our next speaker is going to talk to us
about what happens if you actually
reimagine all of the things that you're
using in your education process and what
we do for education please welcome to
the stage in Gilbert hi hide TEDx to buy
the idea of loads of people coming
together from different disciplines from
different parts of the world sharing
ideas translating ideas fantastic idea
but then when you doing that in this
part of the world over a thousand years
ago the House of Wisdom but then that's
the side of a Baghdad we don't tend to
see from in the West and I want to get
your brains going I want to get your
thinking I want to share with your
little question questions called a
thunk-a-thunk is it's the noise the
brain makes when it starts thinking
about about things audience
participation i'm gonna give you i only
get ten minutes i'm going to give you 30
seconds of those ten minutes just share
do this in tues or can we be a three
threes if you must with your newfound
friends next to you this is the question
and the question this question there are
no rights or wrongs the answer is either
yes no or other and other is perfectly
valid I don't know because is a
perfectly valid response but you
wouldn't know that listening to
politicians or reading the old media
that Leo was talking about so yes no or
other 30 seconds with the person next to
the question is is a broken-down car
parked is a broken-down car park 30
seconds with the person next yes no or
other quickly off you go
ten seconds
okay bring it back bring you back bring
you back bring you back some will do
some good old-fashioned interactive
voting technology who thinks are broken
down car is parked who thinks is not
parked who thinks other who's going well
I want more information what color is
the car as soon as you say to a child
okay you think this tell me why you
think it it's like opening up a little
window in their heads and you see
they're thinking in action in a way you
don't get from the traditional teaching
model of i'm going to give you my ideas
and give you my thoughts one little ad i
was working with us about fix five or
six i asked him where thoughts came from
and he said our God puts them in my ears
and the little people in their head sort
them out and they come out in the mouth
fantastic mad and the parking when I put
it to a teacher I'd a lot of work with
teachers put it to a teacher she fed
back to me I put it to you imagine the
scene you paid a couple of Durham
theorems whatever it is for in the meter
and you've gone shopping and when you
come back you realize you left your
lights on so now the car won't start
okay the meter money has expired the car
won't start you ring the mechanic they
say will be with you in an hour you've
got another hour in that car parking
space to your parking is expired how
many of you be honest would pay the
extra bit of money for the extra hour
while he waited for the mechanics came
out how many of you no way would how
many of you would stand there with the
money going like that when people walk
by
um funks that there's a professor of
philosophy in in America in the 80s
called Matthew Lippmann who realizes
undergraduates could tell you what
Socrates thought couldn't think for
themselves so he put this program
together called philosophy for children
getting kids from his little sort of 45
year old to really start to think for
themselves thunks is sort of what I've
spun off off off the back of working in
that way it's a very powerful web
getting kids to think for themselves
because the work that I've been doing
for the last 15 years in the UK and in
parts of the world as well and I'm just
starting living in dubai now trying to
bring this work over here is about with
independent thinking is about getting
kids to think for themselves but the
history of education thing well that's
what schools are for and no it's not
unless you're a certain sort of child in
a certain sort of school but for the
majority of people education is about
getting them not to think in fact we
don't want people to think right you
look at the industrial method 1911 fw
tally industrial method all right he
showed countries whether we're talking
about britain america russia / he showed
countries how there could be more
productive produced more money but it
involved people not thinking in the
factories in the mines Nina steel works
but they would mess the system up so
they needed to be taught enough maths
and of English in order to sort of get
by but taught not not to think and you
can go back further than that you can go
in all sorts of different dress
rockefeller 1906 said at the education
board in the US said it in our dreams
people yield themselves with perfect
dough sylheti to our molding hands the
education system was about manipulating
people's brains in order to get them to
love their God love their leader go out
and fight for their country do just
enough right but 21st century things
that things have changed and the work
that we've been doing in schools is
trying to get people to think and it
makes their brains hurt my target when
I'm working with a group of kids I say
