- Presenter 1: Our next speaker is
one of the finalists for
the global teacher prize.
He claims that we need resources to pass
on healthy doses of scepticism to our students.
And now he's here to talk to us.
You are a teacher
at the Bilingual Montessori School of Lund, right?
So the floor is yours, Philippe Longchamps
- Philippe Longchamps: Thank you very much.
Dear fellow teachers of the world.
Today I stand in front of you
to suggest that critical thinking
might be the most important 21st century skill
for us to teach.
A recent study
by PISA
showed that
only 47% of 15 year olds
in the OECD countries are able to tell the difference
between facts and opinions.
I would argue that the development
of critical thinking might be as important
as literacy and numeracy in this age of information.
This is why critical thinking urgently needs to
become the cornerstone of everything we teach in school.
But how can we reach this goal together?
Well, first of all, let's start
by teaching our students to identify
and trust reliable sources, then provide them with plenty
of examples of logical fallacies, cognitive biases,
and make everyone aware of the Dunning-Kruger effect.
We must empower our students
by giving them a habit of fact checking.
Challenge them to debunk false assumptions
and pseudoscience on their own.
Teachers should not hesitate to play the role
of someone believing strange conspiracy theories
in order to
reinforce
their students
logic
and reasoning and
because if their answers come from within,
it will make their learning experience
much more sustainable.
Debunking unfounded claims will become
a self-acquired lifelong skill.
This is exactly why I invite you all today together
with your students to join me
in this global effort to eradicate online disinformation
at the source by using
#keepitreal.
But how is this going to work?
Well, as soon as you or your students are sceptical
about anything you see posted online
simply use the hashtag, keep it real, and you
will invite an expanding global community to participate
in the fact checking process.
Let us launch a global effort and make this
into an evolving
democratic
and organic movement.
Hopefully this will eventually create herd immunity
against gullibility.
Together, we can raise an army of critical thinkers
by gathering potentially harmful disinformation
under this hashtag.
We will be able to create a lock
down on viral disinformation and prevent it from spreading.
But unfortunately, too many people have already
been contaminated by countless conspiracy theories.
And there is an urgent need to vaccinate the youth
against viral disinformation.
I mean, we should at least give them jabs
of healthy scepticism while they're still in school.
This might be the only way
to guarantee
that the next generations will be equipped
with the right tools to be able to take decisive actions
to solve real world problems
founded on evidence based information,
instead of wasting our precious time on made up issues.
We can even train very young children
to recognize misleading click bait.
For example,
they can quickly learn to identify Photoshop pictures
such as these, when searching for the word tsunami.
We must inspire the youth to value the scientific method
and to quote a young and courageous Swedish activist,
"We all need to unite behind the science."
By using #keepitreal,
we teachers can also consciously
avoid using
the term fake news because it's been hijacked
and misused by some disingenuous people.
So to make things right
we should use the term disinformation,
malinformation, and misinformation
and explain their differences to our students.
Of course, this is not meant to be targeting things that are
inoffensive.
There's still room for humor, wonderment, and imagination.
So I'd like to clench this wonderful opportunity here
at the Nobel Prize Teacher Summit to initiate this call
for action, to all the teachers of the world.
We will need the support of a wider community of experts
as well as policy makers and NGOs such as UNESCO
the Nobel and the Varkey Foundation.
But most importantly,
we need to support each other.
Together, we can build this movement
and this will not happen by itself.
Teachers will need appropriate training to do this,
but it is possible.
And we need to do this together.
We can bring a new hope
for a healthier information ecosystem and it starts today.
My name is Philippe Longchamps
and I would like to conclude by saying what I say
to all my students at the end of every class.
Keep it real.
Merci beaucoup
- Presenter 1: Thank you so much, Philippe.
That was really inspiring.
Everybody should be a teacher after hearing you.
So I think we actually have a video question from Eric Wu
in China who works with kids with special needs.
So let's listen to Eric.
- Eric Wu: Hi, this is Eric from China.
I guess my situation might be a little bit different
from the others.
Part of my job is related to the kids
with intellectual disability
and we are trying our best to teach them.
But once they graduate, they're going to be very vulnerable
to the complex society filled
with a huge amount of information.
