WEBVTT - How to Teach a Kid Thousands of Miles Away 0:00:00.920 --> 0:00:02.760 On a recent trip to New York. I'm at a 0:00:02.800 --> 0:00:11.080 former school teacher. Hello, how are you? Hello? How are you? 0:00:11.200 --> 0:00:15.720 A days wind of high fine? Fie Fie. My name 0:00:15.840 --> 0:00:18.840 is yash A Glass, and I grew up in Jersey City, 0:00:18.960 --> 0:00:22.680 New Jersey. I went to Rutgers University, go are you? 0:00:23.040 --> 0:00:27.920 And then I had studied secondary education at Montclair State University. Yeah. 0:00:27.960 --> 0:00:30.319 She is a friendly, talkative person. She came to the 0:00:30.360 --> 0:00:33.560 interview with her two kids. Yeah. Taught for about seven 0:00:33.640 --> 0:00:36.320 years in private schools before taking a job at Kansas 0:00:36.360 --> 0:00:39.320 State University. Then she hit kind of a rough badge. 0:00:42.920 --> 0:00:45.640 I don't tell very many people about this part of 0:00:45.640 --> 0:00:49.680 our lives. I lost my home, I lost my job. Essentially, 0:00:49.920 --> 0:00:53.640 we lost everything, absolutely everything, to the point where we 0:00:53.640 --> 0:00:57.040 were sleeping out of our car and so um, we 0:00:57.040 --> 0:01:00.640 were homeless, and and so I had to do something. 0:01:00.680 --> 0:01:02.480 I had to do something different about our lives, and 0:01:02.560 --> 0:01:05.480 I had to do it immediately. Luckily, a job prospect 0:01:05.520 --> 0:01:07.920 came to her through a Chinese company called v I 0:01:07.959 --> 0:01:11.360 P Kid. V I P Kid was an opportunity that 0:01:11.400 --> 0:01:14.280 I found online through a Facebook group. This company has 0:01:14.319 --> 0:01:17.040 been a blessing for our family because now we're in 0:01:17.080 --> 0:01:20.080 our own space. I can pay our rent. It has 0:01:20.120 --> 0:01:23.600 given me a our life back. Yasha is only one 0:01:23.640 --> 0:01:26.240 of tens of thousands of American teachers who have quit 0:01:26.280 --> 0:01:29.000 the profession. Here in the US, it's been called a 0:01:29.040 --> 0:01:32.559 teacher dropout crisis, brought on by long hours, low pay, 0:01:32.600 --> 0:01:35.760 and lack of resources. Meanwhile, v I P Kid is 0:01:35.800 --> 0:01:40.400 promising its teachers a better alternative, tutoring eager Chinese students 0:01:40.440 --> 0:01:43.120 from the comfort of their homes, often for higher pay 0:01:43.200 --> 0:01:46.520 than what they would make in traditional schools. We have 0:01:46.640 --> 0:01:51.440 over two students now, over twenty thou teachers, and then 0:01:51.480 --> 0:01:55.120 on the refue of two thousand seventeen would be a 0:01:55.160 --> 0:01:58.360 five filling v that's v I P Kids. Thirty four 0:01:58.440 --> 0:02:01.600 year old founder Cindy me she's really into the numbers. 0:02:02.000 --> 0:02:05.160 As you'll soon see, her entire teaching philosophy is about 0:02:05.160 --> 0:02:09.200 how to enhance learning with data. Given all these numbers, 0:02:09.440 --> 0:02:13.160 we are not representing more than of the top on 0:02:13.200 --> 0:02:17.600 the learning market, and Cindy says she's only just getting started. 0:02:18.040 --> 0:02:22.320 We're not interested in beauty a after school tutoring brand, right. 0:02:22.639 --> 0:02:27.760 We're really interested in is to rethinking of how educational 0:02:27.960 --> 0:02:41.720 learning could look like in the next time years. Hi, 0:02:41.800 --> 0:02:45.040 I'm Brad Stone and I'm Peter Lstrom, and this week 0:02:45.040 --> 0:02:49.239 on Decrypted will explore the booming online education market in China. 