Latest / Come Together with Ephraim Herschmann / Education Series 3: Dan Fitzpatrick The Ai Educator/ AI for Students / Learning to Learn

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Education Series 3: Dan Fitzpatrick The Ai Educator/ AI for Students / Learning to Learn · Come Together with Ephraim Herschmann

0:01
Welcome to another episode of Come Together
0:15
and we're Live. Dan Fitzpatrick, thanks so much
0:17
for coming on. I really appreciate it.
0:19
Yeah, it's great to be with you. And yeah, it's great to see
0:23
sunny Florida in the background. It's as you can probably tell
0:26
here, it's it's rainy England. So it's it's nice to partake in
0:31
in the sunshine virtually. Yes, yes, yes, yes.
0:34
It's what do you call it this time of year?
0:36
It's already, it's already, it's already been cold, huh, For a
0:38
couple of weeks now. Yeah, probably, probably, yeah,
0:43
about two weeks or so. I was, I was working in
0:46
Kazakhstan last week and that, that was a lot colder.
0:50
So I'm, I'm actually happy to be back in this.
0:53
This. It feels a bit feels warmer, but
0:55
it's it's a type of weather where we can put the the fire on
0:59
in the house. Yeah.
1:01
And so I love that because, I mean, it feels really cozy.
1:04
Yeah. That's right, That's right.
1:06
What are you doing, Kazakhstan? I was I was keynote in the
1:11
conference on on AI. So I was but it but doing lots
1:17
of things. So I, that was why I was there.
1:19
But I got to, I had meetings with their, their government
1:22
about, about artificial intelligence and got to meet
1:26
some of the amazing innovation that some of their students are
1:29
doing. So two guys, in fact, I wrote a
1:32
Forbes Article 2 days ago on this, but I met two students, I
1:36
think they were, they were about 14 or 15 years old.
1:39
And they'd created a virtual reality science lab that would
1:46
recreate any type of scenario in terms of absolutely phenomenal.
1:53
And they've integrated an artificial intelligence tutor to
1:58
talk the, they're using an AI voice to talk the students
2:02
through what to do and how to do it.
2:04
Phenomenal created by the students themselves.
2:07
So I was kind of wanted to help them out to try and get
2:11
attention on them for that project.
2:12
Really. So it's yeah, some some amazed.
2:15
It's not. I don't know about you guys in
2:16
the States, but we don't really hear about those, those
2:19
countries like Kazakhstan and Mongolia, like we, we just don't
2:26
hear about them that much in the news.
2:27
So you, I mean, some of the names of the countries around
2:30
there I just didn't even know existed.
2:32
And but actually they're some of those, some of those cities are
2:36
really advanced and they, they've got a lot of oil money.
2:39
So they they can they can do some really cool things.
2:43
So yeah, it was a pleasure to go somewhere completely different.
2:47
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We, I, I, I, I've been, I've
2:51
been noticing more and more. And actually there's, I've been
2:53
focusing also on my podcast about learning more about other
2:56
places because as an American, we think that, you know, America
3:01
takes up 95% of the world. And then like, you know, maybe
3:04
like 5% of the world goes to like, you know, China and Europe
3:07
and like, that's it, you know, as far as like we're concerned.
3:10
And it's a shame because there's so much that other places have
3:13
to offer and there's so much to learn from different styles.
3:15
And you know, we know that our systems are not necessarily
3:19
perfect, you know, and that's actually why, you know, I've
3:23
even reached out to begin with because I, you know, so you,
3:26
you, you really, and I'm sure, please correct me, but you
3:29
specialize in the combination of education and implementation of
3:32
AI into education, Is that correct?
3:35
Yeah, so I, I, I suppose I spend a lot of my time writing.
3:39
So I write books on on AI and education.
3:42
I write for Forbes and then the the kind of the other half of my
3:46
time I spend with schools, with, with governments, with
3:51
universities and some businesses as well, like mainly Ed tech
3:55
businesses, but helping them to upskill, but then also to
4:00
strategically integrate and to and to strategically stop
4:06
because we can get into this, I guess.
4:09
But I'm, I'm a big believer that education, especially education
4:14
systems around the world have been on borrowed time for a
4:18
long, for a long time anyway. AI is just exasperating that.
4:23
And so I, I, I see a big part of my work is helping schools and
4:28
governments actually not just deal with AI, but CAI is the
4:34
catalyst for more holes for, for bigger change of those systems.
4:41
Overhauling an old system it feels like.
4:44
Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
4:46
Yeah, so I actually teach high school part time.
4:49
I've been doing it in my 4th, my 4th year doing it.
4:52
And, and I, I, one of the reasons why I wanted to start
4:56
teaching to begin with was because I know that there's a
5:00
lot of not great teachers out there.
5:03
And I, and I know that the, at least in the states, the
5:05
incentive structure and the social incentive structure,
5:08
financial and social do not really lend themselves to
5:11
encouraging great, charismatic or fun teachers.
5:15
You know, a lot of times and even the set, the set the, and
5:18
we could talk about this, the actual setting of the classroom,
5:21
you know, to have lines of desks and have 14, you know, 13 to 18
5:26
year olds sit for seven hours and be told that they're bad or
5:31
wrong or stupid. If they, you know, if they're,
5:34
if they can't do that for that period of time.
5:36
And I don't even know that they're necessarily supposed to,
5:38
you know, And so I wanted to be able to kind of be able to help.
5:42
And and if, if I could have, you know, if I have a positive
5:46
impact on even, you know, 15 students at a time, 20 students
5:50
at a time, then I know it goes a long way even for my own life,
5:53
you know, having having hopefully, you know, having had
5:55
some good teachers in the past. Yeah.
5:58
Yeah, it's it's interesting because I think I sometimes
6:01
think we've we've engineered a system that and actually there's
6:07
some parallels here with the AI really.
6:09
So we've engineered a system that to try and be as efficient
6:12
as possible. And I think one of the first
6:16
rules of efficiency is control. How do you control the
6:19
situation? So the first thing we do and I,
6:22
I'm not sure about you, Efrain, but when I was when I was
6:24
trained to be a teacher, because I was, I was a high school
6:26
teacher too. The first thing they teach you
6:29
is how to control the class, how to, and it makes sense because
6:34
you've got thirty teenagers in front of you.
6:36
If you can't control them, then you can't do anything with them.
6:41
But I think there's some, there's some kind of weird
6:44
paradox there where actually we're, we're saying that, well,
6:48
in order to do schooling, first of all, we must take control of,
6:53
of the students. And I think there's an inherent
6:57
fault with that, that. And, and I think it's just,
7:01
it's, it's a symptom of a system that is mass produced.
7:06
So and I, and I, I'm, I'm, I'm quite generous saying 30
7:11
students in the class in the UK, sometimes we can have 3540
7:14
students in a class. No, my teacher, yeah, because of
7:17
teachers shortages. Shortages.
7:20
Yeah, absolutely. And so of course you need to
7:24
control, but as soon as you start controlling you, you kind
7:27
of squash curiosity, you squash student LED learning and then
7:32
and then you follow things through and you go right, well,
7:34
what's the most efficient way to get through that hour?
7:37
You put the you put the tables in rows.
7:39
You have the teacher stood at the front.
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You and I feel like we've just really, really made a system
7:45
that that is efficient at getting to success, but success
7:53
defined by the system, which I don't think is necessarily what
7:58
true success should be. So yeah, it kind of makes sense
8:02
in a way how we've done it, but I just think the system isn't
8:06
entirely relevant now. And yeah, I think I think we've
8:12
got, we're going to have to do something new and there's going
8:16
to have to be a lot more options and variety, which I think we're
8:18
starting to see as well. We're starting to see these,
8:21
these new experimental schools pop up in places on on in the
8:25
UK, the fastest growing school at the moment is an online
8:29
school. So on.