So Mr. Vidar,
may I ask your opinions
on teaching strategies under such a situation?
Thank you
- Presenter 1: Yes. Students with disabilities are
definitely swimming
in the flood of facts.
So Philippe, what do you say about this?
- Philippe Longchamps: But I think here in Sweden
we're pretty good at doing what we call (inaudible),
so we try to adapt our teaching style
to the needs of our students.
They all start at different levels.
So I think that when they're exposed to so
much information online, regardless of their abilities
we teachers have this responsibility to be able to sort
out what is reliable and to teach them.
I think there are tricks, like the example I gave
with some easy pictures, you start early
you try to develop their scepticism
but a healthy one.
We don't want to have teenagers
all cynical and see everything that they reject everything
as soon as they are exposed to a news.
We need to have people who are able
to sort out what is most likely.
- Presenter 1: Mm, thank you so much, Philippe Longchamps
and we will see more of you in the panel at the end.
So this was a flood of inspiration.
This week, outstanding achievements have been
awarded the new Nobel prizes of 2021.
- Panelist 1: By doing so, we allowed them to
see their differences,
their diversity, and different perspective as well.
In addition to that,
it caused students to embrace tolerance.
Not only embrace tolerance, but see the beauty
of their own culture and reach for diversity
versus analyze it and that therefore, by doing so
we help the students to prepare
for the world to be a global conscious citizen.
- Presenter 2: That's good.
Really.
So do you have something
to say about that as well, Philippe?
- Panelist 2 (Philippe): Yes, I agree with my counterparts
from all over the world here.
This tolerance, actually our job is also to promote
peace and understanding.
So we need to establish this dialogue
regardless of the opinions of our students.
We need to encourage them to explore each other's opinion.
But our role as teachers
is probably to use a Socratic approach
and ask questions
but we need to be able to ask the right kind
of questions in order to make these conversations fruitful
and to lead somewhere.
So we can also remind our students that everyone
can be prone to confirmation bias
even those who are on the right side.
- Presenter 2: Okay. Thank you Philippe.
- Speaker: And also how do teachers deliver this right
and positive message
to students when free expression is being suppressed
by more and more governments?
Thank you.
- Presenter 1: So he passed on this question to you
Vidar Helgesen
so you can start by
just answering
a little bit what you think.
- Vidar Helgesen: Since I've been urged to stay very,
very brief
I'll just refer to all the excellent introductions we've
had today because they do provide most of the answers.
- Presenter 1: Very wise answer.
So I want to pass it on to Philippe Longchamps
which is the teacher here in the panel.
- Philippe Longchamps: I totally agree as well.
And when I have these types of questions
I usually love to quote one of my hero, Carl Sagan.
And he said that
"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."
So encourage the students to search
for their answers by themselves
but with the teacher's guidance, this is very important.
- Presenter 1: So I was looking at Annika Rabo
when Philippe was talking
and you were like,
(sighs)
What was your reaction?
- Annika Rabo: Well my reaction of course,
is that we should trust the
the young generation and we should be very humble.
And again
emphasizing the need to be curious about the world.
And I think this meeting together over generations
in a classroom, but also outside, this is really
what we have to do all over the world.
- Presenter 1: So I think we still have Saul Perlmutter
with us.
What's your take on this?
- Saul Perlmutter: Well, I do think that part of our job
is to
immunize the students ahead of time by teaching many
of these different elements that people have been talking
about today and that I was describing as just approach
to day to day life so that they recognize that
they can use these techniques all the time
so that when they see it in these, you know
dramatic other forms,
they recognize the problem with it.
- Presenter 1: Yeah. Yeah.
That's a really good point and (unknown)
do we have any more questions
from the teachers from the chat?
- Presenter 2: Yes, we have.
We have a couple of questions
but I will start with this one.
It's relating a little bit to what we discussed earlier
with the other teachers, but we didn't get to that,
but we have a lot of
very interesting
and good speakers to think about this.
How can school leadership support classroom teachers
in their teaching of controversial issues?
What can you do as a school leader?
- Presenter 1: Wow. I was a school leader before.
Maybe I should ask, answer this.
