Children in Their Talents a Basic Right

it’s the basic

right of every child to be seen

in its talent and in their talent we

need educational environments

that enable every child to be in their

talent

and we need people that are skilled to

give words to those talents

at the moment those children are in

their talent

my name is luc i’m an educational

scientist and i had a look

to do a lot of visits in the united

states to study positive psychology

appreciative inquiry and strengths-based

development

i remember a magic two-day conference

where

on stage was david cooperrider ron fry

barbara frederickson mikhail

and also marcus buckingham it was

wonderful and it helped me to understand

much

better the concept of talent when it’s

about talent many people think that

talent is about being excellent in a

certain activity

being the best in something like an

excellent cook or an excellent supporter

or

an excellent top manager but that’s not

my definition of talent

for me talent is not about being the

best in a certain activity

but it is about what an activity does

with you

so my definition of talent is talent is

about

any activity in your life that goes

totally at ease

and that satisfies you that fulfills you

and if you find words

for the thing that satisfies you you

come in the neighborhood

of your talent and my definition has

four layers so the first layer

is about activities that go totally at

ease and satisfy you

the second layer talent is about

activities that make time fly

and for the time flying there’s a word

and it’s the concept flow of shakes and

behind

flow is both a mental and a physical

state

that makes us to engage in such a way in

a situation in a situation

that we lose track of time we’re on a

party we are dancing we’re talking we’re

coaching

we’re working and we lose track of time

and at a certain moment you look our

watcher we say it’s already

four o’clock time has been flown that’s

flow

and we sit down on a chair and then we

feel that we are tired while you’re in

flow you don’t feel you’re getting tired

20 of the people on this planet

experiences flow every day

20 of the people on this planet never

experiences flow

and to those people it’s very difficult

to explain what flow is

and what talent is the time is flying

well maybe when i sleep but i don’t know

the third layer of my definition is

talent is about

activities that load your batteries

if you have worked hard during a day you

were in flow you were coaching or you

were

in a meeting or you were teaching and

time was flying

and you come home in the evening you can

be even exhausted or very tired

but at the same time you have positive

energy

you have you are fueled and you look

forward to the next day

or talent makes us tired but also gives

positive

energy towards the future and the fourth

layer of my definition is

talent is about activities that make you

to be your authentic self

and i have a little trick for that if

you look back to the last week

you could say that every hour that the

time was flying

you could say you were your authentic

self

well if you have this kind of a

definition of talent it doesn’t make it

easier to discover your talent

and a basic point of my theory is

there’s

only talent when it’s seen by others we

only become aware of our talent and the

first time

someone gives words to those talents and

for that

there are two conditions and the first

condition with children or with adults

with

children is if you see someone doing

something very good

that you say it but only when you mean

it

and not in the sense of good well done

great

but that you try to give word to what so

was so special in the act

of the child and the second condition is

with the child

that it is touched by that remark

because there’s a belonging

in that child to be good at that and

then

you get magic because then you get

remarks that even at the end of the life

they maybe still will remember

i’ll give you an example there’s a boy

in a discussion in the in the classroom

and you say so so wonderful how you were

doing that you had a discussion together

and

everybody was talking loud and

discussing

and you you were the only one who was

listening very calm

listening to each other and as a result

of that everybody started to calm down

and started to listen to each other so

beautiful how you do that

and then that boy could say well i was

not interested so i said nothing

but maybe also he had a belonging in

that situation

to play that kind of role and maybe he

will do that as an

adult too it’s so important that we help

children uh to to enable to be there in

their talents but also to give words

to their talents so that they become

aware of their talent because

when you come become aware of your

talent you can start to work

hard to develop skills with your talent

and to find contexts

in which you can apply your talents and

that’s what i call

talent in action talent in action means

i have a talent

i have developed skills and i found a

context in which

i can apply those talents many children

have the chance

and the luck to be seen in their talent

when they’re 7

8 years old some people are seen for the

first time in their talents when they’re

17 18 19 years old

some may be at their first workplace but

some

at 45 have never been seen in their

talents at that age and that’s

very very sad we have developed a set of

talents 39 talents and we work with

those talents in schools with children

but also with adults

and i’ll explain some of you maybe first

the talent of the

of the knowledge sponge who of you reads

a book or watches a documentary every

evening before sleeping okay then you

could have the talent of a knowledge

sponsor children adults with the talent

of a knowledge point they are very

curious by nature

they love information they love to

process information

it gives them a lot of satisfaction it

fulfills them when they learn

new information when they’re under

stress

and they read a book they will relax and

they read in the evening before sleeping

before because their head is filled with

information they can disconnect from the

day

and they fall asleep it’s a very good

talent to have when you’re

at school it’s a talent that will be

seen at school

you will be seen in that talent there’s

a big chance

the second talent is the talent of the

selective perfectionist

children with the talent of selective

perfectionists and adults are people

that

when they’re motivated so when they are

motivated

but only when they’re motivated they’ll

start to perform

and what they will do will be excellent

they want excellence at that moment

when they’re not motivated it’s much

more difficult

they won’t learn and develop when

they’re not motivated

