0:00:01.942,0:00:05.105
Thank you very much.

0:00:05.105,0:00:07.326
I moved to America 12 years ago

0:00:07.326,0:00:09.352
with my wife Terry and our two kids.

0:00:09.352,0:00:15.788
Actually, truthfully, we moved to Los Angeles -- (Laughter) --

0:00:15.788,0:00:17.545
thinking we were moving to America,

0:00:17.545,0:00:23.965
but anyway, it's a short plane ride from Los Angeles

0:00:23.965,0:00:26.846
to America.

0:00:26.846,0:00:29.059
I got here 12 years ago,

0:00:29.059,0:00:32.869
and when I got here, I was told various things,

0:00:32.869,0:00:38.319
like, "Americans don't get irony."

0:00:38.319,0:00:41.139
Have you come across this idea?

0:00:41.139,0:00:44.220
It's not true. I've traveled the whole length and breadth of this country.

0:00:44.220,0:00:47.479
I have found no evidence that Americans don't get irony.

0:00:47.479,0:00:50.074
It's one of those cultural myths,

0:00:50.074,0:00:54.118
like, "The British are reserved."

0:00:54.118,0:00:56.455
I don't know why people think this.

0:00:56.455,0:00:58.966
We've invaded every country we've encountered.

0:00:58.966,0:01:02.602
(Laughter)

0:01:02.602,0:01:05.126
But it's not true Americans don't get irony,

0:01:05.126,0:01:07.622
but I just want you to know that that's what people

0:01:07.622,0:01:09.097
are saying about you behind your back.

0:01:09.097,0:01:12.416
You know, so when you leave living rooms in Europe,

0:01:12.416,0:01:16.889
people say, thankfully, nobody was ironic in your presence.

0:01:16.889,0:01:19.619
But I knew that Americans get irony

0:01:19.619,0:01:25.174
when I came across that legislation No Child Left Behind.

0:01:25.174,0:01:30.191
Because whoever thought of that title gets irony,

0:01:30.191,0:01:32.043
don't they, because --

0:01:32.043,0:01:37.866
(Laughter) (Applause) —

0:01:37.866,0:01:41.413
because it's leaving millions of children behind.

0:01:41.413,0:01:44.584
Now I can see that's not a very attractive name for legislation:

0:01:44.584,0:01:48.208
Millions of Children Left Behind. I can see that.

0:01:48.208,0:01:49.413
What's the plan? Well, we propose

0:01:49.413,0:01:51.010
to leave millions of children behind,

0:01:51.010,0:01:53.489
and here's how it's going to work.

0:01:53.489,0:01:56.476
And it's working beautifully.

0:01:56.476,0:01:57.670
In some parts of the country,

0:01:57.670,0:02:01.677
60 percent of kids drop out of high school.

0:02:01.677,0:02:03.175
In the Native American communities,

0:02:03.175,0:02:05.403
it's 80 percent of kids.

0:02:05.403,0:02:09.616
If we halved that number, one estimate is

0:02:09.616,0:02:14.050
it would create a net gain to the U.S. economy

0:02:14.050,0:02:18.902
over 10 years of nearly a trillion dollars.

0:02:18.902,0:02:20.548
From an economic point of view,

0:02:20.548,0:02:23.789
this is good math, isn't it, that we should do this?

0:02:23.789,0:02:26.138
It actually costs an enormous amount

0:02:26.138,0:02:30.300
to mop up the damage from the dropout crisis.

0:02:30.300,0:02:34.029
But the dropout crisis is just the tip of an iceberg.

0:02:34.029,0:02:36.279
What it doesn't count are all the kids who are in school

0:02:36.279,0:02:40.346
but being disengaged from it, who don't enjoy it,

0:02:40.346,0:02:43.436
who don't get any real benefit from it.

0:02:43.436,0:02:44.975
And the reason is

0:02:44.975,0:02:46.614
not that we're not spending enough money.

