[Music]
when I was a student a thing that used
to scare me the most I was standing in
front of the class so this looks way
more scared in a big classroom I think
I’ll be fine and there was a second
thing that scared me the most when I was
a student it was that I had no idea what
I wanted to do with my life once I
graduated never had this question that
what is what is the work that I can do
that is meaningful for me it resonates
to who I really am
that’s where I can apply my passions and
the things that I’m good at but I was
really struggling with this question
because the reality is that I didn’t
even know what I was good at so what I
did I started to get involved with
different projects outside of school to
try different things to see what is it
that I like and I come from a very
beautiful city in Brazil called Rio and
like Hanoi we have a lot of challenges
there there are so obvious they’re so
near face that you just can’t ignore
them and the more I was getting involved
with projects that are trying to do good
things for the world a second question
started to come to me and this once I’m
doing work that is meaningful for me how
do how do I also make this work
something good for the world and for me
in an ideal world this kind of questions
would be addressed in school but I
wasn’t finding it there and actually I
think school was making it even harder
for me to find my answer to those
questions I need to recognize that the
way that educational system has been has
helped people live better lives in the
last centuries yes we also need to
recognize it hasn’t been evolving in
adapting too much to address the complex
challenges that humanity has been facing
right now so and maybe that’s why
actually why when I was doing those
projects I felt that I was learning much
more than when I was inside the
classrooms so I finished my university
and I stayed engaged with different
projects seems meaningful to me
doing things like helping foreigners
they were coming to Rio I was guiding
meditation practice in prisons I was I
was even organizing TEDx events big TEDx
event like this those are things that I
found it they were cool but there was
something that was ruining me some kind
of disengagement with what I was doing
some kind of frustration because even
though those things are nice it didn’t
really resonate with who I was at the
moment and what I really wanted to do
and those two questions were soon in the
back of my mind
they were only growing in me getting
stronger and stronger what if I couldn’t
find my answers in traditional education
never if I couldn’t find by doing work
out there where we find it that so I
started to read books I was researching
online I was talking to a lot of
different people asking about it and I
struggled for years until I heard for
the first time about a different kind of
education I heard a guy those coming
from Sweden and he told me about this
amazing master’s in leadership or
sustainability there and I heard from
somebody telling me about this amazing
business school in the Netherlands where
the students who designed their whole
curriculum and I was oh my god I didn’t
know this was even possible and I was
researching okay there is a different
kind of education I was researching and
and I made a big list of a lot of
different schools around the world and I
was so inspired and so hooked that in
less than two years I had studied at two
of those schools and I have to say that
those schools really op littles for in
my life what the schools are doing
they’re getting people like me and many
others who have a very strong passion
for doing something good and they’re
supporting them with the knowledge with
the experiences with the skills and with
the support to become the kind of
leaders that the world needs and I even
when I was there I even realize that
some people have some definition for
what what this education is some like to
call it
alternative education but I prefer much
more the term transformative education
Lamar was experiencing this kind of
transformative education I was asking
myself but why why isn’t this kind of
education mainstream why why isn’t it
more popular why all those people like
me and many others who want to do
something good for the world it’s trolls
so much to find out what is their work
and how to make it as something good so
while I was studying doing my Master’s
at one of those schools my thesis made
tonight we decided to do something about
it
so we decided to then talk to some of
those schools talk to their founders to
facilitators the students to alumni and
also some great experts in a few any we
wanted to know what what does it make
the school so special so transformative
and how can we give guidance for people
who also want to design their own
transformative education and we learned
a lot through that and what I wanted to
share with you today is what I think
that helped me a lot to find my own
answers to those two important questions
that I had at the beginning of what’s my
work you know how do I make it something
good and what do schools do is that they
develop three key capacities in their
learners they help them develop those
capacities and those I believe are
capacities that everyone wants to be a
good leader for this world needs to
develop near the capacities of knowing
of being and doing but what does this
capacities mean and why are they so
important I’ll survey the capacity of
knowing the capacity of knowing is about
understanding what’s happening in our
world how things are interconnected and
what is the impact that we have in the
world whenever we take any kind of
