Translator: Sue Kronenfeld Reviewer: Denise RQ
(English) Where there's a will, there's a way.
(Spanish) Where there's a will, there's a way.
(French) Believe in your dreams. (English) The future is in your hands.
Those are sayings we hear, guiding us, helping us on our personal life journey.
As far as I'm concerned, I use those sayings every day,
and today, I invite you to share them with me, so,
(French, English, Spanish) welcome.
I'm 35 today,
I'm the mom of a lovely five and a half month-old boy,
of a cute, energetic four and a half year-old girl,
I've been married for nearly 9 years,
I own and manage a private, trilingual, non-subsidized school,
serving pre-school and primary students, here in Sainte-Marie.
I've also been a town counselor for seven years now,
I also work on some committees,
such as family policy, leisure, sometimes cultural policy...
Well, those are my codes, my life: family, the development of our region,
entrepreneurship, and culture in every form.
Today, I decided to take off my adult goggles
and to charm you the way I get charmed by children every day.
Children are beautiful, aren't they?
Beautiful, simple, natural.
I put on a hat because I wear a lot of hats.
But also, today, this afternoon, I invite you to stand up.
We need to digest our lunch, so everyone, stand up.
Do yourselves some good, let's stretch out, a bit like children do.
Everyone, everyone, everyone, without exception, repeat after me:
Mélanie Boissonneault: ♪ Hello. ♪ (Audience) ♪ Hello. ♪
(French) MB: ♪ Hello. ♪ (Audience) ♪ Hello. ♪
(Spanish) MB: ♪ Hello. ♪ (Audience) ♪ Hello. ♪
Let's do it like children do. Good day. (Audience) Good day.
(German) MB: Good day. (Audience) Good day.
(Japanese) MB: Good day. (Audience) Good day.
(Italian) MB: Good day. (Audience) Good day.
(Hebrew) MB: Hello. (Audience) Hello.
(Polish) MB: Good day. (Audience) Good day.
Let's do like all children do,
♪ Hello to all the children of the world! Hello to all the children of the world! ♪
MB: How beautiful! That feels good!
You can sit now; well done, everyone!
Sometimes it feels good to take off our adult goggles,
to be a child again.
I think that as adults we don't allow ourselves to do that enough.
We're always caught in a routine, in our daily life:
get up, lunchbox, pack bags, etc.
for those who are still at that stage - that's where I am right now -
so we are well engrossed in our daily routine.
But why couldn't we give ourselves time,
we adults, to live a little like kids,
a little bit every day?
Well, simplicity still has a place.
When I was seven,
I started my adventure with The Sainte-Marie Dancers.
See my lovely photo? That was me.
Experiencing culture through dance, learning languages, any language,
meeting people from other countries,
traveling here in Canada, then elsewhere,
those are all formative experiences,
that made me who I am today.
And I'd like to add that this very day, this morning, 28 years later,
my 4-and-a-half-year-old daughter Felicia started
at Manigance Dancing School, formerly The Little Dancers School.
I'm very proud of that; to me, it's both a return to my origins and a great pride.
I also thank Lise Sirianni,
who is one of the major partners in today's event.
She was very much there for me
in my first years at the Little Dancers' School.
Now to the heart of the matter: education.
Why is education such a fascinating sector and topic, do you think?
Because it's current subject that affects all of us, directly or indirectly.
whether you like school or not so much, sometimes.
Education is a sector that brings future economic growth
that can benefit all regions of Canada, from one ocean to the other,
and all communities, of any size.
According to several studies, in the next 10 years, Canada will experience
a serious shortage of skilled workers.
The shortage will affect every sphere of activity:
management, professionals, skilled technicians, and scientists, too.
Right now in Canada,
immigration provides 75% of the work force
and by the end of the decade, 100% of the workforce
will come from immigration.
It is an unbelievable figure.
International students form a great pool of highly skilled and specialized workers
that can fill the present and future needs of the labor market.
Our beautiful Beauce region is no exception to the rule.
Our successors will need to be strong, versatile, bilingual and even more,
and ready to face the linguistic and technological realities around us.
Not long ago, it was:
"We're in the Beauce region, English is important, but later, I won't necessarily
have to be bilingual"; this won't be true for future generations.
Look at a five-year-old handle these little electronic games
answering all sorts of questions in English.
Watch a pre-schooler using an iPad and then come talk to me.
