Lych yn ni wedi gael ddim. Roeddwn i'r ddaeth amlun o'r gyfnade nhw'n hyn? Thank you very much. That was an excellent talk I thought. I agree with you, with your thinking that we need to look at ways to build more solidarity among European citizens, so that there is that shared vision that we can actually have a debate about how we want to live together as Europeans. I'm just just wondering about the way you laid out we were going to get there. If I get you right, you were saying we were going to focus, or the European Union should focus more on the big projects, the grand visions. And I'm just wondering, do you think that's sufficiently close to the citizens? Do you think the ordinary citizen will notice a tangible difference in their lives or will notice the impact of Europe on their lives? We had the Swedish Minister for Foreign Affairs here at the Institute a few weeks ago and she was saying, she was talking about the roaming, the roam like at home that came in and saying we need to focus both on the grand projects and also on the small projects closer to the citizens. So how do you think Europe can make itself felt closer to the citizens? I think that's a really good question. I suppose, I mean, when I talk about a federal model in terms of governance, really I'm talking about decision making. So I mean, when you have decision making exclusively at a European level, in the European Parliament, the mission, it is so remote, people don't really understand it. Ireland is a really terrible example of this because we don't really have local government. I mean, it's a kind of a fallacy. We have things called local councils but they have basically no power. I was a member of Dublin City Council for several years. So I suppose what I'm talking about is decision making at a local level affecting local people in healthcare and education and so on. That's not to say you can't have big projects on those same topics. Things like mobility of insurance across the European Union is a really big project and it really matters to citizens' lives. Erasmus is a great one. I think that we have to have much greater decision making around education at local level. I think there needs to be more autonomy. But at the same time, you can have really positive initiatives like the Erasmus programme as one example and indeed Horizon 2020 and cooperation in terms of research through universities across the Union. So one isn't mutually exclusive to the other but you have to pick your projects at European level and there has to be a purpose to doing it on a pan-European basis and I think that's the challenge that we face in that regard. I think that that can be really tangible to people at a local level. It can have a really big impact on people's lives and I think if you look at the Brexit vote in the UK you see that young people overwhelmingly voted to remain in the European Union and that's because one of the most important big ideas or big causes of the European project which is free movement of people because that mobility for young people is so important. Not so important it would appear to the older generation although an awful lot of them have houses down around Morbea so I don't know, I seem a bit confused about that. So they're the kind of big ideas I guess that I think really do matter and are absolutely part of the European agenda. I think it's simple things like running a small business. I would definitely give credit to the Yonker Commission in this respect. The Yonker Commission has actually done a very good job in dealing with a lot of the bureaucracy and red tick that people complain about which they perceive to be interfering in their lives in a negative way as opposed to in a constructive way. So there's been a real effort to make it easier to do business, to be more mobile to cut down the bureaucracy and the requirements for micro businesses and small businesses and that's been very successful so stop interfering in that sort of stuff at an EU level. You have to have a certain mental regulation to make it easy for people to do business cross borders and to be able to compete and to prevent the sort of protectionism that instinctively a lot of member states would like to impose but you have to do that in a user friendly way and not a way that just grates on people who are actually trying to get on with their lives so it's a balance definitely and I actually think that the EU has really improved in that front. You don't hear about it much in the media of course but there have been major efforts in the last three years in particular to do that. I mean it's not a problem that you don't hear that C-European union doing any of this. That's not a generalised but that member state governments like to claim the credit for anything good that comes from Brussels and like to point the thing at every time something from a coffee that comes through. Yeah, yeah always and you know we're guilty of that in this country. We're probably not as bad as in some other member states in that regard. I'm thinking of some of what's happening in some of the East European member states at the moment which is quite concerning where Brussels is blamed for everything pretty much. I'm thinking of the UK of course where that's been the mantra for 44 years. There's been a lot of it in Ireland but we're not as bad at it. I think particularly we have a very internationalist outward looking team at the top of government at the moment and I think that that will count in terms of the narrative and the rhetoric around Europe in Ireland. I certainly hope so now yesterday's Apple decision did not necessarily help that rhetoric or tone and the response from the Department of Finance probably was a bit intemperate but besides that particular chestnut I think that the tone and engagement has been positive and certainly that's been the case coming from the Minister for Foreign Affairs and the Taoiseach I think in the last couple of months. Where can changes come from regarding that problem that Max identified because as it is the incentives for politicians to be more poor European aren't necessarily there and there's a lot of calls for solidarity and this kind of issue that a pro-European outlook but why would you do that if you're a politician? Where's the political will coming from when it's easy to go to Brussels and say yeah we're all in and then just go home and say oh we're just at this meeting and they're not thinking about you at all. Does there need to be fundamental changes in the European Union or within the structures that we have and the treaties that we have is there a way of fixing this problem of solidarity and dissonance? I think it's very difficult. You'll find it in large member states between the centre of the capital and the regions. Have you ever met anyone from Cork? I'm married to one of them. It's always going to be a problem. There's always going to be that suspicion and that kind of blame game. You find it internally in member states and obviously you have it vis-a-vis Brussels but a large part of it is just a complete and utter lack of engagement. I mean most of our TDs frankly know nothing about how the European project works. There's just no incentive and because we're physically we're in Ireland it's even more acute. I recall when I was in elected politics and indeed in youth politics the amount of exchanges that went on between parliaments, between MPs through their political groups, so through the EPP, ANDE and so on. I mean it was constant. German MPs would be visiting Dutch MPs and French MPs and it was a constant exchange and we are quite excluded from that. Not by design but we're just marginal. It actually requires us to make an extra effort. It requires the Iraqis as an entity to put resources into it and to make it a priority. It also requires TDs and senators to educate themselves and see it as a responsibility. I don't think you can force people to assume their responsibility. You just have to encourage them and they need to do it themselves. I also think that the media has a role to play. The media also needs to be educated and has a responsibility to educate itself. I mean if you look at Brussels at the moment as one example you have one correspondent from the Irish Times and you have one correspondent from RT. The independent doesn't have anybody in Brussels. News talk doesn't have anybody in Brussels. We're actually really poorly served in terms of our own media. There's a junket and they kind of are junkets.  Newspaper editors also have a responsibility and radio editors and so on to actually make the priority to educate their staff and themselves when they're going to be covering this stuff. It is so fundamental to everything that goes on in Ireland. Whatever, we can really say what the percentage of legislation is that emanates from European institutions somewhere in the region of about 70 to 80 percent but it's a hell of a lot of legislation and policy that is directly decided. It's influenced by us but it's decided in Brussels and to just ignore that blindly and pretend that everything happens and we're at this when it really doesn't. We need to raise our game in terms of understanding the process and educating ourselves. I'm not actually from Germany. I married an Irish man so I moved here. It's interesting so it's a very personal experience and if you look at the economy of Ireland it's all very much concentrated on the states, all the multinational IT companies that are here and having a lot of Europeans working for them and then you have a very strong connection to the UK but if you look into the other countries like for example Germany where I'm from or France or all the other European unions on an economic point of view I think there could be more leverages but that's something my personal view and I would be interested. Is that historical? What are the reasons for that? Partly cultural, partly historical and partly just because the single market still doesn't work because it should. Cultural is, we speak English, we're not great unfortunately at learning other foreign languages, European languages so it's kind of a laziness or at least a failing in our education system so it's easy for us to do business with the UK and others and it's a start of course because we were under British rule and so our links with the UK are hundreds and hundreds of years old. Since we joined the European Union or the community as it was in 1973 our dependence on the UK as a market has dramatically reduced so exported goods is about 40% now to the UK less than 40% to the UK likewise services and our dependency on the rest of the European Union as a market has greatly increased and that sort of process is continuing all the time so we have much stronger trade links now with France, Germany and other countries than we did but it's still a challenge and when I was Minister for European Affairs of course a big part of what all ministers did and do is promoting trade with other member states and obviously because I was across the European Union a lot of the time I did a lot of work with Enterprise Ireland and IDA in France and Germany and Belgium and Hungary and other places and some of those markets are still very protectionist it's very, very, very difficult to get a product or service into the French market for example that's probably the most protectionist of all the member states and Ireland has obviously been a huge advocate of deepening the single market and getting on with the agenda of a single market for services in the European Union which we don't fully have and the digital single market and that meets a lot of resistance from some of the member states so it's a tricky one it's improving but it's slow and obviously then the language barrier can be it's not always but it can be a challenge but it is improving and Enterprise Ireland do a good job in that they're very little resources I know we're expecting stuff in the budget but IDA and EI need a lot more funding to help because small companies really you're talking about indigenous business the MNCs are great they employ a couple of hundred thousand people more indirectly in the Irish economy and they're really important and we're