[Music]
my plan here tonight after you have
listened to all the speakers today is to
talk to you about hope now as you can
see it is hard to have hope in today’s
world and it’s especially hard to have
hope that’s not just based on faith
they’re kind of blind optimism that
somehow things will get better we kind
of we wish we hope we pray we we bury
our heads in the sand and we try to
convince ourselves that somehow someday
someone will take care of it all
well not them maybe there are two
problems with this approach a it doesn’t
actually make us feel any better in fact
it may be part of doing the opposite and
B obviously it doesn’t change anything
in fact we probably make the problem
worse we consume more we participate
less we become cynical we give up on our
ideals just because it feels like
there’s too many problems it’s
overwhelming there’s too much to fight
for but lucky for you my job here
tonight is to give you hope and that’s
what I’m going to try and do that is my
plan
I am going to I’m gonna lay out or try
to lay out for you in a concrete
realistic way how we can unbury our
heads how we can face what we are afraid
of and how we can be part of making
change happen now my idea is not new
it’s been around for a long time it just
needs a little tweaking it’s called
public education and let me be clear
it’s not that the children are our hope
as if we can just kind of turn it all
over to get them and hope they do a
better job than we did no it is the
public education itself that provides
the the place where hope exists if we
truly understood its role in all of our
futures if we if we planned if we
structured the system to live up to its
kind of ultimate job we could be growing
if that’s the right word the next
generation says our world needs we have
a system that already exists that 95% of
Canadian children attend and we are very
lucky that way because in other
countries and lots of other countries
the proportion of kids in public
education is much lower and shrinking we
have a system that provides the concrete
place where hope lies but we have to
make sure that we provide it with the
capacity and the support it needs to
live up to its hopeful promise so I’m
gonna start with a story and I’m telling
this story because to me it gives a
tangible example of what happens when we
we make small shifts and how making
sometimes those small shifts can help us
do the big job the big work of public
education I want you to imagine two boys
these are just regular everyday boys not
stellar students not natural leaders
like lots of you are people boys kids
who are just happy to do as little as
possible really in school
these two boys great four boys are as
part of a whole school student led math
project they are charged with
investigating problems in the playground
and so these kids approach this in their
usual lackadaisical way and it’s math so
they do a bit of graphing they do some
math bang a bit of analyzing and then
they discover something interesting they
realize that more kids are getting sent
to the office at lunch and at afternoon
recess then are getting in trouble in
the morning and then they notice
something else that teachers are
assigned to the playgrounds and at equal
times all the way throughout the day and
so they decide they’ve got the solution
there just need to be more teachers on
duty in the afternoon they go to their
teacher with their their their discovery
and all their evidence to back it up and
then they find out that no every single
teacher is already working their maximum
collectively agreed upon eighty minutes
of supervision per week so undaunted and
now engaged because they’re kind of
interested in this problem these two
boys Anwar and Timothy go back to the
drawing board and they work away and
they reconfigure the schedule so that
there are fewer teachers on duty in the
morning and more teachers on duty in the
afternoon and then they are invited to
present their findings to a
representative group of teachers along
with their recommendations for
reconvicted figuring the schedule and
for placing the teachers in different
positions because they’ve mapped out
where more kids are getting into trouble
and their recommendations are
unanimously agreed upon by the staff in
the school and this is the first time in
the history of this school or maybe any
school where a group of kids two kids in
grade four have input into the
supervision schedule now this is of
course a true story it happened in a
Toronto school this story is told in a
wonderful book called pushing the
it’s by kelly gallagher mckay and nancy
Steinhauer and the reason that i’m
telling it to you is because again it’s
a tangible example of how we can change
things in our schools
these boys learned math yes but they
also learned vital skills for living in
the world they learn to identify and
analyze problems they they were
encouraged to to develop to develop and
to experience because they were listened
to a sense of agency they thought
creatively and they learned to persist
these skills are going to stand them in
good stead as individuals when they grow
up but these are also the skills that
our next generations will need in order
to be able to work together to solve the
complex problems of the world these are
the skills the world needs so the reason
this is a hopeful story is that it shows