0:02:49.639 --> 0:02:51.760 We'll see how v I P Kid came to lead 0:02:51.800 --> 0:02:53.919 the pack and check out the company's claims that it's 0:02:53.919 --> 0:02:57.760 curriculum is boosting learning outcomes for so many students. Cindy 0:02:57.760 --> 0:02:59.959 Me startup was just valued at more than a billion 0:03:00.040 --> 0:03:03.200 dollars and with a new data driven approach to learning, 0:03:03.280 --> 0:03:05.079 the v I P Kid has said it sites on 0:03:05.240 --> 0:03:08.760 changing the very concept of school itself. Education is one 0:03:08.800 --> 0:03:12.600 of the last major industries to see serious disruption by technology, 0:03:12.919 --> 0:03:15.799 and many people are still skeptical about bringing tech into 0:03:15.840 --> 0:03:18.840 the classroom. It's a high stakes experiment for v I 0:03:18.919 --> 0:03:21.079 P Kid, but the future of a whole group of 0:03:21.160 --> 0:03:31.360 children on the line. Stay with us. Yes, yes, now, 0:03:33.520 --> 0:03:45.040 I know h What is it? No up here? Hair here? 0:03:45.680 --> 0:03:53.080 Hair here? Hair the job? Noah. That's Yash online with 0:03:53.120 --> 0:03:55.480 one of her students, a five year old boy called 0:03:55.520 --> 0:03:59.200 Noah who lives in Beijing. Yasha is eight thousand miles 0:03:59.200 --> 0:04:02.120 away he from her home in New Jersey. She's up 0:04:02.160 --> 0:04:04.080 super early in the morning so she can talk with 0:04:04.120 --> 0:04:07.840 Noah during the afternoon and Beijing. They're using an online 0:04:07.920 --> 0:04:10.840 video conferencing system where they see each other and use 0:04:10.880 --> 0:04:13.760 a virtual chalkboard, in this case with images of a 0:04:13.840 --> 0:04:16.200 young girl pointing to her ears and other parts of 0:04:16.200 --> 0:04:18.960 her face. When Noah started, he was having a hard 0:04:18.960 --> 0:04:21.440 time getting into it. He was only four years old 0:04:21.480 --> 0:04:24.400 and wouldn't even say hello or imitate what Yasha said. 0:04:24.720 --> 0:04:27.279 But eight months later he's able to follow along and 0:04:27.360 --> 0:04:31.440 speak basic phrases. Yasha and Noah usually connect three times 0:04:31.440 --> 0:04:34.719 a week for classes for twenty five minutes each. Yasha 0:04:34.839 --> 0:04:37.720 says that after six to twelve months, kids are usually 0:04:37.800 --> 0:04:42.599 comfortable enough to have basic conversations. While she's teaching, every 0:04:42.640 --> 0:04:45.960 part of Noah's progress is being tracked and tagged. V 0:04:46.080 --> 0:04:48.880 I p Kid is constantly reading the data to suggest 0:04:48.920 --> 0:04:52.200 adjustments that, according to the company, will help kids like 0:04:52.279 --> 0:04:56.760 Noah learn faster. There's a tremendous amount of measurement that 0:04:56.800 --> 0:04:59.360 occurs as a service to the student at the prament. 0:04:59.720 --> 0:05:02.960 That's Rob Hudder, a managing partner at Learned Capital. It's 0:05:02.960 --> 0:05:06.560 a Silicon Valley venture capital from that specializes in education 0:05:06.880 --> 0:05:10.640 and has put money into Cindy's startup. We essentially provide 0:05:10.680 --> 0:05:13.200 feedback on how well students are doing, and there's continuous 0:05:13.240 --> 0:05:14.800 reporting that goes back to parent. It's just like the 0:05:14.839 --> 0:05:16.720 reporting get at school, but it's more detailed and a 0:05:16.720 --> 0:05:19.240 heck of a lot more frequent. People like Rob look 0:05:19.279 --> 0:05:22.280 at the traditional method of teaching, one instructor at the 0:05:22.320 --> 0:05:24.920 front of a classroom, giving twenty or thirty kids all 0:05:24.960 --> 0:05:27.840 the same lesson at exactly the same pace. They think 0:05:27.880 --> 0:05:30.719 that's not only old fashioned, they think it's kind of crazy. 0:05:31.120 --> 0:05:33.400 Of course, all kids don't learn at the same speed. 0:05:33.760 --> 0:05:36.440 Of course, certain kids will respond better to examples with 0:05:36.520 --> 0:05:40.279 sports or superheroes or historical figures. But is that really 0:05:40.320 --> 0:05:43.440 better teaching? There are plenty of skeptics. It doesn't help 0:05:43.440 --> 0:05:46.120 that there have been so many online education services in 0:05:46.160 --> 0:05:48.440 the past that have failed to deliver on their promises. 0:05:48.960 --> 0:05:52.120 The whole thing was completely unrewarding to me. If you 0:05:52.200 --> 0:05:54.160 like teaching, the joy of that is in being with 0:05:54.200 --> 0:05:57.640 your students and interacting with them and drawing them out, 0:05:57.800 --> 0:06:01.560 and so it just doesn't happen online. That's a lane Clift. 