0:02:46.614,0:02:48.531
America spends more money on education

0:02:48.531,0:02:50.103
than most other countries.

0:02:50.103,0:02:53.529
Class sizes are smaller than in many countries.

0:02:53.529,0:02:55.967
And there are hundreds of initiatives every year

0:02:55.967,0:02:58.244
to try and improve education.

0:02:58.244,0:03:02.765
The trouble is, it's all going in the wrong direction.

0:03:02.765,0:03:03.934
There are three principles

0:03:03.934,0:03:07.364
on which human life flourishes,

0:03:07.364,0:03:11.375
and they are contradicted by the culture of education

0:03:11.375,0:03:13.652
under which most teachers have to labor

0:03:13.652,0:03:16.976
and most students have to endure.

0:03:16.976,0:03:19.540
The first is this, that human beings

0:03:19.540,0:03:24.228
are naturally different and diverse.

0:03:24.228,0:03:25.529
Can I ask you, how many of you

0:03:25.529,0:03:28.754
have got children of your own?

0:03:28.754,0:03:31.905
Okay. Or grandchildren.

0:03:31.905,0:03:35.645
How about two children or more? Right.

0:03:35.645,0:03:37.652
And the rest of you have seen such children.

0:03:37.652,0:03:40.525
(Laughter)

0:03:40.525,0:03:43.542
Small people wandering about.

0:03:43.542,0:03:45.636
I will make you a bet,

0:03:45.636,0:03:47.066
and I am confident that I will win the bet.

0:03:47.066,0:03:49.551
If you've got two children or more,

0:03:49.551,0:03:53.380
I bet you they are completely different from each other.

0:03:53.380,0:03:57.751
Aren't they? Aren't they? (Applause)

0:03:57.751,0:04:00.354
You would never confuse them, would you?

0:04:00.354,0:04:04.931
Like, "Which one are you? Remind me.

0:04:04.931,0:04:06.263
Your mother and I are going to introduce

0:04:06.263,0:04:09.522
some color-coding system, so we don't get confused."

0:04:09.522,0:04:12.774
Education under No Child Left Behind

0:04:12.774,0:04:17.818
is based on not diversity but conformity.

0:04:17.818,0:04:20.376
What schools are encouraged to do is to find out

0:04:20.376,0:04:24.736
what kids can do across a very narrow spectrum of achievement.

0:04:24.736,0:04:27.130
One of the effects of No Child Left Behind

0:04:27.130,0:04:29.086
has been to narrow the focus

0:04:29.086,0:04:32.835
onto the so-called STEM disciplines. They're very important.

0:04:32.835,0:04:34.954
I'm not here to argue against science and math.

0:04:34.954,0:04:39.178
On the contrary, they're necessary but they're not sufficient.

0:04:39.178,0:04:41.377
A real education has to give equal weight

0:04:41.377,0:04:45.114
to the arts, the humanities, to physical education.

0:04:45.114,0:04:52.298
An awful lot of kids, sorry, thank you — (Applause) —

0:04:52.298,0:04:55.210
One estimate in America currently is that

0:04:55.210,0:04:57.866
something like 10 percent of kids, getting on that way,

0:04:57.866,0:05:02.180
are being diagnosed with various conditions

0:05:02.180,0:05:06.502
under the broad title of attention deficit disorder.

0:05:06.502,0:05:10.179
ADHD. I'm not saying there's no such thing.

0:05:10.179,0:05:13.154
I just don't believe it's an epidemic like this.

0:05:13.154,0:05:15.970
If you sit kids down, hour after hour,

0:05:15.970,0:05:19.146
doing low-grade clerical work,

0:05:19.146,0:05:22.435
don't be surprised if they start to fidget, you know?

0:05:22.435,0:05:29.913
(Laughter) (Applause)

0:05:29.913,0:05:32.322
Children are not, for the most part,

0:05:32.322,0:05:34.190
suffering from a psychological condition.

