Ian Gilbert - TEDx Patagonia
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'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