0:06:01.960 --> 0:06:04.640 She's a writer who has taught at universities like Yale 0:06:04.760 --> 0:06:08.480 Middlebury in the University of Connecticut. Elaine wrote an influential 0:06:08.600 --> 0:06:11.520 article on the Chronicle of Higher Education a few years ago, 0:06:11.880 --> 0:06:14.920 and which she argued forcefully against the idea that online 0:06:14.960 --> 0:06:18.120 teaching is somehow better. She also thinks that just as 0:06:18.160 --> 0:06:21.839 a disservice to the students, I think it's actually very sad. 0:06:21.960 --> 0:06:24.640 And I have taught in Asia. There's a certain intensity 0:06:24.839 --> 0:06:27.600 in Asia. I can tell you their parents are driven 0:06:27.640 --> 0:06:30.360 to have some learn in English. I actually believe that 0:06:30.400 --> 0:06:33.240 we are we are changing as a species in ways 0:06:33.279 --> 0:06:35.520 that we are not even aware of. We do not 0:06:36.040 --> 0:06:39.200 that you lose a tremendous amount in your terms of 0:06:39.200 --> 0:06:42.520 whether it's your humanity or your courtesy or your patience 0:06:42.680 --> 0:06:45.359 or whatever when you don't have to interact with people 0:06:45.480 --> 0:06:54.200 face to face. Boy, Peter Elane is making a pretty 0:06:54.200 --> 0:06:57.040 strong statement about the kind of education that V. I. P. 0:06:57.240 --> 0:07:01.080 Kid is providing. That's it. I kind of some athletictor argument. 0:07:01.120 --> 0:07:03.560 I would imagine it's hard to learn from somebody who 0:07:03.600 --> 0:07:06.479 is literally halfway around the world. Yeah, I'd agree. I 0:07:06.520 --> 0:07:10.320 can't imagine my kids learning from somebody in a different 0:07:10.360 --> 0:07:13.040 part of the world, especially full time. Maybe for particular 0:07:13.120 --> 0:07:17.320 skills like a language skill, but overall education that seems 0:07:17.400 --> 0:07:21.080 very challenging. It is though a creative solution to this 0:07:21.280 --> 0:07:23.920 dearth of teachers. I mean, I guess it's probably better 0:07:23.920 --> 0:07:26.960 than nothing right in China, that's the challenge that they face. 0:07:27.080 --> 0:07:30.080 They just have a shortage of good English teachers, especially 0:07:30.160 --> 0:07:38.240 native English teachers. V r P KID provides the curriculum 0:07:38.280 --> 0:07:40.480 for classes, but it's on the teacher to make sure 0:07:40.520 --> 0:07:43.600 that tailor their lessons to a child's interests and aptitude, 0:07:44.080 --> 0:07:48.160 and teachers that don't perform get phased out. There are 0:07:48.240 --> 0:07:52.560 a lot of behavioral avocacy related things we're watching out 0:07:52.560 --> 0:07:55.800 as well, for example, how good their students are doing 0:07:55.800 --> 0:07:59.720 in their U Unit assessment scores, their kids using the 0:08:00.000 --> 0:08:04.520 A class post class videws UH like exercises, how they're doing, 0:08:04.560 --> 0:08:08.560 how they do quizzes, how the teachers are reviewed that parents. 0:08:09.040 --> 0:08:11.960 This is the founder, Sindy me Again. We visited her 0:08:12.000 --> 0:08:15.480 at the company's headquarters in Beijing. It's inside a former 0:08:15.560 --> 0:08:18.120 daoas temple in the middle of a quiet Hutong, the 0:08:18.160 --> 0:08:23.680 traditional neighborhood of narrow alleyways and run down homes. The 0:08:23.720 --> 0:08:27.160 places overflowing with employees, most of them elbow the elbow 0:08:27.200 --> 0:08:30.680 at long desks. Cindy's office is often one corner jammed 0:08:30.680 --> 0:08:33.800 with the sofa and stools. She's dressed casually like pretty 0:08:33.880 --> 0:08:36.320 much everyone else, in a bright orange T shirt with 0:08:36.360 --> 0:08:39.000 a v I P Kid logo. She's an athlete who 0:08:39.000 --> 0:08:42.520 favored sports like skydiving and bungee jumping, though recently she 0:08:42.640 --> 0:08:45.480 spent more of her workout time in the company Jim. 0:08:45.600 --> 0:08:48.720 We offer parents new functions like they can watch the 0:08:48.760 --> 0:08:51.400 class all the time, and then they can edit a 0:08:51.480 --> 0:08:54.720 thirty second video and share it on a social network. 