0:05:34.190,0:05:40.379
They're suffering from childhood. (Laughter)

0:05:40.379,0:05:42.452
And I know this because I spent my early life

0:05:42.452,0:05:46.306
as a child. I went through the whole thing.

0:05:46.306,0:05:49.315
Kids prosper best with a broad curriculum

0:05:49.315,0:05:51.723
that celebrates their various talents,

0:05:51.723,0:05:53.360
not just a small range of them.

0:05:53.360,0:05:55.510
And by the way, the arts aren't just important

0:05:55.510,0:05:56.784
because they improve math scores.

0:05:56.784,0:05:58.635
They're important because they speak to parts

0:05:58.635,0:06:02.150
of children's being which are otherwise untouched.

0:06:02.150,0:06:08.562
The second, thank you — (Applause)

0:06:08.562,0:06:12.725
The second principle that drives human life flourishing

0:06:12.725,0:06:14.355
is curiosity.

0:06:14.355,0:06:17.730
If you can light the spark of curiosity in a child,

0:06:17.730,0:06:21.343
they will learn without any further assistance, very often.

0:06:21.343,0:06:23.548
Children are natural learners.

0:06:23.548,0:06:27.864
It's a real achievement to put that particular ability out,

0:06:27.864,0:06:30.010
or to stifle it.

0:06:30.010,0:06:34.235
Curiosity is the engine of achievement.

0:06:34.235,0:06:36.487
Now the reason I say this is because

0:06:36.487,0:06:40.879
one of the effects of the current culture here, if I can say so,

0:06:40.879,0:06:44.698
has been to de-professionalize teachers.

0:06:44.698,0:06:47.050
There is no system in the world

0:06:47.050,0:06:49.930
or any school in the country

0:06:49.930,0:06:53.028
that is better than its teachers.

0:06:53.028,0:06:57.636
Teachers are the lifeblood of the success of schools.

0:06:57.636,0:07:00.615
But teaching is a creative profession.

0:07:00.615,0:07:04.048
Teaching, properly conceived, is not a delivery system.

0:07:04.048,0:07:06.941
You know, you're not there just to pass on received information.

0:07:06.941,0:07:09.498
Great teachers do that,

0:07:09.498,0:07:12.361
but what great teachers also do is mentor,

0:07:12.361,0:07:15.869
stimulate, provoke, engage.

0:07:15.869,0:07:18.682
You see, in the end, education is about learning.

0:07:18.682,0:07:20.402
If there's no learning going on,

0:07:20.402,0:07:22.039
there's no education going on.

0:07:22.039,0:07:23.881
And people can spend an awful lot of time

0:07:23.881,0:07:26.297
discussing education without ever discussing learning.

0:07:26.297,0:07:29.186
The whole point of education is to get people to learn.

0:07:29.186,0:07:31.875
A friend of mine, an old friend -- actually very old,

0:07:31.875,0:07:35.672
he's dead. (Laughter)

0:07:35.672,0:07:41.401
That's as old as it gets, I'm afraid.

0:07:41.401,0:07:46.737
But a wonderful guy he was, wonderful philosopher.

0:07:46.737,0:07:49.749
He used to talk about the difference between the task

0:07:49.749,0:07:53.818
and achievement senses of verbs.

0:07:53.818,0:07:55.622
You know, you can be engaged in the activity of something,

0:07:55.622,0:07:57.213
but not really be achieving it,

0:07:57.213,0:08:01.865
like dieting. It's a very good example, you know.

0:08:01.865,0:08:06.531
There he is. He's dieting. Is he losing any weight? Not really.

0:08:06.531,0:08:07.844
Teaching is a word like that.

0:08:07.844,0:08:11.816
You can say, "There's Deborah, she's in room 34, she's teaching."

0:08:11.816,0:08:13.551
But if nobody's learning anything,

0:08:13.551,0:08:15.350
she may be engaged in the task of teaching

0:08:15.350,0:08:18.419
but not actually fulfilling it.

0:08:18.419,0:08:22.266
The role of a teacher is to facilitate learning. That's it.

