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Comenius Lecture 2017 Saturday March 18, 2017, Grote Kerk, Naarden

Education from A to Better Moving towards a new education paradigm: educating to become citizens of one world. By Claire Boonstra Recently I was tidying up - which always proves to be a useful activity, as I rediscovered an essay that I had written when I was 17 and had totally forgotten about. In the essay I wrote about the multiple examples in my immediate environment, or of which I had read, of people who were somehow brilliant. But they didn’t have a nicely ‘rounded’ profile which made them “not fit in the system” and certainly not fit in the educational system. I ended the essay with the following words:

"It would be nice if every person could get an education which allows him to meet his own full potential. Maybe one day that will be possible if we gain more insight into the human psyche." My teacher gave me a 7.5 out of 10. His comment was priceless: “A pretty weak conclusion, such a noble wish, based on a lot of idealism but with very low sense of reality.”

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Through social media I managed to find him and reached out. He was always one of my top teachers. He happily accepted my invitation which lead to us having a great conversation about the structure of a good essay, about drawing a logical conclusion and truisms. I am very happy and proud that he is here today. Mr. Kees van de Wild, I am forever grateful to you - not only for being such a great teacher but also for giving me the best introduction to the topic I could ever wish for: after 25 years your conclusion is still what I often hear when talking about transforming education. Education however, was until recently not my work area at all. In my career I have worked with many different people in a wide variety of roles. I once was an employee in a call centre, worked with an archive company, was a show dancer in a ballet. I earned a Master of Science degree in Civil Engineering, worked as a manager at large companies such as KPN and Unilever and became a technology entrepreneur and co-founder of the Augmented Reality (AR) company Layar. You perhaps remember Layar as the mobile app which allowed you to see houses for sale while looking around you through your mobile phone. Later we further developed it into a platform for interactive print which allows you to enrich print media with digital content. In my life I worked with people of many different backgrounds, of different abilities - from disabled to world leaders, both here in The Netherlands and far abroad. In all these roles I gained a lot of experience with the effect of education and I have always questioned and challenged the way we have organized our systems for learning and development.

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Mission

It took me 20 years to I realize that I found my purpose, my mission in life, in exactly what I wrote in my essay. In September 2012, on the stage of the first "TEDxAmsterdamEducation" - a conference where changemakers meet - I shared my vision on learning, development and education. And I announced on stage, in tears, that I was leaving my tech company - my ‘baby’. "I have to do this," I said. And: "Please help me, because I don’t know anything of this to me new world of education". In the following months I literally received thousands of personal reactions from people saying: "Finally, somebody who thinks and feels the same as I do, I thought I was the only crazy fool alone calling in the desert. Can we please meet over coffee?”. I would have loved to be able to do so, but having all those people to only drink coffee with me would have been very inefficient. I wanted all these people, this energy, to come together... I started organizing meetings which marked the start of my organization "œ Operation Education”. Looking back it took us 4.5 years to start to understand the system: what are the forces that are influencing it, who is the system, which buttons to push. Characteristic in all conversations, especially when I talk to people as humans - not necessarily in their role as teacher, headmaster, politician, parent or student - but as a real human being, is that everyone somehow feels that the current system no longer corresponds to the demands of both the children and the education professionals. How the education system will or should look like exactly in the future, that is the big unknown. But it is very clear to the vast majority of people that it has to be different - so there is a point ‘B’ to where we all want to move, there is something Better. So what we do now as an organization is to help people move from A to Better in education. I'll take you along in my story on that trip from A to better.

A new world order

It has become clear to all of us over the last few months that a new world order is emerging. The Brexit, the election of Donald Trump, the rise of populism and China as a new world power, are landslides of a magnitude which I also hadn't seen coming. We all ask ourselves the questions: what's going on here? What should be done to improve the state of the world? Where to start? Last January, as one of the Young Global Leaders of the World Economic Forum (WEF), I was attending the WEF’s Annual Meeting of world leaders in Davos. The World Economic Forum has been struggling with the theme of Education for years - and is not on their priority list. However, at the last “Annual Summit” in Davos, in pretty much every session, Education came up as a - or even the - priority. How to deal with the consequences of the 4th industrial revolution? Education and lifelong learning. How do we ensure that people live healthier? Start in education. Populism? Education. Let me give you some more reasons why we all have to put education high on our priority lists.