0:08:54.880 --> 0:08:57.760 So it's very easy for parents to monitor the entire 0:08:57.840 --> 0:09:02.600 learning process. Another your idea she's implementing. With so many teachers, now, 0:09:02.679 --> 0:09:05.680 parents rely on a recommendation service, not unlike the review 0:09:05.760 --> 0:09:09.800 system from Amazon. Parents can browse for teachers more likely 0:09:09.840 --> 0:09:14.040 to fit their child the standard processes. When they have 0:09:14.160 --> 0:09:16.360 a sign up to for the program, they then would 0:09:16.480 --> 0:09:21.600 be recommended by our service team the teachers that would 0:09:21.600 --> 0:09:25.160 probably most suable for their kids. But now we're also 0:09:25.920 --> 0:09:30.480 using data analytics and the machine learning to recommend teachers 0:09:30.520 --> 0:09:36.160 to those students parents from the system. So not only 0:09:36.160 --> 0:09:39.319 the service team um themselves, but also the machine and 0:09:39.360 --> 0:09:42.520 also Finally, the parents. Of course, they can always um 0:09:42.559 --> 0:09:45.480 if they have the time bross through all the twenty 0:09:45.840 --> 0:09:48.480 teachers and watch all the videos and find teachers. And 0:09:48.520 --> 0:09:51.320 we don't want to eliminate their opportunities of choosing right 0:09:51.360 --> 0:09:53.920 because parents really enjoy that, and most of the time 0:09:53.920 --> 0:09:56.360 when you're at school, you never get to choose the teacher. 0:09:57.200 --> 0:10:00.000 What's more, Robbed the venture investor has helped put together 0:10:00.040 --> 0:10:02.679 there are a group of professors from places like Stanford 0:10:02.720 --> 0:10:04.880 and Harvard who are using all the video that v 0:10:04.960 --> 0:10:07.839 I P Kid is generating for research. They want to 0:10:07.880 --> 0:10:10.560 figure out how they can refine teaching to make it 0:10:10.600 --> 0:10:15.360 more effective. Every every month we're genuating additional data of 0:10:15.920 --> 0:10:21.480 over a hundred TV hello, so it's a lot of data. 0:10:24.320 --> 0:10:27.800 That's one hundred trillion bytes, which is approximately the same 0:10:27.800 --> 0:10:31.319 as streaming one hundred hours of video and standard definition 0:10:31.320 --> 0:10:36.120 on Netflix. All this data helps reassure Chinese parents that 0:10:36.120 --> 0:10:38.520 they're making the right choice by signing their children up 0:10:38.520 --> 0:10:41.680 with v I P Kid. For example, who when Haa, 0:10:42.000 --> 0:10:44.760 who has an eleven year old son called Ryan, look 0:10:44.840 --> 0:10:47.720 through many of the tutoring options in Beijing, both online 0:10:47.720 --> 0:10:50.360 and off, and she finds v I p kids approach 0:10:50.440 --> 0:10:56.880 most helpful. I'm especially happy with the curriculum settings because 0:10:56.920 --> 0:11:00.319 you're always adding things that work for Chinese students. This 0:11:00.360 --> 0:11:04.640 is an area I'm especially satisfied with. Where does the 0:11:04.720 --> 0:11:10.079 tiger live? The tiger? And hey, that's Yah teaching Wu's 0:11:10.080 --> 0:11:13.520 son Ryan. He's been with the program about eighteen months. 0:11:14.080 --> 0:11:18.400 And the bear bear? To? Where does the bear live? 0:11:18.880 --> 0:11:21.960 The bear lives in the cave? To where does the 0:11:22.080 --> 0:11:27.440 bird live? And live? Day next? Can a bear live 0:11:27.440 --> 0:11:34.560 in a nest? No? The nasal co cuck. It will 0:11:34.600 --> 0:11:44.480 fall down, down, It'll fall down. You're right. Remember a 0:11:44.520 --> 0:11:47.319 lot of Chinese families only have one child, and parents 0:11:47.320 --> 0:11:49.600 are willing to do whatever it takes to get them 0:11:49.640 --> 0:11:53.559 the best opportunities. In big cities like Beijing, competition can 0:11:53.600 --> 0:11:56.440 be intense to get your child enrolled in a tutoring service. 