AI in Education: Why a University With No Lecture Halls Might Be the Future | Boris Walbaum

Mark Taylor 00:00:00

Hello and welcome back to Education on Fire. Today I'm delighted to be chatting to Boris Walbam and he's the founder and president of Forward College, an innovative higher education institution. He's an AI and future skills expert and former government advisor. Forward College created a degree designed for the AI era, where students study in three countries, Lisbon, Paris and Berlin. Over three years, students earn a University of London degree while travelling in Europe, but without setting foot in London. And it's also one of the first university leaders to actively encourage students to use AI. Now, Forward College is a university with no lecture halls, something that he believes should become the norm for universities. Boris is also the author of excellent Isn't what yout Think? A book on education and parenting in the age of AI. Hello, my name is Mark Taylor and welcome to the Education On Far podcast, The place for creative and inspiring learning from around the world. Listen to teachers, parents and mentors share how they are supporting children to live their best, authentic life and are proving to be a guiding light to us all. Hi Boris, thank you so much for joining us here on the Education On Far podcast. AI is such an important thing. It's such a revolutionary thing. It's something which I think we all need to be not aware of, but know how it's going to be part and an integral part of our lives and nothing more than the younger people coming through in this being their, their norm. So it's going to be such an important and interesting conversation and really delighted to have you on to share your thoughts as well.

Boris Walbaum 00:01:31

Hello, Mark. Thanks for having me.

Mark Taylor 00:01:33

So, shall we start with college? Where, where does that fit in terms of, of your history, in terms of how do people get involved in that? Whereabouts do you. Can the people take the courses that you're doing? How does that work?

Boris Walbaum 00:01:49

You know, in the, during my, my career, my very long career, I've been a civil servant, I've been a consultant and specializing in education at some point, also social entrepreneur, working with high achievers from underprivileged background. And from whatever angle I was looking at education, I could see the gap between what the world expects for tomorrow and what education has to offer just widening. And as try as I might, as a consultant to help universities progress, improve, connect better to the world's needs, I was just seeing the world moving faster than universities. And so at some point, I think if we can't fill the gap with the existing universities, we need new kind of universities to fill this gap. And hence the name Forward College, which is about how do you Design education looking forward, actually. Because when you think of it, education is mostly geared towards the past, towards accumulated knowledge. Research is completely separated from teaching. That's a reality. That's not what is always told. But you really start touching research in the third year through dissertation. But most 80% of what you do in a new university is really based on acquiring knowledge that is already established. Much more than looking forward, exploring future trends, experimenting the world and so on and so forth. But we'll talk more about that, I'm sure.

Mark Taylor 00:03:24

Yeah, absolutely. That whole idea of exploring and having those sort of skills and understanding, as you quite rightly said. So in terms of you sort of touched on there about so much of the education system is industrial revolution based. It's still looking backwards. And I think one of the things that I was excited to see was, was your idea that AI is going to sort of has the opportunity to revolutionize things. You know, that we're in a sort of a watershed moment. My only thought when I saw that was the fact that I also thought that when we had Covid, because it was that kind of everything was in person. Schools, the schools, they weren't like they were. And all of a sudden we had this complete opportunity to change the way we did things. Because we were used to being the way that we learned the hours that we did it. So many things were different. And whether it's a political reason or whatever the situation was, we ran as fast as we could back into the norm. And that might just be because of the global situation. But it seemed to me there was a. There was a watershed moment there to take things forward and analyze what we've done. But we seem to go the other way. So why do you think this particular watershed as AI will actually make that jump into it having to look different?