0:08:22.266,0:08:24.579
And part of the problem is, I think,

0:08:24.579,0:08:28.035
that the dominant culture of education has come to focus

0:08:28.035,0:08:31.703
on not teaching and learning, but testing.

0:08:31.703,0:08:35.401
Now, testing is important. Standardized tests have a place.

0:08:35.401,0:08:38.715
But they should not be the dominant culture of education.

0:08:38.715,0:08:40.573
They should be diagnostic. They should help.

0:08:40.573,0:08:48.139
(Applause)

0:08:48.139,0:08:50.603
If I go for a medical examination,

0:08:50.603,0:08:54.187
I want some standardized tests. I do.

0:08:54.187,0:08:55.858
You know, I want to know what my cholesterol level is

0:08:55.858,0:08:58.546
compared to everybody else's on a standard scale.

0:08:58.546,0:08:59.984
I don't want to be told on some scale

0:08:59.984,0:09:03.555
my doctor invented in the car.

0:09:03.555,0:09:06.609
"Your cholesterol is what I call Level Orange."

0:09:06.609,0:09:12.297
"Really? Is that good?""We don't know."

0:09:12.297,0:09:17.364
But all that should support learning. It shouldn't obstruct it,

0:09:17.364,0:09:19.275
which of course it often does.

0:09:19.275,0:09:21.441
So in place of curiosity, what we have

0:09:21.441,0:09:23.975
is a culture of compliance.

0:09:23.975,0:09:26.900
Our children and teachers are encouraged

0:09:26.900,0:09:29.499
to follow routine algorithms

0:09:29.499,0:09:33.837
rather than to excite that power of imagination and curiosity.

0:09:33.837,0:09:34.905
And the third principle is this:

0:09:34.905,0:09:37.900
that human life is inherently creative.

0:09:37.900,0:09:40.308
It's why we all have different résumés.

0:09:40.308,0:09:42.094
We create our lives,

0:09:42.094,0:09:44.432
and we can recreate them as we go through them.

0:09:44.432,0:09:47.446
It's the common currency of being a human being.

0:09:47.446,0:09:49.979
It's why human culture is so interesting and diverse

0:09:49.979,0:09:51.325
and dynamic.

0:09:51.325,0:09:54.334
I mean, other animals may well have imaginations

0:09:54.334,0:09:56.614
and creativity, but it's not so much in evidence,

0:09:56.614,0:09:58.062
is it, as ours?

0:09:58.062,0:10:00.638
I mean, you may have a dog.

0:10:00.638,0:10:03.644
And your dog may get depressed.

0:10:03.644,0:10:06.099
You know, but it doesn't listen to Radiohead, does it?

0:10:06.099,0:10:10.019
(Laughter)

0:10:10.019,0:10:12.531
And sit staring out the window with a bottle of Jack Daniels.

0:10:12.531,0:10:16.955
(Laughter)

0:10:16.955,0:10:18.616
And you say, "Would you like to come for a walk?"

0:10:18.616,0:10:21.747
He says, "No, I'm fine.

0:10:21.747,0:10:27.519
You go. I'll wait. But take pictures."

0:10:27.519,0:10:30.433
We all create our own lives through this restless process

0:10:30.433,0:10:32.442
of imagining alternatives and possibilities,

0:10:32.442,0:10:34.681
and what one of the roles of education

0:10:34.681,0:10:38.717
is to awaken and develop these powers of creativity.

0:10:38.717,0:10:42.277
Instead, what we have is a culture of standardization.

0:10:42.277,0:10:46.384
Now, it doesn't have to be that way. It really doesn't.

0:10:46.384,0:10:49.936
Finland regularly comes out on top

0:10:49.936,0:10:51.311
in math, science and reading.

0:10:51.311,0:10:53.927
Now, we only know that's what they do well at

0:10:53.927,0:10:55.791
because that's all that's being tested currently.

0:10:55.791,0:10:57.432
That's one of the problems of the test.