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For decades, technological developments have followed Moore's law, which describes the development of processing power of computers, robots and artificial intelligence. Over the past decades, this processing power has doubled every 18 -24 months - at the same price. The development still follows this exponential curve - but people tend to think linear. And those who think that Moore's law is at the end of its service life, I’d like to draw your attention to the rise of the Quantum computer which will bring the speed of development up to another level. The interesting thing is that all these technologies also cross-fertilize each other - we are currently experiencing a whirlwind of developments in robotics, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, biotechnology, DNA sequencing, solar cell technology and so on. But the reaction of people seems to be a bit in line with the moments before the big tsunami in South-East Asia in 2004, which you might have seen in videos: "Look at how that water is moving away, how interesting to see the coral, how funny, there is a big wave coming.... " And then-WHAM! The wave hits. If all those robots, computers and artificial intelligence are going to play such an important role in our lives – what remains for us as human beings? Exactly those qualities that distinguish us as humans and as humanity from robots. An example: in my time at Layar we needed specialists in the field of Augmented Reality (AR). When we launched in 2009 no formal training or courses on AR existed. Now, almost 8 years later, there are still no formal courses or diplomas available for the field of Augmented Reality - while Pokémon Go has become a massive craze and many people in the Netherlands have had Augmented Reality dinosaurs walk through their room via the “Albert Heijn” Dino app. It is however quite understandable that no such training yet exists as it takes at least four to five years for a new (higher education) course to be established and accredited. Add up another five years of study - which brings us ten years further. Enough to see the field change dramatically or even become obsolete in the meantime.

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intuition creativity cooperation

leadership entrepreneurship

identity critical thinking expression imagination

culture flexibility

inventiveness charisma

21st century skills? So what were we looking for at Layar? We were looking for people with skills that cannot be replaced by robots, computers or artificial intelligence. We needed people with the power of imagination, who are able to see a completely new world in front of them. People with creativity, truly being able to create a new world. People who are very flexible because from one day to the next, our reality could change - and it did multiple times. We needed people who were able to navigate on their own intuition because no management book appeared to be valid in the completely new world we were dealing with. We needed people who could think critically, work well together, being both entrepreneurial and inventive. Some recognize in this list some of the so-called "21st century skills". But one could just as well argue these are the 4th century BC skills, because precisely those qualities have enabled us as humanity to progress. What would happen if we would prioritize the development of these human capacities in our education system?

Life expectancy

Another aspect is that we live longer than ever. According to various reports, the average life expectancy of children who are born in this part of the world today, is already one hundred years. What does it mean to live one hundred years in a rapidly changing society? What is really important to learn? Let's look at the other side of that one hundred-year existence. The Australian palliative nurse Bronnie Ware, who took care of elderly people in the final phase of their lives, wrote a famous book titled "The top 5 regrets of the dying". This is the top 5: 1. I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me. 2. I wish I hadn't worked so hard. 3. I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings. 4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends. 5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.

We all know this. This is the subject of just about any motivation guru, any self-help book and nearly each TED-talk. What would happen if we would organize our education such that people at the end of their lives no longer feel this regret?

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A new paradigm for education

It is clear: there is a need for a new framework, a new paradigm for education and lifelong learning. On two levels:

1) How do we determine and measure success, quality and accountability: what is "good"? [the ‘why’, purpose]

2) How we organize and design education, including its infrastructure [the ‘what’ and ‘how’] Let's start at the first level: what is success and quality? When have we done well? Underneath this question lies the single most important question of all: what is the purpose of education? What do we educate for? And related to this are questions specific to your role. As a parent: what do I want for my children? And as professional: what makes me get out of bed every morning? This question should keep us busy - if not daily then at least regularly. What else do we base our decisions on? How else do we determine what is 'good'? Interestingly enough there is no widely accepted answer to this question. So based on what do we spend the money? There is no clear answer if you call the Ministry of Education or ask political parties. Most schools do not have a clear answer that is supported by or known with the whole team. But when I talk with people as individuals, as humans, there seems to be a strong agreement - a universal sense of ‘knowing’. I’m curious to learn your answer to this question. Let me give you two options. The purpose of education is:

A : high scores, high diplomas, high rankings, high economic value.

