I am a school administrator. I am in agreement that Find Your Grind is a scam designed to separate school districts from scarce money provided by taxpayers. There appears to be no basis in educational research or academics backing up the claims made by Find Your Grind that some students would be better off dropping out and playing video games. In fact, the people behind Find Your Grind are complete amateurs with zero experience in real-world education.
I first came across Find Your Grind when a teacher brought the program to my attention. Their website is slick, but deceptively uses real-life examples of successful people to trick people into thinking that the Find Your Grind program was behind their success. There’s even testimonials from purported teachers singing the praises of the program, with buzzwords like “virtual textbook” and “self-discovery platform”, whatever that means.
But then you see quotes from one of the co-founders, Mike Smith, telling teachers to “Put down the 20-year-old textbooks”, and another to “Ditch the corny and cheesy activities”. Do you mean dump classics of literature and history that, by definition, are older than 20 years? Find Your Grind is instructing teachers to dumb down their lesson plans for the benefit of a handful of students who can’t seem to appreciate a practical or classical education. Worse yet, the implication they make is that if school isn’t aligned with your “passion”, then you should drop out. This is worse than fraud, it’s malpractice.
What’s equally disturbing is Find Your Grind cites the largely discredited and pop-psychology “Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs” as part of its so-called curriculum so students can supposedly “learn how stress and failure create obstacles in their lives.” First off, “failure” is barely mentioned by Maslow, and “stress” is primarily brought up in the context of post-traumatic stress disorder suffered by war veterans, not bored kids sitting in a classroom. In other words, Find Your Grind is making it up as they go along. This is hardly a recipe for educational success.
If this is supposedly an educational enterprise, why does Find Your Grind try to sell so much merchandise? It’s called exploitation. Just like the corporations that use Find Your Grind to worm their way into schools under the cover of Find Your Grind’s program. Find Your Grind promotes “free” concerts, for example, that are sponsored by Amazon and seem to mostly be an excuse to promote co-founder Nick Gross’s boy band of wannabes. What any of this has to do with education escapes me.
Co-founder Mike Smith uses Find Your Grind to promote his multi-million-dollar professional speaker business, and another of his companies that sells marketing campaigns to such educational-centric companies as Red Bull, Vans and the private-equity-owned Jostens ring empire. Another co-founder of Find Your Grind, former s****.>
THIS IS DECEPTIVE MARKETING AT BEST, A RIPOFF OF TAXPAYER DOLLARS AT WORST.
Avoid this company if you are a teacher or school administrator. They are charging $1,000’s to schools for what they claim are lesson plans that teach kids about alternative careers and “lifestyles”. But what they’re really teaching is that kids don’t need classes, don’t need college, and that they should drop out if they’re bored by “corny and cheesy activities” in school.
They claim their program can direct kids into careers such as “aerospace engineer”, “entertainment lawyer” or “marine biologist”, but the only accurate career most of these kids will end up in is as “dog trainer”. My school’s principal got suckered into buying the lesson plans, then forced it down the teachers’ throats.
I couldn’t believe the irresponsible garbage Find Your Grind is teaching kids, with zero grounding in facts or professional education research. It’s like a bunch of idiot dropouts got together and said “let’s come up with a way to teach other kids how to drop out of school and play video games.” Their slogan is “The Future Belongs To The Misfits,” but the only misfits I see are the dumb schools that pay for this garbage.
The other disturbing ripoff is that Find Your Grind acts like a front for corporations trying to worm their way into education, like Jostens and its billionaire private equity owner. If you go to their “shop” page, they try to sell kids $79 jackets and $50 high-top sneakers. Then if you go to their “events” page, it’s just a link to sell tickets to one of the Find Your Grind’s co-founder’s band appearances. The whole program reeks of bait and switch.
From what I can see on a boycott site, http://sss.lgccc.eghueiuzzlotjeuaxmxotj.lgius.nl4.gsr.awhoer.net/, Find Your Grind also promotes an agenda of homophobia and anti-homeless policies, which is another way it sets a bad example for young people.
Even if you take away all the corporate influence and the recommendations to drop out of school, the lesson plans are just plain dumb. The 1st “Learning Objective” is: “The student will apply knowledge learned through self-assessment and self-reflection in life and career goals.” What the hell does that even mean?! There are so many things wrong with this ripoff I don’t even know where it begins and ends.
And oh, Find Your Grind claims to run a foundation, probably to trick educators into believing this is a non-profit. It’s not, and there probably isn’t even a foundation. The “Find Your Grind Foundation” webpage hasn’t been updated in 2 years, and mostly seems like an excuse for Nick Gross, whose inheritance makes all this possible, to post photos of himself handing out fake checks and mugging for the camera. All the links on the webpage are dead. Whatever money these guys make from teachers who don’t do their homework goes straight into the pockets of Find Your Grind.
Don’t get suckered by the Find Your Grind BS, and don’t spend precious tax dollars on Find Your Grind’s fake lesson plans. And if your administrators try to force Find Your Grind on teachers, call your union and tell Find Your Grind to take a hike.