Boris Walbaum 00:04:43

Because AI is an imitation technology, which makes it extraordinary because it's so easy to adopt AI and to use AI that there's never been a technology easier to use than AI. Right. It's really natural language with chat, which is the most natural thing that humans do. But so in the chatting, in the language that is really core to how we communicate, how we express ourselves. But it's also now combined with robotics and we've had robots for decades, but now we're thinking of robots as humanoids, so as things that will replace it based on what we do. So it's really an imitation technology. So it's much more threatening than even Covid, because it is about replacing us. That's how it is designed. And by the way AI replicates how brains work, right, with the neural networks and different layers and so on and so forth. As far as we know, the way it works is quite similar. So this is really disturbing for sure. And yeah, it affects also not only how we teach, which was the case in Covid, but also what should we learn. Because Obviously if these LLMs are able to pass the most selective exams that we have, then why on Earth spend 18 years going through these studies and making a huge effort, all that to end up being just as good as these machines today, which means that maybe tomorrow they will be much better than we will be. And then the why of education, because deep down, why should we learn altogether as these machines are learning machines and we talk about the training. What costs a lot of money in AI is training. So it's learning, right? So it costs a lot of money for a model, much more than an individual education, but it's still about learning. So I think it's really disrupting the whole concept of education and what it should be about and why we should still be learning, which I believe, by the way.

Mark Taylor 00:07:02

Yeah, absolutely. No, and I can, I can see like, it's almost like unless we embrace it and we understand all those concepts that you said, the net result is, is that it's going to do it for us or society will be so far removed from education that those people that have adopted it will just be at a completely different, have different opportunities to be able to, whether it's job related or learning related, because they'll understand that this is, it's here. There is no kind of sort of going back.

Boris Walbaum 00:07:31

That's what all these tech bros sell. You know, you should learn this technology, how to use it and so on. We've worked on what, what does AI literacy mean? So if it's about learning with the eye, in the end, deep down it's about being able to ask questions and having critical thinking. So you go back to really basic intellectual skills that to be honest, we don't value that much in education. Who values asking questions in education? Where do you have the opportunity to ask questions in education? There is a very interesting study that shows how by how much students who start in kindergarten lose the propensity to ask questions in the first year. It's divided by 10. So it's just mind boggling how our education system kills questioning. And the same with critical thinking. Writing an essay is not about critical thinking. I mean, to some extent, a little bit maybe, but most of it is about synthesizing different theories and know how to articulate arguments. It's more logic. Right. But if you think of critical thinking, it would be okay. Here is a document. You're going to see the expert in two hours. What are the questions you want to ask them and why? This is critical thinking. Right. But do we exercise this? Not really. So that's why I believe that AI can be an opportunity for us to reinvent or to reconnect education to its true mission, which is actually to develop the human talents that really make a difference.

Mark Taylor 00:09:19

And then it becomes a very exciting prospect, doesn't it? And the asking questions things is something I've spoken about a lot because it's almost as if most children from a young age, but certainly as they then go through their education, they think that they're expected to know all the answers before they've understood it or they've been taught it because it's, it's frowned upon almost to kind of that sense, I don't know, because it's all about getting the, the proper grade and all those things that happen. So I love that sort of reframing of how, how that's so important. One other question which I think is also key is you sort of mentioned that sense of we learn in a certain way to get to a certain point, to then go to a certain college or university, and the fact that the whole thing could look different. How do you, how do you think that works from a society point of view? If we take here in the uk, if we think about the number of ministers, people in government, they all went to the same universities, the same colleges, that. And there's the social and class system that is associated with that. Whether you talk about the, the intellect or the courses that they took and all that sort of stuff, there's that sense of this is where you need to be in order for that to help you further in your career. Aside from the knowledge or like you say, the critical thinking or the skills that you have.

