Good afternoon everyone and welcome to this webinar offered by the European School Education Platform, the European Commission's platform for school education in Europe. My name is Marta and I will be your host for today. The focus for today is school partnerships, open schools for open societies, a challenging and effective path. But before giving the floor to our guest speaker Petra van Harren, director of the European School Head Association, it's a great pleasure to introduce and give the floor to Ulrike Astoros, who will give a very special introduction for us today. Ulrike, welcome, the floor is yours. Thank you very much. Thank you, Marta. So welcome to this webinar. I'm really pleased to have today, together here in this room, teachers, school leaders, education policy makers and those all interested in education policy. My name is Ulrike. I'm working at the European Commission on School Education Policy. And why did we actually put this webinar on the agenda? Why do we speak about school partnerships? What I wanted to give you is a bit of an understanding of how does this link to the broader policy debates or policy efforts that we have at the European Union level. You can see my slides, I assume. Yeah, we can see them. Perfect. So school community partnerships are actually part of our efforts on blended learning for inclusion. And how do we define blended learning? Blended learning is not only what is commonly understood as blending online, digital and non-digital tools, but it is also blending different learning environments, school sites, cultural centers, outdoors, etc. Of course, using these different approaches to the learning path has probably always been part of what U.S. teachers have been doing. You have been taking out your students to the local library. But the COVID times have really shed light on this approach to blending different learning styles, different learning pathways on new forms of blending. They have come into our picture, especially using different digital tools, blending school site and distance learning. And understanding which of these blends are actually the most effective and for which types of learners is in the focus of our renewed efforts at the European Union level. And this has gotten so much into the focus of policymakers that the education ministers in 2021 decided to adopt a council recommendation on this subject. It's because they and us, we believe that it's making education systems more resilient and prepared for all future developments if teachers can take more than one approach to the learning path. We also see and, yeah, we believe that it's also beneficial from a pedagogical point of view. Because blended learning makes school teaching more inclusive. It can be more flexible to a wide range of wide different learners' needs. It can enhance the competence development of young pupils. It can, for example, a school that promotes collaboration with the local community actually can encourage this shared sense of responsibility for the development of young people. And this, in turn, also can make it, again, more interesting and motivate young learners to have education that is relevant to their everyday life. How do we promote blended learning at EU level? Well, all through the last year, we have brought together representatives of ministries of education in our working group on schools. It is part of our strategic cooperation with EU countries. It's part of our work to work towards a European education area. And in this working group, we had several meetings, seminars. We looked at good practices and we came up with key messages, key messages for policymakers and for school leaders. And I would ask my colleagues kindly to post in the chat the link to the final report of this working group's work. It's accompanied by a short fact sheet. So if you want to read into the key messages, get inspired by examples, please have a look afterwards. You see some of the key messages on this slide. So for example, policymakers can actually help schools to innovate by giving them the flexibility and the resources. School leaders can also encourage a shared leadership in their schools and really bring in more resources from the local community. And I asked two of our working group members to give us a little recording of their insights, how they actually put this into practice in Estonia and Croatia. And I wanted to share this with you. It's a two minute video. Let's see if you can hear it. School leaders can support blended learning for inclusion by allowing sufficient autonomy for all teachers so that creativity could flourish. The teachers should be seen as professionals who know what is best for their pupils and how the learning process could be made more meaningful for them. Of course, legal framework needs to support it. For example, in Estonia, the national curriculum is based on competencies, skills and learning outcomes. And this allows the teacher to actually blend learning, because this means that the teachers have almost full autonomy for deciding how the learning process is actually designed as long as the learning outcomes are fully achieved. This autonomy allows them to create networks and partnerships with, for example, employers or non-governmental organisations and bring them into the classroom or take the lessons outside of the classroom, for example, to laboratories, museums, parks, forests, wherever they want to, as long as the learning outcomes are achieved. We see in Croatia that schools do a magnificent cooperation with local communities. And for example, our schools do a great job with the police. So we have the police officer coming into the school teaching the first graders the traffic culture, and they take them actually into the street so that the first graders can experience what the traffic is like. And this is how we believe that schools should be open to local communities and that we all together should make it possible for our students to have the best possible education. Voila, thanks. I think this was from my side. Just a big thank you at the end for giving me this opportunity to link our discussion today to the broader policy level. I give back to Marta and I believe we have another one of our members from the working group with us, Martin, who shares his experience from Waldorf-Steiner education and who was part of our debates as well. Thank you. Yeah, indeed. Thank you very much, Ulrike, for giving this introduction. And without water, I would hand over to Martin, since he is here with us today. Thank you very much, Martin, for joining us. The floor is yours. Yes. Hello. I think one of the things that became clear to us when we started looking at the whole question of blended learning is that it's not narrowed and limited down to simply working with digital media. That, of course, is an very important part. But all learning really depends on learners, whether they're young children or young people or adults, indeed, having rich experiences, which they can then process, they can internalize and out of which learning and skills and knowledge can emerge. But this process of facilitating meaningful experience can take different forms. One form which is particularly important, I think, is direct experience, that is children, young people actually doing things, making things, working in the outdoor classroom, as it were, going into nature, doing projects, environmental projects, ecological projects in nature, doing work placements in the working place, making contact with local communities and availing themselves of, if you like, the local cultural provision. In other words, going out and having direct experience. The second really effective mode of experience, as we know, is narrative. In other words, somebody tells us a story, explains to us something that we perhaps can't experience directly. They share something that they have an intimate relationship to, that we, as learners, visualize in our imagination. We bring our embodied experience to actualize the stories, as it were, that we're given. And that's a very powerful way of making sense of experience. The third realm, of course, is that of all forms of media, whether it's image, moving image, video, whether it's text or websites and so on. This is an indirect mode of experience, which, of course, can bring us in contact with things that we otherwise wouldn't be able to meet. What all three of these modes of experience require is a process of mediating, of facilitating. Experiences can be quite chaotic when you have them in an immediate sense. It's only afterwards in recalling them, in retrieving them, that we can give these experiences a shape. We can clarify, perhaps, what it was that we saw and heard. We can find language to describe it. We can put it into our own words. And this is a process which needs to be guided, steered by an educator, so that the learners can make sense of their experience in whichever medium they've been in. And out of this sense, they can come to an understanding, they can make meaning through these experiences. And in a sense, we've come to realize that this term blended learning has a fourth dimension. That is that all these different modes of experience actually need to be blended, in the sense of integrated, in ways that enable the learner to make sense of these experiences. So the blending doesn't stop just by us either having hands on experience or using digital media. It's this process, dialogical process, this communicative process of making sense and making meaning with others together that is very important. And this is generally something that children and young adults will need to be facilitated in, perhaps even in adult education, to some extent, this is necessary. And it's through this facilitating role that schools begin to have a reconnect to the community that they are embedded in, whether they are a school in a large city, cities in a sense are huge, great educational spaces with all the things that cities provide, but also, of course, in rural areas where perhaps community is something more tangible and experienced school needs to become a place where real life is experienced. In other words, the schooling element that is making sense and making meaning, we take that into the world. And my experience has been that when we do that, then the workshop spaces, the farms that we visit, the communities that we visit, they themselves enter into a different process of learning because they're encountering young people, children asking questions, they're reflecting on their own world of work. And in this sense, we have blending school and community in a new way and having, of course, access to digital media enhances that considerably. Great, Martin, thank you very much for this contribution and for bringing us into the blended learning warden and in this new perspective of blended learning, which I'm sure it's really useful for our audience today. And I also saw that the chat stopped for a while, which is not a bad sign. It's a great sign because it means that people were really paying attention to what you were saying. But we invite you, of course, to stay with us for the rest of the presentation and keep an eye on the chat because if you have any comments, thoughts, please feel free to post them. And I'm sure Martin will be happy to reply directly in the chat as well. Yes, of course. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, so I think we can move on and I see that Petra is ready to give the presentation. So Petra, welcome. Thank you very much for joining us today. As I was saying before, Petra is the director of the School Head Association and it's a pleasure for us to have her with us today. So please, the floor is yours. I'm hoping to share my screen here. Are you seeing my screen? Yeah, we can see your presentation perfectly. Right. But is it correct that I cannot see it? No, now we can see it. Okay. Perfectly. Can you see it as well? Yes, now everything is okay. Well, good afternoon, I would say my dear colleagues, because today we are going to talk about schools, open schools and the school partnership that we are going to have as an effective path. We are in a very interesting and dynamic society at the moment. We are actually a disruptive society. There is happening a lot. And that's what we are going to talk about, because our children grow up in this society and school partnerships are very important to prepare our kids for this world and for the future world. Now, who am I? I was introduced as director of ESHA, the European School Head Association. This means that the school head, the local school head associations from 23 countries are part of ESHA. So I did see come in a lot of countries that are actually connected to us, and that was a pleasure to see. For myself, I am Dutch. That means I'm from the Netherlands. I was an educator. I've been a teacher. I've been a school head. I've been a school board. I've been president of my national school head organization. And as a mother, I've seen education with my three boys in many ways. They are grown up now, but the passion for education, for my part, is still here. Now, first, it's very important that we talk about the why and the perspective that we choose, because we are talking about schools. And around the schools, we have the partners, the parents, the educational partners, the other partners, and of course, this virtual world, which is going very fast and the blended learning that we were just talking about is an excellent example for this. But is school the correct perspective, or should we start when we talk about open schools always with the child itself, with our pupils, with our students? And let's stick by the world around the child. There is, of course, the home. There is the neighborhood. There is the social life, sports. It can be child centers, child cares. But also in the lives of our children, the virtual world is a very fast growing world. It's actually a kind of concerning world because our children spend a lot of time behind the screen and they see a lot of things that may or may not be true. And for a lot of things, we don't even know what they are seeing, what they are doing. So coping with the world is very important and connecting our schools, open schools for open societies, it means that we have to take the whole world in account. Now, we have a number of great societal challenges around us. And I want to refer about the Europe 2020 strategy, where are a lot of issues addressed like demographic change, well-being of people. They want to work on food security, sustainable agricultural. We have to think about the forest, the maritime, the water, the bioeconomics. We want to have a secure, clean and efficient energy in our world. The agenda of Europe also addresses that we want to have smart green transports. We think that it's important that there are climate actions We have to think about our environment. We have to use our resources in an effective way. We want secure societies. We want everybody to have well-being and not live in poverty. Those are a lot of challenges. And they come from the European Union, which may feel like it's a top-down strategy, but actually it's not because this is exactly this dynamic world, this disruptive world that I mentioned, where our children are growing up in. And it's not an extra thing that we are going to prepare our kids for this world. It's the world that they live in. So let's not think about open schools for open societies as something new that's coming towards us. And again, education has to solve problems from society or from the world around us. We have a lot of work. The work pressure is enormous. But this is not what open schooling is about. I would actually say it's the contra, because if you take this up the way it is meant, you are going to work on real needs in the communities outside the school. Actually, as Martin has just presented it, real life, real life around the kids. And if we are able to have this real life as an anchor point to actually form our education, this is what we are going to do with the concept of open schooling. Now, in my presentation, I'm going to present to you three projects which were all funded by the European Union. One is the Open Schools for Open Societies Project. One is the I Diverse Project, which is actually about island diversity. And one is called the Faraclos Project. And all is about learning together in the real world for learners and teachers, one of the most important motivations to do what we do and to actually live in this world and together. My focus, of course, is about school heads. I am the European School Head Association, but it's not only for this. School heads are a linking pin and leadership matters. I will refer to this a little bit more often in my presentation, but the school head is the linking pin to actually connect the administrative community. You have to do with society. You have to do with authorities. There is a lot of paperwork. There is the social and cultural environment around the world. And there is the school community, the community with the students, the parents, the kids and the teachers, all the educative partners and the school heads are the linking pin to actually connect all these partners and to see the who, the where and the how of all the partners and how to incorporate them in our education. Now, the concept of open schooling means, first of all, that we will meet real needs. But it also means that whatever you are going to do with your projects and with your approach, it will be presented publicly. You will draw upon the local expertise and experiences and you will foster the collaboration. You will work together with the society around your school and you will find that everybody at the same time is an actor, a researcher, a learner, but also somebody who is actually presenting in this world. I am going to give you some examples later on, but it's important to understand the characteristics of open schooling. First, as I said, it's about community projects, real projects which are engaging and interactive. But it's also about the design thinking approach, meaning that the deeper looking means a deeper learning and that you actually work on realistic solutions, solutions that can actually be applicable in the world around the school. So we are going beyond theory and acting in a real way. It's also about collaborative inquiry. This actually has to do with the binding of your local situation in the global world. And I like to use this term, localization. Everything you do local has a connection with the global world. Sometimes it doesn't seem that way or sometimes the world seems something far away, but we are all connected and everything you do as an individual, as a group, as a school has an effect or is effective about this world. And that's what collaborative inquiry is about. The last characteristic is about the personal geography. And this has to do with every individual. We all have thoughts, ideas, dreams. And the way of open schooling means that if you approach it in the proper way, everything can become reality. I would like to mention people like Elon Musk or Steve Jobs. They started with very bold dreams. Maybe people actually thought whatever they want, it cannot happen, but it can. They had a personal geography and they had this plan in their mind. But it's also about artistic expression. How you actually express what you learned, what you see, what your question is, your worry, your emotion, your well-being. Now these four aspects are very important if you choose the open schooling approach and how you want to actually involve them in your society. There is this project. I only show you the website, which is www.openschools.eu and we have there an open schooling roadmap. In this roadmap you can find the actual ecosystem of open schooling. I'm not going to explain this ecosystem and show you what's on the map. I just want to pass your eye to this that you can find on this website, the ecosystem and also in detail worked out how you can approach to work with the ecosystem. So if you want to look after this webinar about the theories and actually see this roadmap, find it on the website and make it your own. Everything is free available, of course. Now before you can start a concept of open schooling, support mechanism is needed and the school head is a very important Lincoln pin also in this because the leadership needed to start open schooling is quite large but it starts with change agents which is more than only the school leader. It means everybody can become an inspiring leader of the school community. It can be a teacher, can be a parent, it can be a student. A change agent is somebody who actually is able to inspire others, take them with you and inspire a process of acting. When you have this change agent actually thinking about meeting the local needs, we do need support of school leaders because you cannot capture innovation in your school alone. If you're a teacher with a great idea you need to work together with your school head because in the Lincoln pin that I showed you before it's important that you have the support of the leadership because together you have to decide on appropriate strategies. You cannot just put innovation in the school, it needs a strategy because you need to take others with you in this process but it also means if you really want to end up in open schooling where you engage society that you need a cycle, a structure of constant reflection towards your transformation because the line is never straight. You don't start here and you actually go from A to B.  But it also means, and I think it was also said in the previous presentation, that the position of school in society, in the city, rural, island is changing. Schools are going to be hubs. Hubs are kind of core institutions in the center of the local society because that is where your children come from but it's also where they live. It means you are going to work on sustainable innovation of ecosystems and the ecosystem should be looked at more broad. It's not only a biological system but an ecosystem also means a societal system where people respond on each other and where actions actually make a difference and involve the system. Now, open schooling has of course a real theory, a kind of model and it all starts with the green on the left side stimulating.  They can be teachers, they can be policymakers, they can be students, they will be leaders because somebody needs to be stimulating the process itself. Second thing, which is always a part of open schooling and think about this design thinking approach, you will need a scientific underpinning. You can not just say, the sun is dangerous for us. No, you have to have a scientific underpinning like what's actually happening? Why is this a real need in society and what is the actual question that we are talking about? Then you come to the next stage of incubating your process that you are going to this innovation, to the open schooling and actually make a change. It means that you are going to create communities, the communities with which you are going to work together and develop scenarios because only when you work together in teams, both for designing the process to identify the question and to meet the real needs, you are ready to accelerate and actually manage knowledge and coordinate the process. And you see that positions can change. Once there is the leader on top, but it couldn't be the teacher, it can be the policymaker, you all have different positions in this model. Then, if you are ready, you are going to look in your local society and actually find the building blocks that are needed for your approach of open schooling. To make for yourself the model, which building blocks are in my society and which are necessary to make our open school actually open? How can I make my school a hub in society? And it means that you have to focus. Now, all the issues addressed mean that you can focus on STEM, but it could be something else, STEM education, like science, technology, engineering, math, but also the A of art could be here. But you can also choose to focus on things like diversity or take only one part of STEM, like the environment or something else.   