On my way to revolutionize school: learnings
Since I’m 13 years old, I have one goal: helping students live a more fulfilling life.
My most ambitious project to-date has been, at 18, to publish a book to empower teenagers: Hack ton Bac. Today is its one year anniversary! The book to hack your education is still available here or here.
Hack ton Bac (meaning “Hack your High School” in french) is a methodology book to learn how to learn, find your path, know yourself and perform on your high school exams.
A birthday is always a good opportunity to reflect. I haven’t shared much publicly these past months. My surroundings, Hack ton Bac readers have been asking me for some updates about this amazing adventure and I get that!
Hack ton Bac: more than a book
A bit of context
At 15, I published my first article on the internet about education. At 16, I dropped out of school against the advice of my teachers and left my parents’ house to move to Paris. Meanwhile, I started working in an Edtech startup, while studying to get my high school diploma. I remember the day I received the results of my high school exam. My first thought when I saw that I graduated with honors was: “OK, I just proved that my methodology works, I proved that a 16 yo girl can work in a startup, I proved that the traditional school is not the only way. Now the next step is to create something from this knowledge.”
I started to work on it the very next day. Since the summer holiday of my 16th birthday, I’ve been spending 100% of my time working, studying, writing articles, sending cold emails… with the aim of making an impact on the school that led me to so much boredom and frustration when I was a kid.
The amount of determination I had was crazy.
The very first premises of Hack ton Bac were co-created with my friend Pascaline. We worked together during our 2018 summer holidays on an e-book that we hoped to publish by the start of the school year. We were probably very immature, way too ambitious, and in the end, I was so emotionally attached to this project that our collaboration and friendship were deeply challenged.
For a few months from September 2018, I co-created Reverse, the program for the young entrepreneurs who want to learn to create projects, with The Family. I gave conferences, continued to be very active online and to share my thoughts about the future of education.
In January 2019, I randomly met my publisher, Florent Massot, with whom I shared the idea of writing Hack ton Bac and physically publishing it. He had himself dropped out from high school at 16 to create his first publishing house. Professional crush. We agreed on a deadline for me to show the first draft to his employees in April and a publishing date in November of the same year.
The deadline: beginning of my end?
When I worked in startups the years before, I was used to delivering projects in a very short amount of time. This is a very interesting learning experience, knowing that most of your work can be achieved faster under pressure.
BUT
- You should not reduce this time farther than human capabilities.
- To some extent, pressure becomes counterproductive and/or you end up killing your health.
- If you’re a perfectionist, you’re going to suffer. A lot.
This deadline was way too short. Can you imagine the amount of work it is to write & typeset a 250 pages book, create the website, promote it, when you are a fucking perfectionist? Well, I did that in 7 months.
The creation process of Hack ton Bac: a mix between euphoria and terror
I started to write in January 2019. In general, I was working from 10am to 11pm. Working while having lunch. Working on the weekends. Working, working, working.
The writing process, overall, was amazing. I was in my little bubble, quite happy in my introverted and dedicated life. I travelled to Asia at some point. Spent 3 weeks in Bali. I went to the beach only once. The rest of the time, I was working.
When I returned to Paris, anxiety and tiredness started to point out. I had to interact with people from the publishing house (they’re amazing, it’s just that I was a hermit at that point), to find and manage 2 people for the illustrations and artistic direction of the book… Hack ton Bac was all my life. I couldn’t understand that it wasn’t the case for people around me. I was very perfectionist with people, and very impatient.
You cannot treat others well if you’re not taking care of yourself.
I was having panic attacks regularly. This is something that has been part of my life since I’m 13, but it was very intense at that time. Not surprising, since I wasn’t exercising, I wasn’t eating well, I had health issues that I wasn’t taking care of, and my cup of stress was constantly overflowing. Looking back, it’s funny to think about so many details I was making myself crazy about. Is it the only way to create a very great product? I don’t think so.
The book was released on the 7th of November 2019. We had a beautiful party to celebrate. My 16 yo nephew skipped class and came all the way from Marseille to attend. My brother traveled from Barcelona to be there. My grandma, my sister and my friends were there. Strangers interested in the project were there. I gave a great presentation that I had been working on for days before with my friend Max. We had an amazing buffet.
But I was exhausted. Completely overwhelmed and numb.
I was incapable of continuing to work on Hack to Bac. Just the idea of working on it felt like a punch of anxiety right in my head.
I had to take a break.
Getting back on my feet, the beginning of a new chapter
Time for a step back
My trip to Thailand was a blessing. It was only once that I was geographically distant from the project that I realized what had happened during the year, what I achieved but also what I had done to myself.
There, I took an acro yoga training and learned Thai massage techniques. These sessions helped me reconnect with my body. I realized how much I had been using my brain in the past years, and that I had completely neglected the power of my body, in the process.
These discoveries led me to a realization. What I wanted to achieve through working in the education field was to help teenagers suffer less. Why? Because I, myself, had suffered a lot as a teenager. But in my case, it was mostly due to an unsafe family situation. And I started to feel awful at school not only because I got bored, but because I was reaching for help and that no teacher, no student ever answered.
I don’t blame them. I blame a system so dehumanized that it wasn’t able to help a kid in danger. The way I dealt with this situation was to focus -and forget- myself on building a better educational system through entrepreneurship. But there are other ways that today, I’m willing to explore.
My new resolutions
First, I decided to dedicate time to my personal healing. I realized that I wouldn’t be able to build anything to help others if I wasn’t, first, taking care of my personal traumas.
Going into therapy, learning to spend time with myself, developing self-awareness and re-patterning my unhealthy mind habits: those are the activities I’m giving the most energy to at the moment.
Then, I also discovered through the past months of introspection my new passions: dance & art therapy.
In September, I started a 5 months intensive contemporary dance program. If I were to pay past Elsa a visit and tell her that I am doing 3 hours of dance a day, she would laugh very hard. I will start in a few months an expressive art therapy program created by Anna Halprin, my new role model and a true revolutionary in the field of dance therapy.
Yep, I’m on my way to become an art therapist. This is really exciting!
These learnings are enriching my commitment to the education revolution
The goal of Hack ton Bac is to help teenagers to explore & unleash their potential. This is also what I’m constantly trying to do with my life.
What I realized is that obtaining your high school diploma is great, owning a company or having a job you find meaning in is great, but if you don’t have peace of mind, you have nothing.
This is the most important long term learning you should invest time & money on.
These thoughts are reshaping my view of what students should be taught in school: I want to give a bigger emphasis on learning self-awareness, and building yourself the toolbox that will make you able to live a free life.
—
Hack ton Bac is still available everywhere. The learnings you can find in it are timeless, until maybe there’s a true revolution in our school system. If you are looking for new ways to learn, inspirational content about how to find your path… check it out: hacktonbac.com
I have tons of ideas to help students live a more fulfilled life. But one step at a time, right now I’m in a learning and introspective phase. ;-)
Meanwhile, over this last years, I’ve been following amazing Edtech projects that you should have a look at:
Do you have any other Edtech project in mind that I should have a look at? Share me in the comments. I will edit the list!
You can continue to follow my adventures on Instagram: coh.elsa
This is only the beginning.
Elsa
Thank you to Antonin, Emilie and Adrien for the feedbacks!