8:30
I know in the States you guys have had online schools for a
8:33
while now, but they're, they're quite new here in the UK.
8:37
So I, I, I, I'm optimistic, but I, I do fear for the system
8:42
sometimes and that it, that it's not going to be able to cope
8:45
with the, the democratization of, of so much ability that that
8:51
AI brings to us and our students.
8:53
Yeah, Yeah, that's a great, that's a great way of putting
8:57
it. One of the things that I've
8:58
think that I personally observed, I think or that you
9:01
know, anecdotally at least, is that is that my students and
9:07
students in general are kind of taught to be cogs and to
9:11
understand that they have a good place and apart.
9:13
And like almost like to be a cookie cutter and creativity and
9:16
like your own taking your own way of doing things is not
9:18
encouraged. And not only, and probably
9:20
again, for the reasons that we talked about, you have 30
9:22
students. It's very hard to let for one
9:25
teacher to pay different attention in an hour to 30
9:28
different students, right? And that's kind of what the
9:30
issue, one of the issues stems from.
9:33
But I think that in the world that will, and perhaps you can
9:37
clarify your thoughts on some of this too.
9:39
But I think in the world of AI in the future, the I think that
9:42
generalized knowledge and like, like for to have a lot of
9:46
knowledge, a little bit of knowledge in a lot of different
9:48
areas. And then to learn how to use AI
9:50
like a companion to help you dive deeper into whatever
9:54
direction and whatever rabbit hole you want to go down or
9:56
whatever skill you want to learn to advance would be a far more
10:02
effective system for someone growing up in the world today.
10:05
Because a lot of jobs that we're training people for now are
10:08
going to be irrelevant. You know, I mean, we're teaching
10:09
people how to work in factories still when we have everything is
10:13
being robotic, you know, or you're teaching, you know,
10:14
people how to be doctors when AI, you know, does X amount, you
10:19
know, diagnosis X amount more successfully than you know,
10:22
human doctors do. And we haven't and we kind of
10:27
just like clinging to this like familiar notion.
10:30
And I think part of the reason why is because education is so
10:34
deep rooted in society. We don't really know how to how
10:37
to, how to gauge someone without that, right.
10:40
So you have an, if you have an employee that you're looking for
10:42
that you know, how, how you know whether you want to hire them or
10:45
not. A lot of what you look at is how
10:46
they did in school, how they do in college, how they get, how
10:49
they do in their grades, you know, and but a lot of that,
10:53
what they picked up in that doesn't necessarily correspond
10:56
to the type of responsibilities they'll need in a modern day
10:58
workforce, you know? Yeah.
11:00
And it's crazy, isn't it, because we at some point in
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time, we went into an exam hall and we, we did, we did an exam
11:08
and now we carry that grade with us for the rest of our lives.
11:13
We got to carry that ABCDEF for the rest of our lives.
11:18
And, and it's, it's a reflection on, on a, on a tiny moment in
11:23
our lives where we could have been, we could have had a bad
11:27
night the night before. We could have just been having a
11:30
really crap year. We could have.
11:33
And then all of a sudden that labels us for the rest of our
11:35
lives. And I think, I think it's just
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not first of all, I don't think it's a fairway to, to, to define
11:43
success when it comes to education.
11:46
And I think, I think touching on some of the what you just said
11:48
as well, like kind of what do we learn?
11:51
What, what should we learn in education?
11:53
And I think we've, the way education, I feel like has been
11:58
created over the last few 100 years is that we're almost, we
12:02
want to give everyone the knowledge of, of the world.
12:08
So it's like, right, let's teach them everything there is to know
12:10
about geography, everything there is to know about history,
12:13
everything about biology up up to a certain degree, up to a
12:18
certain level. But I kind of think we keep
12:21
adding to that. So like in the UK about 10 years
12:24
ago, a bit longer, actually 15 years ago, kind of a whole third
12:29
was added onto the curriculum. And, and therefore it, it kind
12:33
of coming back to what we said earlier, it the teachers and the
12:37
school systems don't have any choice but to be try and be as
12:40
efficient as possible just now just to get through that much
12:44
content. And it, it kind of cocks back to
12:47
a, a world where at the school was the, the authority on
12:53
knowledge did have, wasn't the gatekeeper on, on knowledge.
12:58
But that's, that hasn't been the case for a long time now.
13:01
And I, I think like you're saying as well, they, if we can
13:06
teach them how to collaborate with technology to, to be
13:10
inquisitive, to learn, then we, we, we will soon realise we
13:15
don't have to teach them everything.
13:18
We just need to teach them enough to, to, for them to go
13:23
and enjoy continuing to learn themselves, whether that be with
13:28
AI, whether it be with Google, whether it be with books, a
13:32
library, whatever it might be. But I just, I think once you
13:37
start to do that, you let go of control because you then have to
13:41
start admitting that, well, students can learn elsewhere.
13:45
It might be even be able to learn better elsewhere.
13:49
And I think once you start getting into that territory as a
13:51
school system, you it gets scary.
13:55
It gets scary. And in fact, I just wrote a
13:58
piece on LinkedIn this morning saying get called, get out of
14:01
the way about how we, we need to get out of the way of our
14:06
students and not think that we know what's best all of the time
14:10
for them. And we know what they should be
14:12
learning all of the time. But actually give them the tools
14:15
to, to get curious, to want to learn.
14:18
And then just step out the way every, even if it's just one day
14:21
a week, like step out the way and see what they can do, see
14:25
what they. But yeah, I think we've, I think
14:29
AI coming back to AI, I think AI is kind of exposing this a bit
14:33
more than than we're used to. And I think that's the situation
14:39
we're in at the moment where now schools are starting to think
14:42
well and universities as well. I guess how do we lock this down
14:47
and not let AI ruin what what we've got, the systems we've got
14:53
where I think we should be thinking the other way around,
14:56
like how how can we use this as an opportunity to to prepare our
15:01
students for this world? Do you think it's?
15:05
Just a generational thing, you think it's just like sometimes
15:07
you have to just kind of let the course of like old school
15:09
teachers kind of, you know, recycle.
15:11
And then you have the younger generation that's more because,
15:14
you know, at a certain point that's kind of what it has to
15:16
be. And you know, and I think that
15:18
if institutions hang on too long, then people reject it and
15:22
go somewhere else. You know, for example, I was
15:25
even with the podcast space, right?
15:27
Like there were gatekeepers of information for, you know,
15:31
decades that, you know, there was systematic distrust, you
15:35
know, almost on like universal level, I'd say in the last half,
15:38
you know, half a decade or so since around, you know, 19,
15:41
2019-2020 ish. And, and you know, and you can
15:46
either kind of fight the fact that, you know, that, hey, you
15:49
know, people are learning a lot or getting a lot of news and
15:51
information and new understandings and perspectives
15:54
from podcast, or you can kind of just try to be a gatekeeper and
15:56
try to hold people back. But I think at a certain point
15:59
it's going to happen one way or another, you know?
16:01
And so, so the question just kind of becomes like, you know,
16:05
are you going to be willing to embrace that?
16:07
You're just going to hang on until you're, you know, until
16:09
you can't anymore, you know? Yeah, yeah, you kind of, you
16:13
reminded me of, there's a Planck's quote where you said
16:18
science advances one funeral at a time.
16:21
And, and his whole point is you don't get changes to science
16:24
until the the gatekeepers actually actually die.
