Big A’s Best Investment Yet

Dear Big A,

You may not realise it, but you’ve just pulled off a quiet coup. You made the call first. Somewhere between a game of chess and a YouTube rabbit hole on Rucka Rucka Ali, you decided you wanted school.

I spent weeks circling the idea like a nervous mom on trial for taking her kids out of the schooling system and then being asked to shape them back into what they never were, like jamming a round peg into a square hole. I kept wondering if this was a detour from the unschooling road we’ve walked or simply the next stretch of the same journey. Slowly, like bread dough that begins stubborn beneath my palms, the yeast waking in its own sweet time and softening as I work it while the faint tang of flour and warm water drifts through the kitchen, I convince myself this isn’t a surrender but a sound move.

For years you’ve feasted on the internet. Khan Academy, YouTube, the glorious chaos of ideas at the speed of Wi-Fi. But there’s a different kind of learning that happens when a pen drags across a page, wrestling with cursive, processing ideas at the speed of ink. These are not quaint relics. I believe they are grounding mechanisms. They slow the mind just enough for true understanding to settle in. You have feasted on information. Now you need the digestion that comes from slower tools.

Then there’s the human experiment. Screens can beam lectures from Nobel laureates, but they can’t replicate the late-night laughter of friends conspiring over nothing in particular. Teenage years are a free trial. Live it up before the subscription fee kicks in. You deserve the friction of real faces, the collisions that shape character and sand off ego.

In that mix, you will also discover that there is always someone faster, wittier, or funnier. That truth is best discovered early where losing a debate or missing a shot carries lessons but not ruin. Humility grows from recognising that you’re not the smartest person in every room and that realisation is a lifelong gift.

Although self-directed learning is rich in freedom, it is also light on friction. School introduces the steady pressure of deadlines, shared responsibilities, and the occasional hard-nosed teacher who won’t accept half measures. It is a rehearsal for the real world where effort meets expectation and results are measured. The ability to meet a standard set by someone other than yourself is a transferable asset.

The world runs on systems—markets, universities, social norms. You don’t have to love every rule to benefit from understanding them. School is one of the most efficient vantage points for observing how the game is played. Even if your path remains unconventional, seeing the machinery from the inside gives you optionality. You can choose to play, to exit, or to innovate with eyes wide open.

Finally, there’s the adventure of leaving home. Home is the first classroom, but it carries the invisible gravity of familiar habits and assumptions. Living away forces you to navigate unfamiliar cultures, personalities, and value systems. Each encounter expands the map of what is possible and will sharpen your senses of who you are. Boarding will give you experiences that no textbook or video can replicate.

Now go! Collect friends like undervalued stocks, spot the quiet compounders, lose a debate or two, smuggle midnight snacks, and let the school bells become your new soundtrack. I’ll be here prepping two mugs of warm milk from Kali and realising you’ll be sipping yours from some other bovine. Your brother will miss your long limbs in that nightly bed-wrestle and the endless rants from ROK, and Dad will have one less partner for late-night banter on geopolitics.

With love,
Mum

P.S. Big A, I suppose you’d recognise that Mr Buffett would tell you this: “The best investment you can ever make is in yourself. Read widely, stay curious, and choose friends who make you a little better every day. Markets will rise and fall, but knowledge and character never go out of style. Compound those, and you’ll do just fine.”