Transcriber: Min Hyun Oh Reviewer: Denise RQ
When I think of where innovation in education can take us,
I think of these astronauts.
They started off, out in space,
pointing first to their own countries.
And in a very short time, their awareness grew
to the Earth in its entirety.
In many ways, this is our journey.
We start off thinking about our own territories,
and our own circumstances,
and through education and an expansion of that vision,
our awareness grows.
And our boundaries can be broken.
And before I go more into the future and the present,
I want to tell you a true story from the past.
And this is the story of a young girl in the Middle East, around the 19 teens.
And she was from the kind of village where, if a little of her hair
showed through her scarf, or her eye caught the eye of a man
not in her family, she could loose her honor.
Where girls weren't allowed to go to school
and they met their husbands on their wedding night.
And this particular girl was quite feisty, known for her intelligence,
put her foot down and didn't get married
until a little later than a lot of the girls in her village.
So she was 15 on her wedding day,
and pleasantly surprised when she met her husband.
He was charming, he seemed respectful,
he was easy on the eyes,
and so life seemed to be starting off okay for her.
And a few months into their marriage,
she was expecting the first child.
And her husband who would travel outside the village and come back,
-- he would travel for his trade -- come back,
requested a meeting with her parents.
And the custom of the day was that she lived with her parents.
And he informed them that he wanted his young bride to be educated.
As the mother of his future children to be literate.
And this so scandalized the family that they kicked him out of the home.
They wanted to annul the marriage.
And they wanted her to abort the child who was fathered by someone
with such crazy tendencies.
And for the first time in her life, she disobeyed her parents
and escaped the home and found her husband in the nearby town.
And went ahead and had this child to her great risk and fear.
And that baby was born healthy -- little girl;
who grew up to be one of the prominent educators in Iran in the 20th century.
And that baby was my aunt.
And this young couple were my grandparents.
And I share this because their courage to break from the past
and their conviction to have provided an education for their girls and their boys
had such a profound impact and I stand before you today.
And some of the impact, just a generation or two
my parents and my generation,
these are some of the places where their children and grandchildren
have gone on to study and to lead.
And education and this vision of breaking down boundaries was the catalyst.
And I share the story not because we're so unique.
But because we live in these transformative times.
There are millions of stories similar where education served as the catalyst,
and people have broken down boundaries that were unimaginable.
And so for example, these kids that I've met that live
in a violent gang ridden neighborhood in Los Angeles,
their parents are Mexican migrant workers
gave me that presentation in Mandarin Chinese.
Or the mother that would've been burned alive
as a widow,
she's now an entreprenuer and her daughter will attend university.
Or even this power of information that we're all holding in the palm of our hands,
this was unimaginable to most of us about five years ago.
And now it's our new normal.
And so these, this is the story of our time.
And many of us, if we peel back our own stories of a generation or a two ago,
we realize how far we've come.
So I think the next step in this process is this challange
which I think we'll be hearing about all day
is this connection on the level of human relationships.
So we know we're more plugged in than we've ever been before.
But we're not necessarily more connected.
So what's the human element there? We are a global society.
what creates a global citizen as a part of that.
And I've been thinking about this issue a long time
and I was fortunate to grow up with this mind set of global citizenship.
And I had the opportunity with my children to spend a few months living in Gambia
West Africa a few years ago.
And I watched through the lens of my three daughters.
This experience of making lots of new friends, whose backgrounds were so different from theirs
and I stumbled on this quote: "Be a friend to the whole human race."
And when I thought about how am I gonna convey global citizenship to the people,
who if they see it on TV, they're gonna change the channel.
That's most of the people that I knew.
And I found that through this idea of friendship, which is so universal,
and I talk about this with a lot of difference audiences,
and I'll ask them: "What do you think of when you think of a good friend?"
And from kindergartners to corporate executives
of any religious background, of any cultural background,
no matter how much money they have, how much education they have,
the answers are pretty much the same.
And they come out and they tell me,
a good friend is someone who I trust,
who's kind to me, who cares about me,
who helps me out on a rough day,
they're there for me,
they're not judging me,
we have fun together.
So this is it... you get this idea.
And truly, when we look at what it takes to be a global citizen, it is a good friend.
To the whole world.
It's as simple as that.
And I think that also drives the qualities of success that we're looking for in this new economy.
The kind of person you wanna hire, the kind of person you wanna work with,
is adaptable and flexible to new ideas, they're kind to you, they're trustworthy,
they're responsible, they're hardworking
as well as adaptable to various circumstances and cultures
their sense of humor can cross lots of cultural boundaries.
They can communicate in a range of ways, in a range of ideas
that's the person that we wanna work with.
That's what we consider.
So a global citizen is also a model of who we're looking for in our workforce.
And that also informs our goals for 21st century education.
And I think we've been so narrowly focused on being competitive
that that's really holding us back from realizing this global citizenship.
So the measure of my child success is what selective college they got into,
and our nation looks at how competitive we are.
We're in a race to the top, it implies a zero sum game.
We win, they lose.
But we know we can be so much more than that.
And competition is okay, but it's one piece of a much bigger puzzle.
