>>Beau Lotto: I want to ask how many of you think that when you woke up this morning,
you saw the world as it really is.
Especially, it sounds like, after last night's party.
No one thinks they saw the world as it really is?
Do you ever think, when you open your eyes, you see the world as it really is?
What do you see?
So we have one realist, right?
Is anyone -- okay.
We're going to do a quick demonstration to show you, right?
I want you to look at this diamond and I want you to -- most of you probably see it spinning
from left to right, okay?
Is that what everyone sees?
Yeah.
I want you to look at it differently.
I want you to imagine it differently.
Blur your eyes, looking around it.
At some point, it will flip and go in the opposite direction.
Has anybody been able to get it to flip?
Put your hands up so I can see.
If I tell you it's an IQ test, does that help?
[ Laughter ] >>Beau Lotto: "Oh, yeah, I see it," right?
This sets the stage for what our principle aim of this talk is.
In fact, it's the aim in all our talks.
It is that we want you to know less at the end than you think you know now.
Right?
And we always succeed -- [ Laughter ]
>>Beau Lotto: -- right?
So what is it that we want you to question?
We want you to question what we think the aim of education actually is.
What is the aim of education?
To learn how to find the right answer.
Surely that's what education is about.
Which is why education focuses on the process.
If you think of the science education, we focus on the methods section of a paper.
We teach children how to run an experiment, right?
As if that is actually what science education -- that's what science is, in fact, about.
This aim and focus on process and on answers is also the same focus of business.
All right?
And we want to challenge that idea.
Rather than answers being the future focus, we think questions are the future focus.
>>Isabel Behncke Izquierdo: Our world has changed and it will continue to change and
change.
Some of it in ways that we can see, but crucially in ways that we cannot yet imagine.
For example, did you know...
[ Music ] [ Video starts ]
[ Music ] >>Isabel Behncke Izquierdo: Because our world
is inherently and ever-more rapidly changing is because -- is why we need to shift our
focus to adaptability.
New worlds require new ways of being.
And what is it to be adaptable, to be able to change and thrive in a new context?
>>Beau Lotto: So what is at the heart of adaptability?
In fact, it is the heart of the creativity.
It is the basis of innovation itself.
And everything begins in the same way with changing perceptions.
Everything begins with perception.
What you know, what you think, what you believe, the clothes you wear, who you fall in love
with, everything begins with perception.
So when you open your eyes, what do you actually perceive, right?
One of you thinks that you see the world as it really is.
What is it that you're actually seeing?
To demonstrate this, I just want to play the game.
And the game is you have to read what you see, okay?
We are going to do it all together.
I'm going to count you in, all right?
So one, two, three.
>>> Can you read this?
>>Beau Lotto: Brilliant.
One more time.
One, two, three.
>>> You are not reading this.
>>Beau Lotto: It is like in school, right?
One, two, three.
If you are Portuguese?
One, two, three.
(Speakers off microphone.)
>>Beau Lotto: So you all failed, right, because I said, "Read what you are seeing."
And that says (sound effects).
Right?
There are no words there.
And, yet, you put an "H" between the "W" and the "A" to make "what"?
Why?
Because your brain is actually encoded with statistics of correlating letters in the English
language.
So when you're provided with that context, your brain fills it in according to what has
been useful before.
What is true for language is even true for the simplest thing that the brain does, which
is seeing likeness.
So what do we perceive when we open our eyes?
We don't see the world as it really is.
We don't see information because information is inherently meaningless.
We only ever see meaning of relationships.
It is that meaning that we literally see.
So, again, to show you the case of color, I want you to keep track -- just keep your
eye on this particular square (indicating).
You will see four gray tiles on the left, seven gray tiles on the right.
Yes, they're all gray.
Agreed?
Now, I'm not going to change those tiles at all.
All I'm going to do is change their meaning and see what happens to your perception.
And just keep your eye on that tile.
It's not going to change.
What do you see?
Do you see four blue tiles on the left?
Yeah?
Seven yellow tiles on the right?
Okay.
Do you see these four tiles as blue?
And you see seven yellow tiles?
Yes?
You don't see any gray tiles.
Those blue tiles and yellow tiles are physically the same.
This is your perceptual reality.
The previous side is your physical reality.
What you're seeing is the meaning of those tiles, what it would have meant for your brain
in the past.
So when it comes to perception, we're just like this frog, right?
The frog is getting information.
[ Video playing ] [ Laughter ]
>>Beau Lotto: It is generating behavior in a way that was useful and it is doing pretty
well, yes?
[ Laughter ] [ Video ends ]
>>Beau Lotto: I have seen that so many times.
I love that video.
Right?
And when things don't go our way, we get a bit annoyed, okay?
Now, some of you are probably thinking, "No, I'm not like a frog," right?
So we're going to do another experiment, and I'm going to show you two shapes, all right?
You have never seen these shapes before.
These shapes do not have names, agreed?
Okay.
I'm going to show you two sounds, two words, that you've also never seen before.
They have no meaning.
The first one is KiKi.
The next one is BuBu.