B : unleashing each person’s own, unique and infinit e potential and learn how to make

it of lifelong value and contribute to a better soc iety: more peaceful, healthier, happier and more sustainable. Who of you feels their personal answer is closest to option A, higher is better? And option B, unique potential for a better world? No matter my audience - irrespective of background, geography or role - here (in The Netherlands) about 0-5% chooses option A; 95-100% agrees that the purpose of education should be B. Some say even to me: “That’s not fair - because you cannot disagree with option B of course.” AHA! That's interesting! If we cannot disagree with option B, let's agree with it. But now comes the interesting part: who of you experiences that option B is what you desire, but your everyday actions are in line with option A - for example in guiding your children, in what

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you're aiming for, in how we judge quality? About 70-80% shows their hand with this one, somewhat hesitating and with some shame. This is also fully in line with what I experience everywhere: we agree with option B but we act in line with option A. There is a huge disconnect, a large gap, not only in society, but also in ourselves. We feel, find and often know deep inside of us what is good, but we act differently.

It is our task to become aware of this disconnect - to ‘mind the gap’, and then to ‘close the gap’: to bring our actions in line with what we feel, find and know what is the right thing to do. We have to start our own journeys moving from A to Better. Let’s now dive a bit deeper into point B - what we feel is “Better”.

School values compass A group of educators developed a School Values Compass, as a selection tool for different types of education. They distinguish four different quadrants, divided by two axes. The vertical axis is the purpose of education, with at the bottom the 'collective target' as the purpose of the school - in this case: doing well on standardized tests and passing central exams. On top is the personal development as the purpose of the school. The horizontal axis is the relationship-axis , with on the left the top-down hierarchical approach, and on the right working together, next to each other on a basis of equivalence. Traditional education (in blue, collective & top-down) and especially the way we held schools accountable is the blue quadrant at the bottom left. Around the world and also in the Netherlands, some schools exist on the top right yellow corner (personal & equivalence), like for example Democratic or Sudbury Valley schools. They are schools that usually encounter a lot of resistance because they are very different from what people see as being “proper” education.

Our behaviour What is good

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This compass includes a questionnaire which enables you to map yourself on the compass based on your personal answers to certain theses. The interesting thing is that, when people - also education professionals - fill in this questionnaire, they put themselves in the yellow top right quadrant in their “wish”-situation: focus on personal development on the basis of equality. But when asked: what do you do in practice, they put themselves in the blue bottom left: aiming for good exam results in a hierarchical setting.

This proves to be another example of the disconnect between desire and action. I can imagine that this is one of the main reasons behind the large percentage of burnouts and dropouts with teachers. It must be a horrible experience if you want to offer personal attention and closely cooperate with your students in their development - but feel that in practice you have no other choice than just to follow methods and act according to ‘how things simply work over here’.

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The blue bottom left quadrant is in line with answer A, the top right in line with answer B. Again, the question is: How do we move from A to B? First, let's take a deeper look into A.

Keep the 'good ' I often hear: “Yes, Claire, it all sounds nice and idealistic what you are telling us, but let's not throw everything on its head - above all, let us keep what is good”, “Let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater”, and "Experimenting with children is simply unacceptable.” All these statements imply that what we currently do in education is supported by sound and substantial evidence. I decided to investigate exactly this. Because interestingly enough, if we draw ourselves a mental image of what ‘education’ looks like - we somehow always see in front of us the same image of a school building, a classroom full of children, a teacher in front of the classroom, a lesson plan, and groups based on birth year. But why do we actually do it this way? Have you ever asked yourself that question?

Education questions - questioning education

Why do we actually have long summer vacations? Why centralized and standardized exams? Why classrooms? Why 10-minute parent-teacher meetings? Why do lessons take 50 minutes? Why do students need to sit still? Why should children learn to write in cursive? Why is there a split between primary and secondary education? Why do we give grades? Why homework? Why do some students need to repeat a full year? Why does school start at 8.30? Why are schools in the Netherlands classified according to religious beliefs? Why is there an average? Why are students ranked in higher versus lower? Why standardization? Why, why, why? In a project named #Educationquestions (in Dutch: #Onderwijsvragen) we at œ Operation Education are very systematically questioning the current habits of our education system, following a set format. First of all we always examine the history. How did it end up this way? Researching the history of a certain education habit happened to be a very interesting, informative and sometimes also entertaining activity - as it looks like the creation of our education practices often happens to be a matter of coincidence: the “right” person spreading the “right” ideas which land in a fertile context or zeitgeist. Or there simply happens to be no clear reason why things are this way. Next topic is the examination of advantages and disadvantages - we tried to look at all topics from as many different perspectives as possible, and were seeking solid scientific substantiation of the advantages and disadvantages. And finally we looked at the alternatives: how can it be done differently, is it possible to create something else which has all the advantages but without the disadvantages? We have a bi-weekly show with this format on BNR News radio, one of the leading Dutch radio

