His appreciation and love for learning was just fantastic. He took my philosophy courses. He took different courses from teachers that I don't think he would've taken if he was afraid of the writing.
Nicole Jarbo:
And that was a huge win for Erin early on.
Dr. Erin Flynn:
I felt like I had finally made a difference.
Nicole Jarbo:
After three years of teaching, Erin became the principal of that same school for four years before setting her sights on becoming superintendent. She went on to get her superintendency certificate.
Dr. Erin Flynn:
And the more I delved into what goes into running a school in the public world, I grew more and more disheartened and there were decisions being made at the legislative level and also at the board level at my own school that I felt were actively harming students.
Nicole Jarbo:
Safety became a big concern in the school system. One aspect was physical safety because of COVID at the time. Another aspect was that many of Erin's students identified as LGBTQ.
Dr. Erin Flynn:
They didn't feel like who they were, their identities were being protected. This was the time when a lot of the beginnings of the anti-trans legislation were coming into play.
Nicole Jarbo:
During COVID, several states, including Texas, introduced anti-trans legislation. The legislation targeted transgender youth in public schools. The policies restricted transgender students' rights in sports participation, bathroom access, and gender-affirming healthcare. In 2022, Texas governor, Greg Abbott, labeled gender-affirming care for minors as child abuse. He directed child protective services to investigate parents who access care for their children.
Dr. Erin Flynn:
I did not feel like decisions that were made at the higher ups, whether it would be up in the legislature or even in our board, were in the best interest of our students' safety, both mental health and physical health.
Nicole Jarbo:
Another thing that discouraged Erin was the lack of agency that students were being given.
Dr. Erin Flynn:
Some students, even at our school, would face a real authoritarian feel in some of their classrooms. The I am the teacher, do as I say, don't talk back, don't question my authority, and I think that really goes against the very nature of being a teenager. This is the time to question. This is the time to try and figure out what does it mean for me to exist in this world.
Nicole Jarbo:
This is such a widespread problem in schools. Take, for example, the rules in many schools around simple things like going to the bathroom. In some schools, students only get three bathroom breaks a semester. Let me ask you, if you were employed by a company and they told you that you could only take three bathroom breaks every four months, how would you feel about that? Why should we treat students any differently? Erin also didn't agree with the notion of standardized testing system-wide.
Dr. Erin Flynn:
They say that it's a form of grading the school and the teachers at the school, and at the same time, if students don't pass the test, they have to retake it until they do or they don't graduate. I don't think it should be so penalizing to the student.
Nicole Jarbo:
Erin was so disheartened by these issues that she decided to step down from her role as principal.
Dr. Erin Flynn:
I was very upset. I literally took a time of mourning off because I thought I had found my home. I really did feel so connected to that school and to the students and the parents and my teachers.
Nicole Jarbo:
But Erin's mourning period didn't last for long.
Dr. Erin Flynn:
I got a phone call about two months into the first semester that I was not at school, and there were a group of families who had withdrawn their students from the school that I had been at, and basically they called me up and said...
Parent:
You wouldn't consider tutoring or starting a school for our students because we just can't have them in that space anymore.
Dr. Erin Flynn:
At first, I took a few beats. This is about 10 years before I was considering going to start my own school kind of side of things, but I thought, well, sometimes things knock and you have to open the door.
Nicole Jarbo:
So Erin did open the door and she started her own school called the Hedge School. What's your elevator pitch for the Hedge School?
Dr. Erin Flynn:
We are a consent-based learning high school for eighth through 12th grade. Goal is to allow the students to have autonomy in their own education and we use self-directed learning, critical thinking, skill development, and also social-emotional learning development.
Nicole Jarbo:
I want to know what consent-based education is.
Dr. Erin Flynn:
Consent-based literally means that the student gives their consent to do what we're asking. That if I am giving them a prompt to a poem and they're like, I don't do poems, but I do a mean stick figure and decide that instead they would like to illustrate it in some way instead of writing a poem about it or they're not really interested in the subject matter at all, but they've always been interested in 17th century technology and would rather write a paragraph about a specific thing in the 17th century that they've been wanting to look at, that is absolutely fine. If their heart lies in places other than what I have dictated or decided we're going to do, then they get to follow that. Choice is our only freedom. What we get to choose to do in this world is the only sense of freedom that we have in reality.
Nicole Jarbo:
The way that consent-based education plays out in the classroom can have a profound effect on the way students feel in that environment.
