YouTube sensation MrBeast is taking aim at the American education system, and he’s not holding back. In a recent discussion about how schools operate in 2024, the content creator questioned why students today are learning the exact same way their parents did decades ago.
“Why is it that your parents got taught the same way in school that your kids are getting taught?” MrBeast asked. “Think of how much everything is advanced.”
The 27-year-old creator, who has built an empire on innovative and engaging video content, pointed to the contrast between modern educational resources and traditional classroom methods.
Reflecting on his own school experience from just nine years ago, he described a monotonous routine: “A teacher would just stand there, read out of a book, right on a whiteboard.”
He highlighted creators like Mark Rober, whose science videos make complex topics accessible and entertaining in just 20 minutes. “Look at all this amazing educational content where you learn such complex topics in like 20 minutes and it’s really engaging and fun and you retain it,” MrBeast said. “And look at what we subject our kids to, just like listening to a teacher read out of a book in the most boring way imaginable.”
His critique goes beyond teaching methods. MrBeast believes the entire system needs a fundamental overhaul. “Just because that’s what our parents did doesn’t mean that’s what we need to subject ourselves to. It makes no sense to me. I think education should be reformed dramatically.”
The creator shared his own educational journey as evidence of the system’s shortcomings. “I graduated from school thinking books suck and books are boring and I never read a book, but in reality, they were just giving me sh**ty books that I hate,” he explained.
He later discovered a genuine love for literature through audiobooks and biographies, including works like “The Goal” and Walter Isaacson’s biographies of Steve Jobs and Elon Musk.
Part of the problem, according to MrBeast, is that schools fail to accommodate different learning styles. As someone who identifies as a visual learner, he estimates he retains information “at least three times more effectively” when he can see it rather than just hear it.
This disconnect between learning styles and teaching methods leads to wasted time, he argues. With video-based courses, hands-on learning, and modern technology, students could absorb more knowledge in significantly less time.
He said, “They could probably learn things in way less than eight hours a day. I mean you could probably learn more knowledge in like five hours a day and give so much freedom back to kids and their youth to do things.”
