[Music]
[Music]
thank you wow you’re all quiet and
paying attention
that never happens to me in class well
today I would like to start with my TED
talk with a thought experiments and I
know you’ve been having fun doing
energizes all morning yet I would like
to invite you to stand up one last time
please only this time only this time
we’re not going to have fun this time
it’s serious this time we’re going to do
a thought experiments and in this
thought experiments imagine yourself
standing next to a railway track and
there’s a train coming down the railway
track at great speeds up a heads you can
see five people tied up to the railway
tracks and there’s also a lever which
you can pull causing the train to switch
to a different track where a single
person is tied up my question of course
is would you pull the lever which will
result to the death of a single person
yet it saves five if you would pull the
lever please sit down look if you a
moment to think this over
oh wow a lot of people just sit down and
which means there’s a lot of presumed
killers in the audience so please keep a
close eye on the person sitting next to
you you never know now there was just to
mess around I get to the point later in
this TED talk just to freshen you up
because we hear actually – oh yeah you
can all sit down thank you we are here
today sharing light bulb moments because
we’re in an oven and Hoeven is Philips
City sharing light bulb moments my
personal light bulb moment came in 2011
I was working then at a traditional
school not this one
in Amsterdam north and we were facing
rough weather the exam results declined
and as a consequence the student numbers
also dropped so we had to do something
and out of the teaching staff we formed
the committee to work out the
foundations of a new school and I
remember very clear the first time we
sat together and we looked at the task
at hand we realized we had to rethink
the way we were teaching and we had to
rethink what we were teaching the
curriculum and it was a tough job you
know where to start how do you found the
school there’s no manual for this sort
of thing so we decided to start with the
core question meaning what is the
purpose of Education and for us the
initial answer to this question was to
prepare the next generation to a
changing world and this is of course
highly problematic because what
knowledge is still needed in the 21st
century what is urgent what can we get
rid of and what skills are needed which
competencies are are needed again highly
problematic because no one can predict
the future no one can look into the
future if you would take 50 years ago
the best prediction
the future would have us living in the
bottom of the ocean you know in his
fears and I don’t pretend today to do
any better but there are some trends
which can we can follow and there are
certain things I find importance for
instance this is a picture I took during
lunch break a couple of weeks ago at my
school and you can see all the students
playing on their phones and their
devices sharing photos and videos with
each other on social media and as
teachers we are you know busy
surveilling the courtyards so fairly
inside and the outside in the offline
world while we should be focusing more
of our attention to what’s happening in
the online world where they actually are
hanging out during lunch break and after
school yet education at this point it’s
still very limited we don’t really teach
our kids to deal with online ethical
issues such as privacy now what do you
share with whom and in this virtual
jungle kids need to be equipped with a
moral compass I’ll share with you a
second thing I find important a second
trend what’s also happening in my view
is what’s changing in the world around
us is the information we form our fuel
in the world with some of my kids read
the newspaper back home some of my kids
some of my students they what’s the
television most of them they have of
course the devices and they you know
social media and most of them they watch
vloggers on YouTube and they share
sensational articles with each other
through the social media and this is
concerning because in their little
information bubbles it’s very easy for
fake news items to spread to their
devices which they reads the articles on
and this is concerning because no one
really teach them how to check if the
source is reliable or where the
information comes from so what I’m
saying is
education on digital literacy it’s still
very limited in the Netherlands and
outside in other words we don’t teach
our kids how to critically deal with the
information around them
my main message here would be that the
world around us is changing really fast
yet our education system is not changing
at the same pace
I think the urgency today to teach kids
critical thinking skills and ethical
awareness it’s now more urgent than ever
in other words we need to start teaching
our kids to think for themselves so how
do we do that
surprisingly we could do it with ancient
knowledge if you would travel to
Amsterdam you have to have some north
you have to take the ferry tomorrow
where my school is and on this ferry you
might bump into Socrates now we’re not
the ancient philosopher Socrates but a
teenage version often one of my students
and the students has picked up in class
a technique called Hippocratic any hope
approached you with a philosophical
question like the likes of thought
experiments I started this TED talk with
so let’s get back to the railway track
because my students has picked up in
class that after asking the initial
question with the trolley at the lever
you can change or play with these
variables a little bit for instance
let’s go back to the railway track and
there’s the train again there’s the five
people again but this time there’s no
lever this time there’s no next track
with a single person this time there is
a very very fat man on a bridge and you
were walking on the bridge of course the
people just sat down would it make any
difference for you pushing this man and
you calculates that if you push this man
and it will it will cause the train to
derail
would you push him would it make any
difference for you is this an ethical
thing to do or not so this is the type
of conversation with will lead to and my
