#115: Home-schooling, Writing in Bilingual, Future of Education and GenZ with Gabriele Pizzi
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Welcome to the Cherry Journal podcast. I'm your host, Camille Yang. On the show, I interview global citizens who follow a unique path to build a better future.

and share stories and tips they learned along the way. My guest today is Gabriel. He is 18 years old Italian and currently lives in North East Italy. He has been homeschooling since 2020 and now exploring the art of sculpture, bell design and digital fabrication.

We discussed homeschooling, writing in bilingual, future of education and ginseng. I hope you enjoy this episode. How are you doing? I'm good. Very nice to meet you. It's a pleasure for me. How do I pronounce your name right? Is it Gabriela or Gabriel? Gabriele. Gabri-ele.

Gabriele, okay. Yeah, but with the Italian R, I mean it's R, Gabriele. Wow, that's so hard. Welcome to the show, Gabriele. I'll try to practice my Italian, then I can pronounce your name properly next time. Thank you. So what makes you decide doing homeschooling?

I have been enrolled in public education here in Italy for the last three years because before that I attended an anthroposophic school. I don't know if you ever heard of it? No. Okay. He was a philosopher and the whole system of schools has been created around his philosophy. He studied education and developed an educational system.

And I attended that. Then I enrolled in public school, which is very different from the school I was in. I mean, there we had a lot of freedom, outdoor spaces. And then I started attending public school. I started seeing all the things that didn't work. Most of the teachers didn't know here in Italian public school. And we have a big problem of quality of teaching. I mean, most of the teachers are there just because they...

they try to enter in the position and therefore they do not know what they're teaching most of the time they have like a

a graduation from philosophy school but then they are not able to teach philosophy so I had all these teachers I mean I also had good teachers like very good teachers but most of them would were just reading from books they read all the time but there was nothing that was added to the teaching it's what's us reading

loud reading, I was listening, but that gave me nothing. That was okay for me for the first two to three years because I was like exploring the life of this new situation, this new school and all the freedom that came with it because I was older and I started to go out at night and so on. But then I started to think about my future and about the fact that I wanted to achieve something that was high

higher than the standards that school imposed on me. Then last year, in 2020, we started to... This school, with the pandemic, has gone full remote. So we were just in front of the laptop and listening to my teachers reading. And I started to experience the freedom that you have while studying at home.

I was not very happy about my school, so it was far away from my house, like an hour and a half of bus every day, each day. And so it was like a lot of effort to attend. And I started to experience the freedom that I had studying at home. Then I noticed that teachers were just reading and that I could read at a much faster pace than the teachers.

So I decided to retire from school. I don't know if retire is the right word. Yeah, I dropped off and started studying by myself. Because here in Italy, no one has really been doing that of my age. They had not done anything similar. They attended school all the years that they had to and their parents did so. And everyone does that. I mean...

90% of my friends go to school and do all the things that they are supposed to do. So I was like an outsider. Your question was about why did I start to go to school. But I did not know why.

until I started. I mean, while homeschooling, I started to see that school did not give me the freedom I needed. More importantly, it did not give me the instruments, the intellectual tools to explore and comprehend the world around me in this age.

I do not know much about the education system of the United States or England, but I heard a lot of people talking about them and most of the people say the same things. I mean, we have the same problem. We have an educational system and a school system suited for the industrial age that's made to prepare you for the factory, to become or a factory worker or a blue-collar worker, but

Not a free human being in the information age, in this age, entering this age for the last 50 years. I do not know. It's normal that we have not yet adapted. Before we don't have the access to all the information. Basically teachers know more than us. But with the internet we have access to every channel. If we are curious about one subject, we probably know more than teachers. I'm from academia background.

I always challenge the status quo, like why we always need to follow every subject's

we need to learn that won't be useful to our future just to follow our curiosity or learn something like up-to-date knowledge because you know a lot of books and knowledge they are like 20 years ago they won't renew every year and it's impossible I mean you cannot renew the school system every year and it was not needed 100 years ago because the world changed at a much slower pace and

I'm sorry about my pronunciation. No, no problem. Now we have a world that's changing radically in like five years. And we are seeing it. I mean, when I started to go in school, no one had a smartphone. Now everyone has a smartphone. Everyone has access to...

knowledge of the world and teachers do not use this technology and it's absurd because right now I'm homeschooling I can attend lessons from the best teachers in the world for free the majority of the traditional teachers

are not that good. I mean, I'm sorry to say that, but they are not that good. I have this opportunity. I believe that schools can have an important role, but they must become something else. I mean, I would love right now, as an homeschooler, to have a school in which teachers can help me learn. But it's useless.

that the teachers tell you information that's outdated and they tell you it in a bad manner. I did not get anything from some of my teachers. I was not understanding. Then I go on the web, like on Khan Academy, there are some lessons that explain math in such an easy way and I had teachers that tried to explain it but did not really understand it themselves.