Find Your Grind Reviews
I am a school administrator. I am in agreement that Find Your Grind is a scam designed to separate school districts from scarce money provided by taxpayers. There appears to be no basis in educational research or academics backing up the claims made by Find Your Grind that some students would be better off dropping out and playing video games. In fact, the people behind Find Your Grind are complete amateurs with zero experience in real-world education.
I first came across Find Your Grind when a teacher brought the program to my attention. Their website is slick, but deceptively uses real-life examples of successful people to trick people into thinking that the Find Your Grind program was behind their success. There’s even testimonials from purported teachers singing the praises of the program, with buzzwords like “virtual textbook” and “self-discovery platform”, whatever that means.
But then you see quotes from one of the co-founders, Mike Smith, telling teachers to “Put down the 20-year-old textbooks”, and another to “Ditch the corny and cheesy activities”. Do you mean dump classics of literature and history that, by definition, are older than 20 years? Find Your Grind is instructing teachers to dumb down their lesson plans for the benefit of a handful of students who can’t seem to appreciate a practical or classical education. Worse yet, the implication they make is that if school isn’t aligned with your “passion”, then you should drop out. This is worse than fraud, it’s malpractice.
What’s equally disturbing is Find Your Grind cites the largely discredited and pop-psychology “Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs” as part of its so-called curriculum so students can supposedly “learn how stress and failure create obstacles in their lives.” First off, “failure” is barely mentioned by Maslow, and “stress” is primarily brought up in the context of post-traumatic stress disorder suffered by war veterans, not bored kids sitting in a classroom. In other words, Find Your Grind is making it up as they go along. This is hardly a recipe for educational success.
If this is supposedly an educational enterprise, why does Find Your Grind try to sell so much merchandise? It’s called exploitation. Just like the corporations that use Find Your Grind to worm their way into schools under the cover of Find Your Grind’s program. Find Your Grind promotes “free” concerts, for example, that are sponsored by Amazon and seem to mostly be an excuse to promote co-founder Nick Gross’s boy band of wannabes. What any of this has to do with education escapes me.
Co-founder Mike Smith uses Find Your Grind to promote his multi-million-dollar professional speaker business, and another of his companies that sells marketing campaigns to such educational-centric companies as Red Bull, Vans and the private-equity-owned Jostens ring empire. Another co-founder of Find Your Grind, former s****.>
THIS IS DECEPTIVE MARKETING AT BEST, A RIPOFF OF TAXPAYER DOLLARS AT WORST.
Avoid this company if you are a teacher or school administrator. They are charging $1,000’s to schools for what they claim are lesson plans that teach kids about alternative careers and “lifestyles”. But what they’re really teaching is that kids don’t need classes, don’t need college, and that they should drop out if they’re bored by “corny and cheesy activities” in school.
They claim their program can direct kids into careers such as “aerospace engineer”, “entertainment lawyer” or “marine biologist”, but the only accurate career most of these kids will end up in is as “dog trainer”. My school’s principal got suckered into buying the lesson plans, then forced it down the teachers’ throats.
I couldn’t believe the irresponsible garbage Find Your Grind is teaching kids, with zero grounding in facts or professional education research. It’s like a bunch of idiot dropouts got together and said “let’s come up with a way to teach other kids how to drop out of school and play video games.” Their slogan is “The Future Belongs To The Misfits,” but the only misfits I see are the dumb schools that pay for this garbage.
The other disturbing ripoff is that Find Your Grind acts like a front for corporations trying to worm their way into education, like Jostens and its billionaire private equity owner. If you go to their “shop” page, they try to sell kids $79 jackets and $50 high-top sneakers. Then if you go to their “events” page, it’s just a link to sell tickets to one of the Find Your Grind’s co-founder’s band appearances. The whole program reeks of bait and switch.
From what I can see on a boycott site, http://sss.lgccc.eghueiuzzlotjeuaxmxotj.lgius.nl4.gsr.awhoer.net/, Find Your Grind also promotes an agenda of homophobia and anti-homeless policies, which is another way it sets a bad example for young people.
Even if you take away all the corporate influence and the recommendations to drop out of school, the lesson plans are just plain dumb. The 1st “Learning Objective” is: “The student will apply knowledge learned through self-assessment and self-reflection in life and career goals.” What the hell does that even mean?! There are so many things wrong with this ripoff I don’t even know where it begins and ends.
And oh, Find Your Grind claims to run a foundation, probably to trick educators into believing this is a non-profit. It’s not, and there probably isn’t even a foundation. The “Find Your Grind Foundation” webpage hasn’t been updated in 2 years, and mostly seems like an excuse for Nick Gross, whose inheritance makes all this possible, to post photos of himself handing out fake checks and mugging for the camera. All the links on the webpage are dead. Whatever money these guys make from teachers who don’t do their homework goes straight into the pockets of Find Your Grind.
Don’t get suckered by the Find Your Grind BS, and don’t spend precious tax dollars on Find Your Grind’s fake lesson plans. And if your administrators try to force Find Your Grind on teachers, call your union and tell Find Your Grind to take a hike.