student picked up in class that after
changing the variables in this Socratic
method
he will distill the moral principle at
stake and of course in this situation
the moral principle is is it morally
just to sacrifice one person for the
greater good and the last face of the
Socratic method he has to us to find a
mutual ground with a conversation
partner finding a mutual answer to this
question this is the Socratic method and
I teach this in a class called marvelous
minds and this technique will help my
students in dealing with ethical
dilemmas as it trains their critical
thinking skills that’s one example I’ll
share with you another one I know a guy
called Barry
he was my my colleague two years ago and
Barry now works at a school court called
Curtis day and there he has these
assignments where he gives his pupils a
picture this picture of a friend of ours
and using solely this picture and a and
an Google reverse image search the kids
have to find out as much information as
they can about this person and Barry
tells me each year it’s a he gets amazed
but also a little bit frightened by you
know the results because in the end the
students they map out her entire
personality with her name where she
works her friends where she goes to and
this technique obviously will help the
students of bearberry
in dealing with online ethical issues
surrounding privacy who do you share
your data with and who not
and it also trains their critical
thinking skills
so what are
some of the results well as in anything
in education it’s very hard to tell but
I can’t tell you this it is November and
in November it’s typically the month
where I see the parents of my students
for the first time and each year a
father or a mother will approach me
saying ah you’re yes / you’re a
philosophy teacher alright
ever since my kids entered your class
the conversation at the dinner table at
night has changed he’s been asking these
weird philosophical questions with you
know people being tied up to real white
tracks and at this sort of a time what
is this and also if I tell my kid it’s
time to go to bed they all reply saying
is there another way to look at this
problem maybe maybe we can sit down and
reach a mutual understanding at this
point you know imagine what would happen
to society if we teach our all our kids
to think for themselves you know I don’t
know if we should try that seriously I
want you to think about this what would
happen if we would teach all our kids at
school critical thinking skills and
ethical awareness to answer this
question I would like to invite you to
let’s go back in our minds to the
railway track one more time and there’s
the train again only this time the train
stands for our education system and it’s
barreling down the railway track like
it’s dead the past 200 years and it can
continue to do so for another 100 years
and there’s the lever which we can pull
rethinking the way we are teaching
rethinking what we are teaching
educating our kids to think for
themselves to deal with the challenges
of the 21st century would you do so
which one of you would pull this lever
thank you
[Applause]
[Music]
[Music]
thank you wow you’re all quiet and
paying attention
that never happens to me in class well
today I would like to start with my TED
talk with a thought experiments and I
know you’ve been having fun doing
energizes all morning yet I would like
to invite you to stand up one last time
please only this time only this time
we’re not going to have fun this time
it’s serious this time we’re going to do
a thought experiments and in this
thought experiments imagine yourself
standing next to a railway track and
there’s a train coming down the railway
track at great speeds up a heads you can
see five people tied up to the railway
tracks and there’s also a lever which
you can pull causing the train to switch
to a different track where a single
person is tied up my question of course
is would you pull the lever which will
result to the death of a single person
yet it saves five if you would pull the
lever please sit down look if you a
moment to think this over
oh wow a lot of people just sit down and
which means there’s a lot of presumed
killers in the audience so please keep a
close eye on the person sitting next to
you you never know now there was just to
mess around I get to the point later in
this TED talk just to freshen you up
because we hear actually – oh yeah you
can all sit down thank you we are here
today sharing light bulb moments because
we’re in an oven and Hoeven is Philips
City sharing light bulb moments my
personal light bulb moment came in 2011
I was working then at a traditional
school not this one
in Amsterdam north and we were facing
rough weather the exam results declined
and as a consequence the student numbers
also dropped so we had to do something
and out of the teaching staff we formed
the committee to work out the
foundations of a new school and I
remember very clear the first time we
sat together and we looked at the task
at hand we realized we had to rethink
the way we were teaching and we had to
rethink what we were teaching the
curriculum and it was a tough job you
know where to start how do you found the
school there’s no manual for this sort
of thing so we decided to start with the
core question meaning what is the
purpose of Education and for us the
initial answer to this question was to
prepare the next generation to a
changing world and this is of course
highly problematic because what
knowledge is still needed in the 21st
century what is urgent what can we get
rid of and what skills are needed which
competencies are are needed again highly
problematic because no one can predict
the future no one can look into the
future if you would take 50 years ago
the best prediction
the future would have us living in the
bottom of the ocean you know in his
fears and I don’t pretend today to do
any better but there are some trends
which can we can follow and there are
certain things I find importance for
instance this is a picture I took during
lunch break a couple of weeks ago at my
school and you can see all the students
playing on their phones and their
devices sharing photos and videos with
each other on social media and as
teachers we are you know busy
surveilling the courtyards so fairly