the end of this session I want your
brains to hurt and we always get that
working a while back with a group of in
the UK we have a system gifted and
talented and whether you have that way
you're from the something like I don't
know the exact figures because they're
too ridiculous but it's something like
every group of kids ten percent should
be gifted and talented just seems but
the other ridiculous thing in the UK is
we everybody has to try and be above
average know how that works either
statistically speaking
doomed to fail yes pretty why I'm here
well I had a group of kids this GNT kids
gifted and talented they were about 12
13 and they were talking about tree I
said okay hang on a minute what do you
mean tree let's define it stop skimming
the surface that's burrow down a little
bit deeper Socrates he said unexamined
life is a life not worth living let's
get a little bit deeper 30 seconds in
pairs I want a definition of a treat
these kids couldn't come up with
anything that stood any logical sort of
test oh it's a big thing relieves on all
right so is it not a tree in there in
the winter in the UK is it less of a
tree in the winter than is in the summer
this tables made of wood when did it
stop being a tree has it stopped being a
tree if I chop a tree down start writing
on it is it a table if I climb a tree
and start writing in it is it a table 5
sick leaves on the table does it become
a tree again i'ma go my brain hurts so
one girl she said I used to think I was
gifted and talented one of those I had
to be fed you you said you d spanned our
brain sir I said which means you don't
expand it UD spanned it he said I no
less on the way out the way I come in
that's great it's like anti teaching um
but teaching is about them leaving with
my thoughts and there's a place for that
but there's a powerful place for them
developing their own thinking when I'm a
favorite quotes keep going around around
in my head at the moment as an Einstein
quote is if we can't solve the problems
by using the same kind of thinking we
used when we created them the problems
at the world's facing and we've touched
on some of them today and have more this
afternoon we're not going to solve these
problems it's the children sitting in
classrooms anywhere in the world
hopefully if it's a good enough
classroom whose brains will be opened up
enough in order to be able to go out and
solve those problems right but we're not
going to we're not going to solve this
problem so if you think of evolution and
I perhaps some people watching this
podcast might not believe in evolution
but I don't believe in gravity so you
just have to live with it and is
evolution Darwin didn't use attorney
ablution talked about descent with
modification descent with modification
if children just think our thoughts
nothing changes and nothing changes
basic biology tells us something's going
to die descent with modification says we
need children leaving our schools
thinking
lightly differently from the way we
think to keep going to keep the world to
keep the world going so what are we
doing to teach kids to to think
independent thinking my company that's
what what we're trying to do and it can
be a bit of a challenge there are three
parts to independent thinking and it's
only when I started getting involved
with sort of looking at what Ted was
doing so I got technology entertainment
design I realized that in many ways
independent thinking it was sort of
Technology education a neuroscience
which is tens I looked at ten calm and
it's got a website about bo Derek so I
thought I won't go there and take the
neuroscience we know so much now about
about what's going on inside people's
heads when they learn but it doesn't
seem to be getting through into the into
the classroom to give you three facts
about neuroscience that you may not have
known it takes between 20 and 30 years
for a human brain to mature so when
you've got a ten-year-old and you say
grow up what does that mean you know
you're acting childish you're acting
adult ish then when we say act your age
what we're really saying is act my age
but children are not minimis they're not
little versions of us walking around
they are a work in progress takes about
25 years for the brain to mature and you
can't be a direct quote from a colleague
in my company's of consultant pediatric
neurologist you can't be older than your
brain you've got a 12 year old has the
emotional maturity of a ten-year-old
there a ten-year-old work with them as a
general to bring them on as opposed to
lumping everybody together by their
birthdays third one there's a two to
three years spread in terms of where
children rat in that developmental in a
maturation process within the brain even
though they've got the same birthday but
again history of education we learnt
children together by their birthdays why
it sort of happened that way but there's
a two to three years spread and maybe we
do so much damage to children putting
them through the inappropriate system
inappropriately we don't get to 25
intact right and we know that from the
neuroscience how is the neuroscience
then impacting on the way that we're
