[Music]
morning I’d like to tell you the story
of a little success and a little failure
when I was 10 years no 11 years old I
started studying French in the north of
England
now nothing and nobody in the north of
England is French apart from a few
teachers in the schools but we have to
study a foreign language and so French
it was now in the first lesson the
teacher held up a pen and said to us as
if he was speaking to a bunch of
Martians while si are still oh this is a
pen and in terms of content that was
about as good as the course ever got
every lesson we would translate ten
sentences from French into English and
then take them home memorize the
sentences translate them back into
French again under test condition as the
next lesson one mark taken off for every
grammatical mistake and we would be
reseated according to those test results
with the best score at the front of the
room and the worst score at the back
next to the door and this went on for
five years at the end of which we took
an examination now we had been quite
dutiful students and we did quite well
in that examination myself I got a grade
A we used to be the highest grade you
could get before they invented a stars
and no doubt the French Department
congratulated themselves on the success
of an educational project but it wasn’t
a success because although they had
taught me a few words and a bit of
grammar and some from us yes you they
had forgotten to teach me that French is
a language and a people and a culture
and a cuisine in fact by the way they
taught it to me they had made me believe
that French was just a perversely
spelled and pronounced paraphrase of
English whose only purpose was to punish
children with and to my shame a day
after my exam I quietly congratulated
myself that I would never have to speak
or learn another word of French again
and I don’t think that was just me I
think all of my friends were saying much
the same thing well okay I have a more
encouraging story for you when I was at
university I wanted to impress an
attractive Spanish girl so I went
travelling in Spain backpacking in fact
for three weeks before I went I
furiously studied every beginners course
in Spanish I could find the local
library I went for long walks listening
to and repeating Spanish phrases I
bought a great big Spanish dictionary
that sat in my backpack
like a brick and I even memorized some
beautiful poems by Federico Garcia Lorca
in case there were any romantic moments
which they weren’t and the time came and
I travelled by train down from England
through France and into Spain
can you imagine what happened in France
first I failed to communicate with the
ticket inspector and then I failed to
order my lunch and then I gave up I felt
helpless in France helpless humiliated
and hungry but as soon as I arrived in
Spain I found myself much better
equipped to communicate in in Spanish
with my few phrases my my dictionary my
can-do attitude I I was a cheerfully
inexpert but actually reasonably
effective user of basic Spanish and I
had memorable adventures all over Spain
and I experienced something that many
British people never experienced I
actually could use a foreign language so
there we have it five years of French
lessons failure three weeks of Spanish
self-study success and pondering on that
difference has influenced my career a
lot because it inspired me to become a
language teacher myself I think these
little successes and failures are
extremely important because there are
millions of them I think happening every
day in schools and they these little
educational disasters happen whenever a
child thinks I don’t see the point in
this what if we could work out how to
transform that kind of success failure
into that kind of success we could
release so much human potential and
after many years of pondering and
teaching I’m ready I think to put a name
to it
I think the best label for it is
authenticity
you see French was not an authentic
learning challenge for me I had no use
for it but every word of Spanish that I
learnt I knew would be immediately
useful to me as I sat in the plazas of
Andalusia I knew that you know I needed
those words to order my next meal to
find my next train ride and to negotiate
a bed for the night
so even without a teacher I was
infinitely more successful so I think of
authentic learning experiences as those
in situations where that situation makes
the need for learning manifest before
you attempt to do that learning or the
value of that learning is immediately
felt
in schools I think we’re very good at
asking the questions what do we need to
learn and how can we learn it and I
don’t think we are very good at asking
the questions why are we learning
because I’ll tell you some answers that
seem quite deficient to me I learn to
pass exams I learn to get to university
I learn to get a job three things which
are in themselves good things but are
they really achievements we may feel
their achievements but I think if we
think of those as end goals we are
confusing approval with achievement
somebody has told us yes we think you
have the promise of future achievement
and that’s why we’re letting you into
our organization or giving you a
certificate but the real value creation
will happen in the future and I think as
a terrible waste because learning has
value immediate value in our many
children are willing and unable to
realize that if we tell students that
your education is amassing a large body
of knowledge which you will carry into
the future in order to use in the future
then we’ve turned education into an
exercise in consumption passive
consumption rather like rather like food
the same thing happens adults then start
to package food and hand it to students
those children and then organizations
get involved and turned them into
products to sell to young people and if
we define education in that way then we
bring it into direct competition with
other products designed by adults and
given to young people such as computer
games and videos and small wonder if the
children prefer the computer games in