not going to give that up lightly for sure but everybody wants to develop the indigenous economy everybody wants to see more indigenous Irish exports in goods and services but that needs support to open those markets and to help particularly small and medium sized companies that just don't have the market knowledge they don't have the access they don't have the capacity they need assistance to do it other countries are also just better at developing intellectual property and also at developing investment capacity, indigency and I think there's a lot we can learn from other countries some of them are in other countries Israel is a brilliant one as an example that really could help but I'm sorry we're veering a bit off top but it's an interesting one Yes, so here on in the news the commission chose to bring Ireland to all the offices regarding the advocates and it came out as well in the Danish news and on the Danish so across the commission on the Danish stage so how does how do you see this case about Ireland is it fair to promote investment or is it like this morning fair competition? I think there's very little that's fair about how we tax corporate entities globally it's not unique to Ireland it's a global problem and I think the solution should be global and I think the solution should be global and I think the solution should be global and I think the solution should be global so no, it's not fair having said that do I think it's the business of the European Commission do I think really it's a competition issue no I don't and I would have strong views about that but you know the case is what it is and we're going to have to both the government and Apple are appealing it and it'll go to the ECJA I actually think that we'll probably lose the case but I think that we'll probably lose the case and we'll have to we'll probably lose the case so that'll have profound implications in probably four or five years time but do I think that the action of the Commission yesterday was right or proportionate I thought it was outrageous frankly I thought it was a stunt everybody who is involved in this case who is aware of the facts knows that the Irish government aka our officials and the Department of Finance have been dealing on a daily basis with Commissioner Westwick's cabanae and her team in DGComp they are well aware of the constitutional challenges the public procurement challenges which are EU rules that the Irish government is trying to abide by in setting up this fund and the way it was handled was a publicity stunt I think it was appalling and that's just my view and I think that anybody who has been involved in it and how it has worked over the last number of months since the fund was imposed couldn't but agree with that there is no objective reason for the Commissioner to take that action yesterday other than publicity I think it's really unfortunate it damages the reputation of the Commission here it damages Ireland's reputation unfairly and unnecessarily across the rest of the European Union and it's just not right because while the Irish government is appealing it and we can have a difference of opinion with the Commission the Irish government and particularly our finance officials have been deeply engaged in this process hand in hand with the European Commission to try and absolve it and it was really it was shabby the way they approached it and the lack of notice and everything it can only be described as a stunt I'm just curious about the tax standardisation to your views in terms of the conversation going on in Europe because obviously Ireland is a part of the perceived as a part of the problem by other states so I would like to hear what is debated and what's your opinion about that I mean I mean it's a debate that's been going on for well over a decade I mean I don't really I don't really understand why other member states and indeed commission officials continually talk about tax rates and taxing companies when clearly it's not an EU competence and this is kind of back to the point about subsidiarity I mean tax competition first is fundamentally important to the economic survival of peripheral member states like ours if we want to create a European Union and particularly a monetary union which is just about transfers from the wealthy core member states to the peripherals like us well fine let's have that debate in Germany for example I don't think it will go down too well in build or indeed with the AFD and others I think we have to understand that we have to there's no scope to there's no room for manoeuvre with interest rates in a currency union as we are so there has to be flexibility in other ways and tax competition is fundamental and it's clearly prescribed in the treaties I just don't know why we continually have this debate over and over because until there is a new treaty which decides that we have all given up our right to set and decide on our own tax rates and our own tax systems then it's a completely moot argument I mean a lot of it is show boating I mean I recall in 2011 when we came into government we were in the middle of an IMF bailout and it was the one thing that I think really left a bad taste in my mouth was how we were treated by the French government at the time Monsieur Sarkozy who was a member of the French government Fersie and Kenny went to his very first European summit it was the day after the government was formed and there was an attempt to publicly humiliate him and demand that Ireland if we want to be supported by our European partners in a time of absolute crisis in this country that's raised it that we had to somehow give up our right to set our own tax rate that was the demand and I recall my first visit to Paris maybe about a month later as Minister for European Affairs we had a very nice time and it was all lovely and then we went to a meeting and my counterpart the European Affairs Minister launched into this attack about Ireland's tax rates and I told him it was none of his business which it wasn't and this is going to flare up again and again and again and at the end of the day it's completely moot point because unless there is change to it's not going to happen and how many other countries want to give up their right to set their own tax rates Do you mean without the beautiful federal idea this tax standardisation will not happen because of your common budget but I mean you have federal models all over Europe and all over the world where there are local taxes and there are local tax rates and they're not set at the federal level so you can have the European tax and it effectively funds the EU budget and and there's an argument that there should be other ways to raise revenues to contribute to a European budget the EU budget or to Eurozone funds that's a debate I think we definitely can have but the idea that we would have tax rates set centrally for the whole of the European Union could be completely bananas A tax basis in the same way it's the same issue it's the same issue it's coming at it from a different angle effectively but the objective but I'm just thinking digital like a lot of what came out of the digital summit was that now with the way you can manipulate sales digitally you could basically have it that all your sales are in one country and that doesn't seem fair from an economic point of view I think there is there is some merit in that debate but again I think that there are issues that I mean what happens if you if you address that that specific tax concern tax evasion tax avoidance concern shall we say simply in the European Union just go to Singapore whatever go back to Donald Trump's low corporate tax utopia that's in the pipeline you know I mean it's like FTT the financial transactions tax it's great Oxfam everybody's campaign for it it sounds so lovely and fuzzy and wonderful great and obviously countries like Ireland and the UK said well we don't want to be part of it because we have a very large financial services industry here and we don't want to disadvantage it vis-a-vis you know New York and elsewhere and as it evolved it's a number of member states under provisions in the Lisbon Treaty decided okay we're going to go and do it through enhanced cooperation great and off they go and then they find well actually few of them start having second thoughts not so sure about this we actually have quite a few financial services and funds and so on in our country and I'm not sure this is going to work if Ireland and the UK and others aren't doing it so suddenly they start backing out and eventually the whole thing is abandoned and that's that's what's going to happen I mean you know the French can continue going on about CCCTB or corporate tax reformisation etc but you know the idea that it would actually happen is just complete fantasy I mean the idea that Estonia or Latvia or Cyprus or Malta or Ireland or Poland or a whole range even the Netherlands even Luxembourg I mean you know if you look to the funds industry in Luxembourg I mean no chance whatever John Claude Younger he's part of the architect of the system and the incentives that are in place in Luxembourg that have developed the funds industry there so I think a lot of this stuff again you know it's show-building and I mean you know while we talk on the one hand and we complain about politicians blaming Europe for stuff and we've certainly seen a lot of that there's also the risk that others start to kind of try and make examples of or you know create this narrative about others and you know it's it's in order to generate positive publicity and try and score political points and that's just as negative and corrosive as blaming Brussels you know so I think you know back to the point about solidarity which you mentioned solidarity has to be about understanding that we all need a model that will work for all of us and it has to be one that allows for different systems different economic models because a homogenous one just absolutely won't work it simply won't work and anyway nobody's going to agree to it so let's move on move on to a debate where we can actually change things because tax harmonisation is just not going to happen I'd like to ask you mentioned how basically the attitude around like what was the problem EU countries in terms of their population and their experience with European Union and when that seems to kind of contrast against the example you gave of the TDS not having any kind of clue and some of them anyway about European Union works or perhaps the fact that Irish people did not know to at least find this one referendum on the first time round and they're going to that big of disconnect as well from the institutions in Europe why is it that when these surveys are carried out that there is a problem you've said that does it simply down to this idea that when the cap is the one or the agricultural industry that didn't have the European Union is it as basic as a money kind of thing I think it's largely about a sense of prosperity that we have experienced since we joined and obviously that was challenged during the financial crisis but overall Irish people are remarkably better off than when we joined and I think it's also the nature of our economy, it's an export economy we know that US firms are not just in Ireland to service the Irish market clearly we know that they're here because they want access to the rest of the European Union likewise with our financial services and so on we know that our membership of the Eurozone gives us an advantage it gives us a lot of challenges as well but it's an advantage in that we are the only English speaking member of the Eurozone we are perceived to be a gateway to the European Union and all of that so I think people have just a sense that prosperity is linked somehow to our European membership and also that our dependency on the UK historically began to come to an end when we joined the European Union I think that's I mean I don't have monopoly on wisdom on this that's just my sense but I don't really have all the answers I think on the one hand we're very peripheral we're very cut off from Europe on the other hand and physically cut off but on the other hand Irish people like to travel