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channels. So far, we have been researching all the the questions I mentioned - and many more are still to follow. The radio show is only a few minutes, but we publish a solid dossier of each question on our website. You can find them all on our website, only in Dutch for now: http://operation.education/onderwijsvragen Let’s first discuss one of the questions - followed by five remarkable conclusions on the questions we have researched so far.

Question: why do we have long summer holidays?

Long summer holidays have their origin in so-called “agricultural leave”: children (in the Netherlands) had the right to spend up to 6 weeks to help their parents on the farm. Only a very small group of children still need to help their parents when farming. Another reason is that education used to be reserved for the elite who had their summer houses, where they would spend two to three months in summer. Even though both reasons don’t apply anymore to today’s society, having long summer holidays is still a deeply rooted habit. Long holidays do have benefits. I find it wonderful to be out and about with our family each summer. We have three young children aged 8, 5 and 3 years - and it is such a pleasure to be able to immerse ourselves in another culture, to experience many adventures - and to recharge our internal battery.... Which of course leads to the question: how come our batteries are drained? But that's another discussion. Now the drawbacks. It is interesting to observe that certain habits in education affect society as a whole. Thanks to our long summer vacations, for example, people talk of a ‘gooseberry season’ (called “komkommertijd” -‘cucumber time’- in Dutch), in which very little happens. Fixed holidays create a high season and low season. Traveling during high season is twice as expensive as in low season. New holiday accommodation is still being built to meet peak demand during the high season, while being empty in the low season - creating additional pressure on our ecosystems. We stand in traffic jams on “Black Saturday”, and so on. But when specifically looking at learning, much research has been done - which shows a stagnation or even decline in learning outcomes during summer holidays, as measured by standardized tests in scenario "A". This stagnation is called the "summer learning loss”. But here it comes: the summer learning loss is largest with children from a lower socio-economic status. In other words: long summer vacations contribute to increasing inequality. Is that what we want? Shouldn’t we discuss this with each other? Can it be done differently? Yes: year-round schools (which also exist in the Netherlands) are open 50 or even 52 weeks per year from 7am to 7pm. These schools have pretty much released the traditional setting, as such a setup can of course not be done when you hold on to fixed year classes and standardized teaching and testing. But it can be done differently. At the time of writing, we have worked out 18 of these education questions. Let me share with you five remarkable conclusions from this first series of questions.

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Conclusion 1: no evidence

It turns out that there is little or in some cases no evidence that our habits in education are in line with what is “good” for learners and for society. We really tried to find evidence, we have been digging deep into the advantages and research. Together with the team of œ Operation Education and our followers we approached many renowned education scientists. A lot of educational research is being carried out, but it gives no reliable substantiation that what we do in education is also the right or the best thing to do for individuals and for society. Even if we kept option ‘A’ in our minds as the purpose of education. Striking.

Conclusion 2: sometimes it’s bad

Indeed, in some cases there is even a lot of evidence that says that the status quo is harmful. For example, the phenomenon of grade retention or repetition, redoing a year. As many as 45% of all pupils in The Netherlands who pass their high school exams and earn a diploma – dropouts not taken into account – have ever had to deal with grade retention. 9% of all pupils even have two years or more delay. The large amounts of studies that have been carried out on this topic are aligned in their conclusion that grade retention in the long term is ineffective. It makes no sense to repeat what didn’t work in the first year - and the students experience a delay which they never catch up on. In addition, it is also very very expensive. Grade retention in The Netherlands, according to the Dutch Central Planning Bureau (CPB), costs society as much as 500 million euro in direct costs per year.

