The school of the future is already here today | Lorenzo Busi | TEDxMestre

In an era where information has become the main currency, and fast access to information has become a priority, new educational systems are being developed that use digital technologies to help young people falling back in love with culture, educate them to beauty and grow them as people that chase their dreams.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community.

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Less than a month ago,
the school year began.

Do you remember one
of your first days of school?

Meeting up with friends,

telling them how fine
your holidays have been -

good days, right?

Yet I'm sure, each and everyone of us,

regardless the generation -

mine, yours, your children's,
if you have them -

this thought dawned at least once
in each one of us.

[So lame, back to school again!]

(Laughter)

And who could blame us?
Three months of absolute freedom,

but with a background "bogeyman"
of September closing up,

then school comes back

and tons of homework, tests,
hours of study with it.

So lame.

So why does the school exist?

It's mandatory.

I don’t mean we have to abolish it,

absolutely,

but what's the real reason
for its existence?

We tipically answer
these questions like this:

to educate young people's social skills,

to get them ready for the labour world,

so they thrive as people.

How many times have we told them
to the children, youngsters?

A million, maybe a billion.

But do they believe it?

Just an example:

how many times have we all been forced

to study that "brick"
of history, philosophy, literature

cursing our own life and thinking:
"When will I ever need it?".

So, what we were used to do?

We looked for a distraction: watching TV;

maybe, in young ages,
going out to play with friends;

and growing up,

we would close the book,
dress up and go out.

The effort we put in closing the book,

dressing up, going out with friends,

has been minimized by today's youth
in a single movement.

This is not just
the modern symbol of sociality.

That's not my point today.

This tool can retrieve
every bit of human knowledge,

just by doing a research on Google.

But mostly, it is able to reproduce

something that books
will never be able to do,

like moving images, videos.

So the first cause of distraction
on young people nowadays

is actually YouTube.

YouTube has about 2 billion
active users every month,

and counting rapidly.

More than a billion hours
of video viewed per day.

It’s huge.

In an age where information
has become the main currency

and where fast access to information
has become a priority,

while pretending to give young people

a tool to find informations,

in fact we provided them
the first cause of distraction.

Yet we're still forced to study.

Yet we are still there,
in front of that book,

before that brick of history,
literature, geology,

cursing ourlife, and our professors

who force us to study something

we’ll probably find on the Internet

whenever we need it,

if any.

So the question comes back,
"What is it for?".

Today we live - well not just today,
but by a few years,

in a low employment time,
especially among youngsters.

We read it every day in the newspapers,
we hear of it on the radio.

Plus, there’s a creepy feeling
among young people,

you might not need to study,
if you want to get a job.

Two things are really required today:
good luck and proper recommendations.

So why study, then?

Maybe you don't need it,
you just have to learn

those four things you need
to get a decent job.

Nothing ambitious maybe,
but enough to win the bread

and easily find the rest online.

We are living in a period

of strong disillusionment with the study,

on both sides of the fence:

the side of the young people,
who see in the school

an old, ancient, outdated,
prehistoric system

that does not prepare you for real life.

But also on the adults' side:

parents are increasingly concerned

about the duty to find a job -

again, not even an ambitious one,
to their children.

So here we have the collapse
of enrollment at universities.

So school drop-out rate raises.

and this is not a problem
for teenagers only.

We're worried for their jobs,
even when they're children,

so we teach them the "jobs of the future".

Chinese or coding
are taught to children today,

in spite of subjects like geography,

which is slowly disappearing from schools.

[Geography is no longer
taught in schools]

So it seems to me that the only reason

why school exists today

is just this one:

we are growing workers, more than people.

Raising, educating children as people,
is taken care of by the Internet today:

with its videos, its hashtags,
but also with its fake news.

And so that's the point
I would like us all to take home,

and maybe talk about
with our children, with young people:

“how can we change the teaching

so that young people
can reconnect to culture?”

We already start with the wrong foot,

because we must not “change”
the subjects we deem old.

