Ian Gilbert - TEDx Patagonia

'Yeah' I love this picture because you can see what's going on... Leo is saying to his daughter... 'You know you're good at art...?' 'Yeah!' 'And you know you're good at music?' 'Yeah!' 'And you know you're good with people?' 'Yeah!' 'And creativity?' 'Yeah' 'None of those things are in the PSU!' 'Nooooohhhhh!!!!!' Let's start with some creativity 'Creativity 101' OK? Very simple creativity Can you give me the name of a household object Anything you find in the house A lamp. Lamp is good. Can you give me a number between five and ten Seven. Correct! Nothing to this magic... Just with the person next to you or on your own... ..if you have no friends! Seven uses for a lamp that aren't the normal uses for a lamp You've got 30 seconds I've only got 16 minutes left. You've got to think quickly Seven uses for a lamp That aren't the normal uses for a lamp Very quickly. Get your creative thinking heads on Start now < murmur murmur think think> Five seconds! OK Hold it there Did you get seven? Did you get more than one? Excellent! There a phrase from creativity 'Nothing is more dangerous than an idea when it's the only idea you've got' A lot of times in education We go for THE answer And we play the game in the classroom Of 'Guess What's in the Teachers's Head?' What's THE answer? What's THE answer? We're in a position now where we've got to think about What are the answers? Plural And that's right at the heart of creativity We'll come back to your creativity once I've talked to you about This book in my hand. Ken Robinson earlier talked about there being Two sorts of people in this world. there's another joke isn't there 'There's three sorts of people in this world Those who can do maths and those who can't' There's another one isn't there 'There's ten sports of people in this world Those who know binary code and those who don't' I'm discovering there are two sorts of people in this world There are those who have read this book 'Pedagogy of the Oppressed' by Paulo Freire And know it to be a masterpiece That can fundamentally change the nature of education Which fits in with everything we've talked about this morning And there's those who have never heard of it I share this book with you for three reasons And here are two of them One of them is I want you to know That I know we're in a Latin American context Paulo was a Brazillian guy All I can do today is ask lots of questions I haven't got the answers Nobody outside of Chile has your answers To your problems The answers have to be culturally specific We were working a couple of years ago In the Middle East There were some photos earlier of TEDx Dubai I spoke at TEDx Dubai a couple of years ago I seem to be going from the desert TEDx to To the Patagonia in the winter TEDx I think the 'x' stands for extreme I don't know where next? Vegas! Vegas! What we found, my wife and I working over in Abu Dhabi Because they had in the money they would bring in 'Well, here's the Swedish answer' or 'Here's the Norwegian answer' Here's the American answer' or 'Here's the English answer' Ignoring completely the cultural nature they were trying to implant This answer over the top of I've been working for the last twenty years in education Predominantly in the UK With my company Independent Thinking We've worked with thousands of young people And teachers, school leaders, parents We write books, all sorts of things... But the answers that I've got For problems in the UK Aren't going to be the right ones for you All I can do is share some ideas with you So, you've got to find the answers to your questions And I'll share the questions with you The Global Questions The other reasons i share this book with you Is because he talked about the 'Banking Concept of Education' And I'm going to read out ten elements of the 'Banking Concept of Education' To what extent is this the education system You experienced? To what extent is this education system still going on If we lift up the lid On any school? In Chile at the moment Whether it be a 'municipalidad' school, a 'subvenciando' school Or an independent, a private school He talks about the teacher teaches and the students are taught; The teacher knows everything And the students know nothing The teacher thinks And the students are thought about The teacher talks And the students listen Meekly The teacher disciplines And the students are disciplined The teacher chooses and enforces his choice And the students comply The teacher acts And the students have the illusion of acting Through the action of the teacher The teacher chooses the programme content And the students (who were not consulted) adapt to it The teacher confuses the authority of knowledge With his or her own professional authority Which he or she sets in opposition to the freedom of the students; The teacher is the Subject of the learning process While the pupils are mere objects. When I read that that just sums up to me The huge issue that we've got with education Again, as Ken Robinson was talking about It's not an evolution, it's a re-volution Because everything that's in there - if we still practice that model Nothing is going to change So creativity - they key to creativity in so many ways And why I always start with a bit of creative thinking is about breaking the rules Break the rules My company is called Independent Thinking But I didn't learn that at school I was a success of the system I played that game in the UK I played it really well the secret of my success at school Maybe it was the same for you? I suggest it probably was the same for you the secret of my success at school 'Wait to be told what to do... And do it well Don't think for yourself No independent thinking Sit there, be a good boy and do what you're told But in the 21st century This world of