action and when it don’t take action the
capacity that is related to topics like
sustainability systems thinking social
innovation and also two different
approaches to leadership to economics
then what is
mainstream you know road right now and
this capacity is really important for
big decisions that we take in our
organizations for making new strategies
but also very important for small
everyday decision that we take in our
lives like what kind of projects do me
buy and I have an example for myself
here is that in Brazil we have many
areas provinces with water shortage so
we’re learning so we’re taught in school
that you should take showers really
quick and you should use as little water
as possible and that’s what I’ve been
doing but then at some point I was
confronted with this term called water
footprints and what are footprints is
that they measure the amount of water
that has been used during the production
of any kind of products and I was then
looking at products that I used to use a
lot
I for example has to drink a lot of milk
and I noticed that one little glass of
milk that I was drinking used around 200
liters of water and if I look at a
10-minute shower it takes around 130
litres and it’s way more than a
10-minute shower and I was so shocked
and I looked at a beef hamburger it’s
two thousand four hundred liters of
water and if you make the calculation
with the showers with less than 20
burgers in you’ll be using the same
amount of water as one whole layer of
showers and that was insane
and with this awareness with this
knowing I couldn’t more easily make the
different choices and change my habits
and the way I consume things and don’t
get me wrong on this capacity of knowing
the capacity of no is not at all about
knowing everything it’s actually also
knowing what you don’t know because when
you know what you don’t know it can you
can ask for help and you can be open for
learning new things and that take us to
the second capacity there is a capacity
of being the capacity of being is
related to
personal development around not only our
own but our interpersonal development
and it’s about being ourselves but it’s
also about being together learning how
to be together and it’s it’s related to
learning about our values and our
beliefs because they say so much about
why we do the things that we do so if
you want to can change it it’s about
learning about our strengths our
passions our visions or dreams because
the inform what is important for us and
also they give us direction so we’re
where we want to go you know not long
ago somebody came to me here and was
complaining about his parents and you
gotta say look my parents they chose
what I wanted what I needed to study
they chose the job at ready to take now
I’m really unhappy with the choices that
I make I’m really unhappy with my life
and I was okay so what is it that is
important for you then what is it that
you wanna do and what I heard back is
something that I heard many times is
that I don’t know I want to live a happy
life in order to travel the world well I
can speak for experience here if you
don’t know what you want and what is
important for you it’s gonna be very
very hard to say no to the things that
are not meant for you and this is not an
easy path I know this capacity I know
schools they also encourage their
learners to adopt practices they help
them to be more balanced to be more
centered so they can grow in this path
of personal development and what are
those personal practices personal
practices are things like you can do
arts or journaling or mindfulness and
also there’s the other aspect of the
capacity of being that is about being
together and this is about knowing how
to work as a team as teams do good
collaboration is about having good
communication is about
having healthy relationships in your
work life and there’s a third capacity
there’s the capacity of doing capacity
of doing is about taking the initiative
take initiative about the things you
care about all the things that you want
to change in the world it’s about taking
responsibility for your own learning in
your own development and all those
schools what they do is they usually
call it is developing an intrapreneur
your mindset and when I was a teenager
in Brazil I used to go walking to school
every day and on the way to school I
would see something very weird there I
had to cross a river and there was a
used software in the river and I just
look at it and why would somebody dumped
a sofa here okay and I went to school
and I learned I’ll start about
environmental protection but we actually
never did anything about it you could
have gone there maybe in the river to
clean it up a little bit but during all
my years in school the sofa was still
there so how am I supposed to learn
about taking initiative and doing if I
never practiced it but a lot are emitted
on those sons formative schools they do
it differently for example their
learners could be invited to go together
think about something a challenge in the
city that you care about and make a
strategy and go out there and do some
change yourselves
so the Morrow’s researching and
experiencing this kind of education I
couldn’t stop but think about all the
great people and all the great
organizations that I work with and that
I met there you’re doing very good work
for the world but I noticed that many of
them they they hadn’t developed at least
one of those three capacities and I
really believed that this was stopping
them from being more effective and be
more fulfilled with the work that they
are doing for example I met some great
people
in the capacity of knowing so they