It means you have to look around the physical space about your classroom or maybe the playground, which labs do you need are the labs, a room in your school or maybe the labs are outside. It can be your garden or the forest or the lake around the corner. The digital environment, how far you can use the educational technology, but maybe you can even use the mobile phones that children have. And how can you connect with the local society, which is your primary partner. And in the end, how you make a difference for the global community. And all through this line, it's always important the teacher is the professional and the professional development of the teacher is crucial to remain ready to have an open school. In the end, you see the green blocks. There are these competencies you need this research component and entrepreneurship. Now I've showed you a lot of theories and it may have been a kind of abstract, but I'm going to give you some examples of what we actually mean. And I start with some examples from the I Diverse Island Diversity Project, which puts diversity design thinking in STEM education at the center of the way that they have created their open schools in open societies. Now, what have they been starting? They have chosen real subjects and on the islands, it was very obvious that plastic in the water was a very important issue that actually was dangerous for fish, for people and for the nature in the whole. So what can you think of to change the minds and what could be the new entrepreneurial ideas that you can work on? Together with the students, they designed several activities, but also products. There was a trail, they went on the beach to clean the beach. And then they were thinking, well, if we only collect this plastic, that is not an open schooling concept that is cleaning a beach. An open schooling concept means that you try actually to make a circle, like a life to life circle. And how can you reuse this plastic? This school made reusable bottles and gave them to the student to see that plastic does not only have to be used once, but they also use the old plastic to make pieces of art. And by using it this way, they wanted to raise awareness in the community. They also spoke because they are in a warmer zone and there is a lot of sunshine. They spoke about the environment and the atmosphere, about ultraviolet radiation. And together with students, they found out how to make sunscreen at home, how you can actually make the cream to protect yourself from the sun. And in the research part, they find out why this is important, why is UV dangerous for your skin or why is it important that if we pollute the air that actually there is more UV entering our systems. But also they thought about how can we involve the younger children? So they designed a puppet show to tell with their hands and their puppets what actually sun can mean in your life. It can be a good thing, it can be energy, it can be something you have to be aware of. They designed leaflets together with the children that you can hand out to the parents. All kinds of practical forms on how you work together. And the students shared also their work in local newspapers, they had television shows and they were also thinking together with the students, together with the corporate companies around the school in how you may create a business so that you actually can earn something from the plastic. And I will show you what they have done in the next slide because the children have been thinking about making bracelets for their arms but also for selling and show people what was the purpose of their open schooling project. Another was bees for the future. We all know that there is an ecosystem that birds eat insects, insects need flowers, flowers are a part of the world. So by actually starting small with bees for the future they were able to gather with children to plant in a school garden some flowers. They actually made a home for insects. They created new spaces in the parks around the school. They had these pollinair hotels and in all the way they involved the children in the research, in finding the facts, in thinking about how you can actually use the school around you, how you can work together with parents, how do you need your municipality. And after all these projects, these were activities. I want to come back with you to the learning goals because we are used before you teach that you have your learning goals as a teacher, very clear what you want the students to learn. And that's what you also do in open schooling but the ecosystem that you think of is a bit larger because if you actually think about the world that you are going to live in, it means that you have to have goals which can be more abstractive like raise awareness, more abstractive like we want a sustainable world and what does that mean for us. So you have some goals which are actually higher than the first goals that you should present in your lessons but there are also the second goals because by putting children together and facilitating that they work in groups, you also work on the language, you also work on calculations, you do numeracy and literacy because when you research facts, you actually need a lot of things from other subjects. You need geography, you need physical, you need everything that is actually in your curriculum but by making it interesting in an open schooling program you are engaging children in a different way. And by doing this, you make the teachers, the students, the parents, the society, the policymaker, you make everybody as actor a learner. You research the problems, you affect your community, you make experiments to understand it better and by doing so you are learning. You are learning by doing and you try of course to share everything you learn but also everything that you produce. Now, here the characteristics are back and you will see that there was this community, there was the design thinking, there was the collaborative inquiry and of course the personal geography was there because children have fantastic ideas and dreams and when you put them together, doing it in an open schooling project, you are actually working on the 21st century skills in an amazing way, which is beautiful for children to experience and also to feel valuable because by being a part you create a new culture of partnership, a culture where everybody matters and everybody is important and we all know when you feel important, when you feel your talents are engaged, it means that you have more confidence, that you can be more resilient and that means that your well-being will actually grow in this culture of open schooling. Engaging this environment makes that you have vitality in your community as a school and the family in the society around you and you foster the learning independent and interdependent. Now, if you think back about the priorities of Europe, I think you already recognized a lot of them. I'm going to present to you now another project which was called the Ferakus project and the unique thing about the Ferakus project is that it takes everything I told you from open schooling and the hub that you can be into a more structured way of working and this is a beautiful picture of how it can look but I'm going to take you a little bit into this big picture what is actually said. Remember, in the beginning, we spoke about the school community where the children, the parents, the teacher, the school heads are actually a community and that is around the school. But what makes this Ferakus project so engaging is that we actually involve the higher education and the universities created not only their contribution in research but also they created children's universities and later in the presentation I will show you a little movie on how it works with the children's universities. Ferakus is about forming a local educational cluster, a group of people, a group of organizations working together in a structural way and here you see the universities, the higher education but you also see the industry and the companies appearing. So actually it's very important that you also talk with the companies around the world in your society because they will be engaged not only to work with the children as the workers of the future but also because they are also engaged in equality in well-being and actually helping our children further and they have a lot of resources that can help schools to become local educational clusters and work together. Now in the cluster there are governmental units that can be your municipality that can be partners from your political or educational system and there is the civic society and you can think about NGOs, partners who actually want to make a difference in the environment and it's nice if you look around and you can find new partners who actually are interested in everything this school does but also are interested in society. It can also be for example media, newspaper, television, multimedia. So look around you, look around your school and think about yourself who can be in your local educational cluster but always take the researchers, take the higher education in and see how you can form this children's university because having a good design thinking approach may mean that you need a little help in your school. The project is the Ferreclos project. You can also find it on a website so I'm not going to take you through all the theories but I do want to show you a little bit about how these local educational clusters are actually formed. How can you approach to do this from your starting situation? And in the Ferreclos project it is called the Venice Model. Now you all know Venice as a beautiful city with a lot of water and a lot of islands where houses are and there are some bridges. As you can see there are some small bridges connecting the little islands but you can also see the school as a floating island in the sea you can see the university as a floating island in the sea and it's very nice that all the partners are there but it's a kind of difficult that the water is in between. We are used to work on an island as a school we are used to work on an island as a teacher but then comes the school head as the captain of the ship and he thinks about designing some ferry boats where you have a crew of dedicated people your teachers, your parents, your pupils and this crew is in charge think about how everybody should be engaged the crew is in charge of establishing these connections between the islands and then the ferry boat starts to make connections and people start sharing ideas they are going to find the real needs. Now the connections with the boat are not so sure so actually it could be nice to build sustainable bridges and then you get back to this partnership if you really work together with the society with the universities, the companies, the NGOs, the municipality you are going to have bridges and this is how you are opening up your school but also opening up society because you can go in and out and work together and if you are very successful you will have a locally rooted system where things are really connected and engaging all the time and in the end this is how you can also connect to the global world now a little movie is going to be shown and we had some technical issues so I am going to ask the assistants of the bureau to show this little movie and I stop my presentation from here Back again, can you confirm? Yes, you are back if you want to put back your presentation It was here, I have to share my screen Again, yes This should be okay? Perfect So as you understand the Venice model was actually a metaphor about connecting the school head as a captain the team and the partners as the people in the boat but it's actually about this local educational cluster and the movie showed you how for real this can be done with the university around your school Hereby I give you an example from Trieste There are several countries where a lot of local educational clusters are existing You see the academia, the schools, the associations the citizens, policymakers the private sector you can choose your partners In any way development, the school leaders they have to learn in network together with the teachers together with the pupils, the parents and society learning by doing sharing successes working in a group working in this local educational network and actually set the compass for adopting the implementation It's very important to share your success and it's very important to adapt the concept to your local situation because you have to see who are the partners around you in your school, in your society Now a bit of theory it's very important that the practice is usable that you have enough support in your school and that there is enough strength of the evidence that you find by your research It's important that you really know what the needs of the target populations are, your student, your teacher but also the population in society Are the choices fit for your community and what actual capacity can you find to support the new ways of working So first you go by planning and if those factors are not in place and the school head has a very important role here this partnership is not going to be successful Now the simple formula is actually that you define what needs to be done how it needs to be done and where it needs to be done In a schedule you can see that the what is about effective practices the who and the how is about the implementation the where has to do with the context but if you do everything right in a good process