How do we prepare young people for the world of 2030 and beyond?
This was the headline question posed to the delegates attending the #GESF conference on 17/18th March 2018 at Atlantis The Palm, Dubai, UAE. The Global Education and Skills Forum – dubbed the greatest conference in the world – is challenging its delegates to consider what we need to teach our children and how we can move those lessons to action.
Global Education Skills Forum
What an incredible conference, with the likes of Professor Simon Schama and Priyanka Chopra opening the event; as ever, the students were the stand out element of the morning conference. Traveling all the way from USA, students Lewis Mizen, Suzanna Barna and Kevin Trejos from Majory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, shared their experiences of what happened on 14th February 2018.
Seventeen people were killed and seventeen more were wounded, all by bullets, making it one of the world’s deadliest school massacres in US history.
Every Child, Every School
The three students are among the group of survivors who are now working to address the topic of gun violence in American schools. Every experience shared was moving, brining the audience to a standing ovation. For me, Lewis Mezin a former English schoolboy now studying in the USA – with a sister who still teaches in England – made some very clear points about how we can all reach a place, where “our goal is to ensure every child goes to school and goes home to their family safe.”
There’s not much to argue with.
Only last month, Donald Trump said “teachers who carry guns at school should get bonuses (between 10 and 40 per cent) for keeping their students safe.” In just two weeks, Mezin says that “more has happened in two weeks than has happened in decades, and it’s because of my classmates.”
I hope Lewis and his classmates can achieve their dreams before 2030. I think we all do …
Live Video
You can watch the live video on our Periscope channel.