really understood the interconnection
between things but they didn’t know how
to take strategic wise
and I met some people who are great at a
capacity of being so they were very
self-aware but they didn’t have the
capacity of knowing so they took a lot
of actions that actually created a lot
of problems and I met some great
activists doing very good work and doing
doing doing doing but they were ending
up burned out or having very strong
these connections with their teams
because they didn’t develop much the
capacity of being and and this is all
very natural since we didn’t learn those
capacities in school we need to develop
them ourselves but how to do that so the
first step that I would say is to stop
stop and reflect on those three
capacities and see which ones you think
you’re good at and what are the ones
that you could further develop and then
with that in mind our next step could be
maybe you can go and learn at one of
those transformative schools around the
world but I know maybe you might be
thinking yeah maybe that’s not possible
for me for different reasons and but
what if I told you if you could create
this education for yourself and you
might think is it even possible and I’ll
say yes it is possible it’s not easy it
takes time and actually even if you went
to one of those schools transformation
and development of those capacities is
not guaranteed because you really comes
from your own attitude as a learner but
how would you do that so we we looked at
those schools and we realize that there
are two key elements that they apply in
their learning that makes the the
transformation and developing of those
capacities much more likely and the
first element is creating challenges
different challenges especially
challenges to the learners values and
beliefs so they can question the way
that they see the world and they do it
in many different ways like for example
inviting all kinds of diversity to the
learning so they welcome people from
many different countries different
cultures different ages different
background
they ask questions that are provocative
that are challenging that make people
think in ways they never thought of
before and they have methods that engage
the whole body and they learn not only
the brain you could maybe learn about
leadership through dancing tango
and they also invite real life to the
learning and invites deep reflection to
the learning you could for example go
spend a few days in nature with a
question that is very important to you
to find your own answers to it and even
though those schools are very creative
in adding challenges to their learning
this is actually something that anyone
can can do and even very traditional
schools apply many of those challenges
but the second elements of the
transformative schools that make their
education fundamentally different from
traditional ones I believe is that they
create a safe environment for learning
safe space what do I mean with that safe
space is a place where anyone can make
mistakes without being judged where a
strong and supportive community of
learners can be formed it’s a place
where learning can happen because we
have learned so many things in
traditional education that actually
don’t serve our own growth and our own
developments and those are our world and
also it’s a place where intrinsic values
can be practice what are those values
those are values like care at love like
a trust like openness like respect and
actually it’s the presence of those
values that makes those challenges
don’t become only defensiveness or
frustration or even traumas and in how
in practical ways how do those schools
do that for example they would the
facilitators and the learners would
create community agreements or they
would have practices for decision-making
for conflict resolution
you would have trips together they will
have dinners together or they well
they’ll have lots of fun play a lot of
games and
we go spend time with those schools they
actually look a lot like a group of
friends or family much more than a
school so maybe they are the ones who
are closer to the original meaning of
the world school if you don’t know
that’s from the old Greek scholar it
means time then you take for leisure so
now that we have learned about those
three capacities and two elements that
make the development of them much more
likely so what’s next well I could give
you a list of books or workshops online
courses you could do our actions you
could take they could help you develop
those capacities but I’m gonna do
something that I think is much more
meaningful let’s give you an invitation
it’s an invitation for seeing life in a
different way it’s forcing life as a
transformative learning journey and what
do I mean with that
well what those schools do is that they
get life with all its complexity with
its challenges with its beauties and
they invited into their learning which
is very different from a traditional
education that’s today separated so the
invitations that do the other way around
so we if you look at life as a
transformative learning journey we can
look at all those challenges that come
to us as great opportunities for growth
for learning and you can look at all the
people that cross our path as people
that could be a potential co-learners
and our families our friends our mentors
you can create our own safe spaces with
them and learn together and that’s a
very beautiful way of living life I
believe that’s how I’ve been living in
the last year’s and walking my path now
I’d like to invite you to up with me so
maybe you can learn together thank you
you
when I was a student a thing that used