16:29
Yeah, I don't know. I just think I I think I even
16:32
say this attitude from students sometimes that because it's the
16:37
only system we know, then of course I think of sometimes I
16:42
think of course AI is bad for the system.
16:45
Of course it is. It's going to make you, oh, if,
16:49
if you're, if you, if you want to use it this way, it's going
16:53
to help you cheat. It's going to help you do some,
16:57
do some things that are dishonest.
16:59
It's going to help you like it's bad for the current system.
17:03
It really is. And if, if all you know is the
17:05
current system, then of course you're going to want to hold it
17:10
at arm's length. You might want to ban it.
17:11
You might want to say this is bad for me, of course it is.
17:15
But I, I think we need to step, take a step back further than
17:19
that and go right, what actually is?
17:23
Could we do the system better here?
17:24
Could we, could we change what we do and make it a bit better
17:28
so that actually AI is a part of that and we can collaborate with
17:32
it. And but I think it's about, it's
17:36
about true innovation, I think, and something that I don't think
17:39
education has gone through. Not a very Valentine, yeah?
17:43
Yeah, yeah, I, I think that you hit the nail on the head earlier
17:47
with also the notion of learning how to learn.
17:50
You know, anecdotally, again, you know, I'm, I'm Orthodox Jew
17:53
and, you know, I went to seminary after high school to
17:56
learn, to spend some time learning about Judaism.
17:59
And, you know, it's very common, you know, for Orthodox Jews to,
18:04
to spend some time in a seminary at some point in their lives and
18:06
just, you know, learn some foundational texts and stuff.
18:10
And one thing that I, yeah, that I realized was I'm, you know,
18:12
I'm likely going to go, I'm going to college.
18:15
I'm going to a college campus somewhere.
18:17
And I'm going to, you know, there's certain students whose
18:19
philosophy when it came to this was I want to learn enough to be
18:23
able to protect me, you know, so I can maintain my values while
18:26
I'm in another world, right? You know, the world that doesn't
18:30
necessarily value the same things that I do.
18:32
But, you know, I want to be able to be strong enough.
18:33
And so I'm going to learn the foundation, you know, and I
18:35
realized when I was when I was there, I was about 1819 years
18:39
old, that there's no 1819 years old.
18:42
There's no way I'm going to learn enough to carry me through
18:44
the rest of my life. And I realized that the, the
18:47
value was learning how to continue learning and where to
18:49
look to keep on learning, you know, and so to not look at this
18:53
point of my life like this, I'm accumulating X amount of
18:56
knowledge that I'm going to, that's all I'm going to have
18:59
forever. And that's when I'm going to
19:01
draw on this whenever the scenario comes up.
19:04
Rather, I'm learning to learn how to learn, learn how to
19:07
think. And so I could keep on building
19:09
my skills. And I think that teachers are
19:11
used to being the, the people that tell you how to tell you
19:14
what you know, you know, as opposed to helping you figure
19:18
out how to think and how to learn, you know, And so AI is
19:20
helping us. Hey, you want to, I think the
19:24
much more important tool to use would be how do I prompt AI
19:27
properly? How do I, how do I find out
19:29
whether AI is telling me the truth?
19:30
How do I find sourcing for the information that it's presented
19:32
to me? So I could find out whether it's
19:34
real or not. And then I could kind of build
19:35
my own knowledge and whatever I'm whatever I want to dive
19:37
into, you know, and if someone is interested in engineering,
19:41
for example, or history, it's really important to you.
19:43
But I think that they could, to be able to use AI as a companion
19:46
tool can help you learn to learn forever, you know, and you never
19:51
stop. And the amount that you could,
19:53
the amount that you could create and the amount that you can, you
19:55
know, accomplish. I mean, with my podcast, for
19:58
example, I learned, I started integrating AI to help me find
20:01
guests. I want to talk to people about
20:03
AI ethics and education. Give me 10 contacts with people
20:07
that XY and Z in the industry and with the e-mail addresses,
20:10
please. That's how I found you, right?
20:11
And what it took me for the first six months of my podcast,
20:14
20 hours a week takes me 5 now you know, and, and the other and
20:18
the other 15 hours. I'm so much more productive
20:20
because I'm dedicating it to things that I can do, the only I
20:24
can do. The AI is doing what AI needs to
20:26
do, and I'm doing what I need to do by having these
20:27
conversations, you know? Yeah, it's, I think you touched
20:33
on something really important and I was thinking about this
20:35
last week about, OK, clearly we can outsource some of what we do
20:43
now to AI, but we need to make decisions about what we
20:47
outsource and, and what we. And I think that's going to be
20:51
different for different people like like you yourself doing
20:56
getting 10 guests for your podcast.
20:58
I think, I think some people, I think some people might be like,
21:02
oh, well, I, I run a podcast and I want to know, I want to I want
21:06
to do the research. That's the fun part.
21:08
That's what I enjoy doing. I want to read someone's book
21:11
and then think, can I get them on the podcast?
21:12
Whatever. And then but like you yourself,
21:17
you, you go, right, Well, actually, I'm going to get AI to
21:20
help me do some of this research and give me some insights.
21:24
Somebody in the middle might actually employ somebody who
21:28
does what that AIAI did for you. And, and I think there's a whole
21:33
spectrum here. And I think if there's one thing
21:36
that people love to do at the moment is tell people what AI
21:40
should be doing for them, what it shouldn't be doing for them.
21:42
And I think we've got to learn this for ourselves.
21:46
I think especially as adults, maybe we, maybe us, our young
21:49
people, our children need guidance.
21:51
But I think as adults, we need to figure this out because like
21:56
some things I think will just be automated.
21:58
Like when I get in my car and I, I put the SAT NAV on, it takes
22:04
me where I need to be. I I don't sit there and lament
22:09
not having them up skills and to be able to, of course, I don't
22:15
like it means I can now listen to some amazing podcasts.
22:17
It means I can focus on chatting with my family in the car.
22:23
It means I can just have some peace and not not and just just
22:27
do some thinking while I'm driving.
22:29
Like I, I love that fact that that's been automated and I and
22:34
I don't miss map skills at all. Not, not in the slightest.
22:40
And, and so I, I think we've, we've got to be really clever
22:43
with this and use this in a way that, that is going to benefit
22:48
us personally. Then I think going back to our
22:50
children in the education system, I think we've got to
22:54
give them the, the choice to a certain extent as well and go,
22:58
right. If this is, this is what AI can
23:01
do for us, how can we, how can we use this to boost who we are,
23:08
to boost our, our potential in the world, I guess, and get them
23:15
to, in a certain extent, figure that out for themselves as well.
23:19
And, and, and I think that that whole like lifelong learning,
23:23
I'm always telling my, I know before we went live, we were
23:26
talking about our kids and, and I've got a 5 and a six year old
23:29
and I, I think I say to them probably on a daily basis, like,
23:33
you've got to keep learning. You've got to keep like school's
23:35
not the only place you learn. You've got to, you'll be
23:38
learning forever. And the people who do do succeed
23:42
in life are the ones who continue to learn and see life
23:46
as, as a learning journey. And now we've got a tool that
23:50
helps us do that pretty much all of the time.
23:53
And I think that's going to get better and better and better.
23:57
But yeah, it's, it's, it's a new world that we, we have to try
24:01
and figure out. But I think we have, I think
24:05
there's there's going to be a lot more opportunities than
24:08
there were before. Yeah, So what are some what are
24:12
some upsides and downsides or some benefits and dangers,
24:16
especially especially in that education world?
24:19
You know, I mean, I keep on hearing, you know, on one hand,
24:21
again, we've talked about a lot of benefits.