Dr. Erin Flynn:
If I had a student in my classroom who was asleep and I handed them work to do and they woke up, did the work, and then went back to sleep, I would let them sleep mainly because I knew that student and I knew that student was probably not getting home until about 12:30, 1 o'clock in the morning because they were working late, and they work late because they needed income in their family. If a student needed to get up and walk around the class because they were feeling antsy or they wanted to go take a five minute walk, that wasn't a problem for me. You know, I would let students go out into the field next door to our school and scream because they were frustrated and they didn't know what to do with it. And rather than punching a wall, I'd much rather them just go and holler for a bit and then come back.
Nicole Jarbo:
The Hedge School is what's known as a microschool. Microschools are typically small, independent schools that offer smaller class sizes. They also offer a more personalized and flexible approach to learning. Can you share why you think the microschool movement is so important to schooling?
Dr. Erin Flynn:
The microschool movement matters because it's about community. It is about being able to know who is in your community, how you can help your community, and how your community can help you. And a microschool is able to really kind of center itself in the community that it's in.
Nicole Jarbo:
The Hedge School was started in 2020, so the pandemic was still a big factor. Erin started meeting with students, parents, and community members on Zoom.
Dr. Erin Flynn:
And it was students and parents and supportive community members and myself all meeting together once a week and just envisioning what this school could be. We all kind of came together and said, well, what would an ideal school look like?
Nicole Jarbo:
By 2021, they were ready to start meeting in person in a covered barn. Erin remembers that first day at the barn vividly.
Dr. Erin Flynn:
I had packed in the boot of my car paper and pens. You literally had to drive on a field to get to the barn and then park on the field next to the barn, and so students were kind of pulling in and their parents were letting them out, and I had six students ranging from, I would say, 13 to 17, and it was beautiful 'cause the sun was coming up and there were hawks flying. While inside the barn, it was a bit more chaotic. I was trying to figure out like, all right, so what do we want to do? So the very first thing we did was agreements. I gave them poster boards.
Nicole Jarbo:
Everyone participated in coming up with agreements or mutual understandings that would guide their time together there.
Dr. Erin Flynn:
We talked about how everybody was feeling, what were some of the things they wanted to get out of it. We talked about like, well, what was missing from the school that you want to make sure you experience here?
Nicole Jarbo:
Erin has had students come to her school who struggle with anxiety.
Dr. Erin Flynn:
I had a student at my school who when they first started coming, they wouldn't even come into the classroom. They would sit in the car with their mom and mom would drive them up and they would sit there and they would talk about how they didn't want to get out of the car 'cause they were having too much anxiety. And then they would come in and they would sit in the corner of the room that we were in and do the work in the corner and they would still have days where they would drive up with mom and then they would drive away and mom would send me a text saying...
Parent:
Not today, we'll see you tomorrow.
Dr. Erin Flynn:
And by the time the year ended, they had made friends with people in their classroom. They were contributing to the discussions in their classes and they were really open with people about what was going on and the anxiety they were feeling.
Nicole Jarbo:
After gaining their confidence in the Hedge School, this student said that they wanted to try mainstream high school because that's where their best friend was going.
Dr. Erin Flynn:
I reached out to mom and said, two or three months into the semester, how are they getting on?
Parent:
Absolutely fantastic, doing really well, thriving, getting into conversations in their classroom, just having an absolute ball.
Dr. Erin Flynn:
And to me that was such a victory. The way we were letting people be who they are in our class allowed this young person to sit in the corner, to not get out of the car, to go home because they were too stressed, and know that they could come back tomorrow and try again. And we would still be there and we wouldn't give them any grief and we wouldn't pile a bunch of work on them when they walked in the door, so they could work on what was important at the time, which was how to get in and talk to other human beings without falling to pieces.
Nicole Jarbo:
What do you think the world might be like if more young people had a similar experience with their schooling?
Dr. Erin Flynn:
The word transformative comes to my mind. I think the world would be a much more loving place. I think that we would heal from a lot of our trauma, both generational and personal. I think we would have people who understood the notion of accountability and responsibility and would hold people to that standard, and I can't imagine, even though I often try what that would shift fundamentally, systemically in how we peopled this planet.
Nicole Jarbo:
Now remember, Erin has a chance to win $50,000 towards the Hedge School. What would you do with the 50K?
Dr. Erin Flynn:
The plan is I'd like to open satellites of our school so that we can kind of dig into that idea of a community school in a neighborhood perhaps where students might not necessarily have the immediate access. And so what I would invest that 50 grand in is finding other educators who would like to do what I'm doing, do what the teachers in my school are doing, and families who would be interested in sending their students there.