you will have improved outcomes and when you think about outcomes you can really think about learning results but also socializing of children the collaboration, the 21st century skills and actually deep learning occurs because children are not only learning things by hearing it, they are learning things by experiencing it So school heads you are the linking pin to organize this all from the who to the how and beyond but it is not only about school heads because we all share in leadership every partner shares in leadership Open schooling needs leadership from many people and somebody needs to take the role of the game changer it needs that you are sharing knowledge and experiences and that you create time and choose a structure it may be the lack, it could be a little bit different it means that you use input of research and that you really take use of this in your development and you have to identify good practices look around you in the projects that I show you and see how good practices work and if you find them and you adjust them for your own context share your good practices as well because working together in an open school it means giving and taking Now networking, collaboration in partnership, it needs leadership but actually more frankly I would like to say networking, collaboration in partnership it needs you I all invite you to open up your schools start working together in partnership or legs and I hope that you will have a very successful experience it's all about opening up thank you very much Thank you very much Petra for the presentation I see a lot of comments chat, a lot of thank you for you the presentation was really useful so it's great and thank you also for leaving us with this invitation to open up that's great but maybe if you have time to stay we have one question for you, we had it in the chat I'm going to read it out loud Sometimes school building management questions such as security and cleaning might stand in the way of a shared use of a school for non formal and or adult education do you find good solutions? Well, it's actually not me who will find the solutions I think the question is addressing the real need because this is apparently what you need to do you want to do something with your building and if you make that at the center of your search to be in open schooling look around, who do you meet who can help you, who supports you so this is actually this culture of change if you have a question like this put it at the center of your real need and see what you can do with your teachers, children and society around the school Thank you very much Petra for addressing this question we still have a couple of minutes so I invite the audience to post any other comments or questions if any and meanwhile I would like to remind you that we just posted in the chat the link to the evaluation form so please save it for later you can fill it in later but you have to save it now and for all those who were asking about the presentation the PowerPoint, the links everything will be available afterwards on the webinar page meaning the presentation the recording of this webinar and the links so you'll be able to find all the material that you need as of tomorrow on the page where you signed up for the webinar Thank you very much again also to Ulrike for the introduction it was really a pleasure for us to have you here today and of course to Dr. Martin Rosen for his intervention as well but before closing I would really like you to give us a final word, a final suggestion to share with us some final thoughts so maybe we can do a round Ulrike and start with you since you were the first talking Thank you very much also to Petra it connected I think very well what she presented with what we had discussed and there's a role for policymakers of course also to make this happen to have school leaders the space and the resources and the backing to have this freedom of taking this basically being this lighthouse in the local community and we saw from the chat I saw some of you posted also successful e-twinning projects I think this is exactly the kind of initiative that is worth sharing across Europe. Thank you very much and keep on connecting to the European School Education Platform for more resources also on this field just to say that school partnerships is a monthly focus topic that we have for January 2023 so we have more resources other projects as well as this recording from this where we now on the platform stay tuned and thank you very much for joining today. Thank you very much Martin would you like to say something before we close? Yes, yes I would thank you and thank you very much for the presentation I think what the open schools movement are doing is exactly what I was describing one thing I would like to add to that this interdisciplinary aspect that the children are not only being hands-on and learning about ecology and they're practicing their literacy and perhaps even their numeracy what I think we need to develop now our intelligent methods of assessing this learning and particularly the learning not just of individuals but of groups because an awful lot of what we do in life is based on teamwork and being able to make visible this element of learning through projects I think is an area which is underdeveloped but fascinating projects and good luck with your continued work. Thank you Martin thank you very much and of course Petra I'll leave the final word to you I would only like to say and I think that's why we're all together here we are not doing this for you me or us we are doing this for our children and for their world and I think something more inspiring is not existing open up your school because we're doing it for them. Thank you, thank you very much. I would like also to thank the online audience for joining us today you were a lot and very active in the chat and that was really great, really appreciated to see all it's really appreciated to see all your comments and your thoughts and following us during the presentation I wish you all a good evening and stay in touch bye bye everyone


I want to take some time to talk about Ilhan Omar because she is dealing with something that no other member of Congress has to deal with.  And she's also criticized whenever she says basically anything, I mean she dealt with universal condemnation when she spoke out against APEC, which her criticism was valid. She simply asked why are we not allowed to question the monetary influence that APEC has on members of Congress when we do the same thing for other interest groups, the NRA, for example. So that led to her being condemned basically by everyone, it led to Donald Trump literally calling on her to resign, but even if she doesn't say anything, she still has to put up with abuse and discrimination just because she's a Muslim woman. For example, this poster was found at a public event that was sponsored by the West Virginian Republican Party, it was found at the state capitol where it literally links her to 9-11. Because she's a Muslim and because she was elected to Congress, it demonstrates that Americans forgot about the importance of 9-11.  In her own district, somebody wrote assassinate Ilhan Omar in the gas station, in the bathroom of one of the gas stations in her district. So she is facing this unique threat of constant abuse and harassment that nobody else has to deal with in Congress and it's because she's a Muslim. Now at a recent event that took place about a month ago, she spoke about why we all need to forcefully combat the hatred and misinformation and generalizations that are harmful against Muslim Americans. And this is what she had to say. Far too long we have lived with the discomfort of being a second-class citizen. And frankly, I'm tired of it and every single Muslim in this country should be tired of it. Care was founded after 9-11 because they recognized that some people did something and that all of us were starting to lose access to our civil liberties. So you can't just say that today someone is looking at me strange, that I am going to try to make myself look pleasant. You have to say this person is looking at me strange, I am not comfortable with it, I am going to go talk to them and ask them why because that is the right you have. So she makes an incredibly important point there and I want to reiterate what she's saying there because of the actions of some people who she does not identify with that has led to generalizations that are harmful against Muslim Americans. Because of what happened on 9-11 many people now assume that all Muslims are like those people. So it's an important point and what she's saying is valid. We need to stand up against the hatred, against the bigotry that is being perpetrated against Muslim Americans now. But here's how Dan Crenshaw, congressman from Texas decided to interpret that. First of all he retweeted someone who took her out of context and claimed that she intentionally minimized 9-11 and she did so to justify the creation of a quote terrorist organization which he claims care is. And then Dan Crenshaw responded by saying first member of congress to ever describe terrorists who killed thousands of Americans on 9-11 as some people who did something unbelievable. Actually what's unbelievable is that a sitting member of congress retweeted someone who took one of his colleagues out of context and claimed that care is a terrorist organization. That is what I find unbelievable. Because if you extrapolate further than the implication is that since care is supposedly a terrorist organization and since she supports said quote terrorist organization then she must have condoned the attacks on 9-11 which is why she quote minimized it. Which is why people accuse us of forgetting about the importance of 9-11 since she was elected. I mean do you see why posters like this are put up?  All Muslims are being generalized because of 9-11 and she's saying we need to stop generalizing.  They prove her point unbelievable. And it doesn't matter what she says or does. This is not going to stop. They're going to continue doing this and it's getting worse. Because guess what President Donald Trump decided to do? He tweeted out a video with the words we will never forget that played her out of context comments with painful imagery of planes flying to the twin towers and then he actually had that tweet pinned for days. He finally unpinned it as of today which is Monday the time I record this video but he had it pinned for days. Now let's call this what it is.  This will lead to her getting even more harassment and more death threats. That's what the sitting president just did. That is what I find unbelievable. And what's ironic to me is that for someone who supposedly outraged that she minimized 9-11 there's nobody in the country who minimized 9-11 more so than Donald Trump who literally was on tape bragging on 9-11 about how since the twin towers fell his building was now the largest in or the tallest in Manhattan. You have one of the landmark buildings down in the financial district 40 Wall Street. Did you have any damage or did you know what's happened down there. Well it was an amazing phone call I made 40 Wall Street actually was the second tallest building in downtown Manhattan and it was actually before the World Trade Center was the tallest and then when they built the World Trade Center became known as the second tallest and now it's the tallest and I just spoke to my people and they said it's the most unbelievable site. So for someone who cares about the supposed minimization of 9-11 it doesn't get any worse than that. So what he did was he took a political opponent out of context for purposes of political expediency because he wanted to smear them. What's especially grotesque about this smear is that unlike most smears this opens the door to harassment and threats it incites hatred. But Donald Trump doesn't care about that I'm sure he is hoping that that's what's going to happen and Dan Crenshaw who arguably started this quote scandal I think he needs to explain why he told a firefighter who survived 9-11 why he was quote too busy to talk about victim benefits I mean that doesn't just minimize 9-11 but you told a literal hero that you were too busy to talk about victim benefits. If that doesn't minimize 9-11 then I don't know what does so these are all hypocrites who are lobbing bad faith attacks at Ilhan Omar for purposes of political expediency and they don't care at all that this endangers her life that it directly incites hatred against her and what happened was exactly what we all predicted what happened.