and look outwards and I think the benefit for young people mobility all of that I think is something that we like so I think there's some of the factors but I mean definitely I think one thing that's quite hard to explain is how sentiment has remained consistently so strong notwithstanding how things unfolded during financial crisis and most particularly are treated by the ECB which people obviously are very acutely aware of here the behaviour of Trichet and the way in which Ireland was mistreated I would say during that period not so much by our European colleagues in the council and in the institutions but certainly by the ECB but for some reason we seem to have gotten over that which I think is a good thing because it might not have been the case and also obviously the other point is the political consensus and the political parties so Finifolff and the Gay Labour all of them have campaigned for and there is just this acceptance that EU membership is a good thing there might not know a whole lot about it necessarily there might not engage proactively in it but it's an accepted fact and also our trade bodies and our NGOs and so on are very mobilised and actually you could say that organisations like Ibech and the IFA are very very engaged and do a lot of work in Brussels and with their counterparts in other European countries and I think that has an impact because obviously they're communicating constantly with their members and probably the final point I know I'm going on a bit I was really really struck so I was involved a bit in the European campaign in the UK for the Brexit referendum last year and I went to CBI, the Ibech equivalent in London, I went to their big annual dinner and I just was completely aghast by the fact that they didn't campaign you know 85% of their members obviously were in favour of remaining in the EU there's nothing about it it was a huge dinner a month before the referendum and they had two speakers pro and anti it was just unbelievable they had Michael Harrison and Alistair Darling and actually Michael Harrison was way better he was very good he really gave a great speech it was like a parallel, can you imagine going to an Ibech event before the fiscal compact treaty referendum or the Lisbon referendum or whatever and bringing in a speaker for the no side it was extraordinary so we're very lucky I think that the civil society and trade bodies and everybody mobilise in Ireland and I think the fact that we have had all these referendums we might not engage on a continual basis with the European debate but thankfully when you're in politics you curse having to run these referendum campaigns but we only had to run one and I'm pleased to say when it's 6040 but they are a chore but you have to engage with people and it does educate people and I think it is a contributing fact because the fact that Irish people are pro-European is holding all those referendums even though we lost a few I wonder if the reason the pro-European views survived the crisis was actually a lack of information and understanding of the system do you think it could be people who thought the Troika was a separate thing to the EU and I don't think so I mean there was constant there was a constant barrage of a negativity about the European Union and actually there was a pretty successful campaign to conflate the ECB with the European institutions and I don't think it really worked actually I think people saw the difference and the big engagement for me during that period was obviously the referendum in 2012 on the fiscal compact treaty and people were really clear I mean they were angry they were angry there was an attempt also to just blame as usual to just blame Brussels and kind of absolve the administration or the number the series of administrations that had domestically that had led us to that point and some of that was reasonably successful but ultimately people people knew that it was a huge mismanagement domestically and they understood that but they also understood that we needed solidarity from our European neighbours and we got it the ESM I won't have a debate about Angela Merkel but I'm a very big fan of hers I think she is a remarkable politician and I mean she was faced with the equivalent of the Daily Mail the Telegraph you name it on a daily basis saying lazy Irish lazy Greeks drinking his own bleeding us hard working Germans dry I mean that was the narrative in Germany every day of the week and she stood up to it and she got a lot of flack here but she really stood up to it and she proved herself to be a great European leader in my opinion and actually a very important friend of Ireland and of the whole European project and you know whether I don't know I think quite a lot of Irish people actually recognise that they certainly do now and you know so there was some sophistication I think in the understanding of how much of a challenge it was to to build an understanding and other member states about what was going on here No question How sincere do you think that the European Union and the negotiators are in terms of placing Northern Ireland and the border issue relatively near the top of the negotiations and if we don't get a workable solution out of the negotiations we'd be facing into more of the kind of disintent towards Brussels and towards the European Union that we've seen in other countries recently Yeah I mean I think that they're very sincere and actually it's not just a negotiating team in the commission but across all the member states it's the issue that they get and understand and are concerned about people are concerned about the peace process they're concerned about the border issue not so much about the east-west trade relationship because they all have their own exposures whether it's German cars whatever but I think it's very sincere and I think the problem is that they don't really understand it I don't think that they have a solution I don't think that there is a workable solution and I don't think that they understand the Unionist mindset in Northern Ireland so the question I'm constantly asked in Brussels from colleagues is so is this going to lead to United Ireland like they really think that what's going to happen is that everybody will have this sort of dawning in the six counties of Northern Ireland that they will say we can't have a border so we'll just vote to join the rest of Ireland and it'll be as simple as that and clearly it's not going to be that simple it's not going to happen at all so yeah there's a naivety I think in how they're approaching it but I think it's absolutely sincere but it's very hard to square a circle and if the UK leaves the customs union which I believe they will and there's no alternative but to have customs checks on the border may not be that visible but there will be a border and we can pretend it's an invisible border we can call it whatever we want but I think there will be a border and it's going to be very tricky sorry for bringing it back to tax but I just wanted to ask when you were discussing it with your French counterpart on the Irish tax system did you ever mention the German companies used with Luxembourg and do you have any ideas of why it is that the tax chat is always about Ireland when I would say we are greatly equipped by what Luxembourg does in terms of tax I think you've probably answered the question in your first remark I mean yes is the answer I mean we very robustly defended the Irish model obviously and I also launched a few scuds but you have to remember that there was a real lack of confidence in the Irish administration at that time I mean it was a bizarre it was a bizarre time to be there because the strategy and I didn't friend the strategy and I disagreed to some extent the strategy was to go to Paris and Berlin and look for possessions on that situation so that was the approach because obviously it became very inter-governmental the commission became quite peripheral to most of these discussions it was all done at the European Council so Paris and Berlin were really important so there was a very deliberate I would say decision in Dublin not to antagonise and so a lot of that was skirted around and the reason there's very little focus on Luxembourg is precisely for the reason that you have suggested I think because there's a huge exposure a huge interest in France and other countries and so there hasn't been a whole lot of focus on it and I would say I would imagine that the Irish government would still be very reluctant to start sort of throwing mud I think there's probably a bit of a sense of well you start showing a spotlight too much on Luxembourg and it just comes back and you actually attract it to focus on you again so let's just keep quiet about I assume that that's kind of part of that that may not continue though because I think it's going to get very very techy and heated now between Ireland and the Christian it already is relations were at a really really low level when the apple decision, when Vesger's decision was was first announced very very very poor relations they've kind of been rebuilt because there's been a diplomatic offensive around Brexit so it's kind of the apple thing was put to one side but now that it's back on the table again I really worry about it and I think this will impact on all sorts of all sorts of things from Ireland's point of view in terms of Brexit negotiations in terms of goodwill I just think there's a really risk around it because we are being portrayed as petulant and difficult and so on and as I said earlier I think it's really unfair but there is reputational damage definitely you mentioned the CBI earlier the fact that you were surprised in how they didn't campaign harder or maybe it seems like one of the reasons why that might be it's just because the city and London is a little bit different from Ireland a lot in the sense that international networks are a bit stronger whereas European based the other thing then being that with the friend in the UK leaving and we've lost a friend in terms of lobbying for minimising regulatory burden and so on to what extent can the fact that they are leaving give them the chance to be able to minimise regulatory burden further sort of set them up nicely because preparing for those while the fact that they are gone means that regulatory burden in that can be stronger because they will come in so essentially to what extent will that hurt the Irish economy do you think? Yeah I mean I I get your point about about the city and about their sort of maybe not being quite so concerned about Europe and Brussels as much as we are but I don't know I mean I spent a lot of time in London and I think I think that the city has really missed a trick by being so reticent on Brexit I mean I think that they rode in far too quickly behind the government position accepting leaving the single market all the rest of it and I think they are really going to live to regret that I mean international financial services in London and the UK is going to pay the price you know there will be tens and tens and tens of thousands of jobs leaving the city of London I mean it is still going to be a financial hub it is already happening though I mean I am working for someone they are getting out of town like they are they will still have a presence in London but they are definitely going to change their structures quite fundamentally and then the issue of regulatory divergence is never made to be seen you know there is a massive amount of business done from London throughout the rest of the year and you know they are going to want passporting rights they are going to want to be able to delegate they are going to want to try and have as little disruption as possible because it is going to be very difficult particularly if they go off on a kind of you know I know the threat has been that they are going to do a sort of a Hong Kong or Singapore or whatever I tend to think that that is going to be very difficult and I think if they start to do that they will lose even more business to Frankfurt to Dublin to Luxembourg to Brussels which is a point that nobody was really expecting on the insurance front so I think on balance I mean