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