creativity and opportunity And... the need we have for every body to be able to think better that model needs to change And it can change If we really want children who are allowed to think for themselves they're capable of it but are we allowing them to do so? The education model was designed to get people NOT to think If you look at your history of education We didn't want people who would think especially in the poor schools because they would mess up the system We needed people who would Do what they were told, love God, die for their country, respect authority That was the process, the Industrial Model that was created But we're in a very different sort of world now Picasso said 'Every act of creation starts with an act of destruction' What might you all have to away and break to move things forward for 21st century education in Chile? So, creativity is at the heart of it all Are we, are YOU creating creative schools? Are you developing the creativity in young people? Are you leading by example in terms of creativity? So, there's some questions I was reading a book a while back Called The World is Flat Have you come across that one? Thomas Friedman, an American writer It was like the wake up call to us in the West And the author suggest that some jobs are 'fungible' A fungible job can be digitised and sent somewhere else in the world So, for example, why should I pay my accountant In the UK £40 an hour when I can pay Somebody in China £4 an hour to do the same thing It's just moving digits on a spreadsheet Some jobs are 'anchored' you have to be in the room to do the job If you have a nurse, she has to be in the room to do the job But in terms of analysing, diagnosing, prescribing All that stuff can be digitised and sent to the best 'wound expert' on the other side of the world who can tell the nurse what to do So, the nurse's job is OK The doctor's job is up for grabs I don't know what the trends are in Chile But in the UK Shortage of doctors too many doctors And when I read this book And looked at how technology was linking the world Looked at how we were getting a 'level playing field' And how young people in the UK Were going into direct competition for the jobs, for the opportunities and experiences with amazing wonderful, qualified, educated, English-speaking people from all over the world A question came into my head In education, you've got to find answers to this question Why do I need a teacher When I've got Google? If the teacher's model Is like that one (Freire's) Drip feeding knowledge from my brain to your brain there is a different model available to you Knowledge is being democratised Knowledge is out there The Khan Academy is a brilliant example of that Children don't need to go to school for that They can lie in bed and get the knowledge What has yet to be democratised - And this is where the stuff we were talking about today fits in - is learning So, the teacher that helps children know where to find knowledge and know good knowledge from bad knowledge and what to do with it when they get it All those sorts of things Develop their creativity and their self-esteem and all the things computers can't do yet Then you've got a powerful role for the 21st century teacher But the drip feeding knowledge from my brain to your brain there is a different model as we've seen today So, to what extent is the Chilean education system That you're part of tapping into this technology in an effective way So, we can bypass the parts of the system that don't work And just focus on those teachers Who really do want to make a difference As we've seen, like Yasna and her team Who really do want to make a difference to young people So, that's another question what about the technology? What about learning? I mentioned the democratisation of learning Are your schools that you are trying to create are they 'learning schools'? Or are they 'teaching schools'? I can teach for a week without anyone necessarily learning anything Not everything I teach gets learned Not everything that gets learned Is what I've taught But when you shift the focus From teaching to learning it changes all sorts of things It's like the doctor The doctor's job Isn't to give you medicine the doctor's job is to get you better the teacher's job isn't to teach the teacher's job is that the child learns And what I'm seeing I've taught in school in Chile I've got family going through school in Chile I've got two daughters from the UK going through a school in Chile in Santiago, a private school we're paying quite a bit of money for it but my daughter comes back from school and says 'I've learned nothing at school today I've memorised a lot but I've learned nothing' And this is a 12 year old And we speak to teh teachers and they say 'Well, you know, we taught them We put the stuff on the board We put it on the PowerPoint We handed it out Maybe you should get a private tutor I'm paying you thousands of pesos on a monthly basis For you to do that. But the model It's not really their fault because that's the model that they've got The model is 'I teach - that's it, I've done my job' If they haven't learned it, it's their problem But it's this accountability. Their job, the teacher's job Education's job isn't to teach It's that they learn It's a flip, like Khan was talking about It's a flip and it's an important flip that changes all sorts of things So, are you creating a learning-focused education system in Chile? And what's your secret weapon to create this system? It's in between children's ears The world's most powerful bit of equipment Sitting between our ears And what can't we achieve? And the 90s was the Decade of the Brain You've heard all this sort of stuff? We've learned so much Let me give you a quick brain lesson Three important facts about the brain for you