0:10:57.432,0:11:00.591
They don't look for other things that matter just as much.

0:11:00.591,0:11:03.095
The thing about work in Finland is this:

0:11:03.095,0:11:06.474
they don't obsess about those disciplines.

0:11:06.474,0:11:08.237
They have a very broad approach to education

0:11:08.237,0:11:12.775
which includes humanities, physical education, the arts.

0:11:12.775,0:11:18.511
Second, there is no standardized testing in Finland.

0:11:18.511,0:11:20.271
I mean, there's a bit,

0:11:20.271,0:11:21.822
but it's not what gets people up in the morning.

0:11:21.822,0:11:24.027
It's not what keeps them at their desks.

0:11:24.027,0:11:25.860
And the third thing, and I was at a meeting recently

0:11:25.860,0:11:29.287
with some people from Finland, actual Finnish people,

0:11:29.287,0:11:32.090
and somebody from the American system

0:11:32.090,0:11:33.863
was saying to the people in Finland,

0:11:33.863,0:11:37.782
"What do you do about the dropout rate in Finland?"

0:11:37.782,0:11:39.403
And they all looked a bit bemused, and said,

0:11:39.403,0:11:42.252
"Well, we don't have one.

0:11:42.252,0:11:44.591
Why would you drop out?

0:11:44.591,0:11:46.856
If people are in trouble, we get to them quite quickly

0:11:46.856,0:11:48.441
and help them and we support them."

0:11:48.441,0:11:50.335
Now people always say, "Well, you know,

0:11:50.335,0:11:53.463
you can't compare Finland to America."

0:11:53.463,0:11:54.858
No. I think there's a population

0:11:54.858,0:11:56.986
of around five million in Finland.

0:11:56.986,0:12:00.815
But you can compare it to a state in America.

0:12:00.815,0:12:04.719
Many states in America have fewer people in them than that.

0:12:04.719,0:12:06.386
I mean, I've been to some states in America

0:12:06.386,0:12:10.199
and I was the only person there. (Laughter)

0:12:10.199,0:12:14.572
Really. Really. I was asked to lock up when I left.

0:12:14.572,0:12:18.603
(Laughter)

0:12:18.603,0:12:22.536
But what all the high-performing systems in the world do

0:12:22.536,0:12:26.718
is currently what is not evident, sadly,

0:12:26.718,0:12:30.703
across the systems in America -- I mean, as a whole.

0:12:30.703,0:12:35.637
One is this: They individualize teaching and learning.

0:12:35.637,0:12:39.103
They recognize that it's students who are learning

0:12:39.103,0:12:42.761
and the system has to engage them, their curiosity,

0:12:42.761,0:12:45.338
their individuality, and their creativity.

0:12:45.338,0:12:47.697
That's how you get them to learn.

0:12:47.697,0:12:51.784
The second is that they attribute a very high status

0:12:51.784,0:12:54.065
to the teaching profession.

0:12:54.065,0:12:57.009
They recognize that you can't improve education

0:12:57.009,0:12:58.658
if you don't pick great people to teach

0:12:58.658,0:13:00.517
and if you don't keep giving them constant support

0:13:00.517,0:13:02.282
and professional development.

0:13:02.282,0:13:05.219
Investing in professional development is not a cost.

0:13:05.219,0:13:06.625
It's an investment,

0:13:06.625,0:13:09.556
and every other country that's succeeding well knows that,

0:13:09.556,0:13:14.515
whether it's Australia, Canada, South Korea, Singapore,

0:13:14.515,0:13:17.961
Hong Kong or Shanghai. They know that to be the case.

0:13:17.961,0:13:21.504
And the third is, they devolve responsibility

0:13:21.504,0:13:25.243
to the school level for getting the job done.

0:13:25.243,0:13:27.621
You see, there's a big difference here between

0:13:27.621,0:13:31.385
going into a mode of command and control in education --

0:13:31.385,0:13:32.985
That's what happens in some systems.

