We are naturally curious.

Curiosity is what brought humankind to where we are

today. And I'd argue that we're becoming less curious, and I blame it on the
education system. This was me when I was ten. I was a magician. When I was 12, I
was a DJ. And then, at 13, I opened a Photoshop for the first time, and it was so
difficult, I cried. (Laughter) But at 14, I was a photographer. Then, when I was
17, I was just a student. Because you are what you do every day and I was so busy
studying, I had no time to learn - to learn to be a photographer, to learn to be a
DJ, or to learn to be a magician. And as a student ... And as a student with so low
motivation, especially after being forced to learn these things, being forced to
just study instead of actually learning what I'm curious about, my motivation and
my drive for learning was at an all time low. I didn't know what to do. I felt
nostalgic on my past self, the one that loved learning, and don't get me wrong, I
still wanted to learn so many things, but because I was so demotivated, I just
didn't know how to do that. So, I went out and I researched. And the more that I
researched, the more that I found. I found that I wasn't alone. I found that other
people are experiencing very similar things to what I am. And not only that, I also
found myself in really good company. Albert Einstein, the one and only, said it is
in fact nothing short of a miracle that modern methods of instruction have not yet
entirely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry, essentially saying it is a
miracle that curiosity survives the education system. Sirkin Robinson, in the most
viewed TEDTalk of all time, says, We don't grow into creativity. We grow out of it,
or rather, we get educated out of it. So me at 17 with a motivation all time low,
even to the point where I just wanted to drop out. But I didn't. For one simple
reason My mom said no. And when your mom says no, that's that. But I did ask myself
two questions then. Okay, I'm here now, but let's make most of it. I asked myself
two questions. The first, how can I know? The first one is how would I redesign the
system from the ground up? How would it look like? The second is, how can I, in the
situation that I am in today, make that change happen? Let's take a look at those
one by one. If I were to redesign it from the ground up, how would it look like?
Well, to answer that question first, you need to look into what the education
system is for. I'd argue it's to prepare people for the future. And if we know one
thing for sure about the future is that it's gonna be changing. So how can we
prepare people for a future that is going to always be changing? Well, I'll tell
you how. By making sure they will always be learning that they will always be on
their feet and can learn the new developments that happen. But how can they do that
if they go to school and learning isn't fun? Why would you do something that you're
trained to think isn't fun in your free time? It doesn't make any sense. And then
you wonder why students ask, Will this be on the test? Because we keep motivating
them with intrinsic, no, with extrinsic punishments and rewards and expecting them
to then want to learn from within themselves. If you want people to learn within
themselves, they need to be intrinsically motivated, motivated from within. And
there's an interesting theory behind intrinsic motivation called the self
determination theory made by Dessie and Ryan. It says you need three things for
intrinsic motivation. The first is autonomy, the feeling that you are in charge of
yourself and of your actions. You have choice. The second is relatedness, the
feeling that you are doing things together with others. And the third is competence
that you're actually good at what you're doing. So what if you translate that
intrinsic motivation and put it into learning? Imagine a place where you can learn
anything. You're curious about autonomy together with other people, relatedness
through projects that you're actually proud of. Competence. Cool. We did it. We
solved education. Not quite, because we still haven't done anything. That brings me
to the second question. What can I do in the situation that I'm in today to really
push for that change, to really make that change happen, no matter how small? No.
Even if it's ten kids that they will feel that impact. You could maybe protest,
talk to teachers. But what I did was I started an after school club called
Curiosity Club, a place where students aged 11 to 15 can come and learn whatever
they're curious about through projects together with one another. And wow, was it
amazing when you let kids learn about what they're interested in? They will make
amazing stuff. One kid made a whiteboard animation about how trees communicate. I
don't know like he was just interested in it and he went out research and created
it. Another one, an infographic about how neurons work in the brain. He was just
interested. He went and learned. And when you just give this space for kids to
nurture their curiosity, something that's in all of us, we're born with it. But if
you really nurture that curiosity, learning can be and really is a lot of fun. And
then I graduated. I didn't drop out. Thank you, Mom. And I went traveling for a
bit. But I still, in the back of my head, I knew I had something. I knew I had
something powerful that could really impact positively a lot of students. So I
thought, how can I broaden this impact? Not only ten. Let's get to more. Let's get
to more kids. So what if we open in more schools? But now I'm no longer a student,
and the power of this really is that it's student run. It's by students for
students. So what if I bring this idea and support and resources to a student in
high school and they can run it in their own school? That's what we did first in
Utrecht and now and then also in Rotterdam and now in four different schools. And
wow, is it amazing? Every time I hear about the projects that the learners create,
I'm blown away. I love it. And it was a journey. It was a journey to get here. And
throughout this journey, I met interesting people, interesting groups and alliances
who are all pushing for this change. So the education system is it is changing,
it's being pushed. People are pushing for it to change. But it's what, hundreds,
maybe thousands of people out of 8 billion people. That's not enough. It's not
enough. If you want to change, if you want to see the change happen in our
lifetime. If you want the change to happen fast enough, faster than the world is
changing. With 100 people, the education system won't change fast enough because
the world is changing faster. So to students, to teachers, to principals, to
parents, and especially students. Are you going to just watch this change happen
slowly? Or are you going to ask yourself two questions? How would you design it?
And what can you do in the situation that you're in today to make that change
happen? Stay curious.