Live from San Francisco, it's The Cube. Here's your host, Jeff Frick. Hi, Jeff Frick here. We are on the ground at Pier 48 in San Francisco at the Top Coder Open 2014. So the event's been going on for about 14 years, bringing a bunch of people together, kind of a hackathon to solve all the hard problems. But we came up with The Cube today because they had a new program, really targeted to high school girls and keeping them in STEM, getting them interested in STEM and talking about STEM. And most importantly, really presenting a panel of mentors for them to look up to who are not the biggest stars that they'll ever see, but people in the industry working hard and sharing their stories. So we're really excited to get some time with the panel. So I'm joined by Grace Norton. Welcome. Thank you. And you are a technical program manager at Google. That's right. Awesome. And I think you said you come from the hardware side as well, right? You're doing chip design and so you're a hardcore, not just a wimpy software stuff. Hardware is cool. Hardware is cool. So talk a little bit about your journey. You came to this country. You just jumped in with both feet. Went to Oregon State up in Corn Valley. So talk a little bit about your journey and how you got involved in computer science. Yeah. So I love solving puzzles ever since I was a kid. And in high school, I love science and math. So I came from Malaysia. I came here to Oregon State and just jumped in with both feet. And the chip design for 13 years before I switched to become a technical program manager first at Facebook, then at Google. So talk about, you said you were one of two girls in your program with like 200 people. Yes. You're obviously full energy, got a lot of life. For girls that are not necessarily maybe so confident, what advice would you give them if it feels intimidating to be one of only a couple girls in these CS programs? I say don't be afraid. If you don't know 100%, that's okay. Just raise your hands. Just go for it, people. And you mentioned that you're still really close friends with that other gal, right? Yes. So I'm actually going to her baby shower in a month. You've probably been in each other's weddings and seen the kids and everything. Yes. Great. So talk a little bit about this event. A great event. 200 girls from about a dozen high schools. Even a girl scout troop. Kind of coming down and sitting down and getting to listen to you and listen to your story. And ask questions. What did you think of the girls? I'm super excited to meet them and to just give them a perspective of what I think to and ask them to just go for it. Go for it to do something that they're passionate about. Yeah. And as you said, it's really about problem solving. And you really like problem solving. And that's been guiding you along this path. The other piece that came up was really the ability to touch a lot of people with code and to have this long reach. Talk a little bit about why you like that part of being involved in software. Yeah. I think technology has a big impact on the world. Just look at Google search. Tons of people in the world use that and look at Facebook connecting with all your friends and families all over the world. So this is just really amazing. The impact that we can do. Yeah. And just hardware versus software. What do you think? What do you like better? I like both of them. You like both of them. That was an easy answer. I don't know. I mean now it's all about cloud. But cloud's really driven by hardware. Nobody likes to talk about the hardware. It's like the magic up there. And you're in big distributed systems. You're at Google. Yeah. The amazing thing about cloud is that the hardware, you don't have to deal with hardware anymore. The cloud providers take care of it. That enables a lot of different companies and people to just start small businesses with that. Yeah. So last question. Why is an event like this important? Why is it important for you to take time out of your day, for Google to let you take time out of your day to sit and talk to these 200 girls? I think it's really important to have more young people in the pipeline to fill up, to help with the technology industry. Great. Thank you for stopping by. Thank you so much. So again, we're here at the Girls in STEM at the Top Coder Open 2014. I'm Jeff Frick. We're on the ground in San Francisco. You're watching The Cube.


This is stock number 7T332A. We are here at Summit Automotive in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, checking out this super clean like new 2017 Ram 1500 crew cab 6 foot 4 inch short box. This truck has the 5.7 liter V8 Hemi motor with the MDS system. From this HD video you'll be able to tell that this truck is extremely clean all the way around. We shoot all of our videos in 1080p so if you have HD capabilities on your computer tablet or smartphone device turn them on now so you can see just how clean this truck is. It's like you're right here looking at the truck with me. It has Goodyear Wrangler 27560R20 tires on it and it has the 20 inch polished aluminum rims with the painted pockets. These rims are in absolutely perfect shape. No scuffs or scrapes on them. Brilliant black crystal is the color. As you can tell from the grille it is a limited package with Sonar on the front bumper, factory fog lights. You have your LED running lamps and the projector lamp headlamps. Passengers side rim absolutely perfect as well. No scuffs or scrapes on that. And as you go down this side of the truck you can see just how clean the body is, how reflective and glass like that paint is. Very very clean, very mirror like. This was the owner of our company's personal truck for the past six months. So one owner, locally driven, very very clean all the way around. Down this side of the truck no dents, no dings, no scuffs, no scrapes. Has wheeled wheel side steps. This back rim is in absolutely perfect condition as well. And these back tires have just as much tread as the front tires. You can see that it has the plastic wheel well inserts which keeps your frame and underbody looking like new. All the lower lips and rockers look really good which you'd expect on a 2017 anyways. But we always like to give the most accurate representation possible so that if you are far away or you just can't make the trip down you can get the same experience as if you were right here looking at the vehicle so you can make a smart buying decision before you even get here. Has a factory spray and bed liner. Bed is very clean and it has the LED bed lighting. You get the RAM stamped tailgate here or the RAM lettering on the tailgate. Back up camera, locking tailgate. Back up sensors and dual rear exhaust full towing package on this truck which includes the four pin and seven pin wiring along with the receiver hitch. As you go down this side of the truck just as clean as the passenger side. I didn't see any dents or dings down this side of the vehicle. But what really makes this truck is the interior on it.  You also get that neat stitching in the backrest of the seats. There are no rips or tears on the seat. Memory driver seat and both of these seats are heated and cooled in the front. You have all-weather floor mats. Carpentine is like new underneath. Has power windows, power locks, power mirrors, power folding mirrors. So you just press that button. Has the stitching in the door here as well as the nice cool wood grain trim, auto headlamps, power pedals. And you can see inside in the 7-inch TFT display you have 6,842 miles. You get the custom limited instrument cluster, the heated leather wrapped and wood grain trimmed steering wheel, cruise controls, Bluetooth audio controls. This one does have the factory navigation system. Also has your heated and cooled seat buttons. Also has the back of camera. You can see it's very easy to navigate. You have your radio, AM, FM, and Sirius XM radio capabilities. You have your turn dial, 8-speed automatic transmission, push button four-wheel drive. Also push button start. It has the keyless entry, enter and go system along with remote start. And then it has the four-corner air suspension leveling system. So you can raise the height of the truck into an off-road one or off-road two mode. And you got different controls for your heated seats, steering wheel, stability control, and those reverse sensors as well. It says the Alpine sub or Alpine sound system with the factory subwoofer. Passenger seat is very clean as well. No rips or tears on that. Like I said, this truck has never been smoked in, has a power sunroof, the homelink system, power sliding rear window, the 911, and a sys system. You have dual-climate or tool, my bad, dual glove boxes, 115 volt, 150 watt plug-in, factory all-weather floor man on that side. The center console limited stitched and stamped center console. We'll take a quick look at the back seats and then we will check out under the hood as well. Power pedals, steering wheel controls, this thing has just about every option you could ask for. These back seats are heated as well. No rips, no tears back here. Power sliding rear window with the built-in rear defrost, the stitching in the backrest, latch child safety system. You have storage under the seats. These little trays go down. It's a load floor so you can put tools or muddy boots or if you got pets you can put it flat all the way across so they have a nice flat area to lay and that they're not ruining your nice leather seats. We have all-weather seats back here as well. Little storage cubbies on both sides. There are your heated seat buttons and then the little saddle bags for a storage area as well. Take a quick look under the hood. Heated power mirrors with the built-in directional signals. Once again those do power fold in. Engine bay is very clean, runs very smooth. This truck has been fully safety and inspected by our service shop. Has a fresh oil and filter change. All the fluids have been checked and topped off. One owner locally driven by our owner here at Summit Auto. Like new all the way around. Always serviced here. And to see more pictures of this truck or one of our other 400 new and used cars, trucks, SUVs, minivans, Wranglers, half ton trucks, three quarter ton trucks, one ton trucks, dump trucks, Pro Masters. You name it we got it.  Videos of every single used vehicle that we have all at summitauto.com. Thanks for checking out my video.  Once again that number is<PHONE_NUMBER>. Thanks for checking out my video. If you like it want to check out more go to youtube.com slash summit auto. Remember to like, subscribe, and share. In fact in a second you'll see a subscribe button on your left. A link to more half-ton truck videos like this one on your right. And if you haven't been to our website on the bottom a link to this truck on our website click those check us out see what we're all about and we look forward to help you with the super clean 2017 Ram 1500 Limited. Thanks again.


probably the most misused teaching from A Course in Miracles that I've heard as I've gone around and around the world, you know, you go to course groups and there'll always be somebody come in and somebody will start saying, well, I just went through a divorce and I've got all this pain and suffering and hurt that I'm dealing with.  That's what we might call metaphysical ghosting, trying to take a statement and just use it as kind of a band-aid statement over absolutely everything, you know? Like somebody's in the hospital, they're in traction, their leg is up in traction and someone comes in and starts banging on it. Come on, there is no sickness, you know? It's like we're not asked to try to live a life of pretense just based on thoughts and cliches that have not been experienced in direct experience. We have no business trying to put those out and extend those and we do have a reason to practice the forgiveness and to practice about letting those emotions up and letting those thoughts up and not even trying to grasp a hold and somehow grab an intellectual understanding of a course in miracles. There's no point in the course where Jesus says, well, I want you to get an intellectual grasp of what I'm teaching you. In fact, he says quite the opposite, this course is not a course in the play of ideas.  It's not until you come to peace of mind you don't understand and peace and understanding must go together. And he says, cannot be found apart. So he's just inviting us into a practical application. He's inviting us into an experience and he's saying, you don't get any brownie points for being able to expel some of these ideas. You don't get any extra credit for going around and telling people that the world's an illusion.