24:23
On the other hand, I think that there is something, you know,
24:26
one of the things I tell also my students like how come this
24:28
matters? What if this doesn't matter to
24:31
my life? How come it's not?
24:32
What if it's not relevant? How come I have to learn this
24:34
right? A lot of times I'll be like a,
24:36
it will be but or B, even if it isn't the almost the learning
24:41
how to the construction of these ideas in your head is really
24:44
valuable. You know, I'm learning how to
24:47
create the understand that there's a process or, you know,
24:50
understand and to learn how to build on complex ideas is
24:53
really, really important. Do you think that AI would
24:56
shortchange or could shortchange that, you know, that kind of
24:59
constructive creative process that our heads have?
25:04
Yeah, 100%. Let me tell you the story of AII
25:08
interviewed a high schooler for an article I did and a guy in
25:15
San Diego and we were talking about how how students in high
25:20
school use AI. And it was interesting because
25:23
his school from the outside have have ticked every box.
25:28
So they they have an AI policy. They do, They do professional
25:34
development with their staff around artificial intelligence.
25:37
They do AI literacy classes with their students kind of like
25:41
everything, everything you, you would hope that a forward
25:45
thinking school would be doing in terms of AI right now they're
25:48
doing. However, this high school
25:51
student told me that they are still using AI to do their their
25:55
homework and to cut corners. And when, when we talked about
25:59
this, there was it was interesting because there was a
26:02
couple of things that, that they said.
26:04
And one of the things was that they think that the, that the
26:09
teachers know they use an AI. But because there are just so
26:13
many students using AI, the teachers turn a blind eye
26:17
because if they were to investigate every single
26:20
instance, they would never go home.
26:23
They would be working constantly.
26:25
So teachers are almost being forced to turn a blind eye to
26:28
this. Secondly, it's very, very easy
26:30
to manipulate something that you get from AI to make it sound
26:36
natural and make it sound like it's your own work and, and,
26:41
and, and to kind of slip through that that net.
26:46
But I think thirdly, the the most revealing thing I found was
26:50
that he was very honest with me. He just said, look, homework
26:54
especially is a hurdle that a student has to get through on an
27:00
evening. So they might come home, they
27:03
they want to go see their friends, they then have dinner
27:07
with their family. They want to go on the Xbox and
27:09
talk to their friends while playing some games for an hour
27:14
home. 3 bits of homework has to be fitted in to that, to those
27:18
few hours on an evening. And so that just becomes a
27:20
hurdle to get over and just like adults, if you've got to get
27:24
over an admin task, you, you look for shortcuts.
27:29
And so in the in the biggest shortcut at the moment is
27:32
getting AI to do before you and I.
27:35
And it really made me think just how much of of the work we give
27:42
our students is just an admin hurdle to them.
27:46
There's no and if you like, if you think like, if you like when
27:51
I was when I was teaching and when I was a student myself, you
27:54
every lesson is just another every class.
27:56
You might have four or five classes that day.
27:59
You're just getting through them.
28:01
Like you, your brain will is going to engage in it and but
28:05
you're still thinking right at the end.
28:07
At the end of the hour, the Bell's going to go.
28:09
I'm on to the next, next class. It's they're hurdles to get
28:14
over. And I think, I think now it's
28:18
that's not a problem with the student, it's a problem with
28:21
with an outdated system now. And I think we're going to have
28:24
to start thinking, how do we give our students work to do?
28:30
How do we engage our students in some work that they find
28:34
meaningful that they actually want to want to complete because
28:39
we just aren't doing that at the moment.
28:41
And, and if, if we actually want them to exert some cognitive
28:46
effort, then we're going to have to get them excited about it.
28:50
We're going to have to make it relevant.
28:51
We're going to have to get, get, let them see the meaning of it.
28:55
We're, we've got so much to do rather than just hear some work,
28:58
do it. And we've got to make, we've got
29:01
to make what we're doing actually relevant and meaningful
29:04
and, and build the curiosity to go with it.
29:08
So I think, I think absolutely AI kind of going back to the
29:14
start really of the conversation, I think AI can can
29:17
be a negative, but I think that's not the fault of the
29:23
student. I think we just, I think we have
29:25
to stop being a bit more creative with, with the kind of
29:28
work we do with them, I think. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think that I
29:32
think you're right. I think if students look at the
29:33
problem is actually I had this I, you know, I teach because I
29:36
want to right Teach because I think it's important, it's fun.
29:39
And so I would go for years, right?
29:41
The first, the first 2 1/2 years that I was teaching, I'd go in
29:44
and put a lot of effort. And especially, you know, I do
29:46
the podcast and I have a sales job and I got a family and I
29:49
have a lot. I'm always running around and I
29:51
always try to put time to making sure that the classes, if the
29:53
classes, if the students do not respond, I typically take the
29:57
blame and say, it's guys. I know that you guys.
30:00
Yeah, it's a long day. I'm obviously not presenting
30:02
this in a way that's speaking to you guys.
30:04
And it's because I could have done more effort, you know, I
30:06
could have put more effort into this.
30:07
I'm sorry. If you guys could please work
30:09
with me just for the rest of the day today.
30:10
I promise that tomorrow's class is going to be a lot more
30:12
engaging, you know, and but one thing I realized was, and it was
30:18
such a crazy realization, it took me so long to realize was
30:21
I'm there because I want to be. No one there is there because
30:24
they want to be. They're all there because they
30:25
have to, you know, and I was and, and so, you know, at a
30:28
certain point I was able to actually build up a certain
30:30
amount of trust my students where I said, listen, I think
30:33
autonomy is really important in your life.
30:34
New schedule, you know, I think that you feel like you have
30:37
control over the way that you spend at least some of your time
30:40
is really important. I was like, I will, I will give
30:42
you if you guys come to me the beginning of the week and tell
30:44
me, hey, I don't want to come to class this week, but can you
30:46
give me assignments to do on my own time?
30:48
You know that I will, I will be responsible about I was like, I
30:52
have to get to know you guys and you have to show me that it's
30:53
worth it. But if that's the case, you
30:55
don't have to come in and sit behind a desk for 45 minutes and
30:58
you can do what you want with that time as long as you get me
30:59
the work by XY and Z time or date, you know, and, and to my
31:05
surprise, all 20 students decided to come back every
31:08
single day, you know, almost, and you know, every now and then
31:11
one or two students would come to me and say, hey, today, I
31:13
need a break today. Can you give me some makeup work
31:14
to do? But I think once they, once they
31:16
realized and they felt like this isn't a like this isn't
31:19
something we have to do. This is something that we could
31:21
do if we like it. You know, everything kind of
31:24
changed overnight, you know, and it was really, really cool.
31:27
Do you so are you, are you proponents of homework now that
31:31
we're talking about, you know, that or you think that projects
31:35
are probably better or, you know, like longer term creative
31:39
engaging assignments is probably better or depends for the class
31:42
or what do you think? Yeah, I.
31:45
On the homework question, I'm, I'm, I'm not really sure because
31:48
I think, I think is if I'm looking at it from like a
31:52
complete democratic point of view, I think homework just
31:58
widens the gap because not, not every student's home life is the
32:03
same. Not every student's parents are
32:05
the same. So what you're essentially when
32:09
you give homework, you're essentially saying, right, if
32:12
you come from a family that is motivated and want to help you
32:15
learn, then you can get a head start here because the family's
32:21
going to help them. They're going to, they're going
32:22
to make sure they get the homework done.
32:24
They're going to make sure they see it as important and so on.