to take away 1 - we 'wire ourselves' up Connections between brain cells That process starts at the back in the baby, visual stuff kicks in quite early And then we wire ourselves up Till we get to the last part of our brains to mature A part of the brain called the pre-frontal cortex The part of the brain that says 'I wouldn't do that if I were you!' It's the part the alcohol shuts up That bit The last part of our brain to mature The last part How many years - closed question but give it a go - How many years does it take do you think for the brain to wire itself up from there to there? It's between 20 and 30 So, 25 years before this is a mature adult brain that's capable of self regulating and and planing and making decisions thinking about the future using moral language and intellectual decision making and all that 25 years And then we say to children 'Grow up!' Well, what does that mean? 'You're acting childish' 'You're acting adultish!' 'Doh!' Children are not 'mini-me's Like Ken Robinson said A three year old isn't half a six year old They are not mini versions of us waking around doing naughty things They are a work in progress And if they can't get it wong and learn to get it right at school where will they learn to get it right? But what you seem to have And I've been into a school in Renca recently For children who have been kicked out of the system because the system doesn't seem to have any accountability 'Well these children aren't doing it the way they should do they're square pegs we've got these round holes let's get rid of the square pegs So they end up in some charity Picking them up off the streets And trying to educate them that way But they are a work in progress If they can't get it wrong in school and learn to get it right Where will they learn to get it right? 25 years. And you can't be older than your brain there's another one you can't be older than your brain It's a direct quote from a colleague of ours who's a paediatric neurologist If you've got a 12 year old who, for whatever reason, or reasons has the emotional maturity of a seven year old They're a seven year old Work with them as the seven year old to wire their brains in such a way that that they can catch up not work with then as a defective ten year old or 12 year old Third thing There's a two to three year spread in where children are at in that developmental process even though they've got the same birthday Two to three year difference even though they're the same age We're not comparing like with like We do all this testing Everybody sits this test at exactly the same time on exactly the same day We're not comparing like with like So, and this is just some examples, Are you taking on board Brain-friendly learning, brain research making the education system in Chile the very best and taps into what we know about neurobiology and neuroscience? One more Thinking Is yours a thinking education system? Can it be one? Where you teach children HOW to think and not just what to think? There's a lovely line from Einstein 'We can't solve the problems by using the same thinking we used when we created them If children leave the education system thinking our thoughts nothing's going to change If all we do is teach them what's in our heads nothing is going to change And if things don't change - Look at your basic evolution - things die So, an evolution in terms of our thinking Getting children to think for themselves Like we saw with the war game They weren't taught but they were learning They were thinking for themselves And there are so many 'Off the shelf' ways of making sure that, in the classroom, we can get children to think - and think for themselves Let me leave you with one word - our time is overdue - I always send the session that I do wherever I might be in the world with this word And, from what I see I've been living in Chile since November I'm here to stay as long as I can, I'm a resident now, As long as they'll let me What I see is the need for this word even more so than when I'm working in schools in the UK We know if you have this you live longer, you live happier you achieve more you're better motivated on the inside our internal motivation So, we want young people to have this To walk away from us With higher levels of this And we talk to them about the world where anything is possible 'If you can imagine it you can do it' Like blind people - they can't do magic Yes they can Let's find a way Escuela Nueva in Columbia Children aren't working! 'Yes We can make it different.. the Lumiar Institute in Brazil 'It's not working' 'Yeah, no... We can do it differently Let's change it,let's break the rulres El Sistema in Venezuela Apart from all the work they've done with children there There's the special needs choir they've got With the white gloves 'Well, deaf children can't sing' 'Yes they can' We'll find a way In a world where anything is possible And we talk to young people About individuals who perhaps didn't do well at school but achieved amazing things anyway This idea that if you fail at school you've failed life It's not true And we talk to them about their brains. You've got this here Now, how are you going to use it? All wrapped up in one word What's the word? What was that Camp called where the miners were trapped underground that time? What was the name of the camp? Esperanza - Hope Hope means things can get better And I can do something about it Who are the people who are going to do something about it? Back to the Freire The children Ask the children Don't do things to them Do things with them Set the system up in such a way that will allow them to flourish and grow and make decisions and make choices and take control of their lives and realise that things can get better and they can do something about it Thank you very much