Boris Walbaum 00:10:40

You know, Mark, when I started Forward College, I thought my case is so obvious that we will have so many students applying to Forward College. And there is an expression in Italian that says, she said. So if something is not happening, innovation, education, there is a reason. There is a reason. And this reason is exactly what you say, that people have representations, they have a vision of what success means based on their own experience. And basically education is decided by people who are in a position of power. So it's a reproductive system by design. So actually disrupting education is very, very difficult. And it only happens when There is a real revolution. Last time we did that is because of the Industrial revolution. But have we had any revolution since then? Not really, when you think of it, at least in France. And I don't know exactly the situation in the uk, but you can't take any course in psychology. You have to go through in middle school twice the explanation on how volcanoes work and the tectonic plates and so on. So very complex subduction and so on. I've been through that with my kids. You never study, you never get the chance to study your own volcano, your emotions. That's what psychology does. So this is a very basic fact that we should be surprised about, that we should be challenging, especially at a time where mental health is so much of a topic for all parents, for all teenagers, but for all parents also. So it's a huge political problem and we seem to evade it because the education is framed in a way that is reproductive. And the thing is with AI, we now know, we now feel that the world will be shifting and then what should we change? Education? Do we see that happening? Not really to my taste, but I think it will have to shift. So I do believe this is an opportunity. It would be a shock, but now it's the time for aspirations. When I go to conferences a lot about aspirations, we should do this and we should do that. But universities are govern in a way that is really not easy for them to change. So I think it might take more time than we have.

Mark Taylor 00:13:12

Yeah, I agree. And I think the time thing is a really important one, isn't it? Because so many governments, so many political systems, they're on a four year cycle, a five year cycle, they have to get done whatever they can do. And so that's the thing that they have, that thing. There's no sort of cross party consensus that says we need the education system to look like this, if not now, certainly in the next year, five years, 10 years or whatever that happens to be. And I think part of that is because they don't believe it's possible. And I think also because there's a certain amount of, there's obviously a financial side to it, but there's also a sense of we need to control what's going on. I mean, so for example, here we are in a heat wave here in the middle of the summer and they close the schools or many schools are closed. So from what I can understand, the big impact is on the parents because many parents are at work and then within a day's notice, it's kind of life has to look different because you can't do that. And a lot of the things I've heard from the education side was the fact that, well, we can't do school in the heat and anything. Well, you can't do normal school in the heat because you can't do PE this afternoon because it's like 35 degrees. And you probably shouldn't be in the classroom because it's baking and you've got windows and all that kind of thing. But you probably could find a shady spot and read a book and, and do something different. Except the fact that if you don't have that in your immediate setup, you probably then would need some kind of safeguarding and healthy health and safety register to take you out of the, out of the school gates and take you into a park. And so like I say, the system isn't there to be reactive to anything that's going on. And it just struck me that sort of our current situation is sort of showing this in its kind of most human setup, really.

Boris Walbaum 00:14:52

Yeah, it's a very good point that you're making. And it shows how everyone has become a prisoner of this system, that teachers do not feel empowered to innovate and do things that are meaningful. Students go there just because it's compulsory. And I think Covid has opened a window of opportunity for in a way, students to think about, maybe it's not that compulsory, maybe it's not that necessary. So the challenge in perspective and we see that absenteeism is rising in higher education. It's a crisis, but also in school. So the parents see their kids not being happy, wondering how on earth this system will actually prepare them for the future. So everyone feels somehow imprisoned in a system that is not effective anymore, that doesn't create joy, that doesn't create curiosity, that doesn't generate so much critical thinking, that doesn't nurture positive relationships among people. And God knows if we need that. So in the end we need to acknowledge that and say, okay, now what do we want to do with education?

Mark Taylor 00:16:15

And we sort of touched on the idea of jobs and what it would look like. I think that the add on to what I was saying before was also that sense of the job market. Business itself needs people coming into the, into their businesses understanding and being able to talk and function in a way that you've been, you've been talking about, because that has to be the future. It has to be the way that they develop. And I know you, that's one of the chapters of your book in terms of Looking at that sort of how those things fit together. So do you see a way, let's. Assuming that this education system isn't going to change this year and therefore those students going through this sort of revolution despite that, do you see a way that businesses can help out? Can you see a way maybe like from a parental point of view is the way you can take a certain amount of control to sort of help you sort of get in, in that decision. And I guess all answers lead back to forward college. But, but, but. You understand what I mean?

Boris Walbaum 00:17:17

Yeah. I mean yes and no. I think business can tell you what they need today. Business nowadays cannot tell you what they will need in five, ten years time.

Mark Taylor 00:17:26

Yeah.