0:13:32.985,0:13:34.306
You know, central governments decide

0:13:34.306,0:13:35.596
or state governments decide

0:13:35.596,0:13:38.591
they know best and they're going to tell you what to do.

0:13:38.591,0:13:42.318
The trouble is that education doesn't go on

0:13:42.318,0:13:45.196
in the committee rooms of our legislative buildings.

0:13:45.196,0:13:48.284
It happens in classrooms and schools,

0:13:48.284,0:13:51.357
and the people who do it are the teachers and the students,

0:13:51.357,0:13:54.765
and if you remove their discretion, it stops working.

0:13:54.765,0:13:57.815
You have to put it back to the people.

0:13:57.815,0:14:02.644
(Applause)

0:14:02.644,0:14:05.356
There is wonderful work happening in this country.

0:14:05.356,0:14:07.499
But I have to say it's happening

0:14:07.499,0:14:10.065
in spite of the dominant culture of education,

0:14:10.065,0:14:11.466
not because of it.

0:14:11.466,0:14:15.070
It's like people are sailing into a headwind all the time.

0:14:15.070,0:14:17.531
And the reason I think is this:

0:14:17.531,0:14:20.868
that many of the current policies are based on

0:14:20.868,0:14:23.909
mechanistic conceptions of education.

0:14:23.909,0:14:27.677
It's like education is an industrial process

0:14:27.677,0:14:30.684
that can be improved just by having better data,

0:14:30.684,0:14:32.351
and somewhere in, I think, the back of the mind

0:14:32.351,0:14:34.487
of some policy makers is this idea that

0:14:34.487,0:14:37.805
if we fine-tune it well enough, if we just get it right,

0:14:37.805,0:14:40.436
it will all hum along perfectly into the future.

0:14:40.436,0:14:43.657
It won't, and it never did.

0:14:43.657,0:14:47.756
The point is that education is not a mechanical system.

0:14:47.756,0:14:51.653
It's a human system. It's about people,

0:14:51.653,0:14:54.708
people who either do want to learn or don't want to learn.

0:14:54.708,0:14:59.523
Every student who drops out of school has a reason for it

0:14:59.523,0:15:01.844
which is rooted in their own biography.

0:15:01.844,0:15:04.867
They may find it boring. They may find it irrelevant.

0:15:04.867,0:15:07.381
They may find that it's at odds

0:15:07.381,0:15:09.925
with the life they're living outside of school.

0:15:09.925,0:15:13.764
There are trends, but the stories are always unique.

0:15:13.764,0:15:16.765
I was at a meeting recently in Los Angeles of --

0:15:16.765,0:15:19.010
they're called alternative education programs.

0:15:19.010,0:15:22.413
These are programs designed to get kids back into education.

0:15:22.413,0:15:24.357
They have certain common features.

0:15:24.357,0:15:26.389
They're very personalized.

0:15:26.389,0:15:29.599
They have strong support for the teachers,

0:15:29.599,0:15:31.860
close links with the community

0:15:31.860,0:15:33.486
and a broad and diverse curriculum,

0:15:33.486,0:15:36.117
and often programs which involve students

0:15:36.117,0:15:38.790
outside school as well as inside school.

0:15:38.790,0:15:40.500
And they work.

0:15:40.500,0:15:41.902
What's interesting to me is,

0:15:41.902,0:15:45.088
these are called "alternative education."

0:15:45.088,0:15:47.270
You know?

0:15:47.270,0:15:49.046
And all the evidence from around the world is,

0:15:49.046,0:15:53.272
if we all did that, there'd be no need for the alternative.

0:15:53.272,0:16:01.692
(Applause)

0:16:01.692,0:16:04.540
So I think we have to embrace a different metaphor.

0:16:04.540,0:16:07.197
We have to recognize that it's a human system,

0:16:07.197,0:16:10.793
and there are conditions under which people thrive,

0:16:10.793,0:16:13.698
and conditions under which they don't.