0:11:57.720 --> 0:12:01.120 Oh what do how are you guys teaing with? I 0:12:01.160 --> 0:12:03.600 got him to study English because it's something that all 0:12:03.640 --> 0:12:05.920 the kids are studying, and the kids his age are 0:12:05.920 --> 0:12:09.000 all getting classes. When I speak with my friends, many 0:12:09.040 --> 0:12:11.200 of their children go to elementary school, where if you 0:12:11.240 --> 0:12:13.960 haven't done external studies, it's hard to keep up. So 0:12:14.080 --> 0:12:15.880 for a number of reasons, we thought it would be 0:12:15.880 --> 0:12:19.880 best for him to study it. Let's Noah's mother, Gong Iowa. 0:12:20.320 --> 0:12:23.720 But because the online education sector is so new, many 0:12:23.840 --> 0:12:26.720 Chinese parents are having to try out these tutoring services 0:12:26.720 --> 0:12:30.000 without really knowing how much it can help their kids. 0:12:30.880 --> 0:12:33.280 It was the middle of last year. I thought should 0:12:33.280 --> 0:12:35.000 I get my son to learn a bit of English? 0:12:35.320 --> 0:12:38.120 And it turned out my classmates daughter was also studying 0:12:38.160 --> 0:12:40.439 VI I P Kids course. So I asked her how 0:12:40.440 --> 0:12:42.960 it was and she said it wasn't bad and said 0:12:42.960 --> 0:12:45.280 her daughter's class videos to me, and I thought she 0:12:45.360 --> 0:12:47.520 was doing fairly well. So I started and I signed 0:12:47.559 --> 0:12:50.080 him up. It will take years to know whether the 0:12:50.120 --> 0:12:53.360 company's prize methodology really works as well as it says 0:12:53.360 --> 0:13:06.120 it does. Unlike what you might expect, parents in China 0:13:06.160 --> 0:13:09.079 have been a bit behind their Asian counterparts and spending 0:13:09.120 --> 0:13:13.360 on extra classes outside of school. According to data from UBS, 0:13:13.400 --> 0:13:16.160 about seventy percent of children get tutoring outside of school 0:13:16.160 --> 0:13:19.600 in places like Japan, Taiwan and South Korea, but in 0:13:19.679 --> 0:13:22.200 China it was only thirty seven percent in two thousand 0:13:22.280 --> 0:13:25.480 and sixteen, and in just a few years, the Chinese 0:13:25.520 --> 0:13:28.520 market will be a whole lot bigger. Oh. Yes, Ubs 0:13:28.559 --> 0:13:31.040 says that figure will probably climb to fifty percent in 0:13:31.080 --> 0:13:33.600 five years, and at the same time, the number of 0:13:33.679 --> 0:13:36.959 kids in the kindergarten to twelfth grade segment will swell 0:13:37.000 --> 0:13:40.400 to about two million. Overall, the tutoring market in China 0:13:40.480 --> 0:13:42.719 is supposed to double in five years to about a 0:13:42.800 --> 0:13:46.440 hundred and sixty billion dollars peter As as with all 0:13:46.520 --> 0:13:49.240 things related to China, we are talking about some very 0:13:49.280 --> 0:13:53.040 big numbers, Yes, and Cindia set her sights on conquering 0:13:53.040 --> 0:13:55.560 a big part of this booming market. She says she's 0:13:55.559 --> 0:13:58.520 expecting to have a million students in just a few years. 0:13:59.120 --> 0:14:03.520 A million students by two other nineteen and tenderly students 0:14:03.520 --> 0:14:06.480 probably are not that far. I should caution it's not 0:14:06.520 --> 0:14:09.360 clear how realistic that goal is. But what's true is 0:14:09.400 --> 0:14:12.680 that v I P Kid is growing incredibly fast. Even 0:14:12.679 --> 0:14:15.640 the two thousand students Cindy has now is a massive 0:14:15.720 --> 0:14:17.880 lead from the last time I spoke to her, she 0:14:17.920 --> 0:14:22.240 had just fifty students enrolled in December. Plus, Cindy wants 0:14:22.280 --> 0:14:24.840 to expand the kinds of classes v I P Kid offers. 