That's a problem. That's a big problem. Yeah. It reminds me about when I was in high school, my physics subject, the total score is 100. I always got like 20 or 30 because the teacher, as you said, they just read the books. When I was in high school, I didn't get anything from the teacher. So I thought, oh, probably I'm not good at physics. That's not my interest.

But after I graduate, I'm very into physics. I got the curiosity in quantum mechanism and other physics formulas and laws. And I just started myself. Then I thought, oh, wow. Actually, I do interest in physics. But that teacher just made me waste 10 years just letting me self-doubting my interest in physics because I know, oh, OK, I didn't get a good school, which means I'm not good at that. Yeah.

And there is also another problem that made me think that I should start homeschooling. This mode of mass education. I mean, they are trying to educate everyone in the same way, at the same pace, about everything. And that makes no sense. I mean, the only thing that we know for sure about humans is that we are all different.

in a lot of ways, physically, mentally, our culture is very different most of the time, and among groups of people that are similar, that have the same culture. Everyone has its talents, its interests. If I had teachers that helped me develop my interests and my talents outside of the curriculum,

Like, most of my interests were not in the curriculum, but I was very interested about them. I could have pursued them in a deeper way and therefore I could have had a greater impact on the world, on our community, on the society, much earlier.

I could have started to build something, to build the thing that I can do best. Everyone, every one of us has something that they can do best. Their talent, I don't know if talent is the right word, but a combination of things, of opportunities, of situations of talent, that allows them to do that specific thing better than everyone else. I mean, we should help students cultivate that and...

It seems the only logical thing to me. Yeah. I am just surprised why education system around the world is similar. I did a Chinese education throughout my young life. I just thought, oh, Chinese government probably did spoon-feeding system. Then I heard my American friend, English friend, and you mentioned that it's everywhere. It's very common around the world.

That's very interesting. I started studying about the education system right after I started on the schooling. I have a great interest in education. In my studies, I found out that it's not like secret information. You can go on Wikipedia and find about this. Current system is based on the system developed in 1700s in Prussia. Prussia was a nation at the time. Now it's Germany. It was made to educate soldiers.

Okay, pressure was very heavy on military and they needed like good soldiers and people that could be like obedient all knew the same things because it's useful for military purposes and then it was

taken on by Napoleon in France to educate the upper class. It was not made to allow people to grow and learn and become the better version of themselves, but just to have citizens that did the things they had to do, be obedient and standard.

It was what was needed at the time by the government. And I'm not saying it's bad. I mean, this system has worked wonders for 200 years. But now we are in a different age.

and the world needs something else. I wonder, are there many of your classmates who follow your path or you are the only one quitting school, doing homeschooling? Of my classmates, no one else has done this, but many of them just try to go abroad for a year.

I had a lot of classmates that tried to do a year abroad just to escape the system. One of my best friends has gone to France for a year and now she is back and she would love to start on schooling and she's not very happy about the system but

I mean, there is this great social pressure about going to school in the traditional manner. It's quite difficult for me to explain what I'm doing. Most of the people hear that I dropped out of school and immediately start thinking that I do not want to do anything, I just want to start working and I do not want to hear anything about education anymore. But I...

I dropped out of school to study. It seems like an oxymoron, but I dropped out of school to study better, to study more and to study the things that are relevant to me, that I think are useful in today's world. Yeah. So how do you find your interest and how do you...

discipline yourself to learn. I'm not sure about you, but when I was young and a lot of my friends and including me, we all like partying. We probably don't have that discipline to study at home. I was cultivating many interests. I do not think that I'm great at discipline, but I found out methods and systems that allow me to study.

and at the same time have a lot of time and freedom to enjoy life and do whatever I want. I started out organizing my schedule as it was in school because I did not know anything. Like, my mind was just...

this is the way it should be done. So I had a schedule with different topics and times I should study them. It was very similar to school, but at the time it was the very beginning. I did not know that I could do it differently. Then I started to notice that some things I could work in a very short time. I mean,

I mean, I have a curriculum that I must study in order to pass the exams. I'm still doing the exams. Otherwise, I do not have any diploma and I do not have the permission to go to university and so on. So I'm studying those.