Conclusion 3: increasing inequality

A third conclusion is that some education habits turn out to contribute to increasing inequality. I already mentioned the summer vacations, but also having homework and centralized exams - even though created as an equalizer - have negative side-effects which contribute to increasing inequality. This is due to the surge in commercial institutes that help students do well on their homework and in preparation of exams and standardized tests. The services of such commercial institutes are sometimes even by default selected by schools: “This year we cooperate with agency XYZ for our exam trainings”. But that extra support is expensive and by far not everyone can afford that. Can this be changed?

Conclusion 4: yes, we can But now the good news: yes, it can be done differently. It can even be radically different within the legal limits of the current system; and wíth the agreement of the education inspection. The Netherlands has quite a few schools that prove that going radical is possible - and on top of that there is an overwhelming amount of schools that prove that things can be at least a little different and better - according to students, parents, teachers ánd the inspection.

Conclusion 5: it is hard

However, what any innovative school recognizes, and what everyone reading this will recognize: it is incredibly difficult to get the system out of ourselves. We grew up in it, we were

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educated, schooled and trained in it, and most of us work in it. It gives us a sense of security, safety and control. Which is why I am still digging deeper into the roots of our system - and I found some pieces of the puzzle which helped me better understand how it all happened. Maybe the insights help you to get let go of the system - at least a little bit. Please meet the three men who have given us the system we know today:

1. Mr. Average 2. Mr. Higher versus Lower 3. Mr. Standardization

Mr. Average: Adolphe Quetelet

Quetelet (1796-1874) was a Belgian astronomer, mathematician, statistician and sociologist and the inventor of statistics and of the principle of the average human being. He threw all measurement results on one big pile and divided it by the number of measurements. He gave birth to the normal distribution:

The normal distribution describes what is normal. It has a mean (average) and a standard deviation: a measurement of how much you deviate from what is “standard”. An example: the average age at which a child learns to read is six years. But some children already learn how to read at age four. They are being labeled as "gifted". But on the other side of the spectrum, at the same distance from the average, are the children who learn to read only at eight years of

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age. They usually receive “remedial teaching” to get them back into to the average range. Quetelet saw the average as the ideal image created by God, as the ideal human being. We still live in a world in which people who deviate from the average range are seen as anomaly, an aberrance - and are being labeled with a 'disorder': Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD), Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). However, I know multiple adults who we would call very successful and valuable as society today, but who as children only learned to read at age 10 or even 12. Their teachers concluded at the time that they 'were simply busy with something else’. Will we still allow this? And to what extent are people actually average? Let me take you to the 1950s, to the United States (US) Air Force. They had at that time state-of-the-art aircraft, but they crashed too often. "Pilot induced problems" was indicated as the reason - the pilot was to blame. The cockpits were dimensioned to the perfectly average pilot. Which is not very such a strange idea since at recruitment some kind of “natural selection” takes place: one would typically hire fit, athletic people - and no midgets or fatties - to become fighter pilots. However, one researcher decided to examine the percentage of these 4063 pilots who would fit within the 30% average range on 10 dimensions, such as length, shoulder width, hip size, arm length etc. Which percentage of the pilots would you think would fit into the 30% average range on these 10 dimensions? What would you guess: 80 percent? 60 percent? The answer is: zero. None of the pilots fell within the 30% average range on all ten dimensions. Even if only three dimensions were taken into account, only 3.5% of all pilots would fit within the 30%average range. In other words: no one fits, on all dimensions, within the average range. We all know this. Because if we look at humans, at individuals, we know very well that there is a huge, maybe even infinite spectrum of different talents, motivations, abilities and personalities that people naturally have. And they change or develop over the course of life. On the other hand, there is an infinitely large diversity in different ways in which someone can contribute, can be valuable, to society. But what we do today in our systems is to place a very narrow funnel between these two infinitely large worlds - and only those capacities focused on giving the correct answer, in a few standardized tests, in a limited number of subjects, determine if you are "OK" or "not OK". I have a feeling we are selling ourselves short - as individuals, and as humanity.