0:14:25.160 --> 0:14:28.480 Until now, the company has offered only English language training 0:14:28.480 --> 0:14:32.480 to Chinese students. There are two things we're thinking. We 0:14:32.560 --> 0:14:35.440 have now got over two percent students, almost two percent 0:14:35.480 --> 0:14:40.560 students coming from out of China, so uh, Korea, depend Germany, 0:14:41.320 --> 0:14:46.000 but we so we're not really launching any countries just yet, 0:14:46.800 --> 0:14:50.640 but it's definitely a possibility where But I think the 0:14:50.720 --> 0:14:53.320 ever Know model is pretty good. They just let it 0:14:53.360 --> 0:14:58.360 grow and organically and see which market picks up and 0:14:58.640 --> 0:15:02.320 grows really fast. Right and enough probably too then and 0:15:02.520 --> 0:15:07.800 UH find it designated a target country to to deploy. Okay, 0:15:07.880 --> 0:15:10.520 so v I p Kid is thinking globally. They're also 0:15:10.600 --> 0:15:14.560 thinking way beyond English language classes. Just a few weeks ago, 0:15:14.640 --> 0:15:17.480 the company added Mandarin classes that will be taught by 0:15:17.560 --> 0:15:22.440 Chinese teachers. Eventually, Cindy hopes to branch into many more subjects. 0:15:22.480 --> 0:15:26.480 So we've launched a higher level great uh curriculum content 0:15:26.920 --> 0:15:31.640 as you go higher, Um, it's more content, it's more 0:15:32.040 --> 0:15:34.440 math science. They're not just learning language and aren't right, 0:15:34.440 --> 0:15:37.400 they're learning math science and all everything. So primarily we're 0:15:37.400 --> 0:15:40.720 not doing language teaching theoter and teaching, we're doing moreph 0:15:40.760 --> 0:15:45.480 The online US Elementary School North American Elementary School Experience 0:15:45.880 --> 0:15:49.160 that's why we really needed North American teachers. Taking online 0:15:49.200 --> 0:15:52.200 classes for after school English is one thing. But shifting 0:15:52.200 --> 0:15:55.440 a child's elementary education to a learn from home model 0:15:55.840 --> 0:15:57.920 that's a whole new ball game, and it could have 0:15:58.040 --> 0:16:05.600 ramifications for American schools already dealing with an exodus of teachers. Okay, 0:16:05.600 --> 0:16:08.360 so far v I P Kids model has been almost 0:16:08.400 --> 0:16:11.000 as popular with teachers as it has been with students. 0:16:12.320 --> 0:16:15.440 I am from a small town in South Jersey, Hamilton's 0:16:15.520 --> 0:16:18.440 or the blueberry capital of the world. This is Jennifer Enders, 0:16:18.480 --> 0:16:21.520 another teacher I spoke to recently in New York. I'm 0:16:21.560 --> 0:16:23.840 sort of adventurous at the same time, even though I 0:16:23.880 --> 0:16:26.440 still live in my small town. UM, my husband and 0:16:26.440 --> 0:16:31.240 I have been together forever. He's a full time singer, songwriter, musician, 0:16:31.680 --> 0:16:34.720 UM producers, so we've just been traveling and traveling. So 0:16:34.760 --> 0:16:38.760 I never really went into the classroom full time. And UM, 0:16:38.800 --> 0:16:42.760 I'm always like looking for something flexible. V I P Kids. 0:16:42.760 --> 0:16:45.480 Flexible hours are a big draw. It's also a good 0:16:45.480 --> 0:16:48.880 way for teachers to supplement their incomes. Teaching salaries in 0:16:48.920 --> 0:16:52.480 the US are notoriously not as high as many would like. Peter, 0:16:52.560 --> 0:16:54.400 did you find out the name of her husband's band. 0:16:55.120 --> 0:16:58.240 I did. It's the early November. Should check them out. 0:16:58.280 --> 0:17:06.480 They're pretty good. You gotta get up. He's been doing 0:17:06.480 --> 0:17:11.200 it forever and he's still going strong. So um Australia 0:17:11.280 --> 0:17:15.119 and Europe everywhere. And I started looking for other opportunities, 0:17:15.640 --> 0:17:18.639 more e s L opportunities, and I found the I 0:17:18.680 --> 0:17:21.359 P Kid and that was that was it. So I'm 0:17:21.359 --> 0:17:25.480 coming up to eighteen months with the company. As v 0:17:25.560 --> 0:17:28.240 I P Kids signs up more students and more teachers, 0:17:28.480 --> 0:17:30.240 at a certain point, the rest of the world may 0:17:30.240 --> 0:17:32.359 need to sit up and take notice. V I P 0:17:32.560 --> 0:17:35.800 Kid already has two hundred thousand kids enrolled in its program. 