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