Nicole Jarbo:
With 50K more in her pocket, Erin would be able to spread the impact of the Hedge School more widely. But is she ready to do so? Erin is going to share her pitch with Kelly Smith, founder and CEO of Prenda. Kelly has personal experience as a microschool founder.
Kelly Smith:
I started a microschool in my house in 2018 after spending five years teaching kids to code at the library. That was my stumbling into the world of educational innovation.
Nicole Jarbo:
Kelly is the founder and CEO of a company called Prenda, backed by big names in tech like Alexis Ohanian, Seven Seven Six, and Y Combinator. Prenda supports people with tools and resources so that they can start their own microschools because, well, he thinks that they matter.
Kelly Smith:
When you see for the first time a child who doesn't believe in themselves, who doesn't love learning, who doesn't want to engage in education, and to get them to a point of just wanting to learn something, pure curiosity, there's something deeply human and exciting and invigorating about witnessing that moment. So I got to see that in my after school program and then in my microschool, and I've now seen it since, for lots of other people and I can't get enough of it. It's the best thing ever.
Nicole Jarbo:
Kelly is going to help Erin strengthen her pitch. They'll dive into questions about the unique value the Hedge School brings to the community. How will Erin successfully scale the satellite campus idea she has? How can she balance the learning objectives with the business objectives as she moves forward? This is Erin's conversation with Kelly. They've crossed paths before from a distance through the microschool community.
Kelly Smith:
Well, Erin...
Dr. Erin Flynn:
Hello.
Kelly Smith:
... I'm so excited to be talking to you. This is great. I know about the work you're doing at some level, but I'm really excited to deep dive here together. So let's talk a little bit about your model, the Hedge School cooperative, and what do you see, if you had to put it into two or three bullet points of what really makes you guys different or what your strongest points are as you think about what you're bringing to the world.
Dr. Erin Flynn:
My first is that it's consent based learning, the idea that the student gets put in the driver's seat, and we're also really big on the notion of building community. We're an LGBTQIA safe haven. We really want it to be an all community parents in, students in, teachers in, and everyone has an equal voice.
Kelly Smith:
Where do you want this to be as you think about three years from now, five years from now? Where is this headed?
Dr. Erin Flynn:
Part of the community idea is to have satellite schools that also have kind of small groups. So where I am, it's a cap of 20 because if we got more than 20 students in here, it would start to get really tight.
Kelly Smith:
Is that where you are right now, around 20 students?
Dr. Erin Flynn:
No. We're at 11. We just have a cap at 20.
Kelly Smith:
Got it.
Dr. Erin Flynn:
We had, I think at the start of our last year, like 24 students and it was way too many. And as does happen, these things just cycle themselves down to a more reasonable number and it was 18 and it was like, this is perfect. And so one of the greatest things that I have here at the Hedge School is the ability to do things that I want to do and I want to make sure that if there's another satellite opening that the person who's opening it up that they also get to have that capability in their school and that I'm more of a mentor of types or a guide for that other adult as well.
Nicole Jarbo:
Sometimes as a founder you find yourself in a position where you can have more impact as a mentor or coach for other founders than necessarily doing the work on the ground yourself. This is going to be a key transition for Erin as she scales the work the Hedge School is doing.
Kelly Smith:
So I think what I'm hearing, and just stop me if this is wrong, is you've got your location. You're not thinking mega school. It's 20 is too much, maybe 18, 15, some number of kids on site.
Dr. Erin Flynn:
Yeah.
Kelly Smith:
And we recognize that in other geographies there are potentially other people that might agree with us. Ideologically they might want to do something similar. Are you thinking kind of a small number of them or lots of them, or as you think five years down the road, this is a place to be ambitious there.
Dr. Erin Flynn:
Yeah. No. Yeah.
Kelly Smith:
And so I would say speak up.
Dr. Erin Flynn:
Part of me in my dream big and don't let anybody get in your way kind of feeling is I'd love to have schools, not just in Texas, but in different parts of the US, even. More realistic ideal is to have, I would say, in about five years time to have at least four satellites in and around the Austin area.
Kelly Smith:
Well, look, I think that's great. As you think about scale, there's really kind of two aspects to helping somebody start a microschool. One aspect is learning model, pedagogy, philosophy, culture. So I would say that part of it is one half of what you're trying to do. And so far I'd say you seem strong on that one. Let's jump to the other side of it 'cause I think this is maybe the bigger kind of blind spot is starting a microschool, you've done it, there's a lot in it. And a lot of the people who are going to be really good at loving your particular student and you are really treating them with that respect and honoring their agency and things like that may not also be really strong on the operational side, the business side, spinning things up. For example, asking for money is something that normal people just struggle with. And so I guess my question back to you is just as you think about satellites, those are areas that people are going to need help with. How are you going to help them?