32:27
Whereas a family that doesn't do that, that student's going to be
32:29
left behind. Interestingly, I also think the
32:32
same about AI as well. So I, I think I, I've got a
32:36
friend and I wrote, I wrote about him in my first book, The
32:39
AI Classroom, about how he really struggled to help his
32:44
daughter with math work because he just didn't understand it
32:48
himself. And so he used ChatGPT as, as a
32:53
bit of a bit of a Co partner with his daughter and they both,
32:58
they all the both of them learn together with ChatGPT and it
33:02
really, really boosted her skills and she went on to win an
33:05
award for math because of it. So I, I think with homework,
33:13
it's interesting because I think my kids, even if they didn't get
33:16
homework, I'd probably still work with them on various
33:18
things. So we, we probably can't close
33:22
that gap anyway. But yeah, I think, I think we
33:28
have to look at the we have to put the horse before the cart.
33:32
I think in terms of what we learn and how we learn it, we've
33:36
kind of set up a system that goes, right, let's learn all of
33:39
this stuff just in case, right? We're going to learn how rocks
33:44
form. We're going to learn how to cook
33:47
a pasta dish. We're going to like, it's
33:49
literally like some crazy mix of things every single day and
33:54
we're going to learn it all just in case you might need to learn
33:57
it at some know it at some point in the future.
34:00
And let's be real, how many times have you had to know it?
34:03
Like 1% if that of the things you learnt.
34:07
Whereas I think if we flip it and go actually let's do
34:13
something which requires us to learn those skills.
34:17
And I suppose that that does fit into more the project based side
34:20
of things. But if we go right, how do we, I
34:24
don't know. Let's yeah, just, I don't know,
34:28
like I used to when I, when I worked in, in, in secondary
34:32
schools, I, my other job was also the careers coordinator for
34:38
the school. And so we looked at like kind of
34:41
what, what local businesses, what, what issues they were
34:45
having. So like if there was, if there
34:48
was a local business that was really having an issue with, I
34:52
don't know, getting customers to buy their their chips, maybe
34:56
it's a, it's a chip company and then they're getting customers
34:59
to buy their chips and they're really struggling.
35:01
They're not as popular as they used as they used to be in the
35:03
90s. Sales are going down, right?
35:07
Let's get some students on that and let's think we'll visit the
35:11
fact, we'll visit the factory. We'll have a look at, we'll get
35:13
to understand the business and then we'll go right.
35:16
Well, what skills are we going to need?
35:18
Well, we're going to need, we're going to need some financial
35:20
skills to understand these financial documents.
35:23
We're going to need some marketing skills.
35:26
We're going to need some skills on how how humans work with each
35:32
other. A whole hosting.
35:33
So I think, yeah, I'm always reminded by a guy called Rob
35:38
Hoban, who who was the the manager of a school in the
35:43
Netherlands called Agora. And on the first day that a
35:47
student starts their school, the first question they ask them is
35:51
what do you want to do? And then and then, so if a
35:56
student says, right, I want to, I want to make a skateboard, I'm
35:59
in the skateboard and I want to make a skateboard.
36:01
Then their whole school is set up so that they, they have a
36:06
project manager who will, who will help meet with them every
36:11
day. Say, all right, I think you
36:12
should probably go and learn about how to bend wood.
36:16
Let's maybe set you up on a, on a play on a work placement with
36:20
a, a joiner in the city and you can go there every Wednesday
36:24
morning. You're probably going to need to
36:26
know the maths behind the angles of that wood.
36:29
So we're going to need to, we're going to need to learn that.
36:32
And then the students, they don't do traditional classes.
36:35
What they do that their school looks a bit like a Google
36:37
office. So they do a lot of
36:39
collaborative work. They do a lot of meetings with
36:41
people learning from individuals and within groups.
36:45
So they I just think that makes more sense to me because then
36:53
you're you're learning for a reason.
36:56
So if we don't learn the first time available to even do.
36:59
This until now, it was kind of like a hopeless new romantic
37:02
thought that hey, I would love to, you know, a teacher would
37:05
love to tell every student what do you want to learn and teach
37:07
them individually. But a teacher would always
37:09
respond, I don't have the time or the knowledge set even
37:12
necessarily or whatever the resources AI is the resources.
37:16
Now all the teacher has to do is just collaborate with the
37:19
student, check in on them, make sure that they're, you know,
37:21
heading down the right path, making sure they're being
37:23
responsible with their time. But the learning that they're
37:25
doing then from that they're getting could a lot of it could
37:28
come from their own homework that they do.
37:31
Yeah, absolutely. And I think that attitude of I'm
37:34
the teacher, so I'm the authority authoritative voice on
37:38
this topic. I mean that I don't think that's
37:41
been the case since YouTube existed.
37:45
Like because any, any student can now pull up an expert on
37:49
YouTube that probably knows 10 times more than the teacher.
37:53
So there's there's just no way that like that.
37:56
And and and if if the teacher takes the view of well, no
37:59
YouTube, then you are seriously limiting that student to your
38:04
role. It would be terrible to do.
38:05
Imagine if someone told. Me, you can't listen to podcasts
38:08
while I was in school. I'd be like, well, then I have
38:10
no idea what I'm going to. I, I, I, I don't know what I'm
38:11
going to learn. You know, it's crazy.
38:13
I I you limit, you limit the. Ceiling for those students,
38:17
yeah, to the to the the ceiling of the stuff in that school.
38:23
And surely we want them to go beyond where we are.
38:28
Yeah, we hope. You hope.
38:29
I. One of my to go with that theme
38:32
and I, you know, I, one of my most successful projects to date
38:35
has been a film project where my students, well, you know, so for
38:39
example, we did a Western song, Grateful Dead song, because I'm
38:42
a big fan of that type of that era of music.
38:44
And it was an old western about, you know, a couple of Cowboys.
38:48
We only deal with our cowboy culture.
38:50
And then, and then I said, OK, now you guys are going to break
38:52
into groups of five. You're going to write a 5 page
38:55
movie script and then you guys are going to film the movie and
38:58
edit it. And then we're going to have a
38:59
pizza party and watch that, watch everyone's 5 minute, you
39:02
know, 5 to 7 minute movies together.
39:04
And that general and from that, like English class, as far as
39:09
I'm concerned, everyone has different skills that they're
39:11
better at. Some are better at orally
39:12
communicating, some are better at writing.
39:13
Some are better at being behind the camera, being behind the
39:16
scenes, but are very detail oriented.
39:18
And you're able to actually see it's almost like shaking up a
39:20
jar with oil in it and watching, you know, as things kind of
39:23
separate and, and, and come apart, you see which students
39:26
rise up to which thing that's more their speed.
39:28
Some students are great leaders and some group students are
39:32
great orators and actors. And some of them are really
39:35
passionate. It's what the whole body is.
39:36
Some of them have emphasized the writing, you know, and then
39:39
they'll and then, and then you see, as the week goes on, you
39:42
know, like take, give me a script.
39:44
You're gonna work on this because as you're speaking,
39:46
you're gonna realize that people don't talk like, you know, the
39:48
way that you're used to writing, you know, the way how are you
39:51
today? No one talks like that.
39:52
Hey, how's it going? Is what you write, you know, and
39:54
so, and so make these adjustments and you could
39:57
really, really see that like and, and, and so it's a learning
40:00
experience for everyone, but everyone kind of gravitates
40:02
towards what they're good at naturally.
40:04
And that's when I try to encourage them and they're like,
40:07
we should do this project again. I said we absolutely should
40:09
because everyone here is getting this is developed, is honing and
40:13
sharpening the skills that they're good at and I try to get
40:15
them to expose themselves to things that are not as good at
40:17
too. You know, if someone's less
40:19
comfortable reading a script, hey, why don't you try getting
40:21
just in one scene, You know, why don't you get a couple of lines
40:24
in a scene and see if you can, you know, try to get your feet
40:26
wet with that. But I think that that's, I think
40:29
that that goes with what you're saying that the whole notion of
40:32
let's, let's let students decide what their passion and what they
40:35
and, and everyone kind of has a feeling inside an intuition and
40:39
a gut feeling as to what speaks to them more.