the videos but the things that
we make for ourselves are more involving
than those beautifully made pre pre
packaged products try and remember your
first experience of cooking I’m not sure
about Hong Kong but in England for most
children that’s making cakes or biscuits
and those cakes that they weren’t very
good let’s be honest they were chewy in
the middle and they burnt on one side
but they were very fun and involving
better than the ones you could have
bought the perfect ones you could have
bought from the shop so on that same
principle I think we should try to find
ways to involve young people in the
creation of their own education at an
extreme level this can actually mean
children in schools run businesses which
generate income to pay for their own
education and this amazing organization
teach a man to fish is doing exactly
that in several projects around the
world and that’s not only generating
money to help those young people to
afford an education it’s also giving
them great confidence and self-reliance
now here in Hong Kong
we have resources for lavish schools are
we engendering confidence and
self-reliance in our students perhaps
not always but we don’t need to be
spoiled by abundance
there are many real authentic learning
challenges in a well resourced school if
we if we just look for them does the
school need something an object well why
not make it all right I mean teach the
children that the skills to make it or
to repair the old one or two if that’s
not practical – how to procure one and I
picked this up around our school it’s
obviously a student project and it’s a
beautiful
and obviously a lot of learning went
into making it but I would like it even
better if it was in use because then we
would be continuing to learn by how well
it worked and we would have realized the
value in creating it is the school day
sometimes boring well are we giving
young people enough opportunities to
show off their distinctive talents and
entertain themselves and each other
events like this one of course we are
it’s easier for adults to organize
things for young people but the
opportunity to learn from organizing
from organizing events like this it is
huge and finally is the school
environmentally unsustainable there’s a
big one wouldn’t it be a superb exercise
in bringing together the knowledge from
all the different disciplines in the
school or the subject areas to attempt
to go zero waste or zero carbon because
if we can’t find the will and the
learning to do that in a school where on
earth is it going to come from to solve
those problems in wider society now down
at Maker Bay in the out all they’re
doing exactly this kind of thing right
now they’re making a suite of plastics
recycling machines which are perfect for
schools now imagine if a student would
be able to say to an employer or a
university admissions office say yeah I
was the head of plastics recycling in my
school Faria and we made three tons of
waste plastic into products for the
school shop offer a charity how
impressive is that going to be well at
this
I can feel an objection brewing yes
those projects sound lovely but we can’t
have too many of them may haven’t got
time we’ve got to study for exams I
think they’re too important answers to
that one is that employers and
universities are always complaining
about a skills gap the ones they want
are strategic thinking creative
problem-solving leadership skills things
that conventional academic courses are
not that good at developing but are very
well addressed in authentic learning
challenges the other answer is there are
efficiency gains I believe to be had if
we can learn how to realise them because
this model explains my french studies
whereas this model explains my stat
Spanish studies I think this shows that
it is worth investing effort in
inspiration it’s worth investing that
time objection number two this one will
tend to come from teachers yes that’s
all very well but you have to learn your
trivial stuff and then you build it up
into more advanced stuff which will be
useful in the future no I think that’s
based on a misunderstanding students
need teachers to clarify simplify
elements of a problem identified Dillian
eight but not to trivialize you’re
trivializing means taking it out of
context I spent an inordinate amount of
my youth learning how to do differential
equations nobody ever took the time to
explain to me what a differential
equation is used for or what its natural
habitat is
it was trivialized because of that the
big I think obstacle to trying to
redesign in education along these
principles is rampant standardization
again I think based on a
misunderstanding raising standards does
not mean standardizing everything let me
give you an example a few weeks ago an
airliner crashed killing 66 people and
the next morning the newspapers were
conjecturing that it might have been
caused by a lithium battery which
explodes burns quite brightly and these
are very prevalent now they’re probably
a couple of hundred in the room right
now in our portable devices now of the
science teachers who noticed that news
story how many of those taught something
about lithium in their lessons that week
how many of them took a lithium battery
outside to blow it up for the class
not many I imagine but why not because
it’s it’s definitely science isn’t it
it’s very real and relevant it’s post
potentially life-threatening it’s
compelling I’ll tell you the reason I
think it’s because it’s not on the
syllabus this month and if we have a
system that is squeezing out
authenticity and relevance then I think
that’s a system that needs to change so
wherever we are in the system I think
it’s very important to try and recognize
trivialization and replace it with
authenticity so hopefully the next
generation are not going to be parroting
pointless phrases like ycr Stielow but
using their languages for worthwhile
communication and perhaps we can help
them too may
something of authentic value with those
pens thank you very much
[Applause]
morning I’d like to tell you the story
