What Traditional Education Can Learn from Alpha School’s AI Teaching Model

A room full of headphone wearing students, diligently locked into their virtual teachers. Gone are the days of blackboards (or smartboards!), hand-raising, and lesson plans. For 2-hours a day, teachers are relegated to supervising a quiet room; AI programs take over the responsibility of teaching our students the fundamentals of their education. Sounds like a dystopian nightmare….

Self-paced, personalized learning that understands every student learns differently. Dynamic lesson plans and responsive teaching that continuously and patiently adapts to keep students engaged. A room of self-reliant learners that are able to ask the right questions, find answers, and passionately pursue mastery with unprecedented efficiency; an efficiency that unlocks more time for students to engage in meaningful projects, mastering life-skills, and becoming well-rounded future-ready citizens. Seems almost too good to be true…

Whenever I discuss Alpha School’s staple “2-hours-a-day of AI-led teaching” with parents, teachers, and friends, I often get one of the above extreme reactions. That’s brilliant! How dare they?

What is the Alpha School?

The first Alpha School was founded in 2014 by MacKenzie Price and her husband, Andrew Price, with the philosophy of rethinking traditional education. Today, Alpha School operates 3 campuses with K-12 students, with 14+ additional schools planned to open Fall 2025. Their website tells the story of the 2-Hour Workday, where students work with a personalized AI lesson plan specifically designed to match their needs. I met with Anna Dalvantes, a member of Alpha’s press team, to dig deeper into MacKenzie’s vision for the future of education:

The goal of Alpha School is to help prepare students for the world that they are going to inherit.

When I asked Anna about the role of teachers in the morning session, I was surprised by her answer. Although ~95% of the academic learning is facilitated by the AI platform, teachers still play a critical role in the education process, just not in the traditional classroom sense. Teachers, called “Guides” at Alpha Schools, walk students through morning reflections and physical/mental preparation sessions to start the day. Teachers also are responsible for frequent check-ins with students to not just review academic progress, but also serve as educational motivators and emotional intelligence coaches.

AI can track progress, but it can’t see potential. A great teacher notices the quiet student who’s checked out. Or the frustrated kid masking confusion. Or the bored student hiding brilliance. That’s not found in data. It requires human connection.

Project-Based Learning and Life Skill Development

Perhaps more impressive to me than the 2-Hour AI-led lessons is how students at Alpha spend the rest of their school day. The afternoons at Alpha Schools are reserved for student driven projects that are designed to build life skills that are often underdeveloped in traditional learning. One project we discussed involved starting and operating a fully functional food truck, where students learned financial literacy, cooking skills, and teamwork.

I really like this project because it placed students in a real-life business and gave them a tangible sense of ownership and responsibility. While most middle schoolers might only learn about profit margins or customer service in theory — if at all — this project took it a step further by letting them experience these concepts firsthand, whether managing a lunch rush or balancing a weekly budget.

Another project had students pick a hobby or skill they wanted to pursue, and work with AI to become proficient in that area. Examples we discussed on the call included solving a Rubick’s cube, playing piano, and riding a unicycle.

Rooted in Alpha’s philosophy of creating self-reliant learners, this project showed students that they have the tools available to learn anything they set their minds to. I really like this example because it demonstrates how we can work with AI to become better versions of ourselves — pursuing passions and learning skills that might have previously felt out of reach due to a lack of access to teachers or resources.

Other notable projects and workshops included robotics labs, debate clubs, public speaking workshops, emotional intelligence training, art and woodshop, and much more!

What Can Leaders in Traditional Education Takeaway from Alpha School?

While I truly believe that Alpha School’s approach to education demonstrates the exciting potential of AI in the classroom, I want to be clear that I’m not here to advocate for traditional institutions to adopt this model wholesale. For a number of reasons — including resource limitations, differing educational philosophies, and varying parental expectations — I don’t believe this model is currently viable for most traditional schools to adopt straightaway.

It’s also simply too early to fully assess the long-term impact of such a revolutionary approach to learning. When it comes to making significant changes in the lives of children, I believe we must move thoughtfully and with caution.

That said, I do think there are important lessons traditional schools can take away from Alpha’s bold experimentation:

1. A focus on real-world, life-ready skills. Alpha’s emphasis on holistic student development — from learning to do their own laundry to financial literacy lessons running a food truck — is a powerful reminder that learning should extend beyond test scores.

2. Promoting independent, self-directed learners. Encouraging students to take ownership of their learning journeys is a skill that will serve them for life. Getting students excited to explore, question, and create builds confidence and curiosity. AI can be a powerful tool in this process that helps students access information, receive personalized support, and develop the skills to learn independently.

3. Challenging the status quo. Education has remained relatively unchanged for over a century. While not everything needs to be reinvented, there’s real value in asking tough questions and exploring how we can change the system to do better for our students.

I thoroughly enjoyed engaging with the team at Alpha School and look forward to following their continued innovation in the education space.