40:43
We should be trying to isolate what that is and helping people
40:46
hone that. Yeah, yeah, I think so.
40:51
And I think from a teacher. Perspective AI can be enormously
40:54
helpful too, not just from the students, for the teachers.
40:58
Yeah. And yeah, I just think there's,
41:04
there's some, there's so many ways we could do this better.
41:08
There's so many ways we can and I think instead of us go now
41:15
this is how it should be actually what would happen if we
41:20
just give parents and students the choice.
41:23
And I think that's what's that's what's starting to happen.
41:26
I think with with a lot of these schools that are starting to to
41:31
to exist now and experimental micro schools and online schools
41:36
and so on that actually I think parents and students are going
41:39
to have more choice. So if you, if you do, if you're
41:42
adamant as a parent, no, no, I do want my child to go to a
41:46
traditional school where they, they have five classes every
41:50
day. They sit in rows and I think
41:53
that then amazing. Go for it, do it.
41:57
But if you're a parent and you're a student who goes, you
42:00
know what? That's not for me.
42:01
I, I've probably got ADHD and I can't sit down for five hours a
42:06
day, but there is a school over here that allows me to do some
42:12
cool outdoor learning and do lots of social learning.
42:16
Then absolutely amazing. Go for it.
42:17
So I think, I think it's, there are so many different ways we
42:22
can do this and not all of them are perfect because it's just
42:26
the nature of it. Nobody like learning isn't
42:30
perfect. Learning is messy.
42:31
It's really messy. Yeah, because if it was easy as
42:36
just sticking a plug in your head and downloading all the
42:39
information, then then we would have done it.
42:43
We would, but it's messy. It's because it because it
42:46
involves real human life. And I think personally, I think
42:52
the kind of traditional rose sit down for five hours a day tries
42:56
to suck the human life out of it so that we can get as close as
43:01
possible to the plug in the head.
43:04
So but I think actually we're missing the point there.
43:07
That actually probably the most meaningful learning that comes
43:10
from the messiness comes from the, the, the, the unpredictable
43:15
comes from the, the, the lack of control sometimes and the, the
43:20
hand and over of the control. So, but I, I'm really encouraged
43:24
that there's, we're starting to see more and more options for
43:27
education. I do think I am worried that it
43:31
we could be because I think a lot of these schools you've got
43:35
to pay for them. And so I think the, the equity
43:39
piece here for parents who don't have much income, I think that
43:44
could be quite dangerous going forward in terms of if you've
43:47
got any disposable income, you could have, you might be able to
43:51
afford some kind of experimental or some kind of progressive
43:54
education for your child. Whereas if you haven't, you're
43:57
just relying on the, on the state education.
44:01
So I do think that could that's that could be problematic.
44:04
It's always take time. It'll take time to catch.
44:07
Up, you know, so you're going to be a couple of steps behind,
44:09
unfortunately. Yeah, yeah, definitely.
44:12
Well, I think anything run by a government is is reactive rather
44:18
than proactive. Yes, I, I think it's just the
44:22
nature of government. That's how government works.
44:24
Yeah. So it's.
44:26
Responsive, right? Yeah, absolutely.
44:28
And I just that that's the way it is, I think.
44:31
And so if you want to, if you want to get ahead, then I think
44:36
you've probably got no option but to find some alternative
44:40
education or supplement mainstream education, which I
44:45
know a lot of parents already do anywhere.
44:48
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You.
44:50
Want to tell me a little bit about your book, the AI
44:52
classroom, please, and what the process is like writing it and
44:54
what it's about. Curious.
44:55
I'm almost curious because I can't well, I can't write long
44:59
form it's very hard for me. So I'm always curious what the
45:01
process of writing a a full book is for everyone.
45:04
Yeah process. Well, the.
45:07
The number one thing is don't think of it as writing long
45:10
form. Chunk it down just like we do
45:13
for our students. Chunk it.
45:15
So I always think average book 60,000 words.
45:19
So I think, well, let's say there's 10 chapters, 6000 words
45:24
per chapter. And then I think well, within
45:26
each chapter I'm going to put six parts and each part's going
45:31
to be 1000 words each. So I go right.
45:34
And that could be like the first part would be an introduction to
45:37
the chapter. The second part could be do's
45:40
and don'ts around this topics. Next bit could be top advice
45:44
like you chunk it down and then I, so then I just think, well,
45:48
every chapter is essentially 6 blogs.
45:51
So I just have to write 6 blogs and that's otherwise I would go
45:55
crazy. So I, I, I have to do it like
45:58
that. But yeah, so, so 2/2/2023 we
46:07
wrote the AI classroom, which was a very much of its time.
46:12
Still, I'm still amazed that there's still so many teachers
46:16
who get in contact with me a lot saying they, they get so much
46:19
out of that book because I think I think because, and you're
46:23
probably the same, but because I'm in a bit of an AI bubble, I
46:27
feel like we've moved on so much from that from two years ago.
46:31
But actually there's a lot of teachers still at square 1 and,
46:34
and need that introduction. And then early this year I
46:39
released infinite education, which is, is more the, the
46:43
strategic side. So it's, it's for school leaders
46:47
and anybody who wants to be a school leader.
46:49
So it's essentially the first half of the book is why do we
46:53
need to, to think of strategy in a new way in education?
46:57
And then the second-half of the book is essentially how do you
47:00
do, how do you strategize? And it's very practical.
47:03
And so, yeah, I kind of wanted to do like, like, you know, like
47:08
you see those, you see the business books, like the
47:12
strategy business books. I kind of wanted to do one of
47:14
them. But specifically for school
47:16
leaders of how, how can we move forward in this new world.
47:21
So yeah. And, and I, I, so I, I say to
47:25
teachers by the AI classroom, if you want help school leaders, if
47:32
you're looking to change education than that infinite
47:36
education. But yeah, I, and I've also got
47:40
for the last two years, I bring a book out every summer, which
47:45
is quite a short book, but which is essentially a compilation of
47:50
different essays from people. And I edit it.
47:55
So we've just released that, which is called the the
47:58
Educators AI Guide 2026, which has, yes, it's, it's really good
48:04
actually, you know, like many, because probably because I
48:06
didn't write it, I just edited it.
48:08
But it's the first section is just we, we surveyed hundreds
48:14
and hundreds of teachers about what, what tools, what AI tools
48:18
are they finding the most useful?
48:21
And so the first section is all about that.
48:23
It's all, it's all teacher voice.
48:27
The second section is, is all around 7 case studies from 7
48:31
different schools who are integrating AI.
48:34
And then the last section is kind of essays on the ethical
48:38
questions. So there's one on
48:39
sustainability, one on data privacy, one on strategy and so
48:48
on. So, yeah, so if you want kind of
48:50
an up to date, how do I get started with AI, that A-Z type
48:55
book, then then that, that book is great.
48:58
But yeah, I, yeah, I suppose it's just it comes back to that
49:03
thing, doesn't it? It's great that satisfaction of
49:06
producing something and, and, and I often think of the book as
49:13
it's something that can go much further than I ever can.
49:16
Now I'm quite lucky, I get to travel quite a bit of the world
49:19
doing this work, but the book goes so much further than I
49:23
could. Like I get emails and messages
49:25
from people all over the world saying how much the books are
49:29
helping them. And it's, it's amazing to be
49:32
able to to produce something that that can do that really.
