Personal feedback loops (not grades, not corrections from a teacher) are how real learning happens. Robert Kiyosaki, author of Rich Dad, Poor Dad, was a mediocre student who excelled only in “football and lunch.” He went bankrupt in his thirties before becoming one of the most influential financial educators alive.
In this episode of the Homeschool with Moxie Podcast, we look at John Taylor Gatto’s take on Kiyosaki’s story from Weapons of Mass Instruction, and share five concrete ways to build feedback loops into your own homeschool so your kids learn to sharpen their own thinking from mistakes, instead of waiting for someone else to grade them.
My posts include affiliate links.
Episode 358 of the Homeschool with Moxie Podcast.
What’s a Personal Feedback Loop?
John Taylor Gatto tells Kiyosaki’s story in a few quick strokes: a mediocre student, a stint as third mate on a tanker, six years in the Marines, a failed first business that cost him everything — including his marriage. Then, at 37, a mentorship with Buckminster Fuller taught him something school never had: the deepest learning comes from mistakes, not instruction.
Gatto calls this sharpening your own personal feedback loop — and calls it “almost the operational definition of open source education.” It took Kiyosaki eight years to go from bankrupt to wealthy. Eight years of running his own loop.
A traditional classroom mostly runs on an external loop: turn something in, get it marked right or wrong, done. A personal feedback loop is internal — a kid does something, sees what happens, and adjusts on their own. It’s slower and messier, but it’s the loop that actually builds expertise.
5 Ways to Build Feedback Loops Into Your Homeschool
1. Let real-world consequences be the feedback – not you. If a recipe gets burned, a birdhouse falls apart, or an allowance gets spent badly, resist fixing it mid-process. Let the outcome happen, then debrief afterward. What do you think happened? What would you try differently?
2. Normalize making mistakes. Have your child explain a wrong answer out loud before you show the right one. They will learn so much more by taking the responsibility of checking their own work and tracking progress. Check out our episode with Dennis DiNoia of Mr. D Math where he discusses having your student check their own math work and solutions to become independent and responsible learners.
3. Use project-based learning with real stakes. A lemonade stand, an Etsy shop, a garden with seeds that don’t all come up – let the mistakes play out instead of pre-solving them. Visible failure, not hidden failure, is the point.
4. Build in an actual reflection routine. The loop only closes if there’s a reflection step. What didn’t work this week? Why do you think? What will you try differently?
5. Resist grading everything. Skip the red pen on first attempts at something new. Ask “What do you notice?” before “Here’s what’s wrong.” That question trains kids to run their own loop before handing it off to you.
Where in your homeschool day are you protecting your child from a mistake that would actually teach them more than your correction would?
If you try one of these this week, we’d love to hear about it. And if this episode was useful, share it with another homeschool parent who could use the reminder that mistakes aren’t the enemy of learning.
HWM 17: Homeschooling Rocks Because of Immediate Feedback
One benefit of homeschooling is your ability to provide immediate feedback to your kids. This leads to a more efficient and effective learning environment. This episode discusses a few ways to increase the feedback in your homeschool.
Leave a Reply