About the Academy
Plato's Grove is an act of conviction: that learners discover truth most deeply when they uncover it themselves, and that a great education should be open to anyone willing to seek.
Quaerere Verum — to seek the truth.
Nearly 2,400 years ago, in a sacred olive grove north of Athens, Plato founded the first academy — a place where the young could pursue the truth through question and dialectic, in the open air, away from the noise of power.
In 529 CE, the emperor Justinian ordered it closed. The longest-running school the world had known went dark, and its scholars scattered. But an idea like that does not die. It waits.
Plato's Grove is built to reignite that idea — not as a museum piece, but as a living academy for our own age. We take the philosopher's deepest conviction, that understanding cannot be poured into a mind but must be drawn out of it, and we make it the architecture of an entire education.
"Students don't read about the trebuchet — they build one. They don't study the telegraph — they wire one."
We teach by induction: the learner meets the evidence and discovers the principle before it is ever named. We teach in the order humanity actually discovered the world — from the swamp to the stars, through Five Ages that climb from biology to the quantum. And we train the whole person, mind and body together, because the ancient grove was never only a place of thought.
The full academy opens in 2029 — exactly 1,500 years after Justinian closed the doors. We are building it in the open, and you are watching it rise.
To teach learners not to memorize the conclusions of others, but to seek the truth for themselves — and to give that education freely to anyone willing to climb.
From the swamp to the stars. Ab limo ad astra.
The inductive approach at the heart of the grove is not an experiment. In some of the hardest conditions in American education, it produced documented, record-setting results.
Documented in California Department of Education STAR testing data. The same method that lifted these students becomes, at the grove, the foundation of an entire curriculum.
Plato's Grove is built by someone who has spent three decades doing the two things the academy requires: teaching, and building. A mathematics educator with a master's in education technology, he served as a district-wide math director, mentor-teacher, and instructional coach across California, Washington, and Washington, D.C. — and produced some of the highest documented achievement gains of the NCLB era.
He has also been a full-stack software developer since 1996, fluent across the modern web and backed by five industry AI certifications from Microsoft, IBM, Google, AWS, and DeepLearning.AI. He works as a forward-deployment engineer — building tools and deploying them directly into classrooms, academies, and businesses, then measuring the results with hard data.
The thread running through it all is a single belief: that the students most systems leave behind can achieve extraordinary things when taught to discover the truth for themselves. Plato's Grove is the fullest expression of that belief — the academy he has spent a career preparing to build.
A complete software ecosystem for teaching Algebra to underserved learners — the engine behind those record-setting proficiency gains across multiple California schools.
Record-setting resultsA full computer-science curriculum where students learn to code by modifying working programs presented as challenges — induction, applied to programming.
Visit McTweak.aiA custom-built platform managing scheduling, student tracking, and analytics for the gymnasium — a production product serving real clients every day.
Visit CourtKrakenThe grove's Palaestra — already open since 2025, training resilient young people who win with humility, lose with grace, and meet adversity with determination.
Visit Evolution TennisWe don't ask learners to take our word for it. We hand them the evidence and the tools to discover the truth themselves — and the courage to speak it.
An education should be measured by what a person can do and make, not by what they can recite. Knowledge that lives in the hands lasts.
Mind and body, trained together. The grove forms not just a learner but a complete human being — resilient, honest, and free.
The gymnasium of a free people was never a private club. The grove is built to welcome anyone willing to seek.
We bring the best of modern technology to an ancient purpose — the pursuit of truth. Modern in form, classical in meaning.
We distinguish what is known from what we interpret, and we never overpromise. To seek the truth begins with telling it.
The grove is being built in stages. Some of it is already alive; the rest climbs toward 2029.
Evolution Tennis launches in Eagle, Idaho — the living Palaestra of the grove, training body and character through honest contest.
The gymnasium runs its second season, the Year of Doubles, while the academy's framework, curriculum, and projects are articulated in the open.
The full K–12 inductive academy opens — exactly 1,500 years after Justinian closed Plato's Academy in 529, reigniting the philosopher's dream.
The academy opens in 2029. Join the list to follow the climb — and to be first through the gate when the doors open.