Mr. Higher versus lower: Sir Francis Galton

Galton (1822-1911) built his ideas on the work of Quetelet. But where Quetelet saw the average as the ideal human being, Galton saw the average as mediocrity. He saw it as his holy task for mankind to raise as high as possible above average. He based his thinking on his cousin

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Darwin’s theories on natural selection and the principles of eugenetics, or improvement of the race. To prove the existence of his ranking, Galton developed new statistical methods, such as correlation - a technique which allowed him to judge the relationship between class or rank and various characteristics. Also his thinking is well reflected in our systems today. Only the top 20% pupils are allowed into the highest secondary school type in the Netherlands: VWO. Many companies still use a stack ranking of all employees - the upper 20% in the ranking gets a promotion and the bottom 20% is fired. This system already starts at a very young age. Even the report card of our own young children already shows how well they do relative to the average child. They are already a dot on a line. It really hurts to know that the bottom 50% already at this age (5 years!!) gets to see and hear: “Sorry, your child performs below average. It's not good enough.” Regardless of the growth and development that the child has experienced over the past year, the child has already been given a label - at this age. What is the effect on later life?

Because that's what we do: at one point, and certainly at the transition from primary to secondary education, we reduce the full spectrum of what - and who - you are as a human being, and where you as a teacher put so much effort in, into one datapoint on a line. The position of the spot on the line determines where you are classified: higher or lower. And the

Lower

Higher

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meaning we give to it is: superior or inferior. Let's put ourselves in the shoes of those people who always dangled down those lists and always hear: “I’m sorry to say - but your work attitude is not good, you just don’t have it, it’s not good enough.” What does that do to your psyche, to your attitude and your motivation? And on the other hand we say to people: 'You are really good. You’ll get there.' What will the effect be on people who continuously hear they are 'superior'? Could we perhaps draw a parallel with what is currently happening in society? And do we really believe that people with a 'higher' education, a 'higher' status and 'higher' positions are more valuable to society than people with a ‘lower’ training and in ‘lower’ jobs - people who can help build, repair, and take care? No, right? But why do we still do it this way?

Diversity

I went looking for what factors do determine or predict value and success. Time and again the same four factors pop up: the level of diversity, uniqueness, complexity and proximity. Uniqueness is how unique you are, complexity is how hard it is to copy that. The more different, unique and complex industries you have in a country or city or region and the more they can cross-fertilize each other, the stronger the economy. This also works in nature. We already know for a long time: the more diverse the ecosystem, the stronger it is. Of course there is 'survival of the fittest' and 'alpha-males'. But they exist thanks to the almost infinite network of smaller animal species, micro-organisms, fungi and algae. I dare say that this principle also applies for people. What would happen if we would make diversity, uniqueness, complexity and proximity more important in the way we educate people?

Mr. Standardization: Fredric Winslow Taylor

We all have heard of Taylor (1856-1915). Building on the work of Galton and Quetelet he created the hierarchy: those who scored higher were classified among the thinkers and managers, and the lower scoring ones became the doers, which were demanded to perform tasks according to fully standardized processes.

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So what else do you recognize in this picture? How about the phone tree which you might remember from the pre-digital ages when your Sunday morning football match was cancelled due to bad weather and everyone had to be informed in an efficient way: from top to bottom. Taylor joyfully noticed that - thanks to this way of thinking - finally the influence of humans with their unpredictable and irrational behaviour could be 'disabled' and now finally the systems could take over. Hierarchies and standardization provided us for a long period with prosperity and unprecedented economic growth. But at what cost? And does this structure work well under all circumstances?

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Let me draw you two different scenarios, for two different types of organizations. On one side is the circumstance in which few changes happen and in which things are predictable, option A. On the other side is option B: a high probability of changes, and in which you act in a completely unpredictable world: in the unknown unknown. Option A allows you to work with Key Performance indicators (KPIs), budgets and analyses. You can make plans, execute them and then optimize. This scenario is called Exploit and it demands excellent Management.

Situation B however, operating in very rapidly changing contexts and operating in the unknown unknown, cannot be anticipated on, cannot be trained for, budgeted, and so on. What works in B, and which has been proven time and time again, is that you first of all need a very high degree of diversity (!), and many different perspectives that allow you to assess the situation.

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With the insights from all these different perspectives in mind, one should start to explore, experiment, make new inventions, in which you invest and then apply. Based on what works and what doesn’t work, you select and (re)iterate. This scenario is called “Explore” and needs masterful leadership. Which has nothing to do with playing the boss. Most people recognize this. Society is increasingly in line with scenario B - but our systems have moved even more towards A. We try to get rid of uncertainty, we want more controls, more accountability, more tick boxes just to be sure we can show that we are not to blame, that we did the right things - better said: that we did the things right.

