[Music]
hello so in the three years between 1999
and 2002 the amount of new recorded
information was equal to all recorded
information in the 5000 years leading up
to 1999 by now recorded information
doubles every year and yet we still have
an education system the privileges that
we all learn the same set of facts we
have an education system that was
designed in the 19th century by the same
man who designed the assembly line where
we measure success what we call academic
achievement
I’m the basis of how well students
perform on standardized tests under time
pressure we have research now to support
what anyone who’s been through school
knows which is you don’t learn things
best for keeps by memorizing and
regurgitating we also have research now
to support what anyone who’s been
teaching and paying attention knows
which is have everyone’s different and
and everyone’s interested in different
things and everyone learns differently
we have to find an entirely different
method to do school I spent the first 15
years of my career as an engineer turned
tech entrepreneur in the early days of
tech I built with a handful of others a
business that became a very successful
large software business back then it
wasn’t about changing technology it was
about getting businesses to adopt
technology we didn’t use the word
disruption but that’s what was happening
we didn’t use so much the word
innovation but that’s what we were
having to do and what I learned that
mattered more than anything else to
being successful at anything was
what mattered most was who I had on my
team and how well I worked with them and
they worked with each other and there
was no manual for what we were doing so
I learned to problem-solve and create
solutions by experimenting you had to
start by understanding what it is
actually you were hoping to accomplish
that was the most important thing you
got to understand what is it we’re
trying to do and then you’d construct a
smart experiment I call them pilots and
a lot of people do but I’m like the
pilot queen so that’s the word I use all
the time you create a pilot and you test
and you observe and what you’re mostly
observing for is the impact on that
thing you decided matters most that
you’re trying to accomplish and then
you’d go back and maybe you’d tweak some
things or maybe you just go back to the
drawing board so the business got really
big and it got global and I was gone all
the time and we also had two young kids
at home and it became impossible to
balance so I decided to make a lifestyle
change I had always wanted to teach so I
found myself going from one day running
a large software business to a few days
later standing in front of a roomful of
14-year olds who had failed their math
class the year before as their high
school math teacher when I looked at
what we were teaching and how we were
teaching it I was absolutely horrified
when he looked at the sea of faces
including Jeremy in the back who’s five
minutes in asked me why do I have to
learn this stuff I knew that the start
was I had to get each and every kid
interested and they were all gonna get
interested by different things but I had
to find a way to make it irrelevant and
then once I did once I figured out how
to do that I did what came naturally I
experimented and my experiment as I was
building methods crates start trying
create methods for how to get the
learning to happen my goal I knew that
if every one of them could get better at
learning how to learn then they’d be
able to learn this stuff so that’s what
I was watching as I was experimenting
the impact ok did that work is he better
I’ve been able to learn how to learn
really hard stuff is she getting better
and I create I develop these methods
that turned out to be very radically
different methods of teaching I taught
hundreds and hundreds of students in
math classes for 16 years with
extraordinary results kids going from
failing math classes and coming out of
the class and raising their hand to dive
into honors math classes and thriving
but I wanted to take it to the next
level I wanted to create my methods with
students learning everything by working
on real problems on teams so six years
ago I created an entrepreneurship class
as a laboratory I found real businesses
with real an urgent startup problems it
could be by the way a chicken store down
the street it could be a dry cleaner or
it could be a science-based business and
the learning objectives were all
different and the learning itself was
all different and I put I found
businesses who were willing to let I’ve
had real problems and we’re start-up
problems and we’re willing to let a
bunch of high school kids work on him so
I’ll give you an example I take the
students they’ve been in school forever
and regular classes they’re high school
kids there’s a woman who creates a new
water filter and designed to mimic the
filter of the manta ray it’s really
pretty special it’s working well and she
needs she started a business and she
gives my students the challenge that’s
the biggest one for her wet market and
what application should endemic
solutions go after first why and
how so these students many of whom never
got above accion a sign in a science
class who’ve had no experience outside
of school
put them on teams and they know this is
a real problem for a real person who’s
not my parent and not my teacher and
three weeks later we’re gonna present
our solutions to her and it’s real and
it matters and she’s gonna listen to us
and when they present they all present
different things and they’ve all learned
different things but they had to learn a
lot of science they had to learn about
different kinds of water filtration and