to scare me the most I was standing in
front of the class so this looks way
more scared in a big classroom I think
I’ll be fine and there was a second
thing that scared me the most when I was
a student it was that I had no idea what
I wanted to do with my life once I
graduated never had this question that
what is what is the work that I can do
that is meaningful for me it resonates
to who I really am
that’s where I can apply my passions and
the things that I’m good at but I was
really struggling with this question
because the reality is that I didn’t
even know what I was good at so what I
did I started to get involved with
different projects outside of school to
try different things to see what is it
that I like and I come from a very
beautiful city in Brazil called Rio and
like Hanoi we have a lot of challenges
there there are so obvious they’re so
near face that you just can’t ignore
them and the more I was getting involved
with projects that are trying to do good
things for the world a second question
started to come to me and this once I’m
doing work that is meaningful for me how
do how do I also make this work
something good for the world and for me
in an ideal world this kind of questions
would be addressed in school but I
wasn’t finding it there and actually I
think school was making it even harder
for me to find my answer to those
questions I need to recognize that the
way that educational system has been has
helped people live better lives in the
last centuries yes we also need to
recognize it hasn’t been evolving in
adapting too much to address the complex
challenges that humanity has been facing
right now so and maybe that’s why
actually why when I was doing those
projects I felt that I was learning much
more than when I was inside the
classrooms so I finished my university
and I stayed engaged with different
projects seems meaningful to me
doing things like helping foreigners
they were coming to Rio I was guiding
meditation practice in prisons I was I
was even organizing TEDx events big TEDx
event like this those are things that I
found it they were cool but there was
something that was ruining me some kind
of disengagement with what I was doing
some kind of frustration because even
though those things are nice it didn’t
really resonate with who I was at the
moment and what I really wanted to do
and those two questions were soon in the
back of my mind
they were only growing in me getting
stronger and stronger what if I couldn’t
find my answers in traditional education
never if I couldn’t find by doing work
out there where we find it that so I
started to read books I was researching
online I was talking to a lot of
different people asking about it and I
struggled for years until I heard for
the first time about a different kind of
education I heard a guy those coming
from Sweden and he told me about this
amazing master’s in leadership or
sustainability there and I heard from
somebody telling me about this amazing
business school in the Netherlands where
the students who designed their whole
curriculum and I was oh my god I didn’t
know this was even possible and I was
researching okay there is a different
kind of education I was researching and
and I made a big list of a lot of
different schools around the world and I
was so inspired and so hooked that in
less than two years I had studied at two
of those schools and I have to say that
those schools really op littles for in
my life what the schools are doing
they’re getting people like me and many
others who have a very strong passion
for doing something good and they’re
supporting them with the knowledge with
the experiences with the skills and with
the support to become the kind of
leaders that the world needs and I even
when I was there I even realize that
some people have some definition for
what what this education is some like to
call it
alternative education but I prefer much
more the term transformative education
Lamar was experiencing this kind of
transformative education I was asking
myself but why why isn’t this kind of
education mainstream why why isn’t it
more popular why all those people like
me and many others who want to do
something good for the world it’s trolls
so much to find out what is their work
and how to make it as something good so
while I was studying doing my Master’s
at one of those schools my thesis made
tonight we decided to do something about
it
so we decided to then talk to some of
those schools talk to their founders to
facilitators the students to alumni and
also some great experts in a few any we
wanted to know what what does it make
the school so special so transformative
and how can we give guidance for people
who also want to design their own
transformative education and we learned
a lot through that and what I wanted to
share with you today is what I think
that helped me a lot to find my own
answers to those two important questions
that I had at the beginning of what’s my
work you know how do I make it something
good and what do schools do is that they
develop three key capacities in their
learners they help them develop those
capacities and those I believe are
capacities that everyone wants to be a
good leader for this world needs to
develop near the capacities of knowing
of being and doing but what does this
capacities mean and why are they so
important I’ll survey the capacity of
knowing the capacity of knowing is about
understanding what’s happening in our
world how things are interconnected and
what is the impact that we have in the
world whenever we take any kind of
action and when it don’t take action the
