How long does an idea need before it becomes a school?

Nine years. In June 2017 I described a school on a phone that did not exist. In September 2026 seventeen children sit in Strubergasse and two mentors work with them. In between lie a podcast, three videos in one October, an association, a move and a great many Saturdays. The idea was finished in one evening. The road to a school took nine years. I watched the old recordings again to see how much of it is memory. Most of it is there word for word. The picture of the building no longer holds. The roles inside it do. I sit on a bed and talk about school for eighteen minutes. The claim is historical: the system was built for factory work, and for that it worked well. Sit still, listen, follow instructions.

June 2017, eighteen minutes on a phone

I sit on a bed and talk about school for eighteen minutes. The claim is historical: the system was built for factory work, and for that it worked well. Sit still, listen, follow instructions.

schools were designed to help us work in factories

Then comes the proposal, and it lands surprisingly close to today. A platform where the best teachers in the world come together. Local centres where you practise together what you watched at home. A record that shows what someone burned for over sixteen years. The twenty year old wanted to build on top, and he says it plainly in the video: a fluent transition.

July 2018, the question from the first podcast episode

A year later, at twenty one, I record the first episode of my own education podcast. This note uses only my own passages from it. In one of them I ask a question I have not shaken off since.

If we sat down super intelligent people from every possible field … the best we can do with children between six and 19 years old.

Around it I develop, live on air, an education centre with mentors. The argument for it is still the argument: no adult knows everything, the material is on the internet, and the adults in the room have to be educated enough to help children understand it and apply it.

October 2019, three videos in three weeks

Three months after my twenty third birthday I describe a house: round, with gardens, with a big kitchen, and it should feel like a large community home. You choose your own coach. You talk to several and decide whom you trust. That coach has five to six jobs: help you work out who you are, get clarity about what you want, plan your learning individually, walk alongside you, and teach you how to work and how to love.

Two sentences from those videos held. The first: learning happens in the context of relationships, which is why the place has to be physical. The second is a line I drew for myself.

the only person in the world that should truly decide what to learn … is your coach and you

There I reject a system that proposes from data what a child should learn next. Six years later I build a learning platform with AI in it. That is the one point where I contradict myself, and I like the resolution better than either position. Heureka shows a child where it stands. What comes next is decided by the child with its mentor. The platform runs without AI and even offline on request. The worry of 2019 became a building rule in 2026.

What of it stands in Strubergasse

  • June 2017: A phone video about school built for factory work, a platform of the best teachers and a record of what someone was fascinated by.
  • July 2018: The first episode of my own education podcast, with the question of what the best experts would build for children between six and nineteen.
  • October 2019: Three videos in three weeks: the house with gardens, the self chosen coach, his five to six jobs, learning at the moment of need.
  • 2022: Freie Schule Salzburg is planned.
  • 2023: The move into Strubergasse 26, rooms on the first floor.
  • March 2024: Colearning starts, Saturdays at Magazinstraße 4. This is where things get tested before they enter the school.
  • 2025/26: The permanent Öffentlichkeitsrecht arrives. Reports count, and the yearly external examination falls away.
  • 20 August 2026: Six maturity stages are decided. Stage zero is given to every child on the first day.
  • 14 September 2026: The school year starts with seventeen children and two mentors, at most twelve children per mentor.
  • Adults walk alongside. A mentor works on the projects of the children and delivers no subject matter.
  • The best content comes from everywhere. The person in the room makes sure it lands and gets used.
  • What was built gets shown. Four public expos a school year. Either something is on the table, or nothing is.
  • Learning happens at the moment of need. The project pulls the material.
  • Trust is the precondition. Belonging holds from the first day, and responsibility grows in stages afterwards.

What I see differently today

The round house with gardens turned into a first floor on a street in Salzburg, with five rooms called Agora, Forum, Laboratorium, Phantasia and Skriptorium. The coach turned into a mentor with a role written down in a handbook, ceiling of twelve children included. Free choice among many coaches is not much of a choice when there are two mentors. That is an honest limit.

I do not miss the tone of those years. In 2019 I used very large words on very little experience. What survived the jump are the questions that come from first-principles: who decides what a child learns, how you can tell that something was learned, whom a child trusts. The answers stand today in What should school achieve today? and get tested every week.

The most honest evidence that the idea carries is one I did not invent. A teenager who came to Colearning at twelve to build a drone is, at fourteen, the initiator of his own AI platform, told in Building an AI platform at fourteen. Back then I described what would be possible. Today I can point at someone.

On record

Own videos of 11 June 2017, 8 July 2018 and of 3, 7 and 21 October 2019. School facts from freieschulesalzburg.at and the Paideia core handbook, as of September 2026.

  • June 2017: own video about school built for factory work, a platform of the best teachers, flipped lessons and a record that shows fascination
  • July 2018: first episode of my own education podcast, with the question of what is best for children between six and nineteen
  • October 2019: three videos with the building, the self chosen coach, his five to six jobs and the rejection of a data driven learning path
  • Permanent Öffentlichkeitsrecht since the 2025/26 school year, under the school’s own organisational statute
  • School year 2026/27 starts with seventeen children and two mentors, at most twelve children per mentor
  • Six maturity stages since 20 August 2026, stage zero given to every child on the first day

This note keeps growing

2026-09-03: Planted from five own videos of 2017, 2018 and 2019, checked against today’s school facts.

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