that it’s you know that the job of
public education is important but what’s
also important is that it shows that
what we have to focus on is connecting
the dots between what happens inside our
schools and what the world needs now
remember the depressing slides it is
possible if we take it on as the
responsibility of our system it is
possible to teach our children to have
less fear to imagine to be able to
approach complex law got problems
without a a set end goal in mind it is
possible for us to teach the students in
our schools how we are connected to each
other and to the world around us but we
have to be intentional about it we do
have to decide this is the job of public
education that’s where the hope lies if
we decide and if we take it on as our
job to ensure that all of our students
are educated in a way that they can play
a real role in the world
no matter who they are what their
background is if we can begin to assume
of the system that it will foster
students whether they want to be
bricklayers or dentists or chefs
students who when they grow up who will
be able to vote with a deep
understanding of the issues who we will
be able to make healthy choices and
understand their impact on the world
then we’ll have hope so the hope and the
responsibility lie in ensuring that our
system has the capacity and the support
it needs to teach our kids to imagine to
to use innovative approaches in
problem-solving be to be able to take
the knowledge they’ve gained in one
context and apply it to another one
these are the core skills these are the
basics so all of those things that those
boys learned in grade four and the
things we choose to call soft skills as
if they’re not as important as the hard
skills these competencies we can teach
while we’re teaching kids to spell and
read and write but these competencies
are as important as the so called basics
and it is not correct to say yeah but
first they got to be able to read and
write before they do that complex stuff
like collaboration and critical thinking
and problem-solving no it’s the exact
opposite of that these competencies are
the foundation for all learning they are
the basics for being able to continue to
learn which our next generations are
going to have to do they are the basics
for being able to live in an
increasingly complex divided and at the
same time globally interconnected world
they’re the basics for being able to
change jobs multiple times and to
understand your their impact on the
world these are the core skills in
education and our job is to ensure that
our education system can support them
now I want to make it clear that I am
NOT blaming teachers for somehow having
missed the
in education or for not understanding
that these competencies and skills are
important and I am not blaming the
people who run our schools they are not
the problem it’s us Society we are the
ones who have have kind of driven the
system to have these narrow goals
we’re the ones who declared a national
emergency when our math scores go down
by two points in the national in the
international rankings but we don’t
declare it a national emergency when
only 57% of our young people vote we
love the kind of up good down bad graph
that we see in the news campus
but we need to to to know and to own
that because of our desire for a nice
simple way to judge the success of the
whole public education system
we’re actually squeezing out its
capacity to be the place where there’s
hope for our future now I have one last
thing to add
and it’s why public education itself is
the place where hope lies there are the
obvious reasons all of our children can
attend it’s universally accessible it’s
free our kids can start when they’re
four years old and its goal is to ensure
that every single child has an equitable
chance for success those things are
important and they are laudable but one
of the most important things is that it
is a system and systems can be
structured and changed in order to focus
on the things that we need from them and
in this case this needs that we need met
are the needs of our communities our
provinces our country and the needs of
humanity itself so the other thing
that’s interesting about public
education is that in and of itself it
provides a kind of model of on being
able to understand and support balance
between what’s good for me and what’s
good for the group public education is
constantly living in that tension
private systems don’t have to do that
they are allowed to meet the needs of
the group that the particular group that
they’re there to serve but public
education by its very nature has to meet
the needs of all the individual students
in it as well as its bigger cause which
is educating our next generation of
society so that no one feels left out so
that everyone has the capacity to be
engaged in their world is able to vote
as has a voice and is able to work
together on the complex problem
of the world around them so it’s not
about wishing it’s not about faith and
it’s definitely not about giving up our
job that what we owe our upcoming
generations is that we have to
intentionally and with purpose ensure
that this institution of public
education is able to fulfill its role in
hope creation public education is the
place with intention and action where
hope is possible thank you very much
[Applause]
my plan here tonight after you have