And those things, if they interest me, like history, if there is a topic of history that interests me, I start studying it all the time I need and everything. Otherwise, I just study it well enough to go on and pass the exam. And this gives me a lot of time to study my personal interests that are not part of the curriculum.

One way that I found is very motivating to me and gives me the motivation to work and study with a discipline is publishing my work, having like an expectation to bring the work in public.

I started my blog for this reason. I wanted to become better at writing, so I started to write weekly and I must do it. I imposed myself this, but every week I post something and people tell me what they think about it. And this creates a relationship between me and my public. It's not really a public.

to a few people that really messed up, but I must keep on being accountable. I am accountable to them, so I must do my work. And I try to do this in every aspect of my study. I mean, I'm working on an educational project because I started, I dropped out of school. I started to talk and write on my blog about how school should be different.

And in the last weeks, I decided that I want to put in practice what I think school should be. I want to demonstrate that all the things that people that talk about how school should be can be put in practice. And they are possible. I mean, there are many schools that do that. In this process, I must study some things about education. I have to experiment.

explain them to my colleagues. They are not really colleagues, but to my peers. We are all working on this project and we are all accountable with each other to bring our study in order to create this project successfully. I think the key is to do real work, like real life work,

create something with what you're learning. I mean, I'm learning something about history that I want to know well. I try to explain it to someone or I try to write an article about that with a date. I mean, for that date, I must have that article that explains that thing. And this...

makes me want to learn. Yeah, I think you are the very few people I know writing bilingual. Because for me, I write in Chinese and English. Then when I read your blog, I said, oh, I found another one, like writing Italian and English.

Do you have any challenges when you're writing bilingual? Even if a lot of people speak bilingual, but they hardly write in bilingual, but just in English. I find challenges for sure, but I have a problem that's reversed to what most people that write in bilingual have. I had a big problem, or I had it until a few months ago, writing in Italian.

because I read in English. I mean, I read all the books I read, they're in English. And I read occasionally an Italian book sometimes, but they are like one out of 10. So I started to think about written language in English.

If I had to write something, I wrote that in English, like notes on the books I read or notes on the talks I was listening to. So to this day, I have a problem with the Italian language and the structure of the Italian language because I consume too little material in Italian. I do not have great challenges in writing in English. I mean, it depends. If I write about...

material I consume, books I read, YouTube videos, I do not know what I talk, that was in English, it's very easy for me to write that in English. I have no problems. When I start writing about things that I thought, I mean, they are my production, my ideas, there is

a little bit of difficulty because I obviously think in Italian I need to translate that but I mean it's just practice I started I started writing bilingual because I wanted to become better at writing bilingual by doing it you learn how to do it I think it's the only way to learn what the majority of your readers like the

The majority are Italian readers, but I have really few readers right now. But the majority of them are Italians because they are friends, family, people I know, and I'm not a celebrity. Then there is like 20% that's from the United States. Then random countries. I mean, sometimes I have a visit from China, from Russia, from Georgia. I mean...

I do not know those people, so they stumble upon my blog, but it's still early for my blog to be read. I keep on writing, but I'm writing mostly for myself. It's a very good tool to turn your thinking into the blog. Then you can know what you really know and what you need to learn.

like add-on. So how did you come across 1729? Because we know each other on the 1729 Discord community. So how did you find that website? I found out about it in the Balaji and Tim Ferriss podcast episode. I don't know if you listened to it.

Yeah, I listened to Tim Ferriss. After hearing that episode, I visited the website right away because I love the idea of practical education and with reward. When you are learning something, and this is very well said in the podcast by Balaji, when you are learning something, you can create valuable things for the world, even if you are just started out. Like, for example, when you just start out learning something,

You can teach someone of your level or just below in better, much better than someone that has learned that thing like 20 years ago. Because you can understand the problems they are facing. This way of thinking, I think, is very valuable for the future of education. You can create. You can create even if you know a little bit.

