Liemandt: Reclaiming afternoon time is students' biggest motivator
Joe Liemandt · No Priors Ep. 133 | With Alpha School Principal Joe Liemandt · Sep 25, 2025 · at 23:36
Joe Liemandt, principal of Alpha School, explains how shortening daily academic instruction to 2–3 hours motivates students far more effectively than monetary rewards or traditional incentives.
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“Time back by far is the biggest motivator of kids where if you took our Westlake high school, our, you know, in Austin, where they do six hours a day in class, four hours a day homework, if you're on API track, Right. You can't pay those kids enough money to be active. Right. They are just grinding it. And if they love academics, great, but for everybody else, it's a grind and they hate it. But if you tell those same kids, look, it's two to three hours a day, you can still get 15, 50 plus on your SAT and fives on your APs, but then you get afternoons, four years of afternoon in high school to do awesome stuff you love. And that's true across all of them.”
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