Dr. Erin Flynn:
Yeah. So actually a lot of that has to do with my co-founder Lisa McClanahan. She is my business side.
Kelly Smith:
Great.
Dr. Erin Flynn:
We had done a talk at the National Microschooling Center's Conference in October of last year, and we're talking on this very subject. What is your business plan? Have you set a budget? Have you opened up a business account? I feel like I would be well situated, along with Lisa by my side, to guide people, not just in the culture side of things, but also the business side of things. What are the factors you need to take into consideration?
Nicole Jarbo:
Finding the right partners who excel in the areas that you need help the most is crucial at any stage of your business' growth. Having someone to take care of the business side while Erin handles the learning side makes a lot of sense, but it is a balancing act.
Kelly Smith:
Let's talk a little bit about balancing these business objectives with the learning objectives. You can do education the way you feel strongly that it needs to be done. So how do you make sure that that stays strong even as you scale?
Dr. Erin Flynn:
Yeah. I feel like I've been really fortunate in that side of things. We managed to start off very small. I didn't have a lot of cost. I paid a very minimal amount for rent. A lot of people gave me items that they were getting rid of, like a TV, and so I literally worked out of my car. So the idea was to-
Kelly Smith:
So you were running a lean operation.
Dr. Erin Flynn:
Yeah. A very lean operation in the beginning. And you have to get over the idea that asking for help is a negative.
Kelly Smith:
Good.
Dr. Erin Flynn:
And you also, especially teachers, you have to get over the idea that what you bring doesn't have worth.
Kelly Smith:
Yeah. Absolutely.
Dr. Erin Flynn:
You know, so when you're charging someone for your time and talents and the years of expertise that you have, don't sell yourself short.
Kelly Smith:
Yes.
Dr. Erin Flynn:
Because it's worth everything to be able to bring what you've got.
Nicole Jarbo:
Now, Kelly is going to distill some final advice for Erin.
Kelly Smith:
I think I said earlier, you're really strong on core beliefs and purpose, vision, just a personal mission here, Erin. And that shines through just getting to know you. I'm not sure just because I'm not as closely connected with you, if that is getting out beyond just people who happen to, are lucky enough to interact with you personally. So finding a way to share that, I think doubling down on that, especially as you think about scale, it's going to be really important. At the same time you're looking at helping other people follow in your footsteps and start similar programs to what you've started. And I would just say there's so much that you've got a head start on just empathy, and I've done it before and I know kind of what to look for. And it's, like you said, it's really about that person. So finding people that you really want to partner with that share your heart in this, that are passionate about the same things you're passionate about, and then you pull together and say, okay, how can I truly help you be successful at this?
Dr. Erin Flynn:
Thank you so much. I really appreciate you taking time to give me advice.
Kelly Smith:
Yeah. You bet. And I wish you all the best. You're a treasure in this community and I hope you keep going and share your gift with lots more people.
Nicole Jarbo:
I agree with Kelly here. Erin is a treasure. Thanks so much, Dr. Erin Flynn, for joining us on the show, and, Kelly Smith, from Prenda for your great mentorship. All right. Here are a few quick takeaways I want to leave you with from Erin's story. First...
Dr. Erin Flynn:
There were decisions being made at the legislative level and also at the board level at my own school that I thought were actively harming students.
Nicole Jarbo:
Erin didn't agree with the policies she was expected to enforce. She did something about it by starting her own school. I admire that. Second...
Dr. Erin Flynn:
Choices are our only freedom. What we get to choose to do in this world is the only sense of freedom that we have in reality.
Nicole Jarbo:
Remember that students deserve to be able to choose. Third...
Kelly Smith:
Asking for money is something that normal people just struggle with.
Nicole Jarbo:
If you're a founder who finds this particular aspect of running a business or nonprofit hard, work on it because if you don't ask, you won't receive. Right? Thanks for tuning into Pitch Playground from 4.O. I'm your host, Nicole Jarbo. Learn more about Pitch Playground at PitchPlayground.com and leave us a review if you like the episode. Next episode we'll be hearing a pitch from Jacob Adams, the founder of InnerSpark Learning Lab.
Jacob Adams:
I think just early on, grappling with we're just controlling these kids, the way they think, the way they sit, the way they move, where they look, how much they could talk, so it's weird. It was very weird.

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