capacity that is related to topics like
sustainability systems thinking social
innovation and also two different
approaches to leadership to economics
then what is
mainstream you know road right now and
this capacity is really important for
big decisions that we take in our
organizations for making new strategies
but also very important for small
everyday decision that we take in our
lives like what kind of projects do me
buy and I have an example for myself
here is that in Brazil we have many
areas provinces with water shortage so
we’re learning so we’re taught in school
that you should take showers really
quick and you should use as little water
as possible and that’s what I’ve been
doing but then at some point I was
confronted with this term called water
footprints and what are footprints is
that they measure the amount of water
that has been used during the production
of any kind of products and I was then
looking at products that I used to use a
lot
I for example has to drink a lot of milk
and I noticed that one little glass of
milk that I was drinking used around 200
liters of water and if I look at a
10-minute shower it takes around 130
litres and it’s way more than a
10-minute shower and I was so shocked
and I looked at a beef hamburger it’s
two thousand four hundred liters of
water and if you make the calculation
with the showers with less than 20
burgers in you’ll be using the same
amount of water as one whole layer of
showers and that was insane
and with this awareness with this
knowing I couldn’t more easily make the
different choices and change my habits
and the way I consume things and don’t
get me wrong on this capacity of knowing
the capacity of no is not at all about
knowing everything it’s actually also
knowing what you don’t know because when
you know what you don’t know it can you
can ask for help and you can be open for
learning new things and that take us to
the second capacity there is a capacity
of being the capacity of being is
related to
personal development around not only our
own but our interpersonal development
and it’s about being ourselves but it’s
also about being together learning how
to be together and it’s it’s related to
learning about our values and our
beliefs because they say so much about
why we do the things that we do so if
you want to can change it it’s about
learning about our strengths our
passions our visions or dreams because
the inform what is important for us and
also they give us direction so we’re
where we want to go you know not long
ago somebody came to me here and was
complaining about his parents and you
gotta say look my parents they chose
what I wanted what I needed to study
they chose the job at ready to take now
I’m really unhappy with the choices that
I make I’m really unhappy with my life
and I was okay so what is it that is
important for you then what is it that
you wanna do and what I heard back is
something that I heard many times is
that I don’t know I want to live a happy
life in order to travel the world well I
can speak for experience here if you
don’t know what you want and what is
important for you it’s gonna be very
very hard to say no to the things that
are not meant for you and this is not an
easy path I know this capacity I know
schools they also encourage their
learners to adopt practices they help
them to be more balanced to be more
centered so they can grow in this path
of personal development and what are
those personal practices personal
practices are things like you can do
arts or journaling or mindfulness and
also there’s the other aspect of the
capacity of being that is about being
together and this is about knowing how
to work as a team as teams do good
collaboration is about having good
communication is about
having healthy relationships in your
work life and there’s a third capacity
there’s the capacity of doing capacity
of doing is about taking the initiative
take initiative about the things you
care about all the things that you want
to change in the world it’s about taking
responsibility for your own learning in
your own development and all those
schools what they do is they usually
call it is developing an intrapreneur
your mindset and when I was a teenager
in Brazil I used to go walking to school
every day and on the way to school I
would see something very weird there I
had to cross a river and there was a
used software in the river and I just
look at it and why would somebody dumped
a sofa here okay and I went to school
and I learned I’ll start about
environmental protection but we actually
never did anything about it you could
have gone there maybe in the river to
clean it up a little bit but during all
my years in school the sofa was still
there so how am I supposed to learn
about taking initiative and doing if I
never practiced it but a lot are emitted
on those sons formative schools they do
it differently for example their
learners could be invited to go together
think about something a challenge in the
city that you care about and make a
strategy and go out there and do some
change yourselves
so the Morrow’s researching and
experiencing this kind of education I
couldn’t stop but think about all the
great people and all the great
organizations that I work with and that
I met there you’re doing very good work
for the world but I noticed that many of
them they they hadn’t developed at least
one of those three capacities and I
really believed that this was stopping
them from being more effective and be
more fulfilled with the work that they
are doing for example I met some great
people
in the capacity of knowing so they
really understood the interconnection
