The problem with schools

[Music]

i’m ahead of school

my job is to ensure human flourishing

i want students to look past obstacles

to spread their wings the wings that

will help them fly

school should be places where you build

up confidence

you find out who you are what you can do

and you go but we have a problem in

schools we have a big problem

and it’s the way that we assess students

and that’s what i’m going to talk about

but i’m not just going to talk about

this problem i’m going to

tell you how we can fix it

about three years ago i was at a head of

schools training

and the workshop leader brought out

a guy called sean sean was a dazzling

tall high school dropout

shock of curly red hair

employing hundreds of people very

successful entrepreneur

and sean told us his story

he explained how he built up his

business how he becomes so successful

we asked them what did you learn at

school that helped you become a great

entrepreneur

and he thought for a while and said

break time what break time

yeah break time because that’s when i

can talk

to friends that’s when i can create my

network

break is when we live when we breathe

the rest of the time i was

i was sitting in a in a classroom taking

notes keeping quiet

sitting still listening

wow break time

i asked sean a question i said sean what

advice do you have for me as a head of

school what should i be doing

he looked at me and said you need to

meet every single one of your students

for about 10 minutes just to find out

who they are

and what their goals are

i thought about it i went back to school

and i decided to start meeting my

students

and to this day that’s what i do i meet

every student

10 minutes each i’ve got 800 students

that’s over 133 hours of meetings

but it’s worth it because you learn so

much

if someone goes through school from

primary all the way up to the end of

secondary

that’s about 30 000 hours now think

about it when you were at school

how many adults how many teachers or

heads

sat down with you and said who are you

what is your dream

that’s the first big problem in schools

we’re not talking about life

about the big picture it’s all about

tests it’s about assignments

it’s about deadlines

i started with the senior students the

ones about to graduate and

i asked how things were the first word

that came out of most students mouth was

stress

stress around deadlines stress around

exams

the second big word was workload

too much to do not enough time juggling

all of these different assignments

stress and deadlines

now 2014 study run by the apa

showed that high school students are

more stressed

than adults is that the kind of school

we want

a school where students are more

stressed than adults

there’s something wrong there the next

question i asked was what is your goal

what is your dream

what makes your heart sing

so many students told me that they they

had things they loved but they couldn’t

do them anymore

djing youtubing playing in a band

cooking high level athletics

following an instrument that wasn’t on

the school curriculum

they had to stop because there wasn’t

enough time

in fact they dropped the things they

loved because school wasn’t letting them

follow them

think of primary school students are

free

they play their mind wonders

but as they get older they get into the

straight jacket

that belts them up slowly but surely

till all they’re doing it’s preparing

for exams

preparing for tests taking notes

we’ve created a system that drowns out

so much

creativity and passion so much of what

students want to do they can’t do

anymore

because of the way that we’ve designed

high school

and what this has done is it’s made many

people turn away from school

look at einstein einstein wasn’t bad at

maths when he was at school he was

terrific at maths

no he dropped out of school because he

found that the teaching

was so narrow-minded and uninspirational

that he just couldn’t cope anymore so

many brilliant minds were either bad at

school

dropped out of school or expelled from

school

people like winston churchill like

richard branson

like steve jobs the poet shelley or

the author edgar allan poe

artists like rihanna like nicole kidman

like jennifer lawrence who left school

at 14.

all these brilliant successful people

they left school

so guess what for you at sean’s po

following a highly academic program it’s

not too late to be successful

you just need to get out if you drop out

of school you got a chance

now that’s a joke but you know what this

isn’t a joking matter

this is serious because when gifted

people

can no longer thrive they don’t only

turn away from school

they turn away from society because the

message we’re sending them

is this is not your place your star

cannot shine here

it has to pulse somewhere else

we have to do something about this

and i’m going to share with you three

steps that i’m taking at my school

and i want you to take with me

redesign empower spread

first redesign redesign the high school

transcript

that’s this piece of paper that students

present to universities

that’s the piece of paper that’s going

to get you a job one day and it starts

with those grades

that’s all it contains grades the beauty

of life is resumed

in these numbers and symbols we have to

have a transcript that tells

more of a story what am i good at who am

i

what makes my heart sing

reforming the credit system means

looking at

life-worthy competences things like

your self-agency things like your

lifelong learning

things like how well you interact with

other people

and it means coding all the different

activities that you’re doing in and out

of school

and making them feature there so we’re

celebrating these things

we’ve started redesigning a high school

transcript that’s step one

step two is to empower empower young

people

to take ownership of the learning

process so that they can

add to these credit areas all the things

that they’re good at all the things they

love

all the stories that they don’t get to

tell at school

and what we have to do is make sure that

our credit system

is inclusive enough to let students

express themselves

through it so that they can design the

transcript like a cv

third spread the word

earlier this year i pulled together a

group

of schools from across the world because

we all want the same thing

which is a high school transcript that’s

more inclusive

that’s more holistic this more dynamic

and now we’re looking for universities

to join us because they need to be part

of the story

they need to help us

will you join us spreading the word is

not just about going to universities

it’s about going to industry too

because if we can create a more

inclusive university

admission system we can create a more

inclusive

jobs admission environment where we’re

no longer just looking for people

who fit in a box but we want to know

who you are what you’re good at and how

you can help us

be more diverse be more creative be

better

imagine a world like that

this is not just a project to change

high school transcripts

this is a project to change the world

to make the world a place where every

star can shine

to make the world a place where we

believe in human flourishing

to make the world a place where we’re

interested in learning

wherever it’s happened not just in some

places

according to some criteria

schools of the future have to start now

there have to be places where we can

spread our wings

and fly