49:35
So it also helps, but it also helps keep the work going as
49:39
well. On a really practical level is
49:42
because people discover you and, and ask you for further help.
49:47
So yeah, it's a it's it, it keeps me.
49:52
I suppose it's one of the reasons why I write for Forbes
49:54
every week as well. And I, I do a podcast every day,
49:57
like a 10 minute podcast. Awesome, thank you.
50:01
It, it the whole point of it is to keep me on my toes because
50:05
like, as you'll know, like this, this field is moving so fast.
50:10
So I, I almost need to back myself into a corner to force
50:14
myself to stay up to date with it.
50:17
Sure, sure. Yeah.
50:18
So I I've now got mechanisms where I like the podcast, like
50:23
articles where I've got no choice but but to research
50:28
constantly. Yeah, which is which it works at
50:32
the moment. I haven't had a haven't had a
50:33
nervous breakdown just yet. That's good.
50:36
But yeah, if it goes any faster maybe, but hopefully it's it, it
50:42
stays at this speed also this kind of stuff that you're.
50:45
Doing, I believe, at least the writing and the podcasting.
50:49
All this is our muscles in our heads that we we have to keep
50:54
growing and keeping them strong. Just the same way you have to be
50:57
physically healthy writing all the time, talking all the time,
51:00
expressing ideas and being clear all the time and elaborating
51:04
and, you know, making sure that you're understood.
51:06
These are all muscles that need to be worked on all the time,
51:10
you know, And it's one thing that was Thomas is like English
51:13
is so important because it's relevant to anything that you
51:16
do. You know, like you want to be a
51:18
lawyer, you want to be a businessman, you want to be a
51:19
doctor, you want to be a husband, you want to be a dad,
51:21
you want to be a good a good brother, a good friend.
51:24
Learn how to express yourself because miscommunication is
51:27
probably 95% of everyone's issues, you know, and I think
51:31
you saw right there. And even just for the idea
51:34
process, like if you're having to think about something
51:38
meaningfully every single day and or, and produce a bit of
51:41
content every single day. Now, 9 out of 10 of them might
51:45
be, might might be just average. In fact, they will be average.
51:51
But one out of 10 of them might be a LinkedIn post or a blog or
51:55
a podcast that goes a bit viral. Maybe one out of 50, maybe one
51:59
out of 100. But the more you do in it that
52:03
you're increasing the frequency of that, that one that that does
52:07
really well. So therefore you learn, you
52:10
learn actually, actually that's, but that's the type of thing I
52:14
should maybe be looking at and exploring more.
52:17
And if you're into business, because if everybody needs
52:21
money, like that's how we survive.
52:23
So if you want to monetize what you're doing, then it really
52:26
helps because you get to think, well, actually that's the kind
52:29
of content people resonate with. So maybe I'll focus on that a
52:32
bit more and, or, or that's the big type of content that feels
52:38
more authentic to myself. So maybe I should focus on that
52:41
more. So it's yeah.
52:43
But if you just did one bit of content every month, you
52:46
wouldn't you, it would take you decades to get there, whereas
52:51
somebody who's doing it every day would get there in just a
52:53
just a year or so. So I, I do think whether it's
52:57
for business, whether it's just to have a presence on social
53:00
media, whether you want to write a book, you've got to be putting
53:05
stuff out there constantly. And it's the real feedback you
53:08
get from other human beings that that helps you craft and helps
53:12
you. I used to before I was a
53:15
teacher. I did stand up comedy for a
53:16
couple of years. No way.
53:18
Yeah. I loved that.
53:21
Yeah. Well, I loved.
53:22
It, but I was, I started training to be a teacher and it
53:25
started to clash. So I, I, I give it up in the
53:29
end. But I, I one of the things that
53:32
people used to say in the stand up comedy circuit is that you
53:37
only practice when you're on stage.
53:40
So because you can't practice stand up comedy in front of a
53:43
mirror like you, like you could have the funniest joke in the
53:47
world, but you don't, you don't know.
53:49
You could have the worst joke in the world, but you don't know.
53:51
You've literally got to be in front of people to practice.
53:54
And when you start to stand up comedy, you get 5 minutes slots.
53:58
Yeah. So if you're doing 5 minutes
54:00
once a week, you're going to learn at a much slower pace than
54:04
somebody who's doing 5 minutes every night.
54:07
Yeah, even three days a week. Yeah, yeah.
54:09
So. So the whole idea when you're
54:11
starting out with stand up comedy is you want to be on
54:14
stage as much as possible. Like so people move to a busy
54:18
city and move to New York where you're from.
54:20
They because because there's so many comedy clothes, that means
54:24
they can get more and more stage time and therefore they can
54:28
learn faster and get more successful faster.
54:31
And I think, I think that lesson applies to everything and, and,
54:37
and very much applies professionally as well in, in,
54:41
in how we come up with our ideas, how we keep ourselves
54:44
fresh, how we, how we learn from, from our surroundings.
54:49
So yeah, it's, but the great thing is with social media, you
54:52
can, you can do this. You just have to get, you just
54:57
have to get rid of the inhibition.
54:59
A feeling that says if I post this, will I look silly?
55:02
Like little bit loud never hurts.
55:04
It never hurts. Pint again.
55:07
I needed my first open mic. I needed a pint again just to
55:11
ask the guy to sign me up a shot just before I went on stage.
55:14
You know, I was like my. Yeah, I played a little bit too.
55:20
Yeah, I do, I do. It's hard the.
55:22
Truth I wanted to start writing stand up because I think it's
55:24
fun. I think it's really clever and,
55:27
and it requires real sophistication and, and wit and
55:30
intelligence. But I'm just, I have, I think
55:34
also it's just. Craft.
55:35
It's like because they said, you know, if you, if you write, the
55:39
first of a time is art. Yeah.
55:41
But the first? Time you ever get up?
55:43
You might write, I don't know, let's say 10 jokes within 5
55:46
minutes. Maybe one of those jokes work.
55:50
And so the next time you go up, you write 9 new jokes and keep
55:55
that joke in and then maybe and then maybe one more works.
55:59
And then if so, if you do that 10 times and on average you're
56:03
getting a new joke work which which is quite a high rate of.
56:08
Jokes within 10. Ten goes in 10, 10 open night,
56:14
open mic nights, you've got a 5 minute routine and that's like
56:19
within a year you could have a full half hour you could have a
56:22
full hour and that's that's that's how comedy works You, you
56:26
it's a craft and you've just got to see what what sticks, what
56:31
doesn't stick. But I think imagine if we took
56:34
that and allowed our students to work like that.
56:38
Yeah, if we, if we give them some, if we, let's say a project
56:43
bit of work and we went, you know what, like amazing piece of
56:47
work, but only about 5% of it is, is good.
56:53
Why don't we, why do, why don't you hold on to that?
56:56
And then let's try and build another 5% that's good.
56:59
And another. I don't, I assume through a bad
57:01
rating. I don't.
57:02
Let them throw it out again. There's something in there that
57:05
you're going to want to use again another time.
57:06
So like even if you never want to use 95% of that again, like
57:10
you just said, there's going to be a couple of good lines, a
57:12
couple of good descriptions. Like, you know, just like, you
57:15
know, I felt a shudder and I'm like good, keep that.
57:17
You know, like I heard the sound of brass breaking, like
57:19
excellent. That's like very visual.
57:21
Throw the rest of it away, you know, just keep that for now,
57:24
you know. Great.
57:25
Yeah, absolutely. And a bit like.
57:27
In stand up as well, you might you might tell a joke and it
57:30
doesn't go down well, but you might still go away a thing.