between things but they didn’t know how
to take strategic wise
and I met some people who are great at a
capacity of being so they were very
self-aware but they didn’t have the
capacity of knowing so they took a lot
of actions that actually created a lot
of problems and I met some great
activists doing very good work and doing
doing doing doing but they were ending
up burned out or having very strong
these connections with their teams
because they didn’t develop much the
capacity of being and and this is all
very natural since we didn’t learn those
capacities in school we need to develop
them ourselves but how to do that so the
first step that I would say is to stop
stop and reflect on those three
capacities and see which ones you think
you’re good at and what are the ones
that you could further develop and then
with that in mind our next step could be
maybe you can go and learn at one of
those transformative schools around the
world but I know maybe you might be
thinking yeah maybe that’s not possible
for me for different reasons and but
what if I told you if you could create
this education for yourself and you
might think is it even possible and I’ll
say yes it is possible it’s not easy it
takes time and actually even if you went
to one of those schools transformation
and development of those capacities is
not guaranteed because you really comes
from your own attitude as a learner but
how would you do that so we we looked at
those schools and we realize that there
are two key elements that they apply in
their learning that makes the the
transformation and developing of those
capacities much more likely and the
first element is creating challenges
different challenges especially
challenges to the learners values and
beliefs so they can question the way
that they see the world and they do it
in many different ways like for example
inviting all kinds of diversity to the
learning so they welcome people from
many different countries different
cultures different ages different
background
they ask questions that are provocative
that are challenging that make people
think in ways they never thought of
before and they have methods that engage
the whole body and they learn not only
the brain you could maybe learn about
leadership through dancing tango
and they also invite real life to the
learning and invites deep reflection to
the learning you could for example go
spend a few days in nature with a
question that is very important to you
to find your own answers to it and even
though those schools are very creative
in adding challenges to their learning
this is actually something that anyone
can can do and even very traditional
schools apply many of those challenges
but the second elements of the
transformative schools that make their
education fundamentally different from
traditional ones I believe is that they
create a safe environment for learning
safe space what do I mean with that safe
space is a place where anyone can make
mistakes without being judged where a
strong and supportive community of
learners can be formed it’s a place
where learning can happen because we
have learned so many things in
traditional education that actually
don’t serve our own growth and our own
developments and those are our world and
also it’s a place where intrinsic values
can be practice what are those values
those are values like care at love like
a trust like openness like respect and
actually it’s the presence of those
values that makes those challenges
don’t become only defensiveness or
frustration or even traumas and in how
in practical ways how do those schools
do that for example they would the
facilitators and the learners would
create community agreements or they
would have practices for decision-making
for conflict resolution
you would have trips together they will
have dinners together or they well
they’ll have lots of fun play a lot of
games and
we go spend time with those schools they
actually look a lot like a group of
friends or family much more than a
school so maybe they are the ones who
are closer to the original meaning of
the world school if you don’t know
that’s from the old Greek scholar it
means time then you take for leisure so
now that we have learned about those
three capacities and two elements that
make the development of them much more
likely so what’s next well I could give
you a list of books or workshops online
courses you could do our actions you
could take they could help you develop
those capacities but I’m gonna do
something that I think is much more
meaningful let’s give you an invitation
it’s an invitation for seeing life in a
different way it’s forcing life as a
transformative learning journey and what
do I mean with that
well what those schools do is that they
get life with all its complexity with
its challenges with its beauties and
they invited into their learning which
is very different from a traditional
education that’s today separated so the
invitations that do the other way around
so we if you look at life as a
transformative learning journey we can
look at all those challenges that come
to us as great opportunities for growth
for learning and you can look at all the
people that cross our path as people
that could be a potential co-learners
and our families our friends our mentors
you can create our own safe spaces with
them and learn together and that’s a
very beautiful way of living life I
believe that’s how I’ve been living in
the last year’s and walking my path now
I’d like to invite you to up with me so
maybe you can learn together thank you
you
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