I must say, that is my first time in Taiwan. Actually, that is my first time in Asia
I'm really excited. I have only been here for two days but...
Before I speak I have got somethings importances to say.
This is ted, so they told me to be brief and to the point, concise.
So I promise, I'll as brief as possible no matter how long it takes.
I come from a conference that was held in Doha, Qatar
at the international education resource network summit
one of the most important conference in the work about education
and I' ve done in a couple of other times.
So successful running around the world everything was laid out for me.
I come from a small village in the north of Italy from a lower-middle-class family.
actually to be perfectly honest, to European standard, pretty poor family.
and if I look back my past I realize that very few would bet on me.
I was, you know, one of the losers.
I was kind of a nerd.
I am proud of it. It was fun.
But I mean, the school environment was really tough.
You have to fight your way out.
And as you can tell it is me right there the tough-looking one.
I was clearly the strongest and the biggest of the whole bunch.
when I was 14 I had to decide a high school to attend and my teacher, he said to my mom:" I' m sorry, but your son is no one of the smart kids. you know, kind of stupid."
He was asking a weird question.
you should just send him to work.
you know, don't bother to send hime to school.
Certainly, don't send him to xxx, the toughest school in the country.
So my parents have been obviously the awesome parents they are.
They didn't listen to the piles of nonsense.
And they send me precisely to the school that they said I'll never
be able to make it.
And two years later, I was given a chance.
I won a full scholarship for a very prestigious school.
Its mission was to make education a force to unite people,
nations and cultures for peace and a sustainable future.
Just like my previous school, the same thing.
Yes, I was kind of like that.
But this is my turning point.
In that school, I had amazing teachers. They were the best.
Because more than a teacher they were mentors.They were guides. and they were friends.
They told us that we could be everything we wanted. We could do anything in our lives.
If we believe that we can do it. If we had a plan and if we acted on it.
right and making peace on the earth was not a hipple dream it could have been a reality.
So that gave me the vision and strength to take on many challenges that have gone through my life.
It brought me where I am today.
If I'd listen to my teacher back in my previous school, I am probably sweeping the floor of the school by now.
But how many kids didn't have this opportunity?
It's nice to say the success story of one guy.
How many people are stuck in a small town with uninspired teachers, violent classmates and no hope on the horizon?
In the past of a couple of years, I traveled extensively in many countries many continents, schools, universities, fortune 500 companies.
And I can tell you that my story, actually is not my story.
It' s maybe your story, or maybe your story.
It' s story of thousands of people that I spoke to individually.
They came up to me and said I have the same things.
And there are just ones I spoke to in person.
It's probably millions of people or hundreds of millions of people.
This is a tragedy, right? Why is this happening?
And many people ask the question:" Are we preparing children for the uncertain future that lies ahead?"
But, before we can answer this question, I think we first must address two very important issues.
The first is do we ever know what we are looking for?
what is the purpose? What is education for?
Because if we don't agree with what education is for?
then we can never say we are doing a good or a pood job.
I am going to tell you what education was for.
Education was created for making factory workers.
See at the end of 18 century. The industrialization has the problem.
They really had a hard work time convincing people to leave the open fields and come to work at a factory with dark rooms, 10~12 hour a day, 10~12 hours a day, repeating the monotonous mindless task over and over, obey every order without ever questioning anything and complain about it.
I mean you can see why they trouble to find volunteers.
So they created something called public eductions where you have to follow orders never questions authority and do just what you're told.
Sit down and shut up until you are told to do otherwise. just obey orders.
We spent the first three years of our lives learning how to work and talk, kind of useful skills I would say.
and for the rest, we're told to sit down and shut up.
and yeah that sounds like a great idea I ganna do that.
just follow as exactly as instructed, never question authority.
I remember in the elementary school
one day the teacher told us that:" now children, whatever I ask I want you all answer at once.
See for the purpose of we set up out two hundred years of age
the education system is doing fine. In fact, It' s working perfectly.
creating, obedient workers.
That trouble is this approach is no longer useful.
It is never humane, to begin with,
but it was economically advantageous.
And now, it' s neither.
So Are we preparing children for the uncertain future that lies ahead?
The second problem is this: no matter what the supposed expert would like to tell you.
Believe me, there are many of them nobody really knows what the future is going to look like five years from now.
because they ware displaced by robotics and artificial intelligence five, ten or twenty years from now.
I hear that some guys who wrote a book about robots will steal your job.
we only know one thing for certain that the only constant is "change".
The change will always come, and most likely at increasing pace.
With this in mind, I think we must do three things.
First, we must prepare to accept change instead of fighting it.
I've been afraid of changes many times.
whatever I was afraid to do something, I don't want a change.
We live in a society that stigmatizes mistakes.
We' ve been living in where failure is not an option.
And that we should play safe. Study something that we would get you a safe job.
Work for a big company, look for stability.
But you see, in the future of greet uncertainty.
stability is the illusion of the unimaginative.
lifelong, I think we must move away from the idea that teaching is for adults, and learning is for kids. Learning is a lifelong experience.
In our strictly individualistic society.