Playing means learning
[Music]
hi everyone
my name is robert and since yesterday
i’m eight years old
so i can’t
so i can’t tell you too much about life
at eight years old but the first day of
it has
been amazing since i’ve got the
opportunity to be on this
stage
[Music]
i love challenges and i am trying to
find solutions for a better world but my
dad
thinks that i should start with cleaning
my
own bedroom
[Music]
three years ago i was just a normal kid
going to school in the morning and then
going to a lot of activities that i
loved martial arts swimming guitar
piano drums tennis ski
ice skating dram classes horse riding
and climbing this was my
evening shift but as much as i
wanted to learn these activities i was
always on the rush and tired
besides it was very weird because my mom
kept saying
that evenings are for playing and family
so i began to think is my piano teacher
part of my
family or something i mean
if this was childhood i was better off
as an adult
at least i could relax in the evenings
and i would have money like adults do
well some of them at least
what’s the advantages of being a child
if not having
time to play every day
[Applause]
childhood was supposed to be a time of
joy
when i could read as much as i wanted
make experiment for a whole day
build lego and robots play drums
clap mountains and invent things for a
better planet
well after i was cleaning my bedroom
of course so no time for
playing not too much family time
but the first part of the day was even
worse
i should tell me first that ever since
my brother and i
were very little little mom has been
teaching
us many things through to play
so i knew the whole alphabet
at two years old at three i could read
basic
words and when my colleagues were still
learning letters at five
i was reading roald dahl and enid blyton
i learned times table at five when my
colleagues were still learning to count
to a hundred
so many times in school my mind was
running away somewhere else
i used to think about things like
could we create a spaceship that travels
faster than
light or our black holes time traveling
gate
or what is our real weight if we take
with gravitational force
my mind was trying to keep itself busy
but giftedness is a blessing
and a curse as wonderful as it may sound
to have a fast brain and make many
connections
i felt trapped
i was constantly in another world
outside when i was expected to live in
i was drinking my mind all the sorts of
things that i wanted to do in real life
but in reality i had to sit with other
30 children
in the same room doing the same things
no matter which were our talents our
learning styles
our rhythms or our dreams
i felt so bored and i couldn’t choose
would to learn
how or for how long
it didn’t matter if my brain was hungry
for chemistry
and i cared less about what a verb was
everybody seemed to know what was best
for me
my parents my teachers and above all
the government we were all supposed to
learn times
table at seven periodic table at
12 and then we would all get to be
some happy and rich adult
the school curriculum knew exactly what
lessons i should take when i should
start or stop
learning what books i should read or
what exams i should take
but had no idea that my mission on earth
is different than anyone else’s and that
i needed a unique
approach for that i felt like a prisoner
and i was dreaming about a free life
where i could work for days on an
invention or mix chemical substances to
see what
happens don’t get me wrong
my teachers were great but they couldn’t
possibly have the time to explain to
each of us
individually according to our levels
or to teach us what we wanted to learn
i wanted to learn about the structure of
water
about what’s inside the phone why snow
is
white why carbon dioxide is harmful for
us
when it has two oxygens when does a star
die
or whether we can make trees grow faster
but i had to read teddy bear stories and
count
apples instead
i had a few friends all of them older
than me
but i had none in my class so for a
while
i wished to be like everyone else and
maybe i would have been happier
my colleagues were nice to me as i used
to help them with reading and maths
but i wanted someone who could talk
about stars
robots or the law of attraction
not just video games and cartoons
i felt trapped and voiceless so i became
depressed
i was feeling like inside of an aquarium
in the middle of the sea and i wanted to
swim in the sea
i had to do things that i had no control
over
while i could have done so many other
things that i wanted
to i totally hated homework
as it was baby work and even if it was
only one homework a week
i felt like it was wasting my time
time that i could have used for science
i remember saying to my mum that i
cannot wait for the holidays
say that i would actually learn
something
and that i wished i could learn at home
she said that there’s no such thing and
that there was no way i could
skip school my idea of learning
was just a dream and i began to cry
every morning before going to school
my parents became really worried and
started reading about
families who were bringing tutors at
home for their children
or about families that had to travel a
lot
and their children were learning at home
they discovered that over 80 000 kids in
uk were doing what was called
homeschooling but it seemed so out of my
parents comfort zone
school had always been very important in
my family
known in my family has ever been
homeschooled
and most people in my family went to
university
even my grandma is an engineer but not
literally
going to school would have been for them
the equivalent of not getting
an education i could see their confusion
and despair and i really really tried to
like school
but teddy bear stories and boredom
didn’t let me live
then my mom had to talk with the teacher
and she said that i might be gifted she
recognized some of the signs
like being bored in school i couldn’t
stand repetition
i was very emotional crying for trees