0:17:36.080 --> 0:17:39.280 That's more kids than the Boston or Dallas public school systems, 0:17:39.600 --> 0:17:41.919 and according to Cindy, teachers are applying to work with 0:17:42.040 --> 0:17:44.680 v I P Kid in droves. They accept less than 0:17:44.680 --> 0:17:48.399 ten percent of the teachers that apply. Importantly, the vast 0:17:48.440 --> 0:17:51.159 majority of the teachers that Cindy is hiring are based 0:17:51.200 --> 0:17:54.720 here in the US. Do we have a less than 0:17:55.359 --> 0:17:58.320 uh ten per cent about teachers from Canada and most 0:17:58.320 --> 0:18:02.560 primarily mostly in the US from the USA in other 0:18:02.600 --> 0:18:05.040 parts of the world too, to the UK, teacher, no, 0:18:05.119 --> 0:18:08.280 not yet, and once they're enrolled, it's up to the 0:18:08.280 --> 0:18:11.560 teacher to decide how many hours they work. Many teachers 0:18:11.560 --> 0:18:13.520 are working with v I P Kid on the side 0:18:13.520 --> 0:18:16.639 to supplement their income, but others like Jennifer are working 0:18:16.720 --> 0:18:21.040 full time hours. UM I try to aim for between 0:18:21.119 --> 0:18:26.000 thirty and forty. I've actually exceeded forty at times during 0:18:26.119 --> 0:18:31.840 high recruitment period. Some people watching this space think the 0:18:31.880 --> 0:18:34.679 one on one approach online just doesn't make business sense. 0:18:35.080 --> 0:18:38.960 Edwin Chen, an analyst at UBS, is one of them. 0:18:38.960 --> 0:18:44.120 From company's perspective, it's difficult to scale up because supposedly 0:18:44.240 --> 0:18:48.800 one teacher colony teach one students at sudden period up time. 0:18:49.480 --> 0:18:52.720 Edwin covers education companies in China. He thinks that brick 0:18:52.760 --> 0:18:55.959 and mortar companies like Tal Education have a big advantage 0:18:56.160 --> 0:18:59.520 over upstarts like v I P Kid. Tal Education when 0:18:59.560 --> 0:19:01.920 public in the US, and it's stock is more than 0:19:01.920 --> 0:19:06.000 double this year thanks to surging revenue. When you grow 0:19:06.040 --> 0:19:09.560 bigger and bigger, one it's difficult to source enough tutors. 0:19:09.680 --> 0:19:14.600 Quality tutors and to the teaching quality are very dependent 0:19:15.280 --> 0:19:19.520 on the individual teachers. Is relatively more difficult to standardize 0:19:19.640 --> 0:19:23.119 the services you provide to the children. But when I 0:19:23.160 --> 0:19:25.560 push Cindy and how she feels about moving away from 0:19:25.600 --> 0:19:29.160 the classroom model of teaching, said she thinks learning online 0:19:29.200 --> 0:19:33.400 has distinct advantages. I find the in person session uh 0:19:33.560 --> 0:19:36.480 to be the same when it's face to face like this, 0:19:36.960 --> 0:19:40.000 and when it's online, so that covers the whole like 0:19:40.280 --> 0:19:43.600 in person thing. But then it can be more effective 0:19:43.920 --> 0:19:49.280 when it's online because teachers can use um ay are 0:19:49.359 --> 0:19:53.040 argument in reality they would use apps so that when 0:19:53.040 --> 0:19:59.080 it teach about um hitting, they can have a baseball player, 0:19:59.680 --> 0:20:04.679 uh like an animated image that is so it sounds 0:20:04.760 --> 0:20:07.359 very like, it looks very real for the students because 0:20:07.400 --> 0:20:10.680 otherwise you would have demonstrated right. And then it's very 0:20:10.720 --> 0:20:13.720 like when they talk about dinosaur, a dinosaur pops up 0:20:14.160 --> 0:20:20.480 on the screen. Do you see online learning in the 0:20:20.520 --> 0:20:23.760 ability to kind of do this online learning as an 0:20:23.800 --> 0:20:26.960 opportunity to supplement in person learning or do you think 0:20:26.960 --> 0:20:31.120 there are opportunities to surpass in personal teaching? I think, 0:20:31.200 --> 0:20:34.280 for for current, for now, it's a supplement of the 0:20:34.320 --> 0:20:37.920 in person learning for the school like schooling experience, I think, 0:20:38.480 --> 0:20:41.920 but not necessarily in personal learning because parents are choosing 0:20:42.240 --> 0:20:45.840 online learning over um like training center of learning. But 0:20:45.880 --> 0:20:48.480 then over the long term, if we think about learning 0:20:48.520 --> 0:20:52.639 reimagined and rethink schools, and then I think there's a 0:20:52.880 --> 0:20:57.480 great opportunity. This would go beyond anything that we can imagine. 