57:33
And actually, I think there's something in that I just need
57:35
to, maybe the timing needs to be different or the, the punch line
57:39
needs to be a bit sharper. And so you, you craft it a bit
57:43
more and you try it out again. And, and, and I just think,
57:48
imagine, imagine that's how we approach learning with our with
57:52
our students and, and almost taught them that as a craft,
57:55
that that's how you get good at something rather than just
57:59
memorise as much as possible and then go into an exam hall and
58:02
try and regurgitate it. It's like we actually taught
58:04
them how to craft and how to get good at anything.
58:08
And then therefore, no matter what they want to do, they have
58:13
now got the core ethic of what it takes to get good at
58:17
anything, absolutely anything. We just don't teach.
58:22
We just don't teach that. And I think it comes back to
58:24
something you said very early on that I don't think a lot of
58:30
teachers have that experience to be able to pass on themselves
58:34
and not, I am a teacher, I've got family who are teachers,
58:38
I've got friends who are teachers.
58:40
So this isn't a slight on teachers, but I just think we
58:45
don't, it's just, it's just not something that I think a lot of
58:50
people know. So yeah, yeah, we've got a,
58:54
we've got a long way to go. We do.
58:57
We do. There's before I leave you
58:59
because I appreciate your time and we got an hour slot before
59:03
before we call this. It is really such a pleasure.
59:06
It's so nice. Thank you again.
59:09
What what is what is what is some kind of easy implementable
59:12
and practical advice that you can kind of it's universally
59:15
useful. You think that you'd recommend
59:17
leaving off with that anyone can have?
59:20
In terms of artificial intelligence and in terms of
59:23
either education or. Artificial intelligence that you
59:25
think that anyone listening would be like, you know, this is
59:27
a really easy, quick step that you could take to really just
59:30
make a big difference. I, yeah, I mean, first of all,
59:35
it's been amazing to be with you as well.
59:36
I, I love doing podcasts because and, and I know we had
59:40
conversations beforehand where you were said, you said, do you
59:42
want me to send you over some questions and things like that?
59:45
And I said, no, it's OK because I, I love, I love it when we can
59:49
just, I don't know what's going to come out my mouth.
59:52
I don't know what's going to come out your mouth.
59:54
And we just actually have a conversation because it helps me
59:56
clarify my thoughts as well. But I suppose I'll try and do
1:00:03
this really quickly. So I'm a big fan of it.
1:00:05
There's an innovation model called the three box solution to
1:00:08
innovation. And I mention this in all my
1:00:10
books. Box 1 is 3 boxes.
1:00:13
Box 1 is all about. What are we currently doing,
1:00:15
what are we currently good at? And you can apply that to a
1:00:17
business, to a school. It's the systems, it's the
1:00:20
procedures, it's the success metrics it and we can innovate,
1:00:24
we can get more efficient, we can maybe get by with it with
1:00:28
less budget, whatever that might be.
1:00:29
But it's our performance engine, it's our day-to-day.
1:00:34
But there's also two other boxes that in that to jump to the
1:00:37
third box. The third box is about creating
1:00:40
the future because if we just carry on in box 1 then it might
1:00:45
become irrelevant after a while. Think, Think blockbusters.
1:00:48
Think Kodak. These companies had amazing
1:00:52
performance engine businesses but still failed because they
1:00:57
didn't create the future. The middle boxes.
1:01:00
What can we give up that might have worked in box 1 but does
1:01:04
not does no longer work in box 3.
1:01:07
It's a scary box. Yeah, 100.
1:01:09
Percent, 100%. And this is the, this is the
1:01:12
main framework I use when I do innovation with schools and with
1:01:14
government. But I suppose my, the one thing
1:01:18
I want to say is I also use it with my personal life, with my,
1:01:22
with me. So I always, I always think to
1:01:25
myself, right, what am I working on right now?
1:01:29
What takes up the majority of my time?
1:01:31
What am I good at? What's the systems I have in
1:01:33
place at home, my personal life, maybe my work life.
1:01:38
And then I think, what else could I be doing for the future?
1:01:42
Could I, could I get up every half an hour early every morning
1:01:47
and, and learn a new skill that that could become something I
1:01:52
move into in the in the future? Is a could I be looking at
1:01:56
another way to make money for my business?
1:01:59
Could I be looking at another career?
1:02:02
Could I be making connections with people who are in in the
1:02:07
realm that I would eventually want to be in myself?
1:02:12
So I think I think always be thinking right, even if things
1:02:15
are going really well, always be curious as to what else could I
1:02:19
be doing to get to the next, next stage.
1:02:24
My when I was a teacher, one of one of the leaders once said to
1:02:30
me, she, she asked me in for a meeting and she said, what's
1:02:35
you're out? What's you're out and and I I
1:02:40
want, I said to her because I didn't want to appear that I
1:02:43
wanted to get out because I wanted I was really enjoying my
1:02:46
job. I was like, I don't have an out.
1:02:47
This is I'm committed to the school.
1:02:50
And she said no. She said every good leader has
1:02:53
an out because if if you come in one day and you've been laid
1:02:58
off, you've been made redundant. If you come in one day and you
1:03:03
realise you need more money and this job isn't doing it for you,
1:03:05
what something could happen out of your control.
1:03:10
So watch you out. What were you going to do?
1:03:12
So always be working on something that you can
1:03:16
transition, transition to. So it's something that I always
1:03:19
keep trying to keep in my in my, the dynamic of my life.
1:03:24
And I think, I think it's really good, really good advice that I
1:03:28
was given and that I think and really helps.
1:03:32
And it, and it links back to what we've said before, doesn't
1:03:34
it, about lifelong learning. It's because that's essentially
1:03:37
what we're talking about. It's how do you continue to
1:03:40
learn so that you can keep moving in life, you can keep
1:03:43
progressing and I think people will find that.
1:03:46
Curiosity is also a muscle, you know that the more that you
1:03:49
practice being curious or how does that work or what else can
1:03:52
I do, you'll find that you come, you come to better solutions and
1:03:55
better and, and and more creative answers.
1:03:57
The more the more that you time that you spend doing, you know,
1:04:00
working on that train of thought for sure.
1:04:02
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, absolutely.
1:04:05
And I find for me, I find the thing that ignites curiosity the
1:04:08
most is, is when I hang around with people who are, are kind of
1:04:15
doing better than I am. And that that really makes me
1:04:18
think like how, because I'm always surprised by just how
1:04:23
normal everybody is. It doesn't matter if you're like
1:04:27
an Uber airless celebrity, a billionaire and you get into a
1:04:32
room with somebody, everyone's just a normal person who who
1:04:36
was, there's not much difference between US.
1:04:39
And that always really fascinates me because then I
1:04:41
think what it does for me first of all is it thinks I start to
1:04:44
think, well, if they can do that, surely I can do it because
1:04:48
they're not very different to me.
1:04:50
And then that makes me really curious to start thinking, well,
1:04:52
how do they do it? How, how do they do it?
1:04:56
And I think even just associating yourself with
1:04:58
somebody who's a bit out of your circle, like can do so much for
1:05:02
you can really can ignite, ignite so much.
1:05:06
Beautiful, beautiful Dan. Thank you so much for the time.
1:05:09
This is such a pleasure. Maybe we'll do this again,
1:05:11
especially working this sounds like this has been a ton of fun
1:05:14
and I'm sure we have a lot more we can talk about, but for now,
1:05:17
this is such a pleasure. Thanks so much for your time and
1:05:19
I really appreciate this. Thanks Efrain.
1:05:22
Cheers, thank you so much. Take care and have a good day.
1:05:24
Bye bye.