unless there is a complete change in direction in the UK government which is not impossible I think that they are going to really try to minimise regulatory divergence I think they are going to try and have equivalents in most respects and they are going to plead for mercy I mean this is a one sided negotiation you know all the cards are on the EU side and that has not dawned on Boris Johnson yet but if you talk to officials in treasury if you talk to officials in the foreign office they get it and they are really worried and they are right to be because they are completely unprepared for all of this and it is very sad and it is going to be disastrous but I think it is going to have profound implications in the UK economy and I think that ultimately they are going to try and keep their regulatory parameters very much in line with the EU and that is not just in FFAS across the board because otherwise more and more firms are just going to leave Can you talk about one more question or comment to anybody I have a question in and around just around an aspect of the UK State of the Union speech when he talked about the proposal his idea that eventually the Christian Council Christian president and the character president could be merged which is an interesting theoretical idea I think that in your background in your European youth politics and the different decisions and iterations of debates around getting to the lead Canada process for the European Parliament elections which is only going to happen once successfully where do you think that might go in the next 20 years I think the European project is going to go in one direction and I think it will be close to cooperation and I think that the institutions I don't think that there should be a mad drive to put the institutional reform first because we tried that and it didn't work and it kind of it doesn't excite people it can be manipulated in a sort of a negative way by opponents of the European project full stop and I just think given everything that we've been through in recent times what's the point in opening up those debates again until you have sort of tangible cooperation and progress there's a lot of things that just haven't happened that we can do under the Lisbon Treaty in security and defence which I mentioned earlier but in other areas as well digital single market all this stuff is doable within the existing framework so I'm not afraid of treaty change but I just think there's no point in trying to put the cart before the horse but ultimately I'm absolutely convinced that that type of arrangement has to be the case I want to see directly elected president of the commission and that person chairing the council I think would be fantastic the day that that the member states would agree to that I think is probably more than 20 years off but hopefully it'll happen in my lifetime and I think we have to move towards that we have to toss around these ideas and they're important I'd like to see panels of MEPs elected across the EU as well all this stuff is in the convention in future Europe and they're all still as well today as those ideas are still as well today as they were then but I think obsessing with institutional changes probably a waste of time frankly and I think getting on with the substance first that we have the capacity to do and then reopen those debates maybe a little bit down the road or have them but really seriously reopen them a little bit down the road


Hi, my name is Tracy Tegahama Espinosa and I want to talk about the elephant in the room today I want to talk about some things that everybody in society knows about related to education either implicitly and consciously But until we bring some of these things to the forefront until we talk about them in a really clear way We won't be able to advance education in the ways that we would hope to So in the short video, I want to do three things I want to first talk about four big changes that have occurred on the educational landscape within society over the past decade But necessarily impact and change the way that we train teachers to be teachers and what we expect of teachers in society Second, I want to talk about some very specific recommendations on teachers new pedagogical knowledge that comes out of the OECD publication from 2017 which Recommends that new teacher formation has to include a lot of different types of things The two basic ones are more information about the brain and how it learns and Technology and the third thing I want to do is to leave you with some really concrete starter ideas The principles and tenets for mind-brain and education science that should guide a teacher practice from here on out So what are these big necessary changes in education? Do you remember Rip Van Winkle, you know He fell asleep for like a hundred years and what happened in that time when he woke up You know transportation had totally changed and the way we do business is very very different now than it was a hundred years ago And the way we elect people into office has also changed drastically Where we get our food from how we shop how we feed ourselves has also changed and our schools Okay, this isn't so drastic. Okay one definitely We have some school houses that still look like this this one obviously very extreme Amish community in Pennsylvania So maybe that's pushing the point but the key idea here is that Schools are the slowest institutions to change in society and we have a lot of catch-up work to do and we're pushed to do There's not only because everybody else is changing but also because there are different Expectations of schools we now go from this idea of equal access almost everybody gets to go to school now But they don't always get the same level of quality depending on their school district There's zip code people are sort of condemned to a type of education that has to change right We're moving from teaching in silos like teaching math language science art as separate concepts to understanding the value of Transdisciplinary thinking we're moving from just looking towards standards Let's meet the average to really more Creativity on the part of our students and from this idea of just passing a class to this concept of life Long learning from traditional resources textbooks basically to using technology in an intelligent ways in our classroom From bettering just the self before we used to think that you know you go to school and you can have a better life We know that that's absolutely true We know that somebody who finishes high school learns about twice as much as somebody who only finishes primary school and somebody goes to college Runs about twice as much as somebody who went to high school and somebody who has a master's or PhD is almost never unemployed So we know there's benefits to the individual But we also now accept and recognize that when individuals in society flourish then society is a whole flourishes We've also moved from just content knowledge You know knowing a particular math formula or a grammatical rule or a form and language to Understanding how to think about approaching problems in our in our surroundings And we've also moved from these face-to-face brick and mortar classrooms with solid walls To understanding things like virtual classrooms that take advantage of the flipped Classroom for example in which you send video content beforehand and then when you're in class You can really go deeper into the information and I'm sure there's other changes But these are some really core shifts in expectations of schools a Second big change has to do with and not only changes in school expectations But also what do we expect of students and what do we expect of teachers? If you Cumulatively we look at the 21st century literature out there that says what is it that we hope that we do in classrooms You'll get this idea that we want critical and creative thinkers We want people who know how to work with people who are different from them Who know how to use tools or who embrace technology or who understand and appreciate complexity and we're innovative This means that we are no longer just looking at understanding History or math or reading or writing as subject areas, but we expect that students come out of our systems Being able to act autonomously to be responsible citizens To be open and empathetic and be able to work with people who are different from them This puts a huge burden on the teacher right because you can't get apples from a pear tree If this is what we expect of students then we as teachers have to be this and more So we have to embrace that and we have to identify our own shortcomings perhaps and fill in those gaps a Third change that has occurred is the way that technology has opened up our better understanding about the brain We're still in diapers. We still know very little about the human brain But what we do know is allowing us for example to get rid of all of these myths Back in the 90s before we could really see into the brain very clearly We would do cartoon sketches and oftentimes over generalized information or misinterpret scientific findings And all of these things that you see here have now been proven to be myths So slightly better technology helps us understand that we can measure brain activity either electrically or chemically or structurally And all of these things together now give us this deeper appreciation that you know It's not that you just have you know math and one part of the brain or a spatial or creativity and another that's not true You have very complex neural networks that are formed for any type of skill set that you learn or undertake So doing something as simple as you know saying a sentence or a basic math problem will involve multiple areas of the brains And so where we used to think Language was located or math was located now. We understand these are core hubs You know information passes through those places, but it's not where language or math is and so this refined Technology has helped us get a more sophisticated understanding and appreciation of all of the complex ways that people learn and in doing so It also permits us to be much more precise instead of saying that well the kid just doesn't have a brain per math We can actually break it down and we can say oh my gosh He doesn't understand, you know magnitude or how symbols relate to certain procedures in a mathematical formula or whatever So we're now able to become more precise in understanding what types of difficulties kids might have in our classrooms The fourth big change is that we also now have better insight into what really influences student learning outcomes and This is thanks to longitudinal studies Finally, you know formal education is only around 120 30 years old So finally we now have studies that can track whole cohorts of people Since the time that they enter education all the way until they graduate over time So we can actually see what types of intervention seem to work with what types of individuals and what types of context So we can compare them across the lifespan. We also have internationally comparative studies So we can sort of sort out now what types of things are really true for all human brains And then what things have a very heavy cultural component attached to them Especially as they relate to cultural artifacts like language and how we write numbers or letters and thirdly We now have a methodologically comparative scale Thanks in great part to the work of John Hattie who has really been tremendous and has opened our eyes to understanding If you compare influences on student learning you can weigh this now as to its effect size So what has a greater effect? What has a greater impact on student learning outcomes? So he's tabulated to find that you know a point four is at this basic, you know sweet spot effect Anything above that is really where we want to be and you can compare things like you can say yeah homework is important You know it makes sense, but Actually, there's a bunch of other things that even more important like the student-teacher relationship has a huge or a much Bigger effect size than homework does for example, so you sort of have to choose your battles What's the most important thing that we should be focusing on when we teach teachers? Do we teach them how to grade homework or emphasize their time there or do we tell them? You know your time is better spent cultivating those strong student-teacher relationships so we can compare multiple things teaching explicit study skills or How teacher clarity and feedback aids learning or how interactive discussions getting students to actually use the information the knowledge As opposed to just doing a worksheet. How does that influence our learning outcomes? And maybe most importantly how students own self Expectation, you know, I am a learner or you know, I'm not going to be good at this How the students own self-perception as influenced by what the teachers make them think about himself Changes that students outcomes so based on had his work We're able to now not only have these longitudinal studies international studies But now we have met a lot methodologically comparative skills where we can actually say certain things really have a bigger impact for most of the students in our classroom Another big idea that aids us in thinking about this idea of our endgame in education is when we think about Backward design when we think about anything that a student is going to learn in our classrooms can be broken down into competencies either It's a knowledge-based thing. It's dates facts formulas concepts place names or it's a skill set how to use that knowledge or It's related to Attitudinal things, you know appreciating the role of perseverance and finding the right answers or Valuing teamwork to get to the right answers. So Understanding that a teacher's job is no longer just here no longer in just sharing knowledge It has more to do with this bigger area of skill sets and attitudinal ranges And that's something that we have to get beyond because our textbooks are only telling us what to teach They're not telling us how to teach and the how seems to be what we what society values much more As far as what a school's role is in shaping those individuals. We're gonna be citizens in our own communities So this really forces us to think, you know at the end of the day, what is that and results, you know What are my objectives? What is it that I'm after in my day-to-day with my interaction with my students or in Across the whole, you know seventh grade school year or primary school or by the time they hit University What is it that I'm trying to produce then I have to ask myself? What is it that I am hoping to achieve as a teacher? What is it that I'm after then I have to decide, you know What are the tools then that are most appropriate for measuring that and then after that I can decide? Okay, now what do I do in my classroom? We spend a lot of time with professional development talking about activities, you know What methodology? What strategy? What way to a trick to use within our classroom setting and we spend very little time Focused on how to determine those objectives. That's probably the more important end game if we think about this more globally Going back to this whole point if we're hoping if the expectations of society that we're producing students that are critical and creative thinkers For example, do we actually really have the correct tools to measure that does a standardized multiple choice test? Really get to this kind of a profile probably not so we really have to rethink what it is that we're doing in education these days another core reason to remember and think about this the structure is because Attitudinal changes are perhaps the most important across the lifespan an individual as far as you know future learning goes But they also take the longest time to form and it's also very important to remember that attitudes are really connected to these unconscious Prejudices that many of us have about how we think people learn so if I was brought up with the idea or told Over and over again that girls just don't have a head for math or they're not good at math or science or whatever it is if I Have that as a belief then I actually Interact and treat girls differently in my classroom We now have sufficient evidence to really say you know declaratively this is a problem teachers prejudices about How intelligence is formed how people learn influence student learning outcomes and these are silly things like you know If only the parents were more responsible or had better genes and pass them under the kids or if only the kids were better behaved Or if only I had better resources of the only they'd eaten breakfast at home or they'd slept better If only my classes were smaller of only the kids played less video games Then I would be this great teacher, right? So we have these these excuses that that actually trump what we now know about student learning outcomes There is no single Greater individual factor that influences student learning outcomes and the quality of the teacher So we know that the kid could have kind of messed up Home life and and I might have a slightly larger class and the other guy and yeah This year I particularly do have some trouble making kids in the classroom or whatever it is but guess what that's on me and Actually, I have more power than I think to change this and to quantify this I confirmed looking at had his work and asking him you know It seems that there's 15 core teacher attitudes that are coming out of all of this research What do you think and he says yeah, it looks good Makes sense it makes sense to think that if teachers don't understand their own power That they don't understand that they are the decisive factor in the classroom Teacher attitudes do change student learning outcomes So if a teacher doesn't believe in the importance of teamwork and believing humbly You know the student has a good idea. I have a good idea the minute We're sharing these ideas. We have an even better idea. The teachers doesn't understand that Then that teacher will become better But he will never be great if the teacher doesn't understand how important it is to develop autonomy and learning that that they are Not paid to answer kids questions. They're paid to get kids to think if teachers don't buy into that It's very hard for them to become excellent in their endeavors if teachers don't lower this you know threshold of angst that people have about evaluation and Don't don't begin to embrace evaluation as a form of teaching. It's not meant to judge people It's meant to help them identify their own gaps and learning if we don't change that chip that we have about evaluation We're never gonna have those great schools that we're after we also know that it's part of great teachers attitudes to be able to differentiate and to value inclusive education and Understand that not all kids need exactly the same thing It's exactly the same moment and that that's on us to be able to Vary our instructional methods or the way we approach information with students in order to start at their starting point and provide Them with all the resources they need in order to reach the same level of expectations that we have for all Another important attitude is to appreciate that the objective of modern education is to really Hopefully form lifelong Lovers of learning people who just find it a kick to learn new things all the time instead of stamping into them If they have to pass a certain Test or exam so it's very important that we appreciate our role as models You can't get apples from a pear tree if we expect that students are autonomous in their own learning We have to be autonomous if we expect that students know how to use a variety of tools to resolve problems We have to be able to do that if we expect that students are able to work with people who are Different from them We have to be able to show them that we can do that as well Being a model is key to being an excellent teacher My job is to also appreciate that I have very unique Individuals in my class and they come from a variety of backgrounds And some of them come from starting points that are you know more elevated than others They've had other resources or extra benefits at home that other kids don't And part of my job is to remediate the negative effects that some kids might come to school If that is on me to try to do that and also to appreciate that it's Usually not the kids fault that they are in that situation and that's something that we have to Compassionately accept as we teach this huge range of kids that it will be in our classroom It's also really important that I begin to learn more about the brain because It's important to understand the brain cannot not learn. That's the whole reason it exists, right? So if I can appreciate that kids can and will learn They just might do it at different paces that creates this aura of optimism within every single classroom context that I enter And many of you have worked with carol dweck's idea of growth mindsets This is really embracing the idea that intelligence is definitely fluid. It's not fixed You are not trapped in your biology. You can make more of yourself than you think So helping kids to appreciate that is also very powerful It's also important to embrace this idea that there is a huge variability within humanity where there's a lot of different people out there, right? There's going to be a percentage of people in the world that have You know these differing kinds of brains and that's on me to learn how to work with those kids and integrate them I'm responsible for all of teachers have to buy into that idea Another attitudinal shift has to do with professional knowledge back in the day It was enough to know a lot of stuff now It's more important that teachers not only know stuff which you can find on your phone But it's actually more important to understand the workings of the human brain How Do people learn so knowing a bit more about the brain is a responsibility on the teacher The human brain the organ of all of our existence as teachers Is not simple therefore solutions in the classroom can't be like three steps to student reading or something like that And it's not as simple as saying oh you have a right brain and a left brain That's just not true. We have to get away from these misunderstandings about how humans learn And to dive into a little bit more the complexity how people learn different things to understand You know that there are multiple networks that all of those pieces are in slightly different neural pathways And the more teachers know about that the better they can become At deciphering what learning problems individuals have and that's on us That's part of our attitudinal shift as far as teachers professional knowledge these days It's also very important to see this as a shift in how we understand teachers now in society Perhaps the most revered profession in society are medical doctors And I'd have to say that teachers share the same first rule as doctors and that is to do no harm This means that all of our practice has to be evidence-based We really have to look at what the science now says about learning in order to choose the best teaching interventions It's also very important that teachers accept they have an awesome Responsibility but also understanding just from a from a social neural cognitive perspective to understand that this link This connection this the communication that we have with individual students when they believe we care about their learning Makes a huge difference. It's also very important that teachers understand this huge and awesome Responsibility that we have for creating the right environment for student learning We know that the teacher not the family has the greatest impact on the individual student as far as their own Self belief in their value as learners. I can do this I will be able to do that They totally believe you as a teacher more than they believe mom and dad as far as their own potential within your classroom We don't understand our power and this has a lot to do with this area of neuroscience called social contagion That I hope we can dig into deeper with you later It's also vital that teachers you know rather than shooting for this lowest common denominators teachers understand That students reach the level of expectations placed on them So aiming high is actually a really good idea Finally, it's often hard for us to accept because it means you know owning and and having a huge responsibility I am the decisive factor in the classroom I decide you know this climate here. I decide whether or not This is going to be a joyful encounter or if this is going to be something that's You know heavy and burdensome or a dictatorship or authoritative kind of an experience It's it's on me. It's on me to decide that so these 15 core attitudes are things that I like you to think about and reflect on because If you are not a hundred percent, you know in agreement. I am that I can do that I believe that um then we have some stuff to work on because we know that While you can get professional development in you know, certain methodology or how to plan a class or do an activity or whatever You can become better at being a teacher, but you will never be great if those core teacher attitudes aren't in place And this moves us from just being an educator to moving towards being a learning scientist And this is a big shift now in teaching It is something that was forecasted more than 30 years ago by leslie hart who said designing educational experiences Without an understanding of the brain is like designing a glove without understanding the human hand Basically, if you don't know enough or a little bit at least the basics about how humans learn We can fall into these areas of great misconception But the main problem is that research led in great part by uh, paul howard jones just shows that across the globe Most teachers do not know enough about the brain new teacher education would be not only understanding all these things about education But being a mind-burning education scientist means that you also understand things about Consciousness and how emotions influence learning and the role of memory and attention systems So all of these things are a part of new teacher education So while it's still acceptable that some people will say, oh, no, no, I'm just an educator, you know Okay, but I'd like to make the argument that there's a real need for people who understand who get this Who are mind-brain education scientists, not just educators, but people who understand how the rest of the learning sciences Really influence our brain. Why? Because we have studied the learning brain for about 150 years But we barely know anything about how to teach based on that information This is really changing the face of educational training whereas before teachers might learn a bit about how people learn And now we need to get to the point of okay, no, how do you take advantage of how the brain learns to teach better What are those precise interventions that are most important? And the reason that I argued that this is important to do is because you know, we have not figured it out yet And education is so complex. And so we're every single school year We begin with this optimistic view of okay, this year I'm going to figure it out or this year It's all going to work and there's a lot that is still unknown So unless we begin to nurture our profession education With information from the other learning sciences We will not come to those conclusions and I say this because mind-brain education science takes all of the information from the learning sciences So understanding how nutrition or sleep influences the brain to understanding the basics of neuroscience And how their chemical changes that occur in the brain in different types of human development And mixing all of this with information from education from psychology I'm understanding just how historical or cultural context influence things And then moving into this idea of not just educational neuroscience But to this new field of mind-brain education science Which is this kind of sweet spot in the middle that looks at the teaching elements that we can gain Can we take all of this information and now be more effective teachers in our classroom? And I believe we can So this means combining haddie's work with mind-brain education into a new type of teachers professional development scheme We are the only profession out there that really still continues to to go without rank And that's very democratic, but it's a bit problematic because somebody who is fresh out of teacher's college Is a teacher and somebody who has been teaching for 45 years and is brilliant is still a teacher We'd like to recommend that you can sort of sort this out to saying Okay, somebody is a newly formed teacher to being a novice proficient expert And then hopefully we get a handful of people who end up being master teachers This happens over time, but also more importantly over depth of knowledge It doesn't mean that only old people can be master teachers You can have really young people who are great master teachers when they have the greater depths of understanding of our new profession And all of this comes back to the recommendations that were made by the OECD expert panel on teachers new pedagogical knowledge And the changes that are occurring in education the changes and expectations of society But how we need to change teacher formation So to summarize that the first steps that we would suggest Is that number one is to get rid of the neuro myths and to correct teacher attitudes The second step would then be looking at these core principles What are these things that we know that are true about all human brains? And believe it or not, there's only six Okay, and then things that are tenants that are also true, but they have huge human variation things like For example motivation influences student learning, but what motivates one person doesn't motivate another So we know that it's important for learning But it doesn't work the same way for all human brains Then we also have to take into consideration cultural aspects and the context within which learning occurs And then finally then we can reach, you know Here are some core recommendations of how you should teach them in the new modern classroom That includes mind brain education science So these would be the steps that we'd recommend If we were to look at some of the things on this first step many teachers say, oh, but my attitudes are just fine I don't believe in any neuro myths. I'd ask you to look at this list, you know I have a list of more than 70 neuro myths that are in teacher literature Do you believe any of them? And if you do We got to correct that and we got to get the better information in there because The main reason neuro myths are so bad is that they do harm They actually limit the way that we consider potential in individual students So I'd love to be able to pull apart neuro myths with you at some point My book from the summer of 2018 is is one that actually summarizes all these myths But I'd love to go over them with you So going back to this general list and okay, so once we get rid of the myths Then we have to know what real content information is really good to get that answer I did a five-ten year follow-up to another study that was done in 2008 To try to figure out is there anything that we can all agree on From neuroscience that can be brought into the classroom the delphi panel of experts were asked six different questions And the important things that i'm going to share right now only have to do with the principles and the tenets So there's six principles that they agreed upon they agreed that The human brain is unique everybody has an individual brain while we might have similar neural pathways for for example How humans learn to read nobody has identical pathways for how they do that The second principle has to do with different potentials. You are born with a different set of Potential capacities to do different types of skill sets thanks to the genes that you inherit Combined with this dynamic of your environment those things together decide who you become and what you can learn So this means that the context of learning prior experiences your personal choice, you know free will As well as your genetic makeup your biology All the events that occur in early childhood and beyond all make a difference in what you are now Able to learn different brains have different potentials A third principle has to do with the basic law of learning that all New learning passes through this filter of prior experience So basically the more you know the more you can know what you know from your past Actually influences what you're potentially able to know in the future And you know and knowing that how does that change what you do in your classroom? Do you know your students well enough for example to take advantage of their prior knowledge to forth? The brain changes constantly with experiences changes at the molecular level in your brain can actually change Before you can see changes in behavior for example changes have to occur at the molecular level before a person a kid can learn to read Right? You have to have so many different neural networks in place before boom one day He seems to read but the changes at the molecular level occurred way before the changes in behavior of reading Right? So we know that changes in the brain can either occur before behavioral changes simultaneously Or even after behavioral observation is seen okay So if you know that the brain changes constantly with experience This makes us question you know the the timing that we have in our school systems Do we allow for this learning cycle to run its natural course? The fifth principle has to do with the general plasticity of the brain The brain is plastic throughout the lifespan and we also know that Neuro constructivism explains to us that you have to have basic foundational concepts before other concepts can occur But do we as teachers have those expectations clear and do we realize that the order of events is actually more important than saying Oh, but the kid oh, he's 15 by now. He should be doing x y or z Well, the truth of the matter is if he doesn't have those basic foundations, then we can't construct that new knowledge So we know that plasticity really is the physical manifestation of all learning, right? So for plasticity occur, we have to have the right conditions And the sixth principle is that there is no learning without well functioning memory systems and well functioning attention systems And memory is not a single thing in the brain nor is attention There are multiple subsystems and subnetworks And teachers really need to know how to take advantage of that getting a kid's attention by flicking the lights on and off Is not the same thing is sustaining their attention long enough for them to read a page, right? So we have to understand the different types of attention systems the different types of memory systems In order to be able to take advantage of this in the best way possible So those are the six principles attached to the six principles are an additional 21 tenets Which are things that are true about every brain, but they range very widely by individual So there is a great variability across humanity But we do know for example that motivation influences student learning outcomes We also know that affect and cognition are inextricably linked There is no cognitive development without affect. That means emotion influences how you think about things We know that stress for the good or the bad of it influences student learning outcomes Anxiety also influences learning Depression can greatly impede learning as well And that challenge and threat are vital to learning But what what challenges one person could be a threat to another person So understanding that that sweet spot of tension is very important for student learning outcomes We also know that people interpret and react to facial expressions unconsciously So there are a handful of facial expressions six or seven that Universally people react to the same having a sadness surprise those seem to be similar But then there's other micro expressions that are oftentimes not easily interpreted on a very conscious level But we send messages to kids all the time every day with our face But very rarely are we taught how to manage those kids will hone in onto that facial expression More than the content of what is being expressed So we know that we have to learn to manage our facial expressions in the right way to be able to enhance those learning moments in a very similar way Tones of voices are interpreted almost immediately for threat. Are we attuned to that when we interact with our students? We also know that learning is very social most people would choose to learn with others And there's a huge piece of this that has to do with social contagion The way that individuals in a group make the group feel about their own context Another tenant is that we know that attention systems can oftentimes also be highly individualized based on different experiences in that individual's lifespan We also know that learning is a progression. It's kind of like, you know, going up a spiral staircase, you know Two steps forward one step back two steps forward one step back. It is not a linear process It doesn't go from A to B, you know, very directly So we have to appreciate the time that it takes for learning to occur We also know that there's conscious as well as unconscious processes This means you can't learn while you're asleep obviously, but you can rehearse things And there is a consolidation of memory when you are asleep So while teachers might not have control over some of these things It's very important to understand the role of the mind-body connection there We mentioned this in abbreviated form before but when we talk about chronological ages or cognitive stages Or an individual's prior experience. We know that by far prior experience has a greater influence on student learning outcomes Than for example, the age of an individual Going back to this mind-body connection We know that what you do to your body influences the potential of your brain And but your brain chooses what you do your body, right? So we have to take into consideration the role of sleep and dreaming Do we understand how sleep allows us to pay attention how dreaming consolidates memory Do we know that nutrition, you know, your brain is using about 20% of the calories that you intake But not all calories are created equal, you know So eating a bunch of cola and fries does not do the same thing for your brain as eating a healthy diet, right? And we know the physical activity has an influence on what your brain is able to do, right?  We know that your brain is incredibly Efficient and so when neural pathways are not used or rehearsed over time, they can degenerate So unless you're actively using your brain, you're actually not going to sustain Whatever it is that you learn in the past So staying up to date or keeping up to date with information Thinking is one of the best ways to maintain brain fitness Most teachers understand the important role of feedback and student learning outcomes for the good or the bad of it But there's this art in how you give feedback Is it structured in such a way that the student then owns it rather than becomes defensive by it? Have we honed in on those those communication skills that are necessary to be able to give the right level And type of feedback in the right way to students to enhance their learning We also know that the success of authentic learning is explained a great deal in the fact that you cannot Not pay attention when you are the center of attention. So when something is authentic when you are doing it It makes it very difficult for you not to pay attention to that It also means that it has a great intrinsic motivational value because it's something of great importance to you already So but how do teachers tap into that also very important tenant And finally we realize because of the brain's efficiency the first thing it does is it looks for anything a pattern What do I already know about this new information that's coming in and then What is it that's different? So what sticks out is something that's different to me So understanding novelty and patterns is a key way that the brain detects information and can learn So these principles and tenets are the few basic things that come out of neuroscience laboratories that can be used in the classroom But just knowing that list of things is not enough What's really really vital for us to understand is that Having that information doesn't empower us to know how to use it in the classroom So we need to now go beyond understanding that you know motivation is important for learning to understand How do we motivate individual kids? So now in conclusion? This is just sort of laying the groundwork then We know that there have been changes in education. We know that now there's different expectations We now know that teachers really need to know a bit more about the brain so that they can actually be more efficient in their jobs So this is an invitation to explore this mind brain education science perspective this take on New teachers pedagogical knowledge in the 21st century and how do we approach them? So to conclude I would just ask you to do a short exercise three two one Are there three things that I mentioned to you that you didn't know beforehand? Are there two things that you will continue to research or talk about because wow that was pretty cool I want to know more about this. Are you curious about anything? And is there at least one thing that you might consider doing differently to improve your personal and professional practice based on the information That we shared right now Why do I ask you to do this one of the things that we understand about memory consolidation? And remember memory is vital to all new learning is that You need time for reflection Education is not just bombarding people with content information You also need downtime. You need to process it. You need to think a little bit more and decide Is this usable knowledge? What can I do with this? So getting to that point is part of these types of reflections If you also like you might also do a visible thinking activity that comes from richard and colleagues ideas And just tell yourself well, I used to think teacher education or professional development was Whatever whatever And now I think This is a different way of putting this information into perspective because it also shows, you know concrete growth Before I was here and now I am here with this information But take the time take two minutes to do this And I promise you will make a big difference in the way you approach the information in the future So now I hope I am leaving you with a whole lot more questions than answers right now I want to invite you to stay in touch And I would like to follow up with you to talk about each of and every one of these points in more depth If we get the opportunity Thanks for the chance to introduce this idea of mind-bren education science And to talk about that elephant in the room and the changes that are necessary to improve our educational practice


Hello, this is Weyland Chow and this is structure of the Canadian Legal System, Module 2, Part A. In this part, we will begin our explanation of the basics of the Canadian Legal System by looking at what is considered to be law, and then give a brief explanation of the two different types of legal systems in Canada, the common law system and the civil law system, and explain the difference between what is considered to be public law and what is private law. There are many different areas of law, but we can categorize every area into either public law or private law. Public law is defined as law that regulates our relationship with government, and private law regulates personal, social, and business relationships. Let's now do a quick quiz to illustrate the difference between public law and private law. On the left hand side of the screen, you will find different areas of law, and your challenge is to determine whether each of these areas is public law or private law. Please pause the video at this point so that you can attempt this quiz. Constitutional law is considered to be public law. Constitutional law are the rules that set up our political and legal system, and also rules that protect our basic rights and freedoms against government laws or actions. That in Canada we call the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which we will discuss a little bit later. Those rules regulate our relationship with government, so that's why it's considered to be public law. Contract law is considered to be private law. These are the rules that govern the creation and enforcement of agreements between individuals and businesses. That is private law, because private law are rules that regulate the relationship between individuals, businesses, and organizations. Property law is also considered to be private law. Property law are the rules that regulate the ownership of property, so that is private law. Tax law is considered to be public law. These are the rules regarding the collection of monies by government from individuals and businesses. When do we have to file a tax for how much tax do we need to pay, though that has to do with money that we pay to government, so that's public law. Tort law are the rules that determine liability arising from what we call a private wrong committed by one person against another. In a future module, we will talk in detail about various tort. Tort law is considered to be private law. Criminal law, these are laws that set out particular behaviors as offenses against the state, so they could be, for example, murder, theft, fraud. Those are all examples of criminal offenses. Criminal law is considered to be public law. Criminal law, every time you commit a criminal offense, it's considered to be an offense against the state. Even though there might be a victim for that crime, strictly speaking, from a legal standpoint, the offense is against the state, so that's why it's considered to be public law. The last area of law that we have here is called administrative law. A lot of administrative law are rules that the government has set to regulate business using government agencies or boards or commissions or tribunals. Some of the areas that administrative law regulates is broadcasting, international trade, energy development, competition, labor relations, and municipal zoning. Administrative law is considered to be public law. One point to keep in mind is that a number of different areas of law can apply to the same situation.  I don't know why you might do that, but you did. The applicable areas of law there are criminal law. I could call the police and the police could charge you with the crime of assault, so that's criminal law and criminal law, if you remember, is considered to be public law. Tort law could also apply. Tort law is considered to be private law. I could sue you under tort law for the tort of battery and claim damages for the injuries I suffered from you striking my face. In that one situation, we have both criminal law and tort law applying, or in other words both public law and private law applying to the same situation. The Constitution of Canada does two basic things. The first is it sets out the rules which create our legal and political systems. In particular, it creates a federal system of government, which means there is one national government and also various regional governments, which we call provincial governments. In order to have a federal system, there has to be a division of lawmaking powers between the federal level government and the provincial level of government. Those rules are contained in the part of the Constitution called the Constitution Act 1867 because those rules were created back in 1867. The second purpose of the Constitution is to protect our basic individual rights and freedoms and that part of the Constitution is called the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and also specifically it's under the part of the Constitution, which is named the Constitution Act 1982, so that is when the Charter was created. The Constitution of Canada is made up of two pieces of legislation. The first is the Constitution Act 1982 and the second is the Constitution Act 1867. The Constitution Act 1982, which is what we see here, includes the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which we will talk about in the next part of this module, but it also includes the rule which makes the Constitution the supreme law of Canada. What that means is that any law that's made by a government in Canada, that would include the federal government, provincial governments and municipal governments, so any Canadian law, if it is inconsistent with the Constitution, that law is deemed to be invalid. What we also find in the Constitution Act 1982 is something called the amending formula. So the amending formula sets out the requirements for making an amendment or a change to the Constitution. So this amending formula is purposely set up to make it very difficult to amend the Constitution. So what it requires is the approval of, number one, the federal parliament, which would include both the House of Commons and the Senate, and we also need the approval of at least two-thirds of all the provinces, and those provinces have to represent at least 50% or half of the population. So it's that second requirement of getting the two-thirds and 50% population, which is usually very difficult to achieve. So practically speaking, we need, it would be very difficult to get an amendment if one or two of the biggest provinces in Canada don't approve of an amendment. So those provinces would be Ontario, Quebec and DC. Our system of government in Canada is created by our original Constitution, which was created back in 1867, and this is a picture of it here. It was an act of the Imperial Parliament. So what that refers to is the British Parliament. So our original Constitution was a British law. It was an act for the Union of Canada, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. So Canada refers to both Ontario, which is Upper Canada and Quebec, which was lower Canada. So originally, Canada was made up of four provinces. So this act of the British Parliament was also known as the British North America Act. That British North America Act, or BNA Act for short, was renamed in 1982 to be the Constitution Act 1867, which I referred to in the previous slide. So it was renamed because in 1982, our Constitution became Canadian in the sense that it became a Canadian law. The Constitution Act 1867 was an act of the Parliament of Canada. So our Constitution was no longer British as of 1982, but became Canadian. So within the Constitution Act 1867, which was identical to what was in the British North America Act, so within there we find the rules which create our system of government. So firstly, it creates what's called one Parliament for Canada. So that Parliament is made up of the Queen, which is considered to be our, or who is considered to be our head of state and a Senate and a House of Commons. It also creates legislative assemblies for each of the provinces. So a legislative assembly for Ontario, one for Quebec. So you'll notice in the provision for Quebec, it also refers to a legislative council of Quebec. So what that was, it was the equivalent of a Senate for Quebec. Back in 1968, that legislative council was abolished. And as well, the name of the legislative assembly of Quebec was changed to the Quebec National Assembly. And also, the Constitution Act 1867 or the BNA Act acknowledged the existence of the legislatures of the provinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. So what the Constitution created was two levels of government in Canada. A federal level, which was the Parliament of Canada, and a provincial level, which were the provincial legislative assemblies. In a federal system of government, like we have in Canada, we need rules which assign lawmaking powers to each level of government, the federal and the provincial levels. So we find these rules in the Constitution Act 1867 in sections 91, 92, and 93. So let's look first at section 91, which assigns lawmaking power to the federal Parliament. So the beginning of section 91 is reproduced here. So it's a lot of, you know, very difficult to understand words. So let's try to make sense of it. So the first part refers to the Senate and the House of Commons is refers to the federal Parliament. It's basically saying, you know, the federal Parliament has the power to do these things. And then it also talks about, it says, you know, all matters not coming within the classes of subjects by this act assigned exclusively to the legislatures of the provinces. So what that is saying is that there's a list of powers given to the provinces, which is in sections 92 and 93. So anything that's not listed and given to the provinces, so if there's a certain subject matter that is not assigned to the provinces, then it automatically belongs to the federal Parliament. So that that power is called is commonly called the federal residual power. So residual means what's left, what's left over. So what's not listed is belongs to the federal, the federal Parliament. And then at the end, it's basically saying, you know, the following list is, you know, or is a list of subject matter, which the which the federal Parliament has exclusive right to make to make laws about the provincial lawmaking powers are set out in the Constitution Act 1867 sections 92 and 93 section 92 contains a long list of subject matter, which the provinces have have jurisdiction over. And section 93 specifically gives the provinces the power to make laws concerning education. Please now access the Constitution Act 1867 by either going to this link or use the link that is on slate. You will need to refer to the Constitution Act 1867 in order to do the quick quiz on the next slide. Time for a quick quiz. Referring to sections 91, 92 and 93 of the Constitution Act 1867. Determine whether it is the federal government or federal Parliament or the provincial legislatures that have the power to make laws regarding each of these subject matters. So at this time, please pause the video and work on this quiz. And once you're done, restart the video. Okay, let's look at banks first. The power to make law about banking belongs to the federal Parliament under under section 91 15. So the specifically the legislation that the federal government has for banking is called the Bank Act. Property and civil rights belong to the provincial legislatures under section 92 13. Now, what we were what we're talking about when we're when when it refers to civil rights is not human rights, which is the more modern meaning. Civil rights in the Constitution means private rights. So so things rights that arise from contract or from or from tort. So tort, meaning, you know, the rules that regulate liability arising from a private wrong committed by one, one person against another. So if I, if I negligently hit you with my car and cause damage to your car, that's considered to be a tort and you consume me to to recover, recover your losses. So so that's governed that that's considered to be civil rights and it's governed by by by the provinces. So this this power to regulate property and civil rights from a business standpoint is very is very significant and even extends to give the provinces the right to regulate stock markets because what stock markets are about our our contracts, there are contracts to buy and sell stocks. So that's why the provincial legislatures are specifically in Ontario. It's the Ontario Securities Commission. They regulate the the stock markets. The next subject matter is is taxation that that the power to regulate taxation belongs to both the federal parliament and and the provincial legislature. So the federal parliament has power to regulate taxation under section 93 and the provincial legislatures get their power to tax under section 92 to the creation of municipalities belongs to the provinces under section 92 eight. So it's up to the provinces to create cities like City of Mississauga or City of Toronto or Town of Lowfield. They're the ones that create the the municipal governments and give these municipal governments the power to make bylaws. The power to regulate navigation and shipping belongs to the federal parliament under section 91 10. And any matters of a local or private nature within the province belongs to the provincial legislatures under section 92 16 copyright and any other intellectual property matters such as such as patent belong to the federal parliament. So copyright is regulated by by a statute called the the Copyright Act and that is that is under section 91 23. The issuance of money and currency belongs to the federal parliament. So the money is issued by the by the Royal Canadian Mint which is which is owned and operated by by the federal federal government. And that's under section 91 14. Employment insurance is under the jurisdiction of the federal government under section 91 2 a 91 2 a says unemployment insurance actually which is the original name for for employment insurance. It was under the the government of Brian Mulroney when they changed the name from unemployment insurance to employment insurance. Corporations or more specifically the laws governing the creation of corporations belong to both the federal parliament and provincial legislatures. The provincial powers are more obvious one under section 92 11 the incorporation of companies with provincial objects. The the federal powers not is not so obvious. It arises from section 91 2. The the regulation of trade trade and commerce bankruptcy belongs to the federal parliament. And the the statute for that is is called the bankruptcy and insolvency act. And that's under section 91 2 of the Constitution Act 1867. Interprovincial and international trade and commerce belongs to the federal federal parliament. So that would so that would cover with respect to international trade and commerce. So that would cover entering into international trade trees such as the the recent one the Trans Pacific partnership. And also interprovincial trade is is the jurisdiction of the federal parliament. So conversely trade and commerce within a province is is the jurisdiction of the provincial legislatures. And that's usually because of 92 13 which gives the the provinces the the right to regulate property and civil rights. And any matter that is not exclusively given to the provinces or in other words the residual power belongs to the federal parliament. And we've discussed this before. So under under the the opening words of of section 91 it basically says that any any subject matters that are not specifically given to the provinces belong to the federal parliament. So things that such as telecommunications and air travel which are which are clearly not mentioned at all anywhere in the Constitution Act 1867 because neither of those things existed at that time. Both of those subject matters are regulated by the federal federal parliament. In applying the division of powers between the federal and provincial governments there are a couple of legal concepts that we need to be familiar with. The first concept is called the doctrine of federal paramountcy. So this deals with the situation where we have both a federal law and a provincial law that applies to the same situation. And the two laws are inconsistent or in conflict between each other. So which law do you apply. So this doctrine says that we apply the federal law. The federal law is paramount over the provincial law. The other legal concept we need to be familiar with is the Latin term ultra virus. When we say that legislation is ultra virus it means that a court has declared that a particular law that was created by a provincial or federal government was created outside of the scope of that government's authority. And therefore that law is ineffective or of no force or effect. So what the court would be saying when it says a law is ultra virus is that the government that created that law did not have the power to create that law as given to it under the Constitution. Let's now do a quick quiz question. Please pause this video to consider this question and feel free to go back and look at the previous slide. The answer here is C. The question is a province created a statute. A court ruled that the statute was ultra virus. That means that C the statute is invalid because the province acted beyond its powers under the division of powers set out by the Constitution.