1729 does this very well. I mean, even if you just review an article, you are creating value for someone. On 1729, you can win a prize, a bounty, or by doing small projects, by testing things, courses, and it's a win-win situation. I learned

And I create value for the world. And that's what I'm trying to do with my blog. I learn about something, I write about it, and I publish it, creating value for people that read it. And 1729, it gives you the motivation to learn, even if you're not that motivated because you want to win the prize. It's a good idea. It's nice and I like it.

Very much. Exactly. If you're homeschooling, you won't have many chances to network or know your classmates because most of the time you probably just learn by yourself. So how do you face this situation and how to build your own network? This was the main thing that prevented me from starting homeschooling earlier.

I wanted to have the social dimension of school, but then COVID hit and that has gone away quickly. So then I decided to homeschool. This has been one of the main reasons. The social dimension was not in school anymore. But I realized after some time that I started homeschooling that being free to...

spend your time with people that you really want to spend your time with you can create much deeper connections and much more valuable relationships for everyone and now I'm one of the things I started to do is cultivate and create relationships with people that are not my age and this is a thing that in school

happens rarely. I mean, you have the professors that are older and they are like another category and then you have your classmates that are all born in those one, two, three years apart from you. And it makes no sense. I mean, it's beautiful to have relationships with people your age and I have many, I mean, most of them. But then there are a lot of people that are very interesting that maybe have 20, 30 years

and more than you, why not spend some time with them and learn from them and do things together? There's really no reason not to do that. And I started to work at projects with people. I'm working with a sculptor. I was in art school until last year.

I started to attend the workshop of this sculptor here in Bologna. He was a teacher in the art academy of the city, so he's like a great sculptor in this area. I started to work with him side to side in real life, not in academia.

This has been really transformative to me because I'm friends with him, but he is 80. I would not ever have created a relationship with someone of that age in school. But it's really valuable to me. He has a lot of experience.

And I have a lot of experience in the world of today. I mean, he does not understand anything about technology. And I explain it to him. And he learns a lot from me. And I learn a lot from his life experience. And this situation, I think it's these relationships. And there are many of them. You can build infinite relationships that are...

each one valuable to every of the two people in a different manner and you cannot do that in traditional school, it does not happen

Like you have people of your age and it's important because you are learning almost the same things and you have similar life experiences at the same time and it's important to relate to people that are doing the same things and passing through the same difficulties. But then you must also learn from people that have already done some things, that have already passed

through some steps in life and that have already achieved something maybe something that you want to achieve and

You can learn a lot from those. I think that you can build a much better network outside of school than in school. True. So to me, from primary school to university, I probably had hundreds of classmates, but now I only keep in touch with

Less than three people. I just say like all the classroom, they filled with people randomly. They probably don't share the same vision or same goal with you. So there's no point to you just to keep in touch with everyone. I think it's more important to know what you really want and what do you want to achieve than make your network of friends accordingly. Yeah, you can make a network of friends that have the same values and share

without the limits of your classroom, of your school, of people your age. And it's fantastic. You have limitless possibilities. True, true. So how do you cope with the peer pressure when you choose this own Europe path? Because you mentioned a lot of people probably doubting or misunderstood your motivations. Because I know when I was young, I was very insecure if...

Some of my peers or other people keep criticize my decision. I probably have a self-doubt So how do you cope with that pressure? I doubted I doubted about my choice many times I mean it has not been an easy path but most of the time many people's many of my classmates just assumed that I was dropping out of school, so I would be like

A truck dealer. I will have, yeah, something like that. We'll go living under a bridge somewhere. But those people that said those things were the ones that

I do not want to build relationships with them. I do not have anything against them, but they are just not my type. And there have been other of my classmates that supported me, were really interested about my choice. So I developed my relationships accordingly with them. And my strategy so far has been just ignoring. Ignoring all the people that...

are not understanding or that are not trying to understand my choice. Because I am perfectly, I perfectly agree with the people that think that my choice is wrong, but they must at least try to comprehend my choice. If they try, I explain it to them, they understand my position and then disagree, that's fine. But if they just judge me without trying to think,

I do not care. Why should I? Exactly. It reminds me about the famous philosopher Saturn. I don't know how to pronounce his name in French. He said, "Hails are others." That's true. Determined on your own path. Ignore others. The reality is that most of the people, maybe they say something that's not nice about your choice, but they do not really care. No one really cares.