Now, you independent, free-thinking individuals have to decide which of these shapes is KiKi
and which of these shapes is BuBu.
Now, be independent, be creative.
Now, how many people say the sharp shape is KiKi?
Yeah.
And how many people think the round shape is BuBu?
Yeah.
Just like 95% of the population around the world.
All right?
So this creates a huge problem because how if what I see is grounded in my history of
what I've done before, how can I ever see differently?
How can I ever step outside that experience and see the world in a new way?
Well, all perceptions begin the same way, with a question.
Everything begins with a question, right?
The problem is questions create uncertainty, and we hate uncertainty.
If you're not sure there is a predator, it's too late.
Seasickness is a consequence of uncertainty.
When you go down below in a boat, your eyes are telling you are standing still.
Your ears are telling you, you are moving.
And your brain cant' deal with that conflict, and it literally gets ill.
We hate it, right?
What's more, the most important questions, the questions that challenge our preconceptions
of what we thought to be true already are the most interesting.
That's where we get paradigm shifts.
They are also the ones that create the most uncertainty.
So asking a question is incredibly scary.
It is fearful, right?
It is risky.
>>Isabel Behncke Izquierdo: So how do we deal with the fear and stress of uncertainty?
Fortunately, evolution has come with a solution to this, which actually also happens to be
the only human endeavor where uncertainty is actually celebrated.
It makes it fun.
It makes you want it, not fear it.
So think about it.
The whole point of a joke is not knowing the punch line.
Why again it is exciting is because you don't know how it will end.
And that solution is play.
And, for example, in uncertain environments in nature, the animals that are most intelligent
and socially sophisticated are also the ones who are more adaptable and crucially the ones
who are more playful.
Well, now notably, playful throughout their lives, playful as adults, i.e. retaining life-long
curiosity, creativity and brain plasticity.
Now, evolution's solution to uncertainty, play is better understood as a way of being:
A way of being that celebrates uncertainty, a way of being that encourages diversity.
Therefore, leading to creativity because it enables you to challenge your assumptions.
Play is a way of being that is open to possibility.
If we want to imagine and -- imagine a generation tomorrow, we will need the playful exploration
-- playful exploration and curiosity.
Play is a way of being that is cooperative.
It's cooperative in fun ways.
It underpins social bonding and underpins the mechanisms that keep societies and communities
cohesive.
It's a way of being that is intrinsically motivated.
This means that the motivation to play comes from within.
This is crucial for education.
And I am going to show you a couple of examples.
This is a young female called Fuku (phonetic), a bonobo.
She is playing with the water on her own.
There is no external goal.
The activity is done for its own sake.
She is not being paid to do this.
She wants to.
Now I will show you how strong the innate motivation to play can be.
Watch the guy on the right.
He really wants to play, but the guy on the left doesn't want to play.
He's serious.
He wants to eat.
But he really wants it so much that he will continue to try.
The guy on the left is wanting to eat.
He's trying to get roots.
The guy on the right knows where to position himself.
[ Laughter ] >>Isabel Behncke Izquierdo: And continues
to try even in the face of adversity.
So imagine you challenge this force into kids wanting to learn and ask questions by themselves.
You can do it for free.
Now, it is not so simple to create these kinds of safe environments because fear and stress
are the most powerful enemies of play.
So what do we do?
Fortunately, trust is a powerful antidote to fear and stress.
I will show you a little example.
Here you will see a female that, if I may say so, literally has this male by the balls.
Only that he appears to enjoy it.
This is a very serious point because male's genitals are the most vulnerable part of the
body, so he is offering this vulnerable part and the female is not ripping him apart.
So play creates trust.
So play requires trust, of course, but it also creates it, which means that in order
-- I mean, and in a nutshell, in order to create these safe environments, we need to
play.
>>Beau Lotto: So just to conclude then, the current focus of education is on efficiency.
That's actually the current the focus of businesses.
The most successful businesses we assume are the most efficient.
We suggest that the future focus of education and of business is being adaptable.
How do we become adaptable?
It's through asking questions.
How do we create an environment that enables people to ask questions?
There is only one human endeavor where that is possible, and that is through play.
Play is a way of being.
And just to finish off here...
>>Isabel Behncke Izquierdo: Here I will show you a problem of learning, how to step into
uncertainty.
This puppy has never gone down the stairs.
So how to lead others into venturing to the unknown.
There are two approaches to this problem.
And I will let you to decide which one is the one your company takes.
So watch closely.
[ Video playing ] >>> Come on.
[ Music ] >>> Good girl.
Yay!
[ Video ends ] >>Isabel Behncke Izquierdo: So that was one.
This is the second one.
Do notice how the kitten looks for reassurance before stepping into uncertainty?
[ Video playing ] [ Laughter ]
>>Isabel Behncke Izquierdo: It's crushed.
[ Laughter ] >>Isabel Behncke Izquierdo: So what is to
be a good leader in education or, indeed, any other endeavor?
We suggest that it has to do with your ability to create the safe environments where others
can ask new questions.
It has to do with your ability to lead others into uncertainty.
So many thanks.
[ Applause ]