Play on Listen listen listen. I do have an apology. I'm gonna start this up an apology. I messed up the schedule I have no idea what I did, but I goofed the schedule. So it's kind of good kind of bad You guys are getting back-to-back wheel of mud so not only are you getting it? This is the best Christmas present I could have given you not only you're getting a wheel of mud today But you're getting one directly after tomorrow then it's Christmas Eve and then it's the wheel of my Christmas special Which is hopefully not hopefully I'm gonna make it happen is gonna be the Super Bowl Yes, cuz I'm not getting kicked out two more wins get a huge win in the wild card last game 20 to 8 We've got a division right now in a conference and then the Super Bowl Also a ton of people have been talking about the presence in the store. Here's the good news So if I complete my challenge in the playoffs, I can open any pack in the store I could get a large present which has a chance of being an XL assuming I complete my challenge So we need to win add good players or a team and worry about that secondary But I do like have a plan for getting Christmas presents for 92 overall squad. We have been absolutely grinding this December We got llamas brown so many studs Robert hunts. So I'm excited to see what happens. All right The Christmas playoffs wheel is spinning right now. Let's see we can get on this. This team is really good So there's not too much we can add but it's gonna be oh, this is a really good one actually So the trio packs for talking about here is these rising stars veterans and heavyweight So I can take any player from one of these three promos I think I'm probably gonna go rising stars or actually no I should probably go heavyweights. I feel like heavyweights have the best player for me here Trent Williams I kind of feel bad getting rid of Wallace, but this is definitely the best thing I could get I look you feel bad But we got to do it. He's in 93 Dude's a start. I have to go with 93 Trent Williams. I'm sorry, Wallace Brown You may be a god, but you're not 93 Trent Williams. All right So our first wheel spin is a plus three overall upgrade to our left tackle I actually really like that our second wheel spin is going to be 90 to 92 team wheel 90 to 92 It's usually such a good wheel spin But right now I really don't even know what position is gonna get upgraded by 90 to 92 Especially not a player Giants, I don't know how this is gonna help us So a lot of you were telling me to put Marshawn Latimore here at cornerback three instead of Justin Simmons I actually like Justin Simmons better. I'm gonna be honest However, there's a 92 overall James Bradbury in the stocking stuffer pack And that's gonna be a Giants player in a C92 overall and he will be better for sure than Justin Simmons So I'm actually gonna go with Bradbury here up 137,000 coins.  I looked at his stats. I compared him to Justin Simmons He's a little bit slower and that's all I'm worried about right now because some of these players with the really good teams They are gonna cook me but James Bradbury 92 that's definitely gonna be better than 90 Latimore Let's see the comparison if so Bradbury's got the same speed but a little bit more acceleration less agility and playrack Way more man coverage and plus 24 on press. Oh boy gentlemen We had James Bradbury and Trent Williams to actually for what was really not too great a wheel spins We got some really solid upgrades. Trent Williams James Bradbury. Thank you Giants for clutching up.  I'm seriously so nervous, but I'm ready to get this done Let's see this challenge will this is very important if I want to add presents or anything to this team right now The beauty of adding presents to this team to us. I can open them after the Super Bowl Well, I would have to open them after the Super Bowl so it adds to my team when we start up next time That would be huge. All right boys. This is a huge challenge. We'll spin. It has never been this big for us Right now man 22 challenge will I want presents so bad. Oh Jesus this is not an easy one, but I gotta do what I gotta do. All right in a real time I just watched Daniel Carlson drill the game winner against the Browns so Browns fans I'm sorry Raiders fans nice clutch up Zay Jones and Derek Carr impressive shit right there for real I thought Nick Mullins really gonna pull that off I wanted to wait till that game was over before I started my game I didn't want to be looking at two things at once Well, I need to be fully locked and loaded fully dialed in to this game right here Just not the best team ever Okay, it's a pretty good team, but it's not the best team ever There's better teams out there right now a toy plane in our divisional. Oh, let's just play some amazing defense right now It's got Cam Newton McCaffrey got a minor theme team. Yeah, I saw Luke Keekley too She's definitely trying it a little bit. Oh My god, bro low key he ran that play that I always run shake hat back corner. I think the jerseys messed him up I don't think he had any idea. I had a defender there We're going oh one trap and quite literally nobody blocks. That's unfortunate I'm totally totally totally fine settling for a field goal here. I'm not gonna try and get a field goal But I'm fine settling. I'm gonna stretch this out to the right. Yeah. Oh great sets boys He held that edge so well. Oh my god. I'm gonna cry rowing playing so good already Let's keep playing good football but great start James Robinson That's the boy 70 zero. We've already got the stamina home team has reduced stamina drain during place You love that It's going little play-action crossers here.  I don't know who that was over the middle They just rocked him that thing a demo white in the middle. He's gonna go with the play-action He's got the the tight end on the corner out.  It's 3rd and 10 All right, he's in bunch.  You can see it on the field a little bit. I can't actually tell what it says quite yet James Robinson's gonna get to the edge get lit. Oh, I might go up the middle here. Yeah, I'm gonna ice. Oh, he's expecting the stretch We're going ice.  Oh I wish I do a button that was but that's okay. It's gonna be 10 to 0 when I get the ball Ham big time young way cool. I love that focus kicker. It's so huge 10 to 0 I'm gonna send a blitzer and I got I got a lot of more in here. I don't know how he ended up in But he can't Shit Just straight up No way John Taylor hit the deck And he still got up. It's dude. This game's over. He's got a rage quit He just he's got to be having like an off-game or something dude because he had to make it to the playoffs He's got a good team. I think he got tilted on that first play, bro He threw his one interception now.  All right, this is play action.  Oh, it's not any play action. Oh I kind of see McCaffrey here.  Oh my god back across the middle the Randy Moss. It's gonna be a play action I kind of expect play action. Oh No, it's an actual run But the boys are all look at my detail go with the shed, dude So quick gotta be a pass Montez sweat in the QB spy. Let's guess pass. Let's play it boys. Yeah, right here right here.  What a beast he ate that hit, but it's fourth and goal and he's gonna take the field goal Well, yeah, I mean I took one field goal. He takes one field goal that clock is just hurting my man right now though Yep, cut it back. Look at those blocks. Let's go Excellent block and cut that one hard back thing that calf gets open over the top No need no need to throw that when you got this open right here inside zone for sure We're gonna hammer Kevin Green. Let's go. I really don't care if I score here I just want the half to be over and thanks to identifier. I can see he's on check Thompson Which means he's not gonna see this slip screen set up. We're gonna get great downfield blocks We're gonna get out of bounds with a little help from Luke Keekley and enables locked on home team has improved coverage And I think we go right back to Jay Robinson. Dude. Look at this. He's got nobody in the box He's got down Lyman and Luke Keekley on an island.   We're gonna hand this one off great blocks. I have out of time outs I have to get this field goal My challenge is 350 passing yards. How are we gonna do that Matt? How are we gonna do that if you have like 50 right now? I'm on the 21 so I can get a good 80 here with a perfect drive. I'm gonna look for Robinson. Obviously, we love this route And oh, he ended up getting manned up, but oh he's gonna be out of balance darn it I think he's trying to guard this by himself and he's not gonna be able to James Robinson's got a lot of room They're in waller should be open in the middle. No, I'm getting out the hot offense right now I need to get these passing yards if I'm gonna complete this challenge.   That was dumb. I tried to throw an incredibly difficult playmaker I don't know why I did that play action. I Don't think anything's open. Oh Back to you completed.  I guess Well, he might have dialing up the perfect play. Yeah, he knew what he was doing He just dotted me first and goal kind of expect the run here. I'm gonna bring Simmons down in case this isn't inside zone It's not I Thought for sure it would be I don't know what he's gonna throw. It's gonna be a run boys. Oh, it's to the fullback Ian Thomas is gonna get a really lucky animation right there. I was gonna take him up to the one I'm there You know throne was telling me you could stop QB sneak I didn't believe it apparently you can't stop it And I can get a lot of passing yards here I'm throwing it fucking. Oh my god.   Oh, he's gonna find a laser here I want to see a play action, bro. If you play actions right now. He's sacked.  Oh, no, he's going right here. Oh, I don't even step up and get it It's gonna be 10 to 20. Is it possible to throw for like 250 yards in a in a quarter.  Oh You stud Well now I definitely can't get my passing yards most I could get here at 55. Let's uh, let's dot him up put ourselves Back in a good spot here. Oh my god.  Do I punch? Yeah, I'm gonna punt All right, we know he's gonna scramble so let's have Montez sweat ready Yeah It's gonna have to throw this one away.  How is that so open and such a perfect laser first and ten?  I don't want to talk about that bro.  Let's go. The pressure gets to him. It's fourth and ten Look at this just close the game out with defense bro. How offense is atrocious Great double team over here. I should be able to throw will fuller bingo That's game. I scored 17 points at first quarter and proceeded to score three the rest of the game Ascent of GGs to our opponent.  I love y'all Thanks for watching as always now. See you tomorrow in the NFC. Peace


