academic studies when I realized that I
enjoy working with people much more than
I do with test tubes so I handed in my
PhD thesis and some 13 years after i had
left high school I returned this time as
a biology teacher now during those 13
years exciting things were happening in
the world we started making babies
through IVF people started finding their
way around with the assistance of GPS
Microsoft filled our world with Windows
the World Wide Web became a household
member and prozac was introduced making
the world look much nicer and easier to
be in I walked into the classroom and
within two seconds I understood the
change that it happens there once we
used to write with white chalk on a
blackboard now I was asked to write with
a black marker on a whiteboard big
two things happen during that week first
week back at high school first the
principal of the school called me in for
a meeting now it doesn’t matter if
you’re a teacher or a student when the
principal calls you in you go he called
me and he looked at my credentials and
he said hmm let’s establish that you
know biology are probably an expert in
biology but that doesn’t make you a
biology teacher yet go study some
education it’s a profession since that
day some 26 years later I am still
studying education he was right it is a
multidisciplinary ever developing
fascinating profession the second thing
that happened happened when I went into
my very first 10th grade biology class I
introduced myself naturally and I
watched the students as their eyes
started growing wider and wider until
when I told them I hold a PhD in
molecular biology one of them just
couldn’t hold it in anymore and he
looked at me and exclaimed what on earth
are you doing here sadly not to say
tragically he had implemented the
unquestionable truth that had been sent
to him as a message by the system ever
since early childhood if a person is
well educated and successful they won’t
choose to become a mere teacher more
than that if you consider a person well
educated and successful you’re not
education just wasn’t perceived as
inspiring enough important enough or
desirable enough now in the years that
have passed since then I understood that
this shouldn’t have come as a surprise
to me in a world where growing diversity
uncertainty and rapid changes have
become our everyday lives if you look at
the education system it is still very
much highly standardized rigid dealing
with outdated process
is we asked our teachers and our
students to deal with facts and figures
more than anything else in a world where
facts and figures are not only
ubiquitous and exponentially growing by
the hour but they’re actually available
and free more than that our education
systems are still trying to prepare our
young for jobs in a world where in 10
years as we heard this morning we have
no idea which jobs are going to be
available which jobs won’t exist anymore
we don’t even stop to ask ourselves an
even more basic question in this day and
age should job preparation still even be
one of the goals of education our
frustration isn’t new it’s been going on
for decades if you go back 150 years to
Lewis Carroll he already said that
that’s why we call them lessons because
they lesson every day that frustration
has led us to create and implement one
reform after the other into the system
until the point that we are now reformed
infested you look at education systems
and you can find reforms galore some
people are talking about the future of
education lies in changing the learning
place others will tell you what we need
to change is to bring in more technology
into the classroom some will speak about
innovative pedagogies and some will talk
about that one incredible element that
sits within each and every one of us be
a student or child or teacher let’s
develop that element and then everything
will be hunky-dory be it creativity be
it imagination maybe the element of
grits whatever you think of that one
thing will change the system well as
many reforms as we have we’re still
frustrated we still look at our
education systems and say something
isn’t working the impact that we’re
looking for hasn’t happened yet maybe
because in this day and age what we’re
looking for in our education system
isn’t another
form we don’t need another reform what
we need is a revolution no less we need
a change of paradigm of what our
education systems are and should be we
need to leave the comfort zone of what
we know stop trying to juggle those
building blocks that are not that are
falling apart write-ups around us and
try to build something new if in the
21st century we’re talking about
developing active creative innovative
students who know how to work in
flexible and sustainable teams then the
education system itself needs to role
model exactly that the system itself be
at its teachers its students or its
processes needs to be a system that is
active creative innovative and works in
flexible and sustainable teams so how do
we do that what should we do in order to
achieve such a system let’s look back in
history for approximately 75 years and
go back to january six 1941 in january
six 1941 Franklin Delano Roosevelt gave
his State of the Nation Address it has
since then become known as the for
freedom speech the for freedom speech
spoke about the very basic for human
rights that each and every person on the
planet regardless of nationality
regardless of geography has to have as
his base his or her basic human right
let’s use that as a baseline and talk
about the Four Freedoms of education
what are the four basic rights that each
and every one of us in this room in
other rooms all over the world have as a
right when we enter an education system
regardless if we’re a student or a
teacher the first freedom is the freedom
from coverage we are slaves of
our curriculums x and spaces one of the
worst enemies of Education is the need
to cover the subjects of a curriculum
that is set and standardized by someone
who has decided that this is what we
need to learn but in a world where we
can learn whatever we want whenever we
want wherever we want these change are