Boris Walbaum 00:17:27

So it is a risk and it is a risk for parents and students to decide whether they want to in the short termism, meaning we want to prepare our students for jobs in AI, for instance. Well, who knows what jobs in AI will look like at a time where self reinforcement mechanisms are building the new AI or you just want to make sure that the ROI thing. So the ROI is about having a job at the end of this project program. Yes, you might get one if you're lucky, but then the job will be disrupted, it will be completely changed and you're not trained in a way that is, that makes you sustainably valuable on the job market. And there is a long term perspective which is again going back to what are the human talents that will always have value? And this is at some point a bet that you can make. What is a no? McKinsey when I was a consultant in strategy, we were thinking in terms of when there is an uncertain environment, what is the no regret move that you can make? What is the move that whatever happens you will not regret? And these no regret moves are the transversal skills, the foundational skills that are the roots of your learning system. So if you have good critical thinking, good abilities, good curiosity, ability to ask questions, if you know how to do inquiry, if you know how to apply theory, if you know how to build trust among human beings, if you know how to collaborate in a team, if you know how to manage your emotions and be aware of your emotions, if you are resilient, if you know, if you are, you know, good at self efficacy, if you know how you make decisions, you'll be able to learn. You know, these are the routes that will help, that will help you develop the branches, the technical skills that you will need in the moment, but that you cannot anticipate. So that's why at Fort Wayard College, we very much believe we have a human intelligence framework. You know, cognitive intelligence, social intelligence, emotional intelligence, practical intelligence, which is practical intelligence is what do you do when you don't know? Which is a lot of what we do in real life. Right. Like typically decision making. And we have the skills that describe these intelligences. And each course is mapped on these intelligences. Of course our students study economics, of course our students study data science, psychology, business, whatever, political science. But all the learning outcomes are about these foundational skills because we know that whatever they learn, what matters is developing this ability to question, this ability to make decisions and so on and so forth. And that's what gives you long term ROI as a future employee. And I don't see that's what, by the way, OECD says. That's what the World Economic Forum says. But I wouldn't, you know, the business, it's because they have done research and they are not only just, you know, surveying companies, they are doing more than that. They are experts. And I think if you give, you ask the answer to the business, especially at that time where things move fast, you will have, you know, changing answers. And you can't build an education system on changing answers.

Mark Taylor 00:20:58

Yeah, that makes so much sense. And I guess, I mean, I'm a real advocate for kind of broad curriculum, you know, arts and, and, and I'm a musician myself, you know, so anything, anything music related, I'm, I'm all for. Because so many of the skills that you talked about came that I learned because I was a musician, you know, so I, I guess those are the sorts of things which, you know, fundamentally, even now, if they were put back into the curriculum with the same sort of focus as some of the other things would start to help. Even if someone feels like we can't, you know, give the silver bullet, we need to change it overnight.

Boris Walbaum 00:21:34

Yeah. And the example of music is very interesting because I started as a classical piano player and at some point I decided, you know, because it's so difficult to take a music sheet and to play a sonata by Beethoven, you need at least five weeks. I mean, if it's a challenging piece, you need five weeks of work. And it's really hard work. And you don't get pleasure before 5 weeks and after 10 weeks you forgot it and you need to redo it. So I started playing jazz. And jazz, it's very interesting because it's really about, you develop the roots because you understand the harmony, you understand the rules. How do you switch from one chord to the next? You Understand the beats and then you can improvise. And we will need to improvise. We will have to look much more like jazz men or women than classical players. I often take also the image of sailing. Our world has been remarkably stable and it looks like regatta sailing. You have the three buoys and you go around and it's really about optimizing your sail and optimizing your navigation. But by the degree, it's really the one degree will make a difference. If you do ocean racing, it's completely different. Of course, you will check your sails and your navigation, but it's about reading the clouds, reading the wind, reading the waves and listening to the weather forecast. And you are not sure what will be the way, the route that you will go, that you will take. There are a lot of things that are uncertain and you always try to navigate this. And the skills that you need for ocean racing are completely different from regatta. You need to make much more decisions. When it's ocean racing in uncertainty, you need to be much more resilient. So it's completely different. And being trained for ocean racing is not like being trained for regattas. Now, we train people for, we train students for regattas. You will be very good at marketing this. In marketing, you will be very good at doing this kind of data analysis or the economic modeling or whatever, but will you be good at doing something else? And the ability to go from one area to the other, you go through these foundational skills, which is actually the ability to understand concepts, to make decisions, etc. Etc. That I was referring to just earlier.