listened to all the speakers today is to
talk to you about hope now as you can
see it is hard to have hope in today’s
world and it’s especially hard to have
hope that’s not just based on faith
they’re kind of blind optimism that
somehow things will get better we kind
of we wish we hope we pray we we bury
our heads in the sand and we try to
convince ourselves that somehow someday
someone will take care of it all
well not them maybe there are two
problems with this approach a it doesn’t
actually make us feel any better in fact
it may be part of doing the opposite and
B obviously it doesn’t change anything
in fact we probably make the problem
worse we consume more we participate
less we become cynical we give up on our
ideals just because it feels like
there’s too many problems it’s
overwhelming there’s too much to fight
for but lucky for you my job here
tonight is to give you hope and that’s
what I’m going to try and do that is my
plan
I am going to I’m gonna lay out or try
to lay out for you in a concrete
realistic way how we can unbury our
heads how we can face what we are afraid
of and how we can be part of making
change happen now my idea is not new
it’s been around for a long time it just
needs a little tweaking it’s called
public education and let me be clear
it’s not that the children are our hope
as if we can just kind of turn it all
over to get them and hope they do a
better job than we did no it is the
public education itself that provides
the the place where hope exists if we
truly understood its role in all of our
futures if we if we planned if we
structured the system to live up to its
kind of ultimate job we could be growing
if that’s the right word the next
generation says our world needs we have
a system that already exists that 95% of
Canadian children attend and we are very
lucky that way because in other
countries and lots of other countries
the proportion of kids in public
education is much lower and shrinking we
have a system that provides the concrete
place where hope lies but we have to
make sure that we provide it with the
capacity and the support it needs to
live up to its hopeful promise so I’m
gonna start with a story and I’m telling
this story because to me it gives a
tangible example of what happens when we
we make small shifts and how making
sometimes those small shifts can help us
do the big job the big work of public
education I want you to imagine two boys
these are just regular everyday boys not
stellar students not natural leaders
like lots of you are people boys kids
who are just happy to do as little as
possible really in school
these two boys great four boys are as
part of a whole school student led math
project they are charged with
investigating problems in the playground
and so these kids approach this in their
usual lackadaisical way and it’s math so
they do a bit of graphing they do some
math bang a bit of analyzing and then
they discover something interesting they
realize that more kids are getting sent
to the office at lunch and at afternoon
recess then are getting in trouble in
the morning and then they notice
something else that teachers are
assigned to the playgrounds and at equal
times all the way throughout the day and
so they decide they’ve got the solution
there just need to be more teachers on
duty in the afternoon they go to their
teacher with their their their discovery
and all their evidence to back it up and
then they find out that no every single
teacher is already working their maximum
collectively agreed upon eighty minutes
of supervision per week so undaunted and
now engaged because they’re kind of
interested in this problem these two
boys Anwar and Timothy go back to the
drawing board and they work away and
they reconfigure the schedule so that
there are fewer teachers on duty in the
morning and more teachers on duty in the
afternoon and then they are invited to
present their findings to a
representative group of teachers along
with their recommendations for
reconvicted figuring the schedule and
for placing the teachers in different
positions because they’ve mapped out
where more kids are getting into trouble
and their recommendations are
unanimously agreed upon by the staff in
the school and this is the first time in
the history of this school or maybe any
school where a group of kids two kids in
grade four have input into the
supervision schedule now this is of
course a true story it happened in a
Toronto school this story is told in a
wonderful book called pushing the
it’s by kelly gallagher mckay and nancy
Steinhauer and the reason that i’m
telling it to you is because again it’s
a tangible example of how we can change
things in our schools
these boys learned math yes but they
also learned vital skills for living in
the world they learn to identify and
analyze problems they they were
encouraged to to develop to develop and
to experience because they were listened
to a sense of agency they thought
creatively and they learned to persist
these skills are going to stand them in
good stead as individuals when they grow
up but these are also the skills that
our next generations will need in order
to be able to work together to solve the
complex problems of the world these are
the skills the world needs so the reason
this is a hopeful story is that it shows
that it’s you know that the job of
