Oct 4, 2022

In this episode Beth, Dan and Lee and joined by Jan Owen AO.   We discuss growing leadership from toads, skills and policy changes to drive future assessment.

Digital Pulse 2022 (acs.org.au)

“This podcast is produced by Microsoft Australia & New Zealand employees, Lee Hickin, Dan Bowen, and Beth Worrall. The views and opinions expressed on this podcast are our own.”

________________________________________

TRANSCRIPT For this episode of The AI in Education Podcast
Series: 5
Episode: 9

This transcript was auto-generated. If you spot any important errors, do feel free to email the podcast hosts for corrections.

Welcome to the AI podcast, Lee and Beth. How are you all?
Excellent.
Very well, thanks. Dan,
what's everybody been up to in the last couple of weeks?
I have been doing a lot actually. We we have a learning day today um at Microsoft. which is a dedicated learning day. I think we get once a month to promote and allow people to spend the time investing in their skills. So I have commandeered learning day this month for social value. So I've been putting together a whole pile of content. We've got an event coming up and we've got a cooking class. So we have an employee resource group um that is uh uh connects um Asian people from lots of different countries together. um it's a global employee resource group and they've just set up a chapter here in Australia and so they will be doing a cooking class for us something fun and different for learning day and then we're doing a um a fireside chat with Steven Warl. Uh so that has an event that has as an event become slightly bigger than Ben her. So I have been spending an awful lot of time producing and putting content together in the back end. Um and I'm hoping that it will be successful. So fingers crossed I
cooking the cooking a bit later.
Beth, I know it's going to be successful and I'm somewhat hurt that you didn't mention that I'm also on that event that you're doing. I will be speaking at it. I appreciate that there are a lot more important people than me, but yes. So I've been prepping my content for your session today as well, Beth. I'm all set to go. I I maybe I'm late to the game here, but I discovered something this morning that has changed my life looking at my screen. So I'm getting a little older. My eyes struggle with the bright light. of the screen all the time. I just turned on dark mode and oh my god, my world is literally the opposite of lit up. My world is so much better. I can read the emails without sitting there going like squinting at the screen. So dark mode is my if you haven't put dark mode on and you're over 50, put it on. It's amazing. I love it. Um
I use dark mode as well.
Well, so there you go. Under 50 as well then.
I I have not I've not heard of dark mode, I've got to say, but has it got the same effect as soft focus? that teams does in terms of how your face is visually represented.
No, it doesn't make you look any younger unfortunately. But no, it look honestly what it does, it takes out the contrast. And in all seriousness, I realized I was trying to read a document this morning. In fact, I was reading a document related to our our guest today. And I just realized that my eyes were sort of hurting because there's this focusing on this white background. And I thought I knew I knew dark mode was existed somewhere. So I switched it all on and it's just the contrasting is so much better. So that's my top tip is get dark mode. Also, I'm a little bit excited this morning because I had a Surface Duo 2 arrive for me today and I'm very