0:20:59.320 --> 0:21:03.000 Peter Indie stories incredibly inspiring. But you know, we're both parents, 0:21:03.000 --> 0:21:06.640 and I'm not sure i'd feel personally comfortable making online 0:21:06.720 --> 0:21:09.439 education the bulk of my kids education. Would would you? 0:21:10.240 --> 0:21:12.800 With my two kids, I don't think I would either. 0:21:12.880 --> 0:21:16.560 I'd be hesitant to send them online for very substantial 0:21:16.600 --> 0:21:19.280 periods of time. But I would say that parents in 0:21:19.359 --> 0:21:22.440 China are not making that choice in this case. They're 0:21:22.480 --> 0:21:25.919 looking for any edge they can to get their kids ahead, 0:21:25.960 --> 0:21:29.520 to give them good education opportunities, and online is where 0:21:29.560 --> 0:21:32.360 they need to go to get good English teaching. These 0:21:32.400 --> 0:21:34.720 are also all for profit companies. I mean, do we 0:21:34.800 --> 0:21:37.399 need to be dubious of, you know, a company that 0:21:37.640 --> 0:21:41.119 is oriented towards a profit motive also being responsible for 0:21:41.160 --> 0:21:44.560 our children's education. That's a really good question. As we've 0:21:44.560 --> 0:21:48.440 seen in the States, for profit companies providing education services 0:21:48.640 --> 0:21:50.919 have run into tons of trouble. Boy a lot of 0:21:50.960 --> 0:21:53.720 this gold rush mentality here in the education sector in 0:21:53.800 --> 0:21:56.199 China does It does really remind me of some of 0:21:56.240 --> 0:21:59.920 the destructive booms and tech here in the States. It does, 0:22:00.119 --> 0:22:01.919 is you and I are old enough to remember a 0:22:01.960 --> 0:22:04.600 few of the booms and technology in the past. I 0:22:04.640 --> 0:22:07.520 remember I used to order dog food from pets dot com. 0:22:07.560 --> 0:22:09.359 It was cheaper than this store and they brought it 0:22:09.440 --> 0:22:12.080 right to my door right Well, but back then the 0:22:12.119 --> 0:22:13.960 business model was a mess. Now now they've kind of 0:22:13.960 --> 0:22:16.040 figured that out. But I guess the question is, you know, 0:22:16.440 --> 0:22:19.800 can these education companies make the business model work? Yes, 0:22:19.840 --> 0:22:22.640 you're seeing this competition play out in China right now. 0:22:22.880 --> 0:22:26.320 His parents rushed to find better education alternatives for their kids. 0:22:26.520 --> 0:22:30.119 They have dozens of choices online and off. Our vision 0:22:30.520 --> 0:22:33.600 is to be the best education globally, so we want 0:22:33.600 --> 0:22:36.760 to really make sure that we're able to build the 0:22:36.800 --> 0:22:40.159 best learning experiences, efficacy for the students for the future. 0:22:48.720 --> 0:22:51.600 And that's it for this week's episode of Decrypted. Thanks 0:22:51.640 --> 0:22:53.640 for listening. We always want to know what you think 0:22:53.640 --> 0:22:56.639 of this show. Get in touch at Decrypted at Bloomberg 0:22:56.680 --> 0:23:01.280 dot net or I'm on Twitter at PLS drum and 0:23:01.359 --> 0:23:04.439 I'm at brad Stone if you haven't already subscribed to 0:23:04.480 --> 0:23:07.280 our show wherever you get your podcasts, and while you're there, 0:23:07.480 --> 0:23:10.240 please leave us a rating interview. This goes a long 0:23:10.240 --> 0:23:12.400 way to get this show in front of more listeners. 0:23:13.240 --> 0:23:16.239 Special thanks to David Ramley who helped with reporting for 0:23:16.240 --> 0:23:20.439 this show. This episode was produced by Pia Gudcary, Liz Smith, 0:23:20.640 --> 0:23:24.600 and Magnus Hendrickson. Alec McCabe is head of Bloomberg Podcasts. 0:23:24.680 --> 0:23:25.720 We'll see you next week.