public education is important but what’s
also important is that it shows that
what we have to focus on is connecting
the dots between what happens inside our
schools and what the world needs now
remember the depressing slides it is
possible if we take it on as the
responsibility of our system it is
possible to teach our children to have
less fear to imagine to be able to
approach complex law got problems
without a a set end goal in mind it is
possible for us to teach the students in
our schools how we are connected to each
other and to the world around us but we
have to be intentional about it we do
have to decide this is the job of public
education that’s where the hope lies if
we decide and if we take it on as our
job to ensure that all of our students
are educated in a way that they can play
a real role in the world
no matter who they are what their
background is if we can begin to assume
of the system that it will foster
students whether they want to be
bricklayers or dentists or chefs
students who when they grow up who will
be able to vote with a deep
understanding of the issues who we will
be able to make healthy choices and
understand their impact on the world
then we’ll have hope so the hope and the
responsibility lie in ensuring that our
system has the capacity and the support
it needs to teach our kids to imagine to
to use innovative approaches in
problem-solving be to be able to take
the knowledge they’ve gained in one
context and apply it to another one
these are the core skills these are the
basics so all of those things that those
boys learned in grade four and the
things we choose to call soft skills as
if they’re not as important as the hard
skills these competencies we can teach
while we’re teaching kids to spell and
read and write but these competencies
are as important as the so called basics
and it is not correct to say yeah but
first they got to be able to read and
write before they do that complex stuff
like collaboration and critical thinking
and problem-solving no it’s the exact
opposite of that these competencies are
the foundation for all learning they are
the basics for being able to continue to
learn which our next generations are
going to have to do they are the basics
for being able to live in an
increasingly complex divided and at the
same time globally interconnected world
they’re the basics for being able to
change jobs multiple times and to
understand your their impact on the
world these are the core skills in
education and our job is to ensure that
our education system can support them
now I want to make it clear that I am
NOT blaming teachers for somehow having
missed the
in education or for not understanding
that these competencies and skills are
important and I am not blaming the
people who run our schools they are not
the problem it’s us Society we are the
ones who have have kind of driven the
system to have these narrow goals
we’re the ones who declared a national
emergency when our math scores go down
by two points in the national in the
international rankings but we don’t
declare it a national emergency when
only 57% of our young people vote we
love the kind of up good down bad graph
that we see in the news campus
but we need to to to know and to own
that because of our desire for a nice
simple way to judge the success of the
whole public education system
we’re actually squeezing out its
capacity to be the place where there’s
hope for our future now I have one last
thing to add
and it’s why public education itself is
the place where hope lies there are the
obvious reasons all of our children can
attend it’s universally accessible it’s
free our kids can start when they’re
four years old and its goal is to ensure
that every single child has an equitable
chance for success those things are
important and they are laudable but one
of the most important things is that it
is a system and systems can be
structured and changed in order to focus
on the things that we need from them and
in this case this needs that we need met
are the needs of our communities our
provinces our country and the needs of
humanity itself so the other thing
that’s interesting about public
education is that in and of itself it
provides a kind of model of on being
able to understand and support balance
between what’s good for me and what’s
good for the group public education is
constantly living in that tension
private systems don’t have to do that
they are allowed to meet the needs of
the group that the particular group that
they’re there to serve but public
education by its very nature has to meet
the needs of all the individual students
in it as well as its bigger cause which
is educating our next generation of
society so that no one feels left out so
that everyone has the capacity to be
engaged in their world is able to vote
as has a voice and is able to work
together on the complex problem
of the world around them so it’s not
about wishing it’s not about faith and
it’s definitely not about giving up our
job that what we owe our upcoming
generations is that we have to
intentionally and with purpose ensure
that this institution of public
education is able to fulfill its role in
hope creation public education is the
place with intention and action where
hope is possible thank you very much
[Applause]
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