Look at a 7 to 8-year-old talking on Skype with kids from other countries.
So I urge you, I tell you, it is essential in 2012 to master English.
Learning languages is learning the world.
Let's not delude ourselves, it's true.
Learning languages is opening doors.
Learning languages is knowing and understanding others.
It is avoiding laughing out of prejudice, even empathizing in some circumstances.
I'd like to share some preconceived ideas about learning languages
that I must still occasionally debate, but that are true.
They say you have to be intelligent to learn languages.
Yes, some intellectual aptitude is required to learn grammar, vocabulary
but how is the use of language acquired?
It is acquired through practice, through immersion.
Learning several languages, you also risk linguistic confusion.
As for linguistic competence,
sometimes, in certain languages, some words are related or look similar.
When you introduce a child to several languages,
at first, he'll make mistakes.
He will be able to make a sentence in French, English, Spanish,
a mixed sentence,
but with time, it all gets categorized in the child's brain
and that's what you've got to understand.
In general, studies show that learning a foreign language not only
makes you better at your own language, but also develops cognitive capabilities
that are beneficial to the acquisition of other subjects.
So it's an important element to consider.
Learning a language is said to be long and boring.
Long, maybe if you aim for perfection, to learn linguistics, to specialize,
but the sooner you are able to learn other languages,
the sooner you show the child that languages are an opening to the world,
and the sooner you start immersion, the easier it will be for the child.
Because a child's brain is like... a sponge, yes.
That's what I experience on a daily basis, with children who learn three languages,
who live in three languages,
and then, when a 6- or 7-year-old comes to see me,
and he can't remember if he has answered in English, French or Spanish,
or he says: "Mrs. Boisseaneau, last night I dreamt in English,"
(French) "Mrs. Boisseaneau, last night I dreamt in English,"
I can assure you it's a good sign,
learning languages at an early age.
Too often we make fun of what we don't understand
because we don't take the time to understand.
Each culture is special
and as long as generations aren't able to understand each other,
there will always be conflicts.
Hence the importance of opening up to the world and learning languages.
Education is an cultural priority.
Yes, that's a fact.
But as a school principal, to me, education is also
what makes the child's imagination and creativity come alive.
Telling a pre-schooler:
"Today, we're going to learn the colours in three languages", is an opportunity.
But telling him: "Today, we're going to learn the colours at the circus.
Do you want to follow me in my adventure?"
Then the child will answer: "Wow! Yes Mrs. Boissoneault!"
So still in context, that's important too, to bring a child's creativity to life.
We often like to remember our first performance,
our first well-done craft that was shown to our parents,
our first song that we learned by heart, that we were happy to show mom and dad,
but those elements, those signs of life, are connected to two elements:
self-esteem and creativity.
The child's creativity is fundamental, and we must never, ever squelch it.
As a mom, I find that sometimes it's not obvious how to guide a child's creativity.
Paint pots that fall on the ground,
all kinds of little bits of cut paper,
glue on the wall, sometimes that's happened to me, too.
We must guide a child's creativity,
but we must never squelch it.
One fact I've had to deal with in the last few years
is some children's lack of creativity, and sometimes it's sad.
In a recess yard, "What can we play?"
Before a blank computer screen, "What can we write?"
What is our role as educators, as professionals?
It's to give children tools,
it's to equip them, to give them learning strategies.
So I tell them, "Well, friends, come up with your own solutions."
If you have to create a rap to learn your multiplication tables, go for it,
but you must find solutions.
The greater your creative spirit, the more easily you'll adapt
to all kinds of situations,
and find applicable solutions as an adult."
What also sometimes saddens me to see is preschool-age children
who, at that age, are already afraid to make a mistake.
They hit a wall; they're afraid to make a mistake;
they don't dare speak up.
Their creativity is already squelched at that young age.
Like an adult, the child must realize that to make a mistake, to understand it,
then to admit it, is a great virtue.
Why? Because that allows for progress and bettering oneself.
We still suspect now in 2012 that Einstein might have been mistaken
in his theory of relativity.
So this doubt means that some people are still trying to perfect this theory.
So to say that progress is never finished, we have to understand this too.
Today, to have a superb memory is no longer necessarily valued.
The proof? I haven't committed my talk to memory today.
Computers contribute to give space to the human brain to operate differently.
