Late November in Luxembourg. I am attending a conference on Inquiry-based learning in the school auditorium. Today's guest speaker is Yong Zhao and I am extremely intrigued by his stance about "the side effects of Education". I am deeply immersed in his speech and taking many notes on my laptop when one sentence suddenly makes me stop and pause:
"You have to use your uniqueness"
Yong was explaining that at the Age of abundance and AI, students -and adults?- needed to cultivate their uniqueness and use their strengths to create value for others. I thought about our students, my sons and myself and I wondered how you actually might be able to find out what your uniqueness truly is.
It seems that we can better and more accurately define our uniqueness if we have a life experience that offers a diversity of opportunities. Through these many diverse opportunities, we are able to sort and refine what really matters to us, what we are interested in and we think is worth spending time learning more about or getting better at.
When I look at my sons, this assumption makes total sense. Like many teenagers, they both find school fairly uninteresting and see in the succession of tests and exams the expression of the inevitable disconnect between educators/school and teenagers/real World.
In their spare time, they are both seeking their uniqueness through Music Production and Vlog creation. In a non-academic setting, not only they are engaged and curious, but they are constantly developing their skills, trying new things, making mistakes, solving problems, generating ideas and trying again. It took Léo a couple of weeks only to learn completely by himself how to use Logic Pro X and he now has created about 30 well-structured songs. Célyan started to explore and master Pages to design his first Youtube channel logo and spent time learning what he might be able to do with a GoPro. I am learning a lot by observing them at this critical time of their growth.
Excerpt of one of Léo's recent songs:
In my daily role as a Digital Learning Coach, I also encounter similar questions and challenges. How might I be able to empower students, parents and teachers so that new powerful learning experiences can be shaped?
It is a permanent challenge which highly depends on relationships, mindset and culture. As a lifelong learner, I feel grateful that I have had many opportunities to be exposed to or to think more in depth about various questions, wonderings and complex concepts, which have helped me define more precisely my core values, beliefs, interests and strengths.
As I am now moving to Vancouver in 2020 and because I am in the process of finding a new job in a new environment, I feel deeply in resonance with Yong Zhao's statement:
I too, more than ever, need to use my uniqueness.
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