Mark Taylor 00:24:13

And from your experience, in terms of having created this, what does that look like practically? You know, people think of colleges, universities, you've got lecture halls, you've got lots of things being given to you, all that kind of setup. I know that can't be the case in terms of what you've done. So. So what does it look like, sound like, feel like for someone who attends?

Boris Walbaum 00:24:36

I always say that forward college. I wanted to make forward college as the most intense experience possible because I think this year's this emerging adulthood is a fantastic moment. It's the first moment where you get some autonomy and you actually end up developing your brain. So there is a lot that is still soft, but by 25, your social ideas, social representations, ideology, type of friends, you belong. And so it will be somehow defined. So it's an amazing thing. And that's a moment where you can experiment because you are not still exposed, you can still fail. So the whole idea is that so the first thing is that we take them through three countries. Year one in Lisbon, year two in Paris, year three in Berlin. So we always tell students, this is a journey, this is ocean racing. It's not the regatta. You go around your buoys. No, this is real light. You go through a real ocean. So one is that it will be discomforting. You will have to adapt. And actually they often go to forward colleges because it's exciting to be in a three year, three country program, being surrounded by students from so many different nationalities, because the biggest nationality accounts for 12% of the OBERL cohort. So there is no. Everybody is a foreigner there. And you need to adjust constantly. So this kind of constant adaptation is something important. But traveling is also about getting revealed by new environments. Sometimes you connect more with the culture than your own and it reveals something in you. When I spent six months in Brazil at the French Embassy for an internship, I just felt so comfortable with the Abrasu. You know, you just hug and they do so much of this. And it's so warm, you know, you feel filled by this warmth. And then when I went back to France, it felt like freezing, you know, freezing cold. Especially in Paris, as you can imagine. And that's revealed something, a need, at least in me, that I had, that I couldn't fulfill in my culture. So I think it's very important also to have to be open to these new things that will be character traits that will be revealed or exploration that will be revealed through this change. So this is very important. And they live together, which means that they share their kitchen. And when you share your kitchen with a German student, a Spanish student in psychology, an American student in data science, a Canadian student in politics, and you need to agree on what clean means. Just that it's already a struggle and we want them to struggle. And the fact that they share their kitchens and live together is super important. That's one, that's the big journey. Then it's about learning. Learning. We use the flipped classroom. The flipped classroom means that we ask you, and it's more common in the British system, that you should do your homework first. So you need to go through the learning material yourself. Because in real life as we know it, there are no teachers, so you better get prepared. So we do that progressively. We help them and tell them the ropes of how do you learn? How do you learn with AI? Because they have a lot of. We have a great AI hub and bots that help them learn. But the classroom is for relationship, the classroom, 15 students per classroom, no lecture hall. It's 100% small group teaching and it's a relational pedagogy, not only because they know the teacher and the teacher knows them because the teacher at Forward College never teaches more than 70 students per year. In most universities it's more 1200, you know, three courses or 400 students, you know, it's completely different. So they know them by their name, they know what are their strengths, their needs, their character and so on. They also have tutorials, one on one tutorials. Every week they have one on one tutorial. So it's very relational, but also between the students. It's a lot about debating how to disagree. But also in math, you know, how you solve a problem together. And we know through research, thanks to research, that actually teamwork is extremely helpful in mathematics because there are different ways to see a problem. Right? So it's not only something for PIR students, also important psychology obviously, but also in the quant dimension. And that's why our students get very good results in the exams. Most of them go through the exams that are graded, organized and graded by the lse, which is obviously demanding. But the experience of learning is really different. The third reason why Forward College is different is that because we add on an academic layer so often economics, mostly the social sciences, from data science to psychology, going through economics, business, political science, we add a layer of what we call leadership or these emotional, social and practical intelligences. And we do that through personal development. Year one emotional intelligence. Year one social intelligence. How do you work in a team? Because that's something that they have to do. How do you reach out to people? It's so difficult for this generation to reach out, reach out for real, right? Not in real life, not just send a message and wait for a possible answer. Or like, I mean, you know what social intelligence is and British people are quite good at that. That's my fond memory. And what I miss being back in Paris from five years in London is the art of the conversation, the art of the, you know, how people reach out to someone they don't know while waiting in the line. You know, it's really amazing. Second year is about emotional intelligence and third year it's about, it's about more influencing and leadership. And so personal development is one and entrepreneurship is another one. So it's not entrepreneurship in the sense that you need to create your startup, but you start from an aspiration. Water consumption, climate change, refugees, often that's the kind of aspiration that students have and they need to go from that. They are Grouped by aspirations, similar aspirations. And they need to make some things real and concrete out of this and demonstrate an impact at the end of the course. And we help them go through a methodology of design thinking to really understand what it is about the problem that they want to solve, but they don't really understand what it is really the problem they want to tackle. And then to ideate and find solutions that are creative and better based on their research than what you would spontaneously do. And then prototype and actually test things with users, with their audience. And that's a fascinating journey. That's ocean racing. You start with big dreams and you end up with a small thing. But in the end, they are super proud of the little thing they have achieved, because it's very rare in education to have the opportunity to achieve something. And that's where you learn that actually making a difference is much more difficult than you thought. Thinking, learning derivatives can be challenging, but it's way easier to actually make a difference in the world.

