Opportunities for extended learning are an important part of a UNIS education. Earlier this month five students from the Foresight Project were selected to attend the TEDxYouthDay at the Times Center in Manhattan. More than 20 scientists, designers, technologists, explorers, artists, and performers shared short lessons on what they do best. They dazzled the students with mind-shifting stories, inspired them with creativity and made them want to dive even deeper into this broad array of topics. Click here to watch our students introduce one of the featured speakers and share in this great experience!

This week I gathered with more than 1,000 innovators, social entrepreneurs, ministers, educators and business leaders from more than 100 countries for the World Innovation Summit on Education at the Qatar National Convention Centre in Doha to explore how collaboration in many forms and at many levels can become the driving force of efforts to inspire innovation in education and to design long-term strategies for its renewal.

The topic of the Opening Plenary Session was educations increasing prominence in the global political agenda.  Education is the answer to issues of globalization: mediating extremism, promoting peace, and encouraging sustainability.

Tony MacKay from the Centre of Strategic Education moderated a fascinating conversation on Education and Society: Listening to Learners.  This debate/conversation is worth watching (click here to view).

“There’s confusion when we don’t listen to the learner”–Tony MacKay, Executive Director, Centre for Strategic Education (Australia)

“We should ask students from the very beginning to be controversial.”–Dr. Jacek Strzemiecsny, Co-founder and Board President, Center for Citizenship Education (Poland)

Asking students to be controversial connects nicely to ideas expressed by David Rock, Founder of the NueroLeadership Institute, about training students to be provocateurs (click here to view).  Perhaps to often do we expect students to color within the lines, imposing structure (sometime needed yet sometimes unnecessary) and demanding conformity.

“Children need opportunities of social importance (or the danger is that they become passive in their later lives)”–Dr. Jacek Strzemiecsny

Perhaps the most balanced and wise voice in the conversation was that of lawyer, writer, human rights activist and mother, Ms. Ayo Obe (Nigeria). Quoting Mark Twain, “You never let schooling get in the way of education”

The afternoon session Educating Cultures: Balancing Global and Local centered on the topic of language—English as a literary/poetic language but also a business/commerce language and whether we feel the makings of a new metaculture arising through a new language, “globish”. Panelist lamented the increasing popularity of “globish” by quoting Goethe and Wittgenstein, yet they saw its ubiquity as an inevitable outcome:

“Those who know nothing of foreign languages know nothing of their own.”

“The limits of our language are the limits of our world.”

In the final session of the day, Learning in the 21st Century–Policy Lessons from Around the World, Andreas Schleicher (Deputy Director for Education and Special Adivsor on Edcuation Policy to the OECD’s Secretary-General) provided a sweeping and rich assessment of the global status of education.  This presentation is a must watch (click here to view the presentation and click here to view the prezi).