and the thing with children with the

talent of selective perfectionists

they first have to develop to discover

their passion before they start to learn

many of them are dropouts they leave the

educational system they become

adult and then maybe they find their

passion and then they say

i should have studied more but then

sometimes it’s too late

another talent is the talent of the moot

reader

children with the talent of the mood

reader when they or for adults if they

enter a room where there was just a

conflict happening

they will feel it immediately they see

at one

tiny movement in your face that you

didn’t like a remark

and they love to do very small things in

other

in a way they make other people feel

better a very beautiful

talent can you imagine how it has been

for children being in lockdown

with this talent of mood reader i don’t

think they feel happy at that moment

it’s a basic right of children to be

seen

in their talent when you look at schools

sometimes you think schools are

designed to make time fly for teachers

and not for children

and of course it’s important that the

time flies for teachers because

you can only see children in their

talent as a teacher when you are in your

talent

but how would it be that time flies at

school

every day both for teachers and for

children

imagine your 14 year old son saying

every evening almost

oh it’s already 4 o’clock time has flown

that’s cool

what you see in education is that you

have to have luck

you have to have look that your talents

match or fit

to the educational system i always say

if you’re able to sit on a chair for a

long time

if you’re able to make legible notes

if you structure well if you analyze

well if you memorize well

and if you’re able to reproduce your

knowledge without too much stress at the

exam

then you are very very lucky because

then you have talents that match the

educational system

if not you could feel stupid you could

feel average

you could think i have no talents and in

a lot of cases we give those children

labels an example

one of the most best photographers in

belgium

when he was young when he was at school

he thought he was stupid

below average he said i have no talent

he was diagnosed with dyslexia he

thought i’m stupid

and until a certain age and then he

discovered that he had magic eyes he had

the possibility to make pictures

he got international prizes how can it

come that we don’t see that talent

before the age of 18 or 19 years old

another example is a belgian cyclist

when he was a small boy his mom went

with him to the doctor and she said

doctor i think my son has adhd

and the doctor smiled and he said ma’am

just let him do what he’s good at

give him time and he will become

excellent in it and he became world

champion

how is it that we don’t see it the

problem with education is

that we have to know that school is

not life that means the talents you need

to be good at school

are not the same talents that you need

to be good in life they

overlap of course but there are children

they have a cluster of talents

that don’t match the educational system

and they think they won’t succeed in

life

and that’s not true why don’t we tell

that

to our children together with my

colleague ells bronch we started a

movement an international movement

while we were not aware of that movement

and it started in ghent in belgium in my

home city where we started to organize

free talent interviews with children in

coffee bars

on wednesday afternoon and the first

afternoon was full and the second was

full

and the third was full and hundreds of

people followed us on facebook

and then people phone and they say can i

learn this also how to

to talk with children about their

talents have you said yes you can that

you can learn it

and you even get a certificate but the

certificate accepting the certificate

means

that you probe that you promise that you

engage

to organize those kind of free talent

interviews with children

in your community we are four years

later

and we have almost 1000 of those people

who do talent interviews in the

netherlands

in belgium and almost any village in

almost any city

all over the country and they’re very

enthusiastic

then we got phones by schools and they

said can you do this in our school

and we say yes we can do this in your

school we give the training but only if

you promise

that afterwards every child that follows

school in your school

will learn how to learn about its

talents their talents

and i think we told a story already in

hundreds of schools

all over the country belgium and the

netherlands and then

the city council of ghent my home city

contacted us and they said

we want this in this city could you

could you learn

all people involved in this city how to

do talent interviews with children

so we certified a city that has the

intention

that every child in the city of ghent

will be seen in their talent

the dutch city zwolle is the second city

hundreds of people have been trained

hundreds of people

are supported to see talents and

children it’s beautiful

and then we got thrown from from curacao

from bonaire from south africa

and so this is an international growing

movement and we didn’t intend

to start a movement

it’s the basic right of every child to

be seen

in their talent

you know every individual if you if you

take the 39 talents that we have

described every individual

has a unique combination of those 15

talents

that we select out of the 39 talents and

the chance that you have

the same combination as someone else

that chance is lower than one on three

million

that means each of you and each child

has a unique combination of talents

so they can do something unique that

nobody else can do

so beautiful to say that to know that

and no they won’t become a world

champion every

not everybody will become world champion

not everybody

will become a star but each child can

shine what i dream about is a world

in which we help every child before the

age of 12 to be seen to

be seen in their talents and that we

have found words

to give name to give words to the

talents of those children

so that they become aware of their

talents in such a way

they can develop skills and they can

find a context

in david in which they bring their

talents in action

imagine that people that work hard as an

entrepreneur as a teacher as a nurse

that come home in the evening that are

tired may be exhausted

but have positive energy towards the

future

less burnouts less depressions much more

people that feel

happy and do good in the world to end

i would like to quote picasso

and picasso said

the meaning of life is to find your gift

the purpose of life is to give it away

thank you very much

you