Those who want to distinguish themselves in the 21st century
will be those who have managed to leave room for creativity and innovation.
The enormous growth of social networks plus the development of technology
are the most solid possible proofs.
Distinguishing yourself is knowing how to make ideas advance.
Knowing how to make people's ideas advance by giving them solid proofs.
Today I'm going to show you the parallel
between the development of a community,
and that of a child, which is very much akin to it.
The development of a community rests on the ideas of all, and of each member.
Today, when we speak of a community's development,
we speak of "Healthy cities and towns,"
we can speak of a "Health challenge,"
We also speak of local and social development.
We can also speak of developing beautiful parks, here in the region.
When we look at a child, we speak of his development,
we speak of his ability to socialize,
we also speak of his motor function, of its development,
of his capacity to get people moving,
and God knows that no one knows how to move people like a child.
If a child is capable of learning to walk, a community can also gather its strength,
to stand up and then to use all its energy towards common goals.
A child is exposed to all kinds of situations, of enriching experiences,
To allow his brain to create even higher quality connections.
To progress in its interaction,
the community needs its citizens to participate, and to work together.
To be able to use its power to function,
it needs a very strong bond of trust
between the community and its citizens, as you can see.
From birth, the child also builds
a very strong bond of trust with its parents.
The most beautiful bond of trust is when, right after birth,
he is placed on his mom's breast.
Just like a child who needs encouraging parents to be present to guide him,
to be able to make its way, to be able to blossom,
a community needs to have a solid basis, frames of reference that it can count on.
It must work together to share, to develop, to advance its aims.
Confidence and security contribute to autonomy, on one hand,
and on the other, allow it to face significant challenges,
like a child learning to walk
or simply knowing how to develop beautiful projects
like here in Sainte-Marie, constructing cultural and sports complexes.
As I said a little while ago,
the human brain is constantly evolving,
so the child develops rapidly.
Generation Y and the following generations
are developing very, very fast.
We could say, at the speed of a tweet.
We have to be very fast and competitive to keep up with the speed
of the communication and information of our day.
Generations succeed each other, but take care, the following ones
may not always be alike.
Values change also, as do the methods of working.
As an employer, one must make a point of understanding these realities,
acting in such a way that the employees feel stimulated and valued in their work.
We must innovate in our method of working,
and above all... listen.
The entrepreneurial challenge must be present in all circumstances.
Why? Because it feeds ideas.
Be a model for your employees, and for your children,
then for everyone you come in contact with.
Becoming an excellent boss is like becoming a parent.
It's a daily and permanent apprenticeship,
even if some people have more innate talent
for becoming good parents or leaders.
We're not born as leaders, we become leaders in time.
So work every day to improve the qualities that I'll list for you,
and surely, sooner or later,
your team and your family will give you fantastic results.
1: Establish and clearly communicate your goals.
2: Tell the reasons why you want to reach these goals; be transparent,
in the way you live and communicate.
3: Use retroactive communication.
That means, always ensure what you said was understood the way that you meant it.
4: Be a model by your actions.
Your actions must agree with your words.
It's a fine entrepreneurial challenge to take up every day,
and it's a fine challenge for parents to take up every day.
To become the technology leader is another significant challenge that we must face.
[Becoming an entrepreneur = becoming a parent]
[What technologies are in that?]
Look at this image; it speaks volumes, doesn't it?
My first reaction is that technology is now acquired shortly after birth;
it has almost become a basic toy.
The second thought creates a little wave of panic inside me when I see that image.
Individualism.
That tells me that now, it's hard
to look at an iPad and communicate at the same time.
Our current challenge is to cohabit with technology
so that it becomes a tool for performance and advancement.
It shouldn't remove the fact that we're first and foremost human beings.
Accessibility and speed are the watchwords,
so look out, if you're not efficient!
You will be pointed out on social media.
Do we want to be like Obelix and Asterix,
and live on our reservation like the ancient Gauls?
[The future of our region]
Or do we dare to change?
To advance socially and technologically
To allow future generations to understand that we're all in the same boat?
Businessmen, young entrepreneurs,
ambitious people, take a chance!
Never be afraid of what's in your head;
you create your own fear.
I'll close by saying,
"You have to go confidently in the direction of your dreams,
and live the life you've ever imagined."
Thanks very much for your attention,
and always remember that you are proactive.
Thank you.
(Applause)