Keynote Speakers
Keynote speakers
Unleashing your Creative Potential
Dr. Edward de Bono, the World Centre for New Thinking, Malta
"I believe Dr. de Bono's work in teaching people to think may be the most important thing happening in the world today." - George Gallup
"If you haven't heard of Edward de Bono or of Lateral Thinking, perhaps you have been too busy thinking in conventional ways." - Forbes Magazine
Would you like to tap into your vast resources of creative potential? Would you like to explore new and better ways of thinking and extend your repertoire of thinking skills and strategies?Creative Thinking is a valuable resource, which is becoming ever-increasingly important if we are to meet the challenges and opportunities presented by our fast-changing world.
Dr Edward de Bono will present at the 8th Conference of the Learning Teacher Network . This is a rare opportunity to learn practical strategies from the master of creative thinking himself, tools which will be invaluable in your professional, social, academic and personal lives.
Professor Edward de Bono, one of the world’s most pre-eminent thinkers, is the inventor of Lateral Thinking. His thinking skills are powerful and simple techniques, which can be learned easily by anyone and used in a deliberate manner.
This presentation will be useful to all those who are interested in improving and expanding their potential for innovative, conceptual, critical and creative thinking.
More wisdom is possible: Schools can make a difference
Prof. Ursula M. Staudinger, Jacobs University, Germany
Wisdom is as old as humankind and has a rich ideational history. Taking a psychological perspective, it is nevertheless possible to measure it and also to facilitate its development. Two types of wisdom, that is, personal and general, are introduced as well as related ontogenetic models and measurement paradigms. Empirical evidence for the successful facilitation of wisdom are described and consequences for teaching practices are discussed.
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Gifted Lives: What happens when gifted children grow up
Prof. Joan Freeman, London, England UK
Thirty five years ago, I began my research into the intimate lives of 210 British children, half of them gifted and the others carefully matched comparisons. I tested them with many psychological measures, and over the decades I recorded their words from hundreds of interviews along with those of their teachers and parents. From their early astounding promise to their maturity, I documented their growing up. In 2010, I published the final results. For my book, Gifted Lives, I selected 20 of the most gifted, each one representing an aspect of being gifted. As children, they had been outstanding in specific areas such as mathematics, the arts, empathy and spirituality. Their special challenges, frustrations and triumphs as they negotiated their ways in very different kinds of families and styles of education will be detailed. Some have been extremely successful and some face failure. How does brilliance help when young financier hits his first million, or a child is accelerated by three years in school, or being ethnically different, or a high-flying pianist is devastated by repetitive strain injury, or a psychiatrist suffers mental illness? Although fate played a big part in their successes, so too did a personal outlook which could see and grab a fleeting chance, overcome great odds, and put in the essential hard work to lift childhood prodigy to greatness.
Learning for the future: a European view on policy and practice
Mr. Brian Holmes, EACEA, Brussels
In 2010, the European Council adopted a strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth, in a Europe characterised by high levels of employment, productivity and social cohesion. Entitled 'Europe 2020', the strategy includes ambitious targets for education and recognises the central role that learning will play in Europe's recovery - learning from the lessons of the past, learning to improve and learning for the future. This presentation will outline the Commission's response to the challenges facing education and the way it works with Members States to support educational reform across Europe. It will explain the Commission's proposal for a future education programme, building upon lessons learnt and examples of good practice from the current Lifelong Learning and Youth programmes. The link between policy and practice will be illustrated through example cooperation projects, through the eTwinning initiative for schools and teachers, and through the comparative data emerging from Eurydice reports. Most importantly, it will recall the essential role that teachers play in educational reform, in empowering learners and in making Europe 2020 a reality for all.
Plenary speakers
Education for sustainable development (ESD) - Deepening the Initial Engagement
Lecture by Prof. Charles Hopkins, York University, Toronto, Canada
This session is intended as a learning opportunity for the Learning Teacher Network’s ESD leaders and innovators. Many in the Learning Teacher Network have become engaged in initial ESD work and have much to report and share. This session led by Charles Hopkins will begin with a presentation by Charles updating the international ESD scene and posing emerging issues. Then the session will turn into a discussion of ESD issues and opportunities.
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Pedagogical relations between knowledge domains, wisdom, and their modern integral cultivation (Bildung)
Lecture by Prof.em. Harm Paschen, Bielefeld University, Bielefeld, Germany
How can education be sustainable in a time of deep and widespread changes in all human activities? Since Comenius’ educational program on teaching knowledge to all, about all, and with an integral approach up to our modern knowledge society, the impact of the unmanageable resources of knowledge and the plurality of its domains (and their operating by IT machines) ask for a new understanding of human knowledge and how to teach it to students, teachers, and academics.
This session led by Harm Paschen will present the practical importance of new understandings with three concrete, but paradigmatic examples. Pedagogical sustainability has to be based on meta-frameworks of experienced knowledge of knowledge domains and teaching them.