A is a fixed point, a clear and measurable result; B is about continuous improvement, hence "Better". It struck me to experience that all organizations who do well, who score high in employee and customer satisfaction, who I would recommend or would love to be connected with, inside and outside education, are all "type B" organizations. The question is: How do we move from A to Better, how do we turn school leaders, teachers, pupils, learners, into educational leaders?

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How to move from A to Better? I hope that this story has helped you to become aware of the gap between A and Better, in society and possibly also in yourself. Once we have started to ‘mind the gap’, the question follows: how to close this gap? How can we bring our own actions in line with what we stand for? Because this is key: the system, that's us. Our education system is not about the Minister, the education inspection or our laws. It's about us. Anyone who makes decisions, influences that system with his or her choices. So we can move the system, if we close the gap between A and B. Systems change is about parents who dare to follow their hearts when choosing the school where their child can flourish - instead of to be prepped for high scores. This is about school leaders who have the guts to become changemakers, who put trust and confidence back in their teams. This is about teachers who see every student for who they truly are, who help them move beyond their comfort zone, to grow. Just like my teachers Ada Dragt and Klaas Sabel. Ada Dragt was not only a masterful teacher in Dutch (my mother tongue) but she was also able to see each student. Klaas Sabel directed the musical Grease for which I was given the extraordinary honour to play a leading role - I played Sandy - which for me, in a period of low self-confidence and bullying allowed me to shine and show to the world that I was more than just a well-behaved girl doing well on school subjects. This is ultimately what matters. Who am I in this world, and how do I relate to others.

The real essence It is striking that a book from the 1930s remains one of the most influential books in the world. It was written by Dale Carnegie and carries the title "How to win friends and influence people". A terrible title if you ask me but a particularly fascinating and instructive book I wished I could have learned from many, many years earlier. Carnegie looked for the characteristics and personality traits of people who are seen as very successful in the eyes of others. All such successful people appear to be very capable of dealing with others. They easily make friends and are able to influence others. They have internalized habits such as “Arouse in the other person an eager want.", "Talk in terms of the other person's interest." and "Try honestly to see things from the other person's point of view." Carnegie was looking for courses to learn these skills. They did not exist. Which is why he just started to develop them himself. He studied every single publication there was on the topic and bundled it into his book. It has already sold tens of millions of copies times and became the foundation of just about any personal effectiveness training and of each coaching program. The principles in the book are so striking, so timeless and answer such a great need, that I keep on wondering: aren’t these the most basic life lessons we should learn in school? Another level deeper lies the question: who am I? What is my unique place in this bigger

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picture? More than ever before, this is the question that keeps people busy. It is the life lesson, the single most important advice of just about any coach, any self-help book, every motivation guru: to be yourself. Become who you truly are. But how can you become who you are if you rarely - or never - at school are faced with the question "who am I?". It is of course a very difficult question. Because there is no 'good' or 'bad' answer. No higher or lower. No scores, and you can’t be judged upon it. But it is in my view the essence of today’s world, and of the underlying problem underneath issues such as populism and radicalization: people, anywhere in the world, want to simply matter, simply want to be seen for who they really are. We have to unleash what makes every person unique and special - and to acknowledge what makes us all the same: we are all human. We are all residents of our one little planet Earth. We somehow need to deal with each other. But how? How do we do that better? And what should we learn for that? 400 years ago, John Amos Comenius was thinking about exactly these issues - and today they are more timely than ever. It is important that we all, 400 years post the one person that has brought us together today, put ourselves forward as new Comeniuses. It is necessary to continuously have the conversation and dialogue with each other. It is necessary that we assist, facilitate, mandate and equip those who are shaping education in such a way that they are able to provide that education which is good for people, for the planet and for society. Education that enables every person to develop their full and unique potential, to develop your own humanity. Education that shows you how to contribute to a better society - more peaceful, happier, healthier and more sustainable - in your own and unique way. All this means a large transformation compared to how the world works today. I am the first to admit that transformations are painful. Each transformation means saying goodbye to something which was very familiar, comfortable, and which provided security, even though it may have been a false sense of security. For some the topic also touches something as deep and fundamental as your identity: our education has also made us who we became to be, and we turned out just fine, right? So why should we change? But let us look in the mirror every day and dig deep into what it really is what we want - for ourselves, for our children, for our world. And let us act upon it, with each other, little by little, step by step. Eventually all those small steps for man and women make one giant leap for mankind.