0:16:13.698,0:16:16.623
We are after all organic creatures,

0:16:16.623,0:16:21.269
and the culture of the school is absolutely essential.

0:16:21.269,0:16:23.697
Culture is an organic term, isn't it?

0:16:23.697,0:16:27.426
Not far from where I live is a place called Death Valley.

0:16:27.426,0:16:33.098
Death Valley is the hottest, driest place in America,

0:16:33.098,0:16:35.900
and nothing grows there.

0:16:35.900,0:16:38.524
Nothing grows there because it doesn't rain.

0:16:38.524,0:16:40.917
Hence, Death Valley.

0:16:40.917,0:16:48.064
In the winter of 2004, it rained in Death Valley.

0:16:48.064,0:16:51.836
Seven inches of rain fell over a very short period.

0:16:51.836,0:16:57.038
And in the spring of 2005, there was a phenomenon.

0:16:57.038,0:17:01.672
The whole floor of Death Valley was carpeted in flowers

0:17:01.672,0:17:03.428
for a while.

0:17:03.428,0:17:08.722
What it proved is this: that Death Valley isn't dead.

0:17:08.722,0:17:11.593
It's dormant.

0:17:11.593,0:17:14.838
Right beneath the surface are these seeds of possibility

0:17:14.838,0:17:18.613
waiting for the right conditions to come about,

0:17:18.613,0:17:21.956
and with organic systems, if the conditions are right,

0:17:21.956,0:17:25.685
life is inevitable. It happens all the time.

0:17:25.685,0:17:28.285
You take an area, a school, a district,

0:17:28.285,0:17:31.325
you change the conditions, give people a different sense of possibility,

0:17:31.325,0:17:32.987
a different set of expectations,

0:17:32.987,0:17:34.743
a broader range of opportunities,

0:17:34.743,0:17:37.994
you cherish and value the relationships between teachers and learners,

0:17:37.994,0:17:40.304
you offer people the discretion to be creative

0:17:40.304,0:17:42.058
and to innovate in what they do,

0:17:42.058,0:17:45.669
and schools that were once bereft spring to life.

0:17:45.669,0:17:47.331
Great leaders know that.

0:17:47.331,0:17:49.787
The real role of leadership in education --

0:17:49.787,0:17:52.344
and I think it's true at the national level, the state level,

0:17:52.344,0:17:53.902
at the school level --

0:17:53.902,0:17:58.302
is not and should not be command and control.

0:17:58.302,0:18:02.307
The real role of leadership is climate control,

0:18:02.307,0:18:04.909
creating a climate of possibility.

0:18:04.909,0:18:07.306
And if you do that, people will rise to it

0:18:07.306,0:18:10.325
and achieve things that you [br]completely did not anticipate

0:18:10.325,0:18:12.125
and couldn't have expected.

0:18:12.125,0:18:14.492
There's a wonderful quote from Benjamin Franklin.

0:18:14.492,0:18:17.355
"There are three sorts of people in the world:

0:18:17.355,0:18:19.733
Those who are immovable,

0:18:19.733,0:18:21.604
people who don't get it, they don't want to get it,

0:18:21.604,0:18:23.001
they're not going to do anything about it;

0:18:23.001,0:18:24.904
there are people who are movable,

0:18:24.904,0:18:26.226
people who see the need for change

0:18:26.226,0:18:28.872
and are prepared to listen to it;

0:18:28.872,0:18:30.723
and there are people who move,

0:18:30.723,0:18:32.503
people who make things happen."

0:18:32.503,0:18:34.673
And if we can encourage more people,

0:18:34.673,0:18:37.339
that will be a movement.

0:18:37.339,0:18:39.526
And if the movement is strong enough,

0:18:39.526,0:18:42.668
that's, in the best sense of the word, a revolution.

0:18:42.668,0:18:44.447
And that's what we need.

0:18:44.447,0:18:45.680
Thank you very much.

0:18:45.680,0:18:48.863
(Applause)

0:18:48.863,0:18:53.894
Thank you very much. (Applause)