purification processes they had to learn
about infectious diseases they had to
learn about water access in developing
nations and the impediments caused by
culture and infrastructure and they had
to learn about data-driven
decision-making and so as I experimented
with all these different students and
all kinds of different problems and all
kinds of different things I developed
methods I developed methods for students
to learn things that we really don’t do
well in school we don’t teach well in
school they learned through these
methods creative problem-solving
critical thinking collaboration
communications and it wasn’t about just
throw them a problem at them step back
three weeks later have them present this
is really hard and there’s method and
it’s highly developed and it’s
structured and it’s teaching it’s just
entirely different so I knew that I had
to show this method would work in what
schools consider a core academic subject
so I went to my humanities department
and they have a ninth grade required
humanities course that the kids hate and
I asked them to they hate it and I asked
the teachers and I wanted other teachers
to implement my methods in this class
and I asked the department chair okay
what’s the unit in this class the kids
hate the most oh that’s easy
ancient Chinese history okay how long is
it three weeks perfect so instead of
giving this kids the text from the year
before having them write a bunch of
papers and do and do a test we had the
four
ten-year-olds do research and pitch to
their to their other classmates a
contemporary Chinese problem they wanted
to solve so one example is the kid who
in about two minutes of searching found
out that in China the government doesn’t
let you use snapchat that is a big
problem so it’s a big problem and of
course he was one of the ones who was
big time voted in so that when their
team presented their solution to a local
university professor who had some
related subject matter expertise in
China they started their presentation
with what they uncovered when they
started researching to see why why does
the government not let people use
snapchat and they had to keep digging
and digging and digging until they
finally got to 200 BCE in the Qin
Dynasty were the legal estroux lers were
the ones to start the tradition in China
of censorship so these kids didn’t come
out of the three-week unit well educated
in Chinese history but I guarantee they
came out of it understanding Wow
turns out ancient Chinese history is not
so bad and actually history is kind of
relevant so four years ago a man named
Steve blank saw what I was doing and
pushed me to do a workshop in his living
room actually to teach other teachers
from other schools to build their own
programs using my methods and we had 30
people they were educators from all over
the country and people weren’t teaching
entrepreneurship in schools so these
were math teachers science teachers
history teachers first grade teachers
middle school teachers high school
teachers and I wanted two things one I
learned that there are other teachers
who really want to do things differently
too and second I learned I can teach it
to them so that was four years ago in
the time since I’ve been working with
educators all over the country and all
over the world public school teachers
charter school teachers
teachers from Kazakhstan and Slovenia
let me give you a local example here in
Columbus there’s a school where if you
get expelled from a school in Columbus
you go to this school and these kids are
the unluckiest of the unlucky they end
up a statistic we I trained the teachers
they took the kids on the first day they
got there on a bus to a local fast
casual restaurant where the CEO met them
it’s a fast casual restaurant that sells
spicy chicken and employs people who’ve
been previously incarcerated he gave him
you’ve heard right he gives them their
challenge and those challenges were
opening our second restaurant
I need a marketing plan for how to get
customers employees to this restaurant
the students leave they’re put on teams
and they learn to research they learned
a problem solved they wanted to
collaborate and when three and a half
weeks later they present their solutions
to a room of 65 adults their creative
evidence-based solutions in the room are
the hearing officers who a month earlier
had met with them when they were
expelled all all of the students who
completed this pilot this three and a
half week course ended up substantially
improving their grades two of them
applied and were accepted to elite
academic programs this was many months
ago
and none of them have had a single
academic infraction since why why
okay think about why it’s actually
exciting and at the same time a little
sad that a three and a half week program
like that can accomplish that and the
reason is it’s the first time ever that
these students have been able to be
themselves and and and be empowered by
by realizing their own ability to create
and learn so I actually believe I
actually believe that education is the
path to world peace but our schools
aren’t doing the job I have the joy and
the privilege of working with teachers
now all over the world and the thing
they all have in common is they all
chose kids as their life’s work the
problem isn’t the teachers it’s the
system we need to shatter the goal of
sameness we need to get rid of the 19th
century model and all the methods that
come with it and when instead we make
the goal that schools about teaching
students how to learn different things
in their own unique different ways then
we will create an education system that
prepares students to thrive in this
century and in any century thank you
[Applause]
hello so in the three years between 1999