Mark Taylor 00:32:12

Yeah, I love the way you've framed that. And you can see how exciting it is for people. And the idea of all those little changes amongst all of those people can really start to mount up, can't they? I mean, especially if you're working together on a project and how that comes in. So I find that absolutely amazing. And how do people sort of get involved? You sort of mentioned so many people from around the world. What sort of age do they need to start sort of making contact? What sort of things they need to be aware of before they. They sort of get in touch.

Boris Walbaum 00:32:47

Yeah. So usually they start after a level or after one or two gap years. In the. In the Nordic countries, they tend to do one or two gap years. So between 18 and 20, they need to have good grades. I think we have an academic requirement that is not too high. I think it's abb. But still it's really selective because we want students. I mean, it's not because we have AI that we don't need smart people anywhere anymore, because we know that AI is an amplifier. And I would never say that now intelligence is a commodity, so it's. It doesn't have value. It still has value because if you're smart, you use AI much more to amplify your thoughts. They need to speak English because everything is in English, but they learn the local language in each city and they need to have demonstrated some kind of commitment and engagement, be it in music, that they are aware that they are engaging the world. I think that's the biggest thing you cannot start ocean racing when you only think of the prestige of your degree and how you become an investment banker and so on and so forth. If you dream of being an investment banker, and I have many friends who are investment bankers at 20, it means that it's not really your dream. You need to go back to what is actually my dream. It's an artifact of recognition because you get money and so on. But what is your real dream? It's not like your life. You will earn a living with your dream, but still, it's very important to consider at this age your life in an open way, because you will discover many things. And if you are setting your ways and you want to become an investment banker, I'm not sure what's the future of investment banking, but still, well, you should go somewhere else, I would say.

Mark Taylor 00:34:45

And in terms of how this sort of fits around, the book is, does the book sort of give you that kind of all the things we've spoken about today, that framework that understanding the relationships and conversations that people are having in education, parents, students? So you sort of have that community sense of this is the importance. This is what we're thinking, this is what we're debating, and then you can see that flow as they get older.