being cooked
and plastic in the oceans i had good
memory i was academically ahead
and i had good memory and intense
curiosity and concentration
then she found mensa the largest
and oldest iq society in the world
that takes the top two percent of the
population as
members i then went for the test which
took three hours
and was not easy but it was really
challenging
and i totally enjoyed it
my mum was crying when they informed my
parents
my results and my dad said that i would
not go to school anymore
this is how i became a mensa member at
five years old
this is the point
[Applause]
this was the point when my parents knew
for sure they had to change something
they knew that keeping me in school
would reduce my rhythm and that i might
not reach my potential
so for the next three months they tried
to find a different approach to
education
and they discovered understood and
started to love the idea of
homeschooling
they read about famous people who at
some point in their lives were home
educated
leonardo da vinci mozart abraham lincoln
thomas edison winston churchill albert
einstein
or princess diana also
if tom cruise john travolta brad pitt
or will smith have how medicated their
kids that was enough to convince my mum
my parents bought all the manuals on the
market
just to make sure that they will not
miss an experiment
or a word they hunted on facebook the
home educated groups
from all around the world and they even
wrote to universities to make sure that
they’ll accept how medicated kids
then they’ll transform the house into a
school
we have a time stable poster in the
bathroom so that no time would be wasted
this is our wardrobe and watch for our
placemats
my life has finally changed for two
years now
i can do whatever i like if it’s about
learning
including playing as our playing is
learning
lego is learning riding horses learning
climbing a tree is learning making a
mess in the house is learning
as we learn to put everything back after
i have days when i put on my alarm at
six o’clock in the morning
as i’m desperate to do robotics or build
something
or i can sleep until 10 o’clock
if i couldn’t let the book off my hands
the night before
and i need more sleep we can travel
anytime now as we do not depend on
school holidays
it’s much cheaper and paris is so less
crowded in november
i also don’t wait for holidays anymore
as you only wait for a holiday when you
don’t like school
actually i’m on holiday and at school
at the same time all the time
my my brother joined me and starting
this january
we’re both enjoying this adventure now
we became more responsible for our
schedule
and we know that if we do not follow it
we cannot get away if we
copy or cheat you cannot cheat mum
believe me
but most of the time we learn because we
like
it i mean we can choose between things
like reading playing board games
going on the try and clean in our garden
playing instruments in our mini studio
cooking with grandma doing science
experiments in our mini lab
or playing with lego in our garden house
also i’m not learning for any tests
exams for my teacher or for my parents
i’m learning for myself i can spend six
hours a day reading
narnia and the next day i can do
experiments the whole day
i can now choose to spend my time
pursuing my passions
no matter what they are i meet hundreds
of kids
every month and i finally have friends
there are over 80 000 home school kids
at the moment in uk
and we have local meetings that we
attend
we have classes together parties and
even not going back to school picnic
academically i am three years ahead in
math
seven years ahead in reading and i read
chemistry and physics books
for high school level but i am not
interested in passing any exams right
now
as it would spoil all my pleasure for
learning
besides the real learning is outside the
house
i learn a lot of history from museums
astronomy at the planetarium i climb
mountains
i ride horses i attend first day
trainings at st
john ambulance i go to beavers
i train for international music and
theatre festival
i go swimming taekwondo
kickboxing ice skating
skiing that’s my favorite
i go to robotics inventix
science club i play
piano drums and guitar
and i have time for playing
and family
actually one of the reasons why my dad
liked homeschooling
is because he thought we would actually
stay
home home schooling
you know staying safe in the house
during six hours of math each day
but when he called us during the day we
are hiking
during a fire camp or picking mushrooms
in some forest
that mum cannot explain it where it is
on the map
so we should probably call it road
schooling
or out of the house schooling
ever since i became home educated i’ve
discovered my passions
my biggest one now is robotics and after
world educational robotics trial
and a lot of training i won a place at
the international robotics contest
held in shanghai in december and i keep
training hard for china
oh sorry i also spend a lot of time
thinking and working on new inventions
and in february 2020 i will be
participating
in the uk invention convention
with my first invention which is a
camping table
for soil and sand with special legs
system maybe homeschooling
is not for everyone but i keep thinking
when did i ever have time for school
most of my schedule is different than
the schedule of most kids my age
but now i know that being myself means
being different and that in order to be
happy
i need a different schedule i’ve been
unhappy for long
but now i am grateful to my parents for
thinking outside the box
and i am so amazed by the possibilities
my new life has
offered me i am finally happy
doing what i like according to my
talents
my needs and my potential if
you ever feel trapped and voices around
you
are too loud remember that you
are the only one who can hear your voice
and follow it this is my story and this
is how
i have finally found my voice outside
the system
and inside my heart for much she
defeated