Geography, literature,

Latin or chemistry are fine.

Let me give you an example:

you've probably heard it,
especially lately.

We live in a moment of hate,
social division, suprematism.

Without a sound historical knowledge -

do you remember
what happened the last time,

after a climate of hate,
social division, suprematism?

No, subjects are ok the way they are.

We must rather “fit” our teaching

so that young people
can come back to culture.

and we must do so, in fact,

with what distinguished all of us
over the last 20 years

and in particular the growth
of young people:

digital technology.

Today I would like
to witness you a vision,

a vision we had in my school,

of what could be a lesson in the future:

we called it Holodeck,
as in “Deck of holograms”.

Do you know the Enterprise?

The Star Trek spaceship?

Someone probably saw Star Trek!

Okay, in the Holodeck

you step in and change the environment
at your best convenience:

you could be in the Maldives,
on another planet,

as you wished for.

Well, Holodeck for us
is a virtual reality classroom

where each student has his own headset

and is able to attend normal lessons

like astronomy, or chemistry, science,

but also history and geography,

increased with 3D animation.

Moreover, children can see each other,
inside the virtual space,

and can see their hands,

so they can interact with 3D objects.

Therefore,

we're not going to change the content,

we're updating the communication process.

Actually, we use a technology
they're much more sympathetic to.

A teaching system

that is based on what
they normally see every day:

moving images.

Today we thought to bring
a demo of holodeck,

thanks to the technologies of this room.

It could have been
the “wow” effect of the speech.

Unfortunately, a few days ago
the M9 museum administration told us,

this room would no longer be able

to support this type of demo.

So, first of all I apologise

and ask you to simply trust
my word and the images you have seen:

on how incredible
this technology really is.

And I invite you, if you want,

to come and try it directly at BigRock.

At least, the googles work there.

(Laughter)

Holodeck is still an experiment:

we don't pretend to show you
the school of the future,

but we'd like to integrate it

in the existing teaching process,

much like the art laboratory,
or science laboratory

that already exists in schools.

Imagine an hour of astronomy,

an hour of geography, an hour of history
or an hour of chemistry,

spent inside Holodeck.

That would be incredible.

Also because it is scientifically proven

that when a student has to deal
with an interactive lesson,

as they can also interact with the hands,

brain's activity is much more stimulated.

So an interactive lesson like this
is much, much more effective.

We have to resume -
we have to start, actually -

using technology

so studnts can fall in love
with culture again

and we have to teach them a proper use
of the technologies they already have.

YouTube, which we seemigly dissed before,
in the midst of garbage

there’s a lot of beautiful
and extremely instructive videos:

Ted Talks first.

(Laughter)

It's OK to teach coding to children,

but with a purpose,

to teach them the logics of a computer,

so that they can learn
to think critically, logically.

Above all, we must try

to teach children to dream again,

to let them dream about
who they want to be when grown up,

and we must do this with technology.

We must make them love culture,

as nothing but culture
will grow them as people.

According to a recent study by LEGO
over about 3000 children

when asked the question
“What would you do, when grown up?”,

more than a third of them said,
they'd rather be youtubers,

instead of astronauts.

That’s disgusting.

In a moment lke this, confronted as we are

with one of the most catastrophic
climate changes in our history,

we don't need youtubers,
we need scientists!

We need doctors, we need architects,

we need adequate politicians.

We need all those heroes

who thanks to their culture
and their knowledge,

can mend the mistakes of the past

and try to do something
to cure this planet.

Or, if they fail to do that,
at least find a way to leave it.

So yes, we need astronauts.

So my wish is, on the next
first day of school,

we all remind our pupils, our children,

why they are going to school,
why they are studying.

Let’s remind them
to dream of a better future,

or be inspired by other dreamers.

And remind them to study a lot,
so they get a culture

and be able to actually
fulfill those dreams.

Being halfway as we are, right now,

is not really worth it.

Thank you.

(Applause)