Translator: Ramin Farhangi
Reviewer: Denise RQ Tonight, I'd like to start
by sending a big "thank you" to our ancestors,
the Enlightenment philosophers. Men are born free and equal in rights. I'm a big fan of that. I love being free. Free to think, say, and do
whatever I want. And by the way, tonight, I will not refrain
from speaking my mind whether you like it or not. To be honest, there's something
I don't appreciate with this Declaration of Human Rights, namely, we all took it for granted
and that it only applies to white men. Fortunately, people of all colors,
as well as women demanded and were granted
the same fundamental rights, and I imagine everyone here
agrees it was a great idea. Well, tonight, I came here
with a proposal: to grant these same
fundamental liberties to children. And I will tell you
why I founded a school where children can do whatever
they want with their day. The adventure starts in a town
with 70,000 inhabitants called Framingham, in Massachusetts. For almost 50 years,
there's been a school there where children could do whatever
they want, without any time limit. It is called Sudbury Valley School and it was founded
by Daniel and Hannah Greenberg, ex-university physics and biochemistry
professors at Columbia. Daniel and Hannah worried about
the education of their children. For them, going to school,
even at Columbia, was not an option because their parents found it
to be anti-intellectual. So they explored other alternatives
that were flourishing in the 60s, but they didn't find
what they were looking for. So they simply invented their own school, based on a super simple rule
with revolutionary implications, which stated children are people, too; they're not the property of their parents,
they're not the students of a teacher. They are just like you and me, independent members
of a democratic society. Thus, their three children
grew up in a world where nothing was expected of them, and where they were truly free
to make their own choices on how they want to live their life
and what they want to learn. As a result, their eldest became
a professional photographer and musician, and made a good living. Five years later though, he decided
to make a little challenge and opened a restaurant in New York City. Their second child became
a psychotherapist. And the third one, after living
and surviving in the forest for one year, became a farmer. To get a better idea on how far they went
with granting children full freedom in this school, I'd like to share the story of a boy
who attended this institution in the 80s. His name is Dan. Dan fell in love with fishing
at the age of 10. He would take his fishing rod
to this pond everyday. I took a picture of this pond
when I visited the school a few weeks ago. He'd go fishing everyday even in winter,
regardless of the weather. And yet, there were
so many other things he could do, sports, arts, music, research, play games. There were endless possibilities,
but he wasn't interested. He was obsessed with fishing. And he did this for five years
until he was 15 years old. One could therefore legitimately
worry about the future of a person who lived
such an unconventional childhood. You may find the end
of this story rather surprising. With 16, he falls in love with computers. And that's a period
when all his obsession about fishing shifted to the IT world
with the same intensity. At age 17, with a few of his friends, he opens a store
to sell computer hardware, and he becomes rather successful,
so he's already earning a living. He then uses this money
to go to the university, as a way for him to explore
his passions all the way through. And while studying in college,
he's hired as an expert by Honeywell, one of the major computer companies. At that point, there wasn't much
room left for anxiety. He was on track for
a beautiful career in his domain. I heard about Dan's story three years ago when I started working in a high school
as a Math and Physics teacher. During that time, pretty much
like everyone else, I developed my doubts about the effectiveness
of our education system, but let's be honest, Dan's story was
way beyond anything I could imagine. This boy didn't study
a single subject in his life, and he still became
a thriving contributor to our society. This case necessarily raises
some questions. And in my case, it did
more than posing questions, it completely turned my world upside down. I don't know about you,
but when I hear something so crazy, I absolutely need to know more about it. So I set myself on a quest to better
understand this alternative to the system. And quite rapidly, I discovered
that there are in fact more than 40 schools
everywhere in the world that adopted this approach. So I went to visit some of these schools, in Holland, Belgium, Germany, and more recently,
Sudbury Valley School itself in the US, where I met with very smart
and mature children, and school founders
who were realistic, pragmatic, sensible, who clearly knew
what they were doing. I even thought some of them
to be quite stern. For these people, of course, experiments on their kids or other
people's kids are out of the question. It is a serious educational approach,
with a proven concept, which aims for human excellence. At some point, it became obvious for me
I wanted to create such a school as well, and the good news is that it's done. It's the first big one of them in France. It's called Ecole Dynamique,
opened about two months ago in Paris, with around 20 members
of all ages, from three to 16 who do whatever they want
with their lives, and spend their days together
in this place. Here is a picture of my colleagues,
the co-founders of this school. They're also free to use their time
however they want to help this school thrive. So on top of being a liberated school, our organization is also liberated from traditional
structures and hierarchies. Now, besides Dan's story,
I'd like to tell you another one. It's about Laura Poitras.
I love this story! Laura also went
to Sudbury Valley School from age 4 to 18. She didn't open
a single school textbook in her life. She mostly practiced photography. And she learned how to read at age 13. After graduation, she did a career
as director of documentary films. And not just any director.
Laura is a true international superhero. She created Citizen Four,
where she films Edward Snowden in the midst of revealing the NSA's
controversial schemes to the whole world. And for this piece of work, she received
the Oscar for best documentary in 2014. I'd like to insist on the fact
that she learned how to read at age 13. This means that the age at which one starts reading and taking
interest in intellectual endeavors doesn't necessarily have much to do
with the future success of this person. In fact, and I may surprise some of you,
it's the opposite trend that has been observed
at Sudbury Valley School. I recently met some of the co-founders,
who still work there as staff members, and they have the very rare experience of observing for 47 years young people
who live without any constraints. Some of them learn
how to read rather late, at age 10, 11, 12,
or even 13, like Laura, and they realized that these people
have a tendency to progress more towards intellectual
and academic careers, which obviously questions some well-established beliefs
about education. Of course, all the people who attended this kind of school
learned how to read and write. Otherwise, they would have closed down
a while ago already. Who in his right mind would enroll
his children in a school where they wouldn't be sure
they would learn how to read and write? People often ask me the question:
how do these schools teach reading? And my answer is, I insist,
we abstain from teaching how to read. And it works just as well as abstaining
from teaching your mother tongue. Did you ever see a parent trying to teach
his mother tongue to his children, who would make them repeat
sentences over and over, and who would explain all the rules
of grammar and conjugation? Of course not, it would seem absurd. Little children feel the obvious need
to learn their language and to always get better at it, and this is why they keep
practicing with their relatives, such that they make
visible progress day by day. Well, just like the natural learning
of their mother tongue, the natural learning process
of reading and writing happens through and infinite amount
of interactions with their environment. Each person has his own method.
No one knows how they do it exactly. No one could ever be able to dissect
such a rapid and complex process. The result is the same anyway:
they all learn how to read and write. And now, I'm also going to tell you
why we abstain from teaching math. Yes, math! Everyone is obsessed with math. There are quite a few observations
that lead to similar conclusions, and I'd like to focus on one of them
I found to be particularly compelling. It's the story of a study
that was done in the 30s by an American superintendent
and researcher called Louis-Paul Bénézet. Bénézet felt that it was too early
for primary school children to study Math. and he thought
that if we didn't teach them math, they could still attend
secondary school without any problem. So, in order to test
this crazy hypothesis, he asked a few primary schools
from poorer neighborhoods to simply abandon math
as a school subject. Six long years later,
he measures the results hoping to prove his hypothesis. And ... surprise! The results were far beyond
his expectations. Children from poorer neighborhoods,
with only a single year of training, significantly outperformed their peers
from richer neighborhoods who had six years of training. So when I'm asked how children
will learn math at Ecole Dynamique, I tell them that we leave them alone,
and that it is proven by science. In fact, they encounter quite a few math
problems in their daily ordinary lives, and we trust that they will solve them by
themselves or ask for help when in need. Graduates from this type of schools
therefore master fundamental skills to be effective in society, and beyond this, well, they learn how to know
themselves better and explore their own interests, apply themselves intensely, and persevere in their efforts to eventually reach excellence
in their domain. In fact, we aren't dealing here with the experiments
of some mad scientist, or a tireless hippie aiming at
freeing kids for the sake of freedom, no. It is a serious educational approach
which aims for excellence. In fact, in the end, to give you
the key to what is going on here, I'll tell you now, it is
that we give them the power. All the power, to overcome
the greatest challenge of a human life, that of becoming fully independent
and responsible for your own life, and not only starting at age 18,
but at any age. In the end, by abstaining
from educating them, we allow them to develop
the confidence they need to overcome all challenges in their lives, which include getting a high school degree
some day, if they need it, and which takes, let's say, come on, at most a year of preparation
if you take it seriously, as shown by the experience of these
thousands of young French people who never went to school
and still succeeded on exams. And for those of you who remain skeptical, I will offer some stats
which may end up convincing you. 80% of Sudbury Valley graduates
went to college, and they usually got their first choice even when applying
to a highly selective university, like Harvard, Berkeley, or Columbia. And for the remaining 20%,
well, they chose a track which doesn't necessarily involve
a college experience, like some careers in arts,
craftsmanship, or entrepreneurship. So there are the facts. There is proof. And there is simply common sense. Treating children as independent persons
is a Copernican revolution indeed. We can't continue considering children
blank slates adults should develop so that they can live
their own lives someday, except if we want to live in a Dark Age
and stop human progress, then it's exactly what we should do. But if, like myself, you dream
of a day when humanity will become infinitely more genius than it is today, well, we don't have a choice! Our world views need to evolve. And tonight, I will make
a political proposal which would honor
this Copernican revolution. Yup, I'm going to make a move
as a citizen of this country. I move a proposal to change the law on compulsory education
which goes back to 1882. At that time,
the 3rd Republic voted this law within a context of building
the Republican French Nation, which implied getting rid of local
languages and alternative ideologies, to prepare children for
the industrial world and for war. Today, the context
has totally changed, and we should adapt to an era
of globalization, digitization, and peace. The problem today is not
to submit all children to a standardized educational program for all of them to learn the same thing,
but quite the contrary. We should diversify approaches
as much as possible to free the potential
of a wide variety of individuals. We should have a law which allows for a diversity of philosophies,
methods, and educational content. We should even allow those
who'd rather go back to uniforms and a more strict obedience
to a master to go on with that. And I say this without any irony. Why not? Any point of view,
from the most traditionalists to the most progressive
like Ecole Dynamique, depends on each person's world view. If we have the courage
to make such a change, we would honor the spirit
of the Enlightenment and all these pioneers,
who for the past 300 years have fought so hard to push for
an evolution of our culture and to free the individual,
so that he may think, say, and do whatever he wants with his life. Tonight, with my love for life, my passion
for education, and for culture, I suggest to replace the law of compulsory schooling
by a law for freedom of education. And I will finish with
this quote from Victor Hugo, "Nothing is more powerful
than an idea whose time has come." (Applause)