Boris Walbaum 00:35:13

Yeah, I think it really started with Forward College, and then the book was more a way to explicit what we're doing. But we started Forward College with this tagline, Human Intelligences, because we were already seeing in 2020, AI coming. We didn't anticipate Genai, obviously, but we knew that AI was already machine learning or was already growing very fast. So that's the core idea of Forward College. But when Genai hit, I must say that for us, it was an opportunity, not only because it drives people to ask bigger questions and better questions around education, as we were discussing in the beginning of the podcast, but also because it completely justifies our approach. Flip classroom. You know, if you are in a flipped classroom, AI is amazing at helping you understand and learn. It's really great as a tutor, but it's really, you know, detrimental when you use it to fake your homework. Right. So actually it did help our model to have AI and also to have the classroom being a relational place. I always say Forward College is about, because that's also something that you could think of in terms of the mission of education. There are not many things you could say without the risk of being wrong. One thing you can say is, in the future, we need to be good at interacting, at leveraging technology and robots and AI. We Also need to be good at creating relationships and interacting with humans in a positive way. Not many education systems are good at these two missions. It sounds very obvious, but it's not very good. So for us, having this very relational community based, living together, learning together in small teams, but also in the classroom without technology and having AI to support their learning in the right order, at the right place, it's the best approach. So for us it was in a way a blessing to justify and to raise awareness about our model. And I will go one if you allow me. Just take one more minute to. That is something I discovered writing the book. The question of why do we learn? The reality is that the biggest steps, the biggest challenges that all humans overcome, it's walking and learning to speak your first language, your mother tongue, right? We have notebooks, we don't have teachers, we don't have exams, we don't have training. We do that out of love for our parents because we want to get closer to them, because we want to interact with them. The core reason, the core engine of learning is human connection. Call that love when it's a toddler, call that mimetism, call that social comparison, competition, emulation, inspiration. This is human connection and this is a driver of education. If we forget that, we will build crappy education. So that's why we have these moments in the classroom that are without technology. That's why they live together, because they emulate each other and they also copy in a way each other. And I find this really exciting. And I must say that the level of engagement that our students have in the classroom is remarkable. And when we have an external speaker, they are always in awe of, with the level of engagement of our students. But because just they are human beings and they are connected and they want to show that they know, so they are stimulated. So it's not about only having a good AI or a good thing. No, it's about being in an environment that stimulates you as a human being.

Mark Taylor 00:39:29

I think you might have just answered the question that I've been looking for for a long time. And that's the sense of you see a toddler and like you, like you. So sort of brilliantly put. It's that sense of they don't need to learn and you don't need to teach them. It happens, you know, you're counting steps, say you, the bimmaking, all of the stuff that happens when they're young. And I love the fact when I'm in a school you see a sort of a 5, 6, 7, year old skipping down the corridor because they're just in love with life. And like you said, you then get to the point where you're not allowed to answer a question and all that seems to diminish. And it's very easy to then sort of go through the sort of. The parts of the conversation we've had about the fact that you just have to do school because you have to go, because it's compulsory in this and all of those things. But I think the way you've managed to articulate that sense of if you understand how. And that's probably the thing that I've realized here, how you're able to take that sort of beautiful sort of toddler innocence and natural learning and development as you then go through the aging process, because you're understanding it's still about the human connection. It's understanding. It's about relationships. Even if it's your relationship with AI and learning and whatever those tools or situations are, you understand how that fits and you then want to be adaptable. And you can see how that works for you today. Like you say in the relationships you have today, and each of those steps is going to take you into the future. Then all of a sudden, it's not about recreating the wheel or. Or doing things completely differently. It's about. It's just all these little course corrections, like you said, from that sort of nautical idea. We know what we. What we're trying to do and we're going to make those things happen. So it's absolutely fascinating to sort of. To sort of hear that, but also then see how that's come into practice, like, say, from a. From a book point of view, from an intellectual point of view, from a practical point of view, actually having created college, that people understand why they're doing it and how all those little things they do, like, say, from the way they interact in the classrooms and the relationships and. And where they actually spend their time, keeps that going into. Into those sort of adolescent years and beyond. So I absolutely love that. So thank you for that, and.