of a little success and a little failure
when I was 10 years no 11 years old I
started studying French in the north of
England
now nothing and nobody in the north of
England is French apart from a few
teachers in the schools but we have to
study a foreign language and so French
it was now in the first lesson the
teacher held up a pen and said to us as
if he was speaking to a bunch of
Martians while si are still oh this is a
pen and in terms of content that was
about as good as the course ever got
every lesson we would translate ten
sentences from French into English and
then take them home memorize the
sentences translate them back into
French again under test condition as the
next lesson one mark taken off for every
grammatical mistake and we would be
reseated according to those test results
with the best score at the front of the
room and the worst score at the back
next to the door and this went on for
five years at the end of which we took
an examination now we had been quite
dutiful students and we did quite well
in that examination myself I got a grade
A we used to be the highest grade you
could get before they invented a stars
and no doubt the French Department
congratulated themselves on the success
of an educational project but it wasn’t
a success because although they had
taught me a few words and a bit of
grammar and some from us yes you they
had forgotten to teach me that French is
a language and a people and a culture
and a cuisine in fact by the way they
taught it to me they had made me believe
that French was just a perversely
spelled and pronounced paraphrase of
English whose only purpose was to punish
children with and to my shame a day
after my exam I quietly congratulated
myself that I would never have to speak
or learn another word of French again
and I don’t think that was just me I
think all of my friends were saying much
the same thing well okay I have a more
encouraging story for you when I was at
university I wanted to impress an
attractive Spanish girl so I went
travelling in Spain backpacking in fact
for three weeks before I went I
furiously studied every beginners course
in Spanish I could find the local
library I went for long walks listening
to and repeating Spanish phrases I
bought a great big Spanish dictionary
that sat in my backpack
like a brick and I even memorized some
beautiful poems by Federico Garcia Lorca
in case there were any romantic moments
which they weren’t and the time came and
I travelled by train down from England
through France and into Spain
can you imagine what happened in France
first I failed to communicate with the
ticket inspector and then I failed to
order my lunch and then I gave up I felt
helpless in France helpless humiliated
and hungry but as soon as I arrived in
Spain I found myself much better
equipped to communicate in in Spanish
with my few phrases my my dictionary my
can-do attitude I I was a cheerfully
inexpert but actually reasonably
effective user of basic Spanish and I
had memorable adventures all over Spain
and I experienced something that many
British people never experienced I
actually could use a foreign language so
there we have it five years of French
lessons failure three weeks of Spanish
self-study success and pondering on that
difference has influenced my career a
lot because it inspired me to become a
language teacher myself I think these
little successes and failures are
extremely important because there are
millions of them I think happening every
day in schools and they these little
educational disasters happen whenever a
child thinks I don’t see the point in
this what if we could work out how to
transform that kind of success failure
into that kind of success we could
release so much human potential and
after many years of pondering and
teaching I’m ready I think to put a name
to it
I think the best label for it is
authenticity
you see French was not an authentic
learning challenge for me I had no use
for it but every word of Spanish that I
learnt I knew would be immediately
useful to me as I sat in the plazas of
Andalusia I knew that you know I needed
those words to order my next meal to
find my next train ride and to negotiate
a bed for the night
so even without a teacher I was
infinitely more successful so I think of
authentic learning experiences as those
in situations where that situation makes
the need for learning manifest before
you attempt to do that learning or the
value of that learning is immediately
felt
in schools I think we’re very good at
asking the questions what do we need to
learn and how can we learn it and I
don’t think we are very good at asking
the questions why are we learning
because I’ll tell you some answers that
seem quite deficient to me I learn to
pass exams I learn to get to university
I learn to get a job three things which
are in themselves good things but are
they really achievements we may feel
their achievements but I think if we
think of those as end goals we are
confusing approval with achievement
somebody has told us yes we think you
have the promise of future achievement
and that’s why we’re letting you into
our organization or giving you a
certificate but the real value creation
will happen in the future and I think as
a terrible waste because learning has
value immediate value in our many
children are willing and unable to
realize that if we tell students that
your education is amassing a large body
of knowledge which you will carry into
the future in order to use in the future
then we’ve turned education into an
exercise in consumption passive
consumption rather like rather like food
the same thing happens adults then start
to package food and hand it to students
those children and then organizations
get involved and turned them into
products to sell to young people and if
we define education in that way then we
bring it into direct competition with
other products designed by adults and
given to young people such as computer
games and videos and small wonder if the
children prefer the computer games in
the videos but the things that