Welcome back to the breakfast on plus TV Africa. We apologize for that extended break. We now have our guest Mr. Nick Agouli. Good morning. Thank you for joining us. Morning. Okay. How are you today? Fine. How are you doing? Very well. Thank you so much. So today on the breakfast we're discussing Nigeria's debt profile. I want us to begin first of all with statements from the president of the Senate Ahmed Lawan about Nigeria and her lack of resources and the fact that you know the country's poor. Let's get your thoughts on this. Is that a fact? Okay. So there are two things that we can analyze in the Senate president's speech. He says Nigeria is poor and he also says Nigeria does not have resources. The first statement is correct. Nigeria is indeed poor. Nigeria is like a father working in Lagos any 10,000 Naira per month and having a family of 10 to feed. There is no way that father can lift his family out of poverty no matter what he does. Even if that father has zero corruption in his system, that father commits all of the money he earns to look after his family and the father has all the good intentions for his family. There is nothing that this father can do to lift his family out of poverty because he does not have the money to do it. Nigeria's federal government budget is 35 billion dollars and when we say 35 billion dollars, the budget is usually not implemented fully. If you get 50 percent performance in terms of implementation or even 70 percent, we're talking about 20 billion dollars and the government of California which is a single state in the United States of America, their budget is almost 200 billion dollars for 40 billion people. One state, 200 billion and Nigeria's budget is 35 billion of which they're implementing about 20 billion and then you can say California is buying stuff in dollars but Nigeria, Nigeria is also spending in dollars. When we import petrol it's in dollars, when we buy vehicles it's in dollars, when we buy ammunition for our armed forces it's in dollars, we buy computers in dollars, we're importing everything. So Nigeria and California are buying from the same market. So you can imagine that the single state has 200 billion to spend for 40 million people and Nigeria has 35 billion for 200 million people. So on that count, the Senate president is right, Nigeria is very poor. So Mr. Oguli, Mr. Oguli, I need to ask you about debt servicing. A report by budget shows that Nigeria spent about 3.34 a trillion Naira on debt servicing in Nigeria. Where really is this coming from and how are the figures looking for 2021? Now allow me to land my earlier point. I would like to do that before I answer your next question. All right go ahead. Yes, I agree with the Senate president that Nigeria is a poor man. He can't look after his family. Let's be honest about that. But I totally disagree with the Senate president. When he says Nigeria is resource poor, that we have no resources, that is a policy. The issues that the Senate president is living in july are of the entire way that Nigeria has. This is a Senate president that does not even understand the country that he is supposed to turn it over. Nigeria is one of the best endowed countries in the world. In my line of work, working for international oil and gas companies around the world, I have traveled to nearly 40 countries in the world in my line of work and I have never seen a country that is as rich as Nigeria in terms of resources. You look at countries like Australia, go to Australia, majority of the land is desert. There's no single desert territory in Nigeria. Every single soil in Nigeria is cultivated. You can cultivate it and it will grow crops. It will grow tree crops and fruit crops. Nigeria is well endowed with a good climate. In the United Kingdom where I'm sitting now, there will come a time where we don't see the sun. In the whole day you won't see the sun. That is during winter. Nigeria has the sun almost 10 to 12 hours every day. That is what crops need to grow. Nigeria has got rivers. Nigeria has got mineral resources on the net. Nigeria has got a population. This population of 200 million we have that we think is a problem, other countries are looking for it. Go to the United States, Canada, Australia, United Kingdom. They are looking for people. We have them. We can unlock value from this stage. But we have a government that is lazy. Instead of unlocking value, the government is just busy borrowing. So if I answer your question, Nigeria is borrowing herself to death. You quoted the figures and they are correct. Last year, 2020, Nigeria earned $3 trillion and we spent $3 trillion to pay debts, to service debts. So every other thing that was funded in the budget was borrowing. How can you be borrowing to pay debts? That is financial crisis. And Nigeria can get herself out of this situation by simply opening up the economy for production. I can give this government a few tips. Number one, one of the biggest expenditure item in this government is fuel subsidy. But this government is being in office for six years. The government has not touched the refineries. Nigeria has four refineries with a combined refining capacity of 450,000 parrots. If this government started work on getting those refineries fixed in their first year in office, maximum by their second or third year in office, Nigeria will be producing enough petrol for herself and even exporting. And so we will not need to spend money to go and be importing petrol and pay subsidies on it. This government is giving lip service to things like agriculture. For proper agriculture to take place, you need to mechanize. You need to look at clear land. If you leave Lagos all the way to Ibadon to Accurate, you should have seen all the land cleared and tractors working to unlock value. Is Nigeria's important food? So these are some of the things. Nigeria does not have electricity. How can you have a country of 200 million people requiring 200,000 megawatts of electricity and you are giving 4,000 megawatts of electricity to die economy? The economy can be unlocked. So these are the things the Senate President should be dealing with. Instead of saying we should go and borrow, we have everything going for us. Alright. Two things I want to ask. The first one is with regards our borrowing because there's the fear that we may never be able to pay back this debt if we continue with the way we're going. And at some point, you know, up to 95% of our our budget every year would be to pay back debt. But I want to ask about how we can better direct the funds that we borrow. Nigeria keeps claiming that it's borrowing for infrastructure. But what we see is one or two trains and a couple of roads here and there. Do you think there are better ways for some of the things that you've mentioned now with agriculture, we've been able to unlock the true potential that Nigeria has, mineral resources. Do you think we can better redirect our borrowing and where these funds are put into so that we can have like a five-year, 10-year plan with which we can now start to reap the benefits of that borrowing? And then also, I want you to speak on taxation. In your write-up, you mentioned taxation and how Nigeria may need to expand its tax bracket and be able to bring in more people into that tax bracket and hopefully raise more funds. So quickly share your thoughts on those to you. Very much. So ask me, Nigeria doesn't even need to be borrowing money to fund infrastructure. We have a market of 200 million people. In the world, when investors see 200 million people, they want to go there. So Nigerians, we just create an enabling environment for these people to come and invest their money. I love telecom so much and I will add LNNG to it as well. The telecom companies, MTN and Co, they have invested over $70 billion in Nigeria economy as of today and still counting. Nigeria didn't borrow to do that. It only gave way, commercialized the sector and then investors came in, brought in their money, developed the infrastructure. You and I know that there is a lot of inefficiency in government. So when government borrows money to build infrastructure, you know that that money is going to sink into some loophole somewhere. Because government is not a business man. The role of government should be regulatory. So if you ask me, I will say government should just simply give way. Now we're talking about race sector. Instead of the government borrowing to fund race, the government should simply just concession the entire country out to both local and international investors to bring their money, build the race, put the wagons on top, run those rail lines. With 200 million people paying money, they will recoup their money. They say what the MTNs are recouping their money today. This is what government needs to do. So when government strategy the economy to pretends over the economy is a player in the economy, you find out that, in fact, I'll give you an example. There's an article I wrote where I compared the NNPC and the NLNG. These two companies are operating in the same sector, in the oil and gas sector. In fact, the NNPC is a bigger operator because the NNPC is an integrated company, both oil and gas. Whereas NLNG is only gas. These two companies are also owned by the federal government of Nigeria. But the difference is that in the case of the NLNG, it is the private sector participant. The company is owned by the federal government and international oil and gas companies who are bringing in their management to run the company. And the company is delivering dividends to the Nigerian economy. $80 billion of dividends delivered to Nigeria. The other company, the NNPC, which is also owned by the federal government of Nigeria, that is being run by the government is perpetually making losses. That company between 2018 and 2019, by their own published financial statement, spent $325 billion on the four refineries to refine zero barriers of crude oil. $325 billion refined zero barriers of crude oil. That is what happens when government is managing business. So if you ask me, the companies should not even touch any loan to come and build any infrastructure. Just give way like they did in the NLNG, like they did in telecoms. Let businesses come in and do these things. Bring in their money. The money that MTN invested, MTN and Co invested $70 billion is standing on Nigeria's soil. They cannot come and carry that infrastructure away. And yet there is no cobalt of that on the balance sheet of government as that. Instead, the telecom sector is contributing more than 10% to the GDP of Nigeria and paying billions in taxes to Nigeria. Instead of Nigeria borrowing, spending, and we are not seeing the results. Mr Agule, can Nigeria ever stop borrowing? Is that a possibility for our economy? So let's look at it this way. Every government around the world borrows. I am an accountant, as a chartered accountant, as a finance person, we have what we call the guarantee theory. And that guarantee theory says that companies that have borrowed on their balance sheet, they do better than companies that don't have borrowed. Because borrowing actually helps you. And one of the reasons why Nigeria's economy is not growing is that the government has not provided the neighboring environment for the financial sector to give loans to businesses and to individuals. When people are anonymous, how can you give them a loan when they disappear to thin air? So in other places, government has social security numbers that they have given to everybody. That is what Nigeria is trying to do with me. But they have to be aggressive about that. So bottom line is that every company, every government borrows. But Nigeria's situation is different. Nigeria's situation is that we have not got at the point where our borrowing has become too much. Our borrowing is now unserviceable. We are spending all the money we earn in 2020 Nigeria earned three trillion. And we use the entire three trillion to service debt.  