inside and the outside in the offline
world while we should be focusing more
of our attention to what’s happening in
the online world where they actually are
hanging out during lunch break and after
school yet education at this point it’s
still very limited we don’t really teach
our kids to deal with online ethical
issues such as privacy now what do you
share with whom and in this virtual
jungle kids need to be equipped with a
moral compass I’ll share with you a
second thing I find important a second
trend what’s also happening in my view
is what’s changing in the world around
us is the information we form our fuel
in the world with some of my kids read
the newspaper back home some of my kids
some of my students they what’s the
television most of them they have of
course the devices and they you know
social media and most of them they watch
vloggers on YouTube and they share
sensational articles with each other
through the social media and this is
concerning because in their little
information bubbles it’s very easy for
fake news items to spread to their
devices which they reads the articles on
and this is concerning because no one
really teach them how to check if the
source is reliable or where the
information comes from so what I’m
saying is
education on digital literacy it’s still
very limited in the Netherlands and
outside in other words we don’t teach
our kids how to critically deal with the
information around them
my main message here would be that the
world around us is changing really fast
yet our education system is not changing
at the same pace
I think the urgency today to teach kids
critical thinking skills and ethical
awareness it’s now more urgent than ever
in other words we need to start teaching
our kids to think for themselves so how
do we do that
surprisingly we could do it with ancient
knowledge if you would travel to
Amsterdam you have to have some north
you have to take the ferry tomorrow
where my school is and on this ferry you
might bump into Socrates now we’re not
the ancient philosopher Socrates but a
teenage version often one of my students
and the students has picked up in class
a technique called Hippocratic any hope
approached you with a philosophical
question like the likes of thought
experiments I started this TED talk with
so let’s get back to the railway track
because my students has picked up in
class that after asking the initial
question with the trolley at the lever
you can change or play with these
variables a little bit for instance
let’s go back to the railway track and
there’s the train again there’s the five
people again but this time there’s no
lever this time there’s no next track
with a single person this time there is
a very very fat man on a bridge and you
were walking on the bridge of course the
people just sat down would it make any
difference for you pushing this man and
you calculates that if you push this man
and it will it will cause the train to
derail
would you push him would it make any
difference for you is this an ethical
thing to do or not so this is the type
of conversation with will lead to and my
student picked up in class that after
changing the variables in this Socratic
method
he will distill the moral principle at
stake and of course in this situation
the moral principle is is it morally
just to sacrifice one person for the
greater good and the last face of the
Socratic method he has to us to find a
mutual ground with a conversation
partner finding a mutual answer to this
question this is the Socratic method and
I teach this in a class called marvelous
minds and this technique will help my
students in dealing with ethical
dilemmas as it trains their critical
thinking skills that’s one example I’ll
share with you another one I know a guy
called Barry
he was my my colleague two years ago and
Barry now works at a school court called
Curtis day and there he has these
assignments where he gives his pupils a
picture this picture of a friend of ours
and using solely this picture and a and
an Google reverse image search the kids
have to find out as much information as
they can about this person and Barry
tells me each year it’s a he gets amazed
but also a little bit frightened by you
know the results because in the end the
students they map out her entire
personality with her name where she
works her friends where she goes to and
this technique obviously will help the
students of bearberry
in dealing with online ethical issues
surrounding privacy who do you share
your data with and who not
and it also trains their critical
thinking skills
so what are
some of the results well as in anything
in education it’s very hard to tell but
I can’t tell you this it is November and
in November it’s typically the month
where I see the parents of my students
for the first time and each year a
father or a mother will approach me
saying ah you’re yes / you’re a
philosophy teacher alright
ever since my kids entered your class
the conversation at the dinner table at
night has changed he’s been asking these
weird philosophical questions with you
know people being tied up to real white
tracks and at this sort of a time what
is this and also if I tell my kid it’s
time to go to bed they all reply saying
is there another way to look at this
problem maybe maybe we can sit down and
reach a mutual understanding at this
point you know imagine what would happen
to society if we teach our all our kids
to think for themselves you know I don’t
know if we should try that seriously I
want you to think about this what would
happen if we would teach all our kids at
school critical thinking skills and
ethical awareness to answer this
question I would like to invite you to
let’s go back in our minds to the
railway track one more time and there’s
the train again only this time the train
stands for our education system and it’s
barreling down the railway track like
it’s dead the past 200 years and it can
continue to do so for another 100 years
and there’s the lever which we can pull
rethinking the way we are teaching
rethinking what we are teaching
educating our kids to think for
themselves to deal with the challenges
of the 21st century would you do so
which one of you would pull this lever
thank you
[Applause]
[Music]
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