no less than ridiculous the second
freedom is freedom from standardization
we’re also slaves of the standards that
we have defined that each of us has to
accomplish we run from test two tests
whether it’s in the classroom or on the
national level or comparing
internationally but evaluation and
assessment should be about forming the
process designing it not about measuring
one student and comparing him to the
other instead of that we should develop
meaningful and emotionally charged
creative uses of knowledge
standardization kills creativity
destroys individuality and represses one
of the most important things that leads
to education and that is Wonder and our
natural tendency to explore and discover
it also leads to another thing that we
need to be free of we are afraid to fail
we fear failure we should have the
freedom to fail failure is part of life
if you don’t doubt and you don’t
question you won’t fail you probably
won’t succeed either Churchill used to
say that success is going from one
failure to the other without losing
enthusiasm good cultivated harnessed
failure can be used to ignite
imagination to provoke thought and it
also leads to one more quality that
we’ve somehow lost along the way and
that is the quality of humility who we
are what our real place in this world is
what our responsibilities should be
towards ourselves towards our peers and
towards the environment that humility is
a value that only if we try and fail and
try again until we work it out we can
develop and the last freedom the fourth
one is the freedom to imagine we are
these storytelling symbol creating
product designing species on this planet
we love the stories and the visions and
imaginations when what they make us feel
we love the mysteries and the wonders
that around us we like to hear about the
heroes and the heroines the villains the
role models that we can follow their
footsteps interaction between
imagination and implementation leads to
human development isn’t that what we’re
looking for in our education systems
these four freedoms need to be expressed
in the education systems through three
major arts that must be developed
education arts first the art of active
knowledge we need to find ways to walk
ourselves through all the available mass
of information that surrounds us
everywhere know how to harness that
information turn it into our own
knowledge and to use it to use it in
flexible sometimes unknown and uncertain
circumstances we also need to know how
to use it responsibly today information
and knowledge are available for all our
kids can reach and find anything they
want do we really teach them what to
look for how to think critically about
what they find what to use and what not
to use the second art is the art of
storytelling as I said we live in our
stories everything that surrounds us
used to be a story something that
someone envisioned who are those people
what did they what were they thinking
when they discovered what they
discovered
why did they search for what they were
searching for how does it impact my life
what can I do with it this story with
its wonders and mysteries is the
probably the best teacher on earth but
we don’t use stories in the classroom
all those facts and figures that we deal
with do we tell them as igniting stories
that motivate us make us want to learn
more and more about the story I don’t
remember my geography class I do
remember that most of the time I was
staring at maps they were trying to
teach me these lines the longitude my
lines latitude lines which kind of map
should compare to the other this is an
economic map that’s a physical map and
then one day I learned the story of John
Harrison the clock maker who actually
solved the greatest problem of the 19th
century how to find longitude at sea it
was an incredible story and my
imagination was racing I read the book I
went to see to listen to the lecture of
the author who wrote it dava sobel I
went back to those maps that I did not
remember from geography and the very
first opportunity that I had I went to
Greenwich in London right outside of
London to see the clocks that Harrison
had made to solve the problem problem of
longitude the story made me learn much
more than any class in geography had
during high school and finally the art
of socialization we are a social species
we operate in societies that operate
through their norms our beliefs and our
values too it’s too easy and there is a
fine line to go in education from
socialization that develops you’re
thinking about those values and norms
and deciding what you want to do with
them and how you want to implement them
in your life the fine line between that
and between dangerous and doctrine ation
during the 21st century if you just look
around us that danger is evident almost
every single day the art of
socialization of our children and of our
teachers and not indoctrination is
something we need to develop and last
but not least we need to go back to the
good old five WH questions of first
grade what is worthy of teaching who are
we teaching who are students where have
they come from who are the teachers that
we want to teach them where and when
this education occur best is a one age
45 to 90 minutes specific classroom slot
the best way to educate maybe not if not
what is and finally probably the
trickiest question of all why are we
teaching what we’re teaching that’s a
tricky question are we teaching what
we’re teaching because of historical
reasons it’s a reason because we’ve
always done it like this so we should do
it again because we’re not frustrated or
too frustrated are we teaching what
we’re teaching because of the pressure
of interest groups political values the
question why we teach what we’re
teaching is one of the most crucial
questions of Education try answering it
candidly and honestly you might be
surprised by what you find 200 years of
frustration have led us to understand
that it’s time to move from viewing
education as most of the time we do of
being about encyclopedias it’s time to
move on and understand that education
isn’t about an encyclopedia it’s about
the greatest adventure on earth thank you