designing education system the world way
that we're putting schools together and
so education neuro science technology
and I my latest book is going to be why
do I need a teacher when I've got when
I've got google all right when I've got
the internet right if the teacher's job
is just to teach the subject as opposed
to the child
knowledge has been democratized my my
youngest has access to all the knowledge
in the world at her fingertips standing
in a field updated you know daily you
know remotely on a on a PDA or iPhone if
she once said so knowledge has been
democratized knowledge is out there what
is yet to be delayed what has yet to be
democratized the way I see it is
learning so if we've got teachers who
can two children how to find the
knowledge and how to no good knowledge
for a bad not that one percent that Leo
was talking about that makes a
difference what to do with it when they
get it how to be creative without a
memorized key elements of it how to
synthesize and use it and develop their
emotional intelligence and there are
social intelligence and their creativity
in their communication skills all things
computers can't do yet powerful role for
the 21st century teacher but
drip-feeding stuff from my brain your
brain there's a different model
available to us and I encourage teachers
in the UK to go to tutor vista to de
vista calm it's an indian company
established a few years ago for
something like equivalent of about
ninety dollars a month i've got three
children I've got one it's sort of in a
primary level education when its
secondary level education when it
university they're all in their twenties
I just keep them there for research and
I can get for them and limited access to
an academic tutor somewhere it's someone
in India with the headset on it's a it's
a skype call doesn't cost anything
english-speaking they work on the same
virtual but a paper on the computer set
some like ninety dollars a month
unlimited access as much time as they
would like to to vista calm a QA in the
UK AQA stands for two things assessment
and qualifications Alliance is an exam
board the old fashion model right why do
we have exams will say exams why do we
have them Oxford and Cambridge
Industrial Revolution students
undergraduates you to talk their way
into their degrees with the Masters
watching from the balconies deciding who
were the clever ones there were so many
of them will get to write their answers
down now and do it in silence that's why
we have the written exam so you got AQA
exam board you've also got a QA any
questions answered for a pound you know
couple of dollars I can text a question
and within minutes I've got an answer so
you've got the old fashion model you can
see how clever you are by how much
information you can cram into your brain
regurgitating the exam and forget it
following day or the new model well the
knowledge is cheap Rogers is a pound the
lodges couple of dollars the how
intelligent you are will be determined
by what you do with that knowledge and
that sort of technology and other stuff
that we've touched on today as well
we've designed in the UK a teacher free
content free learning bit of software
right that one of the reasons we did it
was because schools were fed up having
supply teachers substitute teachers in
the UK I'll translate into dollars even
though just doesn't sound real one point
two seven billion dollars a year is
spent on supply teaching substitute
teaching in the UK multiply that out
across the world is just just a waste
all right so we found out what using
technology is a way of avoiding that the
technology is the technology is there
the questions is the willingness in in
the world of Education and then with
education so technology neuroscience and
then the education part and thunks is
just a simple little bit of getting kids
to think for themselves so their brains
hurt one of the questions I put to a
group of children was them is there more
future or past and what I find when I
ask children questions like that some of
them the brighter ones the gifted and
tell the academically able ones who are
good at playing the game of guess what's
in the teachers head they say I don't
know and I say I know you don't know
nobody knows tell me what you think and
they don't they're not able to answer
that question there's a difference
between thinking and knowing one girl
she said there's more future so how come
should well if you believe in the
afterlife it goes on forever it's okay
what about if you don't believe in the
afterlife she said well it still goes on
forever I said so what you're saying is
whether you believe in the afterlife or
not so good on forever is that right yes
this lad next to me suddenly says so
what's the point of religion then rule
big question from page of New Scientist
a couple years ago what is the point of
religion children are ready and willing
and prepared unable to think profoundly
and deeply at the end of one of these
sessions of thunk sessions with a group
of kids they were 9 year olds one that
came up to me afterwards he said I've
just realized how big life is that's
what education can do thank you
thank you