and 2002 the amount of new recorded
information was equal to all recorded
information in the 5000 years leading up
to 1999 by now recorded information
doubles every year and yet we still have
an education system the privileges that
we all learn the same set of facts we
have an education system that was
designed in the 19th century by the same
man who designed the assembly line where
we measure success what we call academic
achievement
I’m the basis of how well students
perform on standardized tests under time
pressure we have research now to support
what anyone who’s been through school
knows which is you don’t learn things
best for keeps by memorizing and
regurgitating we also have research now
to support what anyone who’s been
teaching and paying attention knows
which is have everyone’s different and
and everyone’s interested in different
things and everyone learns differently
we have to find an entirely different
method to do school I spent the first 15
years of my career as an engineer turned
tech entrepreneur in the early days of
tech I built with a handful of others a
business that became a very successful
large software business back then it
wasn’t about changing technology it was
about getting businesses to adopt
technology we didn’t use the word
disruption but that’s what was happening
we didn’t use so much the word
innovation but that’s what we were
having to do and what I learned that
mattered more than anything else to
being successful at anything was
what mattered most was who I had on my
team and how well I worked with them and
they worked with each other and there
was no manual for what we were doing so
I learned to problem-solve and create
solutions by experimenting you had to
start by understanding what it is
actually you were hoping to accomplish
that was the most important thing you
got to understand what is it we’re
trying to do and then you’d construct a
smart experiment I call them pilots and
a lot of people do but I’m like the
pilot queen so that’s the word I use all
the time you create a pilot and you test
and you observe and what you’re mostly
observing for is the impact on that
thing you decided matters most that
you’re trying to accomplish and then
you’d go back and maybe you’d tweak some
things or maybe you just go back to the
drawing board so the business got really
big and it got global and I was gone all
the time and we also had two young kids
at home and it became impossible to
balance so I decided to make a lifestyle
change I had always wanted to teach so I
found myself going from one day running
a large software business to a few days
later standing in front of a roomful of
14-year olds who had failed their math
class the year before as their high
school math teacher when I looked at
what we were teaching and how we were
teaching it I was absolutely horrified
when he looked at the sea of faces
including Jeremy in the back who’s five
minutes in asked me why do I have to
learn this stuff I knew that the start
was I had to get each and every kid
interested and they were all gonna get
interested by different things but I had
to find a way to make it irrelevant and
then once I did once I figured out how
to do that I did what came naturally I
experimented and my experiment as I was
building methods crates start trying
create methods for how to get the
learning to happen my goal I knew that
if every one of them could get better at
learning how to learn then they’d be
able to learn this stuff so that’s what
I was watching as I was experimenting
the impact ok did that work is he better
I’ve been able to learn how to learn
really hard stuff is she getting better
and I create I develop these methods
that turned out to be very radically
different methods of teaching I taught
hundreds and hundreds of students in
math classes for 16 years with
extraordinary results kids going from
failing math classes and coming out of
the class and raising their hand to dive
into honors math classes and thriving
but I wanted to take it to the next
level I wanted to create my methods with
students learning everything by working
on real problems on teams so six years
ago I created an entrepreneurship class
as a laboratory I found real businesses
with real an urgent startup problems it
could be by the way a chicken store down
the street it could be a dry cleaner or
it could be a science-based business and
the learning objectives were all
different and the learning itself was
all different and I put I found
businesses who were willing to let I’ve
had real problems and we’re start-up
problems and we’re willing to let a
bunch of high school kids work on him so
I’ll give you an example I take the
students they’ve been in school forever
and regular classes they’re high school
kids there’s a woman who creates a new
water filter and designed to mimic the
filter of the manta ray it’s really
pretty special it’s working well and she
needs she started a business and she
gives my students the challenge that’s
the biggest one for her wet market and
what application should endemic
solutions go after first why and
how so these students many of whom never
got above accion a sign in a science
class who’ve had no experience outside
of school
put them on teams and they know this is
a real problem for a real person who’s
not my parent and not my teacher and
three weeks later we’re gonna present
our solutions to her and it’s real and
it matters and she’s gonna listen to us
and when they present they all present
different things and they’ve all learned
different things but they had to learn a
lot of science they had to learn about
different kinds of water filtration and
purification processes they had to learn
