Building a Love for Reading and Sports in Kids

The biggest feature of home and the moon, honestly, when I was designing this movie room, I was here every day just figuring things out—what kind of moon was I gonna create, what was I gonna do with it. I wasn't just decorating; I was here thinking it through. Then, based on my outdoor space and where I was, I came up with two things: one was sports, and the other was reading. Sports, because that fits my own family values—I think from a young age, kids should have a lifelong sports habit. I wanted to give them that gift, something they'd carry for life. And honestly, it's tough when they're not active. So I felt that, and then I thought about reading—this whole reading thing is about education, not about me teaching them a bunch of characters or how many articles they can read, that's too mechanical. I think a person's life should have that—like, emotions in daily life, habits in daily life, all that stuff. I think the habit of loving books is a lifelong thing. So we settled on those two big habits: love sports, love reading, lifelong. I mean, my own family—everyone's into reading and getting up early for it. For me, the first thing, honestly, when I was running the kindergarten for a few years, because our family loved reading, I'd been into education and I noticed this reading thing really worked. My eyes just went to it—I felt like, let's start small and build up. Back then, it was just one book, we'd have these little piles, one after another, and it just took off. I thought it was great. Now our teachers are on board too. For the kids who graduate from our school, conservatively, 80% of them love reading. Just today, I was in our breakthrough class and I asked the kids—I was teaching them how to make family plans—and I said, "You guys in second or third grade, this is too simple. You can do this. You can set your own routine for the second half of the year." I said, "You need to be brave, be brave about it. Once you're brave, what do you do? You just pick one goal, and then that card, your load, gets bigger and bigger." And then I asked them about reading—I did a little survey. It was amazing. One kid said he'd already finished all the books for second grade. We even have some kids who are ahead, and a few parents are like, "Wow, this is great," and some kids are still figuring it out. I said, "Look, if you both finish, honestly, I'm busy too, but they started." The point is, if they can finish the content and stick with it, that's already a win—it's not about how deeply they understand it. Not being able to finish it, that's fine, don't stress. So I said, "How are you gonna finish it? I suggest you write a reading log"—but what do they write? For elementary kids, I just have this simple reading thing, and the first-graders think it's amazing when they start. Honestly, doing all this—you don't need to give kids heavy-duty advice; they just benefit from it, and it feels really fast, really joyful.