It's the person who's able to collaborate and compete and use that technology
in a way that's serving a greater good.
And that's how we engage them.
And that's how we're gonna solve the biggest problems vexing our planet.
Environmental, technological, health, wellness, conflict resolution, security.
Those are not solved by one competitive number one indivudual.
And I think it's our choice. We have to make a choice
how we shift in that mindset.
So when we see these images of these kids in a school in Beijing,
or these girls demanding democracy on Tahrir Square,
who happened to be wearing a hijab,
are we gonna look at them as the threat, as the competition,
or can we make that choice and shift that mindset
and think of their humanity and possibly see them as our friend?
As our partners and our collaborators, as possibly the colleagues of our children.
And this shift in mindset also requires a shift in the assumptions that we carry.
And I share this picture often when I'm speaking to these various aged audiences.
And I realize there are a lot of assumptions that they make.
And they share with me what they're seeing in the picture.
But I'll just share with you what's really going on here.
And so, this family -- we got to be quite good friends.
The father is a French teacher in the local school, and English is the official language there.
And he, like most members of his community, speaks about four languages.
And people notice, wow there's a lot of kids in that picture.
So four of the children are actually their children. When we asked to take --
I asked to take a family photo,
it was unheard of to not include those kinds that happened to be playing there.
And that really speaks to their sense of community and how these kids are taken care of.
And that's a whole conversation we can have with our kids
and how we take care of the children in our midst.
Sometimes they notice some of the kids' expressions on their faces don't seem very happy.
And so they can make lots of assumptions on what might be going on.
But in reality, just seconds before we snapped the photo,
they were jumping around laughing, playing, very happy.
And this is really demonstrating a very nuanced idea of respect.
It's a very sophisticated idea of what respect looks like.
They're not flashing their teeth and smiling at me, the foreign guest,
but they're standing in a respectful mode.
A lot of times the middle schoolers particularly will notice that Hot Wheels t-shirt
and they say: "I had that t-shirt!"
And in reality, so I say, "That might have been your t-shirt."
So where does your stuff end up? You know, that's something to think about.
And the reason I took the picture actually, was, if you see the boy in the red t-shirt,
he's holding a rooster.
And we were sitting over to the side on those little stools and having a conversation.
And this rooster was weaving in and out of where we were sitting, and it was striking.
Well, it was ruling the roost.
And it was this very plump, healthy rooster.
You don't see that sort of plump rooster there.
It had these beautiful black shining feathers, these turquoise tail feathers,
and I just commented once, "What a beautiful rooster."
And left it at that.
And we were getting ready to leave,and the wife whispered something to the husband
and he nods, and before I know it,
she thrust the rooster in my face. And I was just taken aback
and the person that was with me quickly switched form English to Wolof,
because that's what you do in a social setting,
and he explained to them, very respectfully
that we were honored by this gift, but we couldn't possibly take this.
We were not going home right away, we wouldn't be able to care for it.
So instead, could we take a picture of your family with the rooster?
And so that's how we ended up with the picture.
But the real reason I shared that with you is because after we left,
I was thinking about this gesture.
And just did a quick calculation of what it meant for them to offer this gift.
And it's about the same as if I met you today for the first time, and I comment on this car
that's parked outside your home and I say, "That's a really nice car."
And on the way out the door, you offer me the keys.
And that's unimaginable.
We have a lot more stuff to give away. But they gave it away.
So now when I see that picture, I don't see them as --
what assumption we might have been making as the people we should feel sorry for.
And as a charity case.
But really it's this space of dignity and it's this example of generosity
of overwhelming generosity.
And I think that this story of so much more going on in the picture.
And this ability to relate to them as their friends. And what we could learn from them.
Certainly their needs are still great. But there's so much more going on there.
Now that we can appreciate and I think how we start to make that shift
in mindset doesn't have to be so complicated.
We start with these really simple micro-steps.
We start with what we love, and it doesn't have to feel like homework.
So switching up our shopping list, inviting friends from the neighborhood to our kitchen table,
to share their life story, and their background, and just be their friend.
And it's fun and it's good for us.
The Thunderbird International Management School did a survey of their recent grads.
And they asked them "What were some
of the most beneficiary experiences to you in our top management program?"
And these were the ones who were successfully working in international jobs.
And they said it was the experience of sharing lunches with diverse classmates
in the cafeteria. So this idea of start with what you love.
So if you're a sport enthusiast, you can use that experience
of the sports that you love through so many ways.
You know, just the summary is "Find, follow, watch, give, learn, listen."
On so many levels through your favorite sport.
You can start with the Olympics and the World Cup.
But there are events happening all the time, all over the place, and often on basic cable.
A library card, or an Internet connection, can unlock new worlds for you.
So making that conscious decision of what you're gonna read,
what you're gonna listen to, what movie you're gonna show,
at movie night in your living room,
doesn't have to be so complicated.
But certainly that experience takes us some place new. And it's really simple.
It's really available.
And finally, I think all of these together help us connect the dots
on raising up these global citizens
that can use the technology that use what we're giving in the classroom.
But these are spurring this transformative effect.
It's a shift in mindset, and it's the little things we do.
But together, they can make a great change.
Thank you.
(Applause)