about infectious diseases they had to
learn about water access in developing
nations and the impediments caused by
culture and infrastructure and they had
to learn about data-driven
decision-making and so as I experimented
with all these different students and
all kinds of different problems and all
kinds of different things I developed
methods I developed methods for students
to learn things that we really don’t do
well in school we don’t teach well in
school they learned through these
methods creative problem-solving
critical thinking collaboration
communications and it wasn’t about just
throw them a problem at them step back
three weeks later have them present this
is really hard and there’s method and
it’s highly developed and it’s
structured and it’s teaching it’s just
entirely different so I knew that I had
to show this method would work in what
schools consider a core academic subject
so I went to my humanities department
and they have a ninth grade required
humanities course that the kids hate and
I asked them to they hate it and I asked
the teachers and I wanted other teachers
to implement my methods in this class
and I asked the department chair okay
what’s the unit in this class the kids
hate the most oh that’s easy
ancient Chinese history okay how long is
it three weeks perfect so instead of
giving this kids the text from the year
before having them write a bunch of
papers and do and do a test we had the
four
ten-year-olds do research and pitch to
their to their other classmates a
contemporary Chinese problem they wanted
to solve so one example is the kid who
in about two minutes of searching found
out that in China the government doesn’t
let you use snapchat that is a big
problem so it’s a big problem and of
course he was one of the ones who was
big time voted in so that when their
team presented their solution to a local
university professor who had some
related subject matter expertise in
China they started their presentation
with what they uncovered when they
started researching to see why why does
the government not let people use
snapchat and they had to keep digging
and digging and digging until they
finally got to 200 BCE in the Qin
Dynasty were the legal estroux lers were
the ones to start the tradition in China
of censorship so these kids didn’t come
out of the three-week unit well educated
in Chinese history but I guarantee they
came out of it understanding Wow
turns out ancient Chinese history is not
so bad and actually history is kind of
relevant so four years ago a man named
Steve blank saw what I was doing and
pushed me to do a workshop in his living
room actually to teach other teachers
from other schools to build their own
programs using my methods and we had 30
people they were educators from all over
the country and people weren’t teaching
entrepreneurship in schools so these
were math teachers science teachers
history teachers first grade teachers
middle school teachers high school
teachers and I wanted two things one I
learned that there are other teachers
who really want to do things differently
too and second I learned I can teach it
to them so that was four years ago in
the time since I’ve been working with
educators all over the country and all
over the world public school teachers
charter school teachers
teachers from Kazakhstan and Slovenia
let me give you a local example here in
Columbus there’s a school where if you
get expelled from a school in Columbus
you go to this school and these kids are
the unluckiest of the unlucky they end
up a statistic we I trained the teachers
they took the kids on the first day they
got there on a bus to a local fast
casual restaurant where the CEO met them
it’s a fast casual restaurant that sells
spicy chicken and employs people who’ve
been previously incarcerated he gave him
you’ve heard right he gives them their
challenge and those challenges were
opening our second restaurant
I need a marketing plan for how to get
customers employees to this restaurant
the students leave they’re put on teams
and they learn to research they learned
a problem solved they wanted to
collaborate and when three and a half
weeks later they present their solutions
to a room of 65 adults their creative
evidence-based solutions in the room are
the hearing officers who a month earlier
had met with them when they were
expelled all all of the students who
completed this pilot this three and a
half week course ended up substantially
improving their grades two of them
applied and were accepted to elite
academic programs this was many months
ago
and none of them have had a single
academic infraction since why why
okay think about why it’s actually
exciting and at the same time a little
sad that a three and a half week program
like that can accomplish that and the
reason is it’s the first time ever that
these students have been able to be
themselves and and and be empowered by
by realizing their own ability to create
and learn so I actually believe I
actually believe that education is the
path to world peace but our schools
aren’t doing the job I have the joy and
the privilege of working with teachers
now all over the world and the thing
they all have in common is they all
chose kids as their life’s work the
problem isn’t the teachers it’s the
system we need to shatter the goal of
sameness we need to get rid of the 19th
century model and all the methods that
come with it and when instead we make
the goal that schools about teaching
students how to learn different things
in their own unique different ways then
we will create an education system that
prepares students to thrive in this
century and in any century thank you
[Applause]
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