You know you are in acute problem. You know you cannot simply borrow any longer. So that is the situation. Debt is good. But Nigeria has got to a point where we can no longer borrow any longer because all of our money is now going to debt service. So if I answer the second question that talks about taxation, around the world, governments are making money through taxation. And government makes money through taxation because government provide a enabling environment for bringing people into the tax bracket. As we're speaking today, if you import a private jet into Nigeria, you are paying zero duty, zero duty on that private jet.  So how can government not be taxing the rich? Instead taxing the poor. Now when we talk about fuel subsidy, you are taxing the poor to fund the rich. Because go to every big mass home. You see about 6, 10 cars outside. Those are the guys who are who are consuming petrol. You are subsidizing them. The poor people in Ajebu in Mushi, do they have cars? When they want to go, they go with money, money is using diesel. And you are not subsidizing diesel. So Nigeria is a country that is unique. We are there taxing the poor to fund the rich. Everywhere else in the developed world, they tax the rich heavily. To fund the poor. I worked here in the United Kingdom for an international oil and gas company for nearly 10 years. My transaction was 40 percent. 40 percent of my pay was going straight into government. And then government is using that money to fund education for everybody. Education is free all the way to high school. So you don't have to be a child of a rich person to go to quality schools. Government is using that money to fund healthcare. Everybody can go to any hospital for free. You know, as we have billionaires in Nigeria, who are not being taxed? The people who are being taxed are the market women. Go to the market, as I'm speaking to you now this morning, there are people who are busy taxing the market women, collecting money, issuing them all sorts of receipts. And billionaires are bringing a private jet. They are not paying duty on it. Billionaires are leading lifestyles that are clearly above the income that they are declaring to government. And government is not chasing after them. All right, Mr. Agouli. So we have a government that is lazy. Yeah. And now you've brought that up. That's why I want to go next.  There's so many places where we're getting it wrong. But I want you to speak with regards the government's economic advisory team for a long time. We've heard of so many teams headed by the Vice President, headed by, you know, Chaosuludu here and there. They keep coming up with these plans and these committees, you know, to live 100 million Nigerians out of poverty and whatnot. So what's your assessment of the economic advisory team of the current administration? I'm sure that there's somebody on those teams who knows these things that you've said. I'm sure that there's somebody who understands what needs to be done in order to stop Nigeria from borrowing. They know there has to be somebody on that team who knows. So what do you think is going wrong with those teams? I thank you very much for that question. Indeed, Nigeria has a presidential economic advisory council. They met a few weeks ago, issued their report, which we also commented on on this program. And I also agree with you that Nigeria has smart people, very intelligent people. So these issues that we're discussing here are not unknown to them. They know these things. But what is required is political way, the political way to be able to take decisions. And you know, I always tell people that one of the key criteria for leadership recruitment should be people who have compassion. If you have compassion over the suffering of the people, you will not be sleeping until you see the people's life is changed. So I don't see so much compassion in the hearts of those who are governing Nigeria today. Because if there is so much compassion in their hearts, there is no way school kids as young as three years old will be kidnapped and be hate-hosted and government officials are sleeping and waking up and sleeping and waking up. And there is no sense of urgency, sense of emergency to try and get those kids back. So what is looking in Nigeria is the political way, the political way to be able to take these decisions. Yeah, but is it the lack of political will or at the stage we start to feel like these things are intentional? It can't continue to be lack of political will. We've spoken about this since 1999 and even earlier. So does it already start to seem like these are intentional? Because the Senate president knows that it's necessary to leave some of the items of the executive list and of course let public-private partnerships to exist. You've made mention of the telecom sector and how that has thrived since those decisions were taken. And so is it lack of political will or does this start to seem intentional to keep things this way? Honestly, I mean I think that way sometimes. I think that way sometimes too that these guys are basically just being intentional in terms of not being able to deliver good governance to us. Yeah, so because you look at things that are so simple. You know, simple things to do. Why are they not doing it? You know that kind of thing. Like you talk about electricity. We are flaring gas, flaring gas. When that gas is what is supposed to be harnessed and electricity generated. Because they have generators that are giving them electricity. Is that why they don't care? You know, it might bugle what is happening. So I will not disagree with you to even think that it could be intentional. But the question is that why would you intentionally want to visit suffering on your people? Why? Because in Nigeria I can give you examples. Let me give you something like domestic gas. In the UK where I am now, we don't buy gas in cylinders. Okay? Gas is piped to every individual home in the same way as electricity is connected, water is connected. Nigeria stops flaring gas. The gas that we're flaring in the Niger Delta, all over that place. If we stop flaring that gas, harnessed that gas, converted and begin the project of piping that gas in every home in Nigeria. Do you know the number of jobs that will be created to construct that? Start with places like Leki, go to Leki and run pipes to connect gas to every home. Do you know how many jobs, construction jobs that will be created? Do you know how many jobs will be created by the people who will be running the systems? To provide these gas, every single job will be put.   That is job creation. Job creation is not giving 5,000 ira stipend that the vice president goes to go and be given. Job creation means giving people red jobs to do. If we have rail lines, if we start with every state capital in Nigeria connected on the rail, funding by private sector money. Do you know the number of young people that want to work up in the money? They are going to be train drivers, they are going to be train engineers, they are accountants, engineers, administrators in those places. Even cleaners, cleaners of the stations. We get jobs.  But the government is sitting on those things, but you rarely say 68 items on the exclusive list of the constitution. The federal government is sitting on them and the federal government cannot unlock value from these things because the federal government does not have the money to develop these things. So why can't the federal government just move away so that the private sector takes these things and pushes it forward? So when we say political way, people just lost power, central power, control. This kind of military thinking that we have to have a command and control center. That's not the economy of today. The economy of today is that the government is only checking that everything is done right through regulation. But the government is not an active player in the economy. The trades should be built and run by trade companies, by investors who are ready to carry 200 million people about and create the jobs. So this is the kind of thing I'm saying, it has to be political way. It could also be that it's just intentional, I want to suffer people, but the question would be why? Why do we want people to suffer? Interesting question there, Mr. Nique Agouli, Public Affairs Analyst, joining us live from the UK. We thank you very much for joining us on the breakfast this morning. Thank you so, so very much. We pray for Nigeria. My last message to Nigeria is that the INEC has opened the register for people who are not yet registered as voters, people who have registered and want to move their polling units and people who want to trace their voter card where it is. Please let us go there and get our voter card ready.  Analyzing these issues on social media and on TV and all of that is good, but the real thing is where all of us come out to vote. The government, I mean the politicians are afraid of our votes. That's why they are not trying to tinker with the electoral bill about electronic voting and all of that. They are afraid of our votes, our votes are our weapons. You don't throw away your weapon when your opponent is afraid of that weapon. So every Nigerian will step out and get our voter card. 15 million people voted last time. Let's get 60 million, 70, 80 million people voted 2023 and get the government of a choice. Thank you again Mr. Nika Gule. Thank you so much. I think I just thought it was important to throw that point out there, because we've had these conversations multiple times, different analysts, different guests, you know, and it's gone on for years, you know, even back on the radio we've had these same conversations. It cannot be that there's nobody on the president's team or on the vice president's team, internationalists who doesn't know these things. And so when they keep giving excuses, the senate president speaking like an analyst. How are you speaking like an analyst?  You know the things that you need to do if we need to move forward as a country. But anyway, that's where we wrap things up this morning. Thank you very much for joining us. If you missed out on any of our conversations, remember where to find them, at PLOS TV Africa on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. And same with our YouTube channel at PLOS TV Africa and PLOS TV Africa Lifestyle. Yes, PLOS TV Africa Lifestyle will also on social media and on YouTube with that same handle. My name is Anesa Phoenix. Thank you for joining us this beautiful Monday morning. Have a great rest of the week.