we make for ourselves are more involving
than those beautifully made pre pre
packaged products try and remember your
first experience of cooking I’m not sure
about Hong Kong but in England for most
children that’s making cakes or biscuits
and those cakes that they weren’t very
good let’s be honest they were chewy in
the middle and they burnt on one side
but they were very fun and involving
better than the ones you could have
bought the perfect ones you could have
bought from the shop so on that same
principle I think we should try to find
ways to involve young people in the
creation of their own education at an
extreme level this can actually mean
children in schools run businesses which
generate income to pay for their own
education and this amazing organization
teach a man to fish is doing exactly
that in several projects around the
world and that’s not only generating
money to help those young people to
afford an education it’s also giving
them great confidence and self-reliance
now here in Hong Kong
we have resources for lavish schools are
we engendering confidence and
self-reliance in our students perhaps
not always but we don’t need to be
spoiled by abundance
there are many real authentic learning
challenges in a well resourced school if
we if we just look for them does the
school need something an object well why
not make it all right I mean teach the
children that the skills to make it or
to repair the old one or two if that’s
not practical – how to procure one and I
picked this up around our school it’s
obviously a student project and it’s a
beautiful
and obviously a lot of learning went
into making it but I would like it even
better if it was in use because then we
would be continuing to learn by how well
it worked and we would have realized the
value in creating it is the school day
sometimes boring well are we giving
young people enough opportunities to
show off their distinctive talents and
entertain themselves and each other
events like this one of course we are
it’s easier for adults to organize
things for young people but the
opportunity to learn from organizing
from organizing events like this it is
huge and finally is the school
environmentally unsustainable there’s a
big one wouldn’t it be a superb exercise
in bringing together the knowledge from
all the different disciplines in the
school or the subject areas to attempt
to go zero waste or zero carbon because
if we can’t find the will and the
learning to do that in a school where on
earth is it going to come from to solve
those problems in wider society now down
at Maker Bay in the out all they’re
doing exactly this kind of thing right
now they’re making a suite of plastics
recycling machines which are perfect for
schools now imagine if a student would
be able to say to an employer or a
university admissions office say yeah I
was the head of plastics recycling in my
school Faria and we made three tons of
waste plastic into products for the
school shop offer a charity how
impressive is that going to be well at
this
I can feel an objection brewing yes
those projects sound lovely but we can’t
have too many of them may haven’t got
time we’ve got to study for exams I
think they’re too important answers to
that one is that employers and
universities are always complaining
about a skills gap the ones they want
are strategic thinking creative
problem-solving leadership skills things
that conventional academic courses are
not that good at developing but are very
well addressed in authentic learning
challenges the other answer is there are
efficiency gains I believe to be had if
we can learn how to realise them because
this model explains my french studies
whereas this model explains my stat
Spanish studies I think this shows that
it is worth investing effort in
inspiration it’s worth investing that
time objection number two this one will
tend to come from teachers yes that’s
all very well but you have to learn your
trivial stuff and then you build it up
into more advanced stuff which will be
useful in the future no I think that’s
based on a misunderstanding students
need teachers to clarify simplify
elements of a problem identified Dillian
eight but not to trivialize you’re
trivializing means taking it out of
context I spent an inordinate amount of
my youth learning how to do differential
equations nobody ever took the time to
explain to me what a differential
equation is used for or what its natural
habitat is
it was trivialized because of that the
big I think obstacle to trying to
redesign in education along these
principles is rampant standardization
again I think based on a
misunderstanding raising standards does
not mean standardizing everything let me
give you an example a few weeks ago an
airliner crashed killing 66 people and
the next morning the newspapers were
conjecturing that it might have been
caused by a lithium battery which
explodes burns quite brightly and these
are very prevalent now they’re probably
a couple of hundred in the room right
now in our portable devices now of the
science teachers who noticed that news
story how many of those taught something
about lithium in their lessons that week
how many of them took a lithium battery
outside to blow it up for the class
not many I imagine but why not because
it’s it’s definitely science isn’t it
it’s very real and relevant it’s post
potentially life-threatening it’s
compelling I’ll tell you the reason I
think it’s because it’s not on the
syllabus this month and if we have a
system that is squeezing out
authenticity and relevance then I think
that’s a system that needs to change so
wherever we are in the system I think
it’s very important to try and recognize
trivialization and replace it with
authenticity so hopefully the next
generation are not going to be parroting
pointless phrases like ycr Stielow but
using their languages for worthwhile
communication and perhaps we can help
them too may
something of authentic value with those
pens thank you very much
[Applause]
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