Boris Walbaum 00:41:37

Thank you for that as well. I love this moment at the end of the year, and we had that one week ago when students award prizes to other students who have been so great at mentoring others and helping others and so on, and the testimonials that you read, it's really human matter. You know, it's so touching to see this community being engaged in helping each other, how grateful they are, how graceful they can be. But you need to put them in the right Environment. So the question of the culture.

Mark Taylor 00:42:23

Of.

Boris Walbaum 00:42:23

An education community is absolutely crucial. We tend to focus way too much on the content and not on the culture of the community and the culture. It's obviously people having a relationship. It's relational, but it's also symbolic. It's also behavioral, and it cannot be prescribed, but it can be influenced. And that's what we're doing. And we spend a lot of time thinking about, okay, what is the message that we want to share with them? What are the incentives that will make it stick? And that's really what matters to us. And if you have the right culture, if you get the culture right, then learning, just emergence flows from that.

Mark Taylor 00:43:09

Yeah, absolutely. Now, obviously, the acronym FAR is important to us here at Education on Fire. And by that we mean feedback, inspiration, resilience, and empowerment. What is it that strikes you when you hear that? Is there one word that jumps out or a couple of them or collectively even?

Boris Walbaum 00:43:27

Well, all of them. I love all of them. What is the least picked one?

Mark Taylor 00:43:33

Feedback, I would say often is the least.

Boris Walbaum 00:43:35

Okay, so I will go with feedback because they all inspire me. If I may say, I think going back to the culture, neither British people, I'm sorry to say, nor French people are very good at sharing feedback and for radically opposite reasons. Right. French are super rude. And maybe British people are not rude enough, at least for French standards. Maybe you understand each other. But I learned feedback through nonviolent communication. So, Marshall Rosenberg, inspired by Gandhi. And feedback is really the human interaction by which you will tell me, Boris, I heard you spoke of me twice. It felt like I was not listened to. And then you pose. You just state what happened, how it made you feel, not judging the other one, how it made you feel. And then you let an opportunity to the other one to express their. You know, they might apologize or they might say, I was in such a hurry, or blah, blah, blah, whatever. But the discussion now is open and you can express your needs, and each of you can express their needs. And it's such a powerful. In education, it's such a powerful way to make education human. Make education about the friction that we need to grow. We talk a lot about the frictionless. There is no frictionless learning. Learning is always filled with friction. If there is no friction, you don't learn because we are lazy. Obviously. I mean, there are exceptions to that, but still. So I really love this idea that there is an art to give feedback that is nonviolent, that firstly talks about the one who gives the feedback to help the other one. Realize the impact it has on others, and then they need to adjust, find a way to adjust. And that's what we do in education. That's how we share in personal development. We teach them how to give and receive feedback. And that's really one of the most useful tool to keep on growing throughout your own lives.

Mark Taylor 00:46:16

It's such an important thing. And I think to understand that is really important. And I think understanding it then gives you the strength you often need to be able to receive it and give it in the way that you mentioned, which then becomes incredibly important. So, Boris, thank you so much. I think we could probably chat all afternoon, but we have to wrap it up there. But thank you so much for all those insights. We'll have links to the college and the book in the description as well, but is there one particular place you'd like people to go and visit, having heard all of this?

Boris Walbaum 00:46:48

Well, I think the Forward College website, there is a page on vision if they want to connect more kind of the big picture of our discussion and the specifics of Forward College, how it all comes together. I think it's a. It's a good starting point.

Mark Taylor 00:47:02

Lovely. Thank you so much indeed. And yeah, best of luck with it. And I hope. I hope so many people get involved because it's what we need for the future. And the more that ripples across people's learning and then into our society at large, it's going to be a very positive thing. So, yeah, thank you so much indeed.

Boris Walbaum 00:47:19

And thank you so much, Mark, for giving me the opportunity to share this idea and hopefully try to get some influence and some more change out of education. Thank you.