Prisma is the world’s most engaging virtual school that prepares kids for the ever-changing world of the future. Our team of educators have a diverse background of experience on the cutting edge of teaching and learning, whether they’ve worked in brick and mortar schools or dynamic online environments. In our Meet the Team blog series, you’ll get to read more about the amazing educators behind Prisma.

Michael Granado joined Prisma in Fall 2024 as an academic learning coach for Prisma High School, focusing on social studies. 

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Where are you based? 

Savannah, Georgia. 

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Tell us a little bit about your background in education prior to joining Prisma. 

2024 marks my eleventh year in education. During this time I have taught history, religion, humanities, and philosophy at both a high school and college level. Prior to coming to Prisma, I was the Associate Director of Community Standards at Savannah College of Art and Design, a humanities learning expert at Sora Schools, a history instructor at Georgia State University, and a philosophy instructor at Georgia Southern University.  

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What is your favorite aspect of being a learning coach at Prisma?

My favorite aspect of being a coach is the level of connection I'm able to make with learners. When I talk to my teacher friends, this usually sounds odd to them, because student connection is not something that is typically associated with online schools. However, because of how Prisma is structured I have the ability to connect individually with each learner. The small cohort sizes allow me to get to know learners better, and because of the flexibility of the schedule I even have the ability to meet with them 1-on-1. That's unheard of in a regular high school setting. 

At Prisma High School, learners study history, civics, and economics through interdisciplinary themes, rather than the traditional approach. In your experience, how does this style of learning benefit students? 

To wax philosophically for a moment (sorry), reality is a convoluted and complicated mess that can rarely, if ever, be neatly compartmentalized into clean subject areas. In other words, all of the subjects you study in school are interdisciplinary, we separate them out of convenience not necessity. This style of education is more "realistic" for learners in the sense that it better prepares them for life. Perhaps most importantly, it also fosters a sense of critical thinking and creativity that can't be captured in a multiple-choice test.

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If you had to choose ONE skill that you believe is most important for learners to master to be prepared for the future, what would it be and why? 

I don't know if I would call this a "skill," per se, but I think the most valuable thing the study of history and philosophy has to offer is what I would refer to as life "enrichment," for lack of a better word. Albert Camus said the first question of philosophy is that of meaning: what is the meaning of my life? Meaning is contextualized through history. To explore these questions together, to understand who we are, where we've come from, and to discuss where we are going is one of the fundamental features that makes us human. No matter what career a learner chooses to pursue and no matter where life takes them, we all come back to these questions at some point. The skill lies in thinking about these questions now rather than on our deathbeds. 

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What do you like to learn about, or what is something new you learned recently? 

Currently, I am reading about a debate that happened between the philosopher Henri Bergson and Gaston Bachelard over the epistemology of time. Bergson argued that "intuition" was our primary source of knowledge about time (rooted in this concept of duration). Bachelard, drawing inspiration from the development of 19th-century non-euclidean geometry and Einsteinian relativity, argued that our basic intuitions of time are inherently wrong.