Education with Passion Thinking outside the box
[Music]
[Applause]
what we
see here in front of me
it’s a box it’s a small box
less than one cubic meter in size
but it’s one of our answers
to the covet crisis no this box is not
filled with vaccines
masks disinfectant gel
there’s even no toilet no toilet paper
in it
this box is filled with sport
games and we distributed these boxes
to all our primary schools to all our
classes
and we offered the children to take
these games
at home and to play to play with
their parents their siblings their
friends
do you remember more than one year ago
when this crisis began
everything shut down around us all our
professional meetings
they were cancelled no more handshaking
events like this we have tonight
all the kids animation was
closed captioning not
the best available of this crisis
perhaps it was new and unusual
but it was we profited really from that
time
before the coverage crisis my youngest
son
came every weekend to me and asked me
daddy do you want to play a board game
with me
and when i agreed
then he choose monopoly
every sunday or every saturday he wanted
to play monopoly with me and i asked
myself
why does he want to play monopoly with
me does he perhaps
want to become a real estate investor
with a big car in front of his office
and a lot of money in his pocket no he’s
not that type of guy
and then i understood he didn’t really
want to play monopoly with me
but he wanted to have time with me
because monopoly is the game that takes
the longest
to bring out the winner
and that’s not really surprising for me
because
when i had his age he’s 10 now my
parents
they had a toy shop and we were three
boys
and for us it was fantastic the toy shop
was on the ground floor
and we lived upstairs sometimes
we had the impression to grew up in
paradise
and as elder sun i regularly helped my
father and my mother
for special selling activities or when
the new merchandise came in
and that was great but the best of all
was
when on sunday afternoon when the shop
was closed
we played and we tried out the new board
games
that was real family time and that was
what happened around the world when
the world closed down because of the
covet crisis
and i think now when i see this box
in front of me good memories
are coming up in me and i think i’m not
the only one in this room
who feels like that because
playing games means spending time
together
playing games means also no phone calls
diving into another world
playing games is something for our
children
very natural they need to play games you
want to play games
and all the scientists all around the
world
they tell us and they agree that playing
games is essential for
the child’s development for its
cognitive development
for social emotional development but
also
for its physical development
you may ask now what is this guy talking
about
are they really fighting here in
luxembourg coveted with games
not from a virologist’s point of view
but
certainly from a social emotional point
of view because what we have in this box
it’s hours and hours of quality time
what we find in this box it’s
the motivation to play together
we’re siblings with parents with friends
with grandparents
it’s a motivation to pass time together
time to talk time to laugh
time to feel happy and time to feel
disappointed or sad or even angry
but there’s much more in this box in
this box there
even hours and hours of
reflecting and thinking of
problem solving of analyzing of
developing strategies
strategies to win the game of course
that’s what in this box playing games
was a valuable past time
during covet period but it’s much much
more
than that let’s have a look
at what’s going to matter into
tomorrow’s
world teamwork matters
communication matters creativity
matters analyze
of of complex situations yes that
matters
problem solving matters and why is that
all so
important to be creative why it is so
important to know
how to solve problems because
these are skills that even the best
computer does not possess
these are human skills and they make us
as humans most unique and that
especially in a digital world
some human skills just can’t be replaced
by computers
harmonizing with other people trusting
each other relying on each other
collaboration i know what you’re
thinking now
aren’t computers really helpful when it
comes to
problem solving and analyzing
complex situations yes that’s true
you’re right
but the main question is the essential
question is
who’s gonna program the computer and to
program a computer
one of the key competences is just
problem solving
and analyzing of complex situations
that’s what you need when you want to
program a computer but that’s what we
need all
when we live in such a complex world
that we are
living today so what we find
in this box that are all the key
competences
of the future every hour spending games
is an hour well invested
because spending games means
understanding the rules
developing strategies reflect the moves
of your competitors
hide what you’re up to entering into new
partnerships
all this makes us human unique in the
digital world
and it prepares us and it prepares our
children to the future
education is the art of giving the
children
the competences they need to choose
their school career
to have later on success in their
professional life
but especially today it comes
to the ability to adapt themselves to
the
unexpected things in life
one year ago one thing happened
in all of our lives it was unexpected
the covet crisis
and we had to manage that and it changed
everything in our life
it changed our professional life our
social life
our private life one thing i
really loved in my job was to meet
people
to meet people in meetings to meet
people
on the street in the supermarket people
that were very interesting and sometimes
they made me change my mind
people that were disappointed and they
wanted me to
to change the whole world in a minute
people that
just couldn’t stop small talking i love
those moments when i met people
but from one day to another those
moments
were no longer possible because all the
meetings
were digital and of course all the
digital platforms he had their
advantages
you can manage raised hands
you can switch off your camera in one of
the first meeting digital meeting i had
at the beginning of the crisis
one guy wanted to mute me
and you must think that this is really
something very special for a politician
to be muted
all we need is the ability
to adapt ourselves to different
situations
and of course we can’t find this all in
this box
and it’s not enough to distribute such
game boxes
to all our schools and distribute the
games to all
our children modernizing an education
system and bring it to the 21st century
isn’t finally not so easy like that and
when we
when we want to prepare our children
to the future let’s take
a look at what was um impossible
possible for and necessary and normal
for our generation or those generations
before because digitalization does not
change
fundamental fundamental pedagogical
principles
preparing children to tomorrow for doing
that job
it needs two things giving children
roots and giving them wings
because when we dare
when we feel safe in a small community
when we trust each other other persons
and ourselves
then we dare to make new experiences
then we we want to to reflect and and
and search for for new things we want to
discover the world we want to understand
the world
our children need a good dose of this
they need it at home
they need it in their activities they
need it
in care they they need it
yes they needed in school not only in
school but also
in school that’s
what important when it comes to rethink
education
and it’s our duty it’s our duty as
adults
it’s our duty as adults to give our
children
those roots because when they have roots
they dare to spread their rings
we have to think rethink education
for example we need places to make new
experiences
we have for example to make stem courses
more
interesting we have to bring science to
life
we can do that in the classroom we can
do it also
in the science center but let’s do it
we need rooms to be creative have you
ever been
in one of our maker spaces
this is a room in our secondary schools
where students came in with an idea and
they came out
with an invention we need
innovation in day care structures
because education does not take place
only in schools it has to take place
also
after school and giving children and
youngsters the opportunity
to discover the world discover their
talents
discover their interests
we have and we need innovate in the
school subjects
it’s absolutely necessary nowadays
to teach coding in primary school
but without screens without tablets
without computers
in a playful way adapted to their age
we have to teach digital skills and use
digital devices
and digital programs to teach when i see
my kids
learning mathematics on a digital
platform
and having fun learning mathematics
and having fun isn’t that great then i
understand that
personalized learning tools are a real
progress
in education we need
to prepare the children to the risk of
the digital world
making the difference between wrong and
right
and that becomes more and more important
in a world dominated by social media
and we need opportunities to discover
and stimulate talent and that’s what we
make
in the small enterprises in schools or
in other entrepreneurship
initiatives children can awaken desires
and
learn to engage themselves
as i mentioned before education is about
giving roots and wings and it’s a lot
about
passion the passion preparing
little children to become strong
individuals
the passion of learning and never
stopping to grow
and this is what school is about never
stop learning
this is what education is about
never stop growing because life
never stops teaching
by distributing those game boxes
to all the schools we offered roots
and we also offered wings and we offered
a lot of passion
by distributing those game boxes
to all our schools
we thought out of the box we did
something completely new
and yet something very traditional
thinking out of the box is part of this
passion in education
sometimes trying to look different ways
to learn
different ways to adapt our schools to
tomorrow
when the whole world has changed our
schools
and their environment they just can’t
stand still
and if in the 21st century
education wants to remain true to its
values
then it must not hide in its box
thank you