I mean, yeah, my parents care about my choices, but they also put in the time to understand them and I can explain my choices to them. Other people, they're just into their life and that's fine. I mean, everyone is doing their thing. No one really cares about what others are doing.

So why worry? What do you wish other generations can know better about your generation? I think you probably grew up with all the digital devices and internet. So what's the misunderstanding or stereotype other generations hold on your generation and you wish them to understand better?

your generation better? The first thing is that technology is not useless. I mean, most of the people of older generations, at least here in Italy, here we have a big problem of digitalization. Not really about the infrastructure, but the people do not know how to use the things. And I had this problem with many of older people that

Maybe they have a smartphone, they are on Facebook, but do not understand the impact that these technologies can have on their lives. And I see that many of the people my age see that much more clearly. I mean, we have been... I grew up with digital technologies.

It's normal to me. I can see all the possibilities that you can give. I mean, not all of them, but much more than someone that just uses the phone to call someone or uses Facebook. Many of the people, of the older people, just know the...

social network side of the internet or video games. So if you are on your computer, they assume that you are either on Facebook or playing video games. And there is nothing wrong about being on Facebook or playing video games, but you can do much more things with a computer. Another thing is about borders. I mean,

my parents and the people of their generation think in a much more national manner. I mean, they have the borders of Italy and this is the world. Then there are other countries you can go abroad, where you can know people of other cultures. But for the people of my generation,

Even if you live in China, I can talk with you on the internet and there is no problem. There is not any real barrier anymore. This changes the way people think. I mean...

I do not have any problem considering talking to someone in another country. I mean, I'm doing that right now. But for many people of older generation, this is just something absurd that happens.

happens only if you are interviewed by international TV or something like that. Well, now it's really easy to do. And we should do that and we should take it as normal. I mean, it's a beautiful tool. We should do that. And this is the main thing. Not understanding the impact and the possibilities that are opened up by information technology. They change the way you think.

having a smartphone and knowing how to use it changes the way you think. You are not confined by your national borders, by your language. I mean, I can speak like English decently

and I can understand very well, I can read, I can write. And it's a second language to me, but not like a second language that I use to talk with people when it happens to me that I encounter someone from another place. I use it daily. I use it as an important part of my life. A third of the time I pass this to someone, he speaks in English.

mostly on the internet. This is unbelievable for many of the people that grew up in a world where this was very difficult. I mean, my grandparents never heard anyone speak English. Really? Wow. Well, I don't know. Someone, they must have listened to someone. But it was far more exotic. I mean,

Someone from England, it was a foreigner, he came from a distant land. And now it's just... So common. As close as your neighbor. We have a different... I mean, I think that we, as a generation...

think or like the I do not know the names I think I am Gen Z Gen Z yeah and we think about the global situation we think much more globally than most people of older generations thanks to the internet yeah

So last question, what gets you most excited about the future? There are many things that make me excited. I mean, most of them. I'm really excited about the future of how we organize society. Startup cities, but even autonomous cities and charter cities. There is a whole movement that's starting now, I think. But it's still very niche. No one talks about this.

One time I tried to explain to my girlfriend about private cities.

and charter cities. And she thought I was mad that this was not possible. I mean, what are you talking about? Stop saying that. Then I started to, and it was one or two years ago, I read a book, Three Private Cities. I do not know who the author is. Then I started to see this idea being put into practice. I mean, there are Prospera in Honduras,

or praxis i do not know if you have ever heard of praxis society they are working on uh on building a city in the mediterranean and even the whole discourse that

developed around startup cities and Balaji talks a lot about that. I think that's really exciting to me because I think, I believe it's the next step after the nation states. There is this along with crypto, I mean also crypto gets me really excited about the future.

And then there will be like the massive super states like China or I don't know, the European Union, if it's if it manages to go on America. But we are seeing the decline of a model which has been that of the nation state and something else is growing. So crypto, startup cities, many of the topics that

central to 1729. And the future of education. The future of education is really important to me. I believe that we just have to build it from the ground up again in a different manner.

I'm working on this. I think that it will be like my next project, my next really big project, trying to change education. Wow, that's very exciting. Thank you so much for your time. It's a pleasure talking to you on my show. It's been really interesting. Thank you.