No, but I want to pass it on to maybe to Asa
What can leadership mean for addressing these questions?
- Asa Wikforss: Wow.
Okay. So I'm a philosopher,
but I do
talk a lot
about, I guess, two things.
I think it is extremely important to support the teachers
in the classroom to find
their way that they think works to use these, for example
teach the scientific method in this sort
of way that we were heard about before.
And also I think really to teach the students
one thing that was emphasized before was the fact
that we can be wrong.
That's a really important thing.
And that is connected to teaching humility
epistemic humility, as we say in philosophy
that is to say you may be very convinced
but you do have to listen to objections.
However, that you can be wrong.
It's not in itself an objection to anything.
So you need them to provide reasons as well.
So support the teachers to find the best way
to apply these sort of methods.
If it's in the classroom or having school conferences
that can be a good thing
bring in scientists and all those things.
- Presenter 1: But also, I think to be a role model
and also as a leader show that you can be wrong
and you can also like to think twice and learn more.
So I think, do we have another question from?
- Presenter 2: We have one here.
Social networks are largely responsible
for the dissemination of fake news and disinformation
but we know I've been listening to Andreas (unknown),
Andreas Onnerfors
as well.
And he talks about the history of fake news
but largely nowadays you've been all talking about it.
It's a big issue.
Do you think we should ban them?
The social networks?
- Presenter 1: Okay.
First I will ask you Andreas with a short
and then I'll pass over the word to Dan Larhammar
- Andreas Onnerfors: Of course I think we cannot
ban any media of
knowledge exchange as bad.
That knowledge is which forms the basis of the conversation.
I think the best thing is to provide teachers with tools
understanding what a conspiracy narrative for instance is.
So understanding it is a narrative that has a dermatology
structure with those 12 elements I was talking about before.
And once you have decoded that you can address that
not simply as a matter of false information
but as something else that plays an important
role in the pupils or students lives and their
way of trying to make sense of the world.
- Presenter 1: Mm. So Dan Larhammar,
I know that you have been
teaching when we were talking about other things
but do you want to add something to the panel questions?
- Dan Larhammar: Well, let me first say that I
totally agree with Andreas.
I think we cannot ban and should not ban the social media.
What we can do is increase people's awareness of
when our thinking goes wrong.
And I think what all of the presentations have been throwing
is that there is so much exciting psychology behind
all of this.
So if we could teach psychology at a very early
age in our schools, I think we would make everyone
better equipped to deal with the world and deal
with themselves.
So psychology for nine, 10 year olds.
That's what I would envision.
- Presenter 1: Very wise, I think.
And actually I will end with you Saul.
You are a Nobel Prize laureate.
What do you think teachers means to the future?
What is the impact of teachers?
Short.
- Saul Perlmutter: I mean, as we're watching, you know,
these current crises, as we're saying
that this problem of having people be able to work together
and think through problems together is the solution,
it seems obvious to me
that it's the teachers who are
the ones who are going to have to save the day.
That if we are able to generate a generation
of students who understand these issues
in a more deep way, I'm much more confident.
And so I'm looking
to the group here to solve the problem.
- Presenter 1: So thank you so much.
We have this fantastic speakers that we have heard today.
We heard Nobel Prize laureate, Saul Perlmutter.
Dan Larhammar, Asa Wikforss, Andreas Onnerfors,
Vidar Helgesen, Annika Rabo, Philippe Longchamps
and my fellow teachers at the museum, (unknown)
So thank you so much for joining us today.
We have been talking about how to teach
in the flood of effects
and what teachers can mean actually for orientating
in this very complex and sometimes very polarized world
as we are trying out new things
because the Nobel Prize is all about trying out new things
new ideas, creativity, and making the world better.
We also are trying out hubs
for the Nobel Prize Teacher Summit.
So this year we actually had
over 50 groups of teachers in different parts
of the world watching together, discussing this program.
And now we also invite those
of you who are inside the web platform.
You can go to the breakout rooms because there we will keep
on discussing and to all of you who are watching
please join us the next time for our online seminars.
And also please come
to Stockholm and the Nobel Prize Museum.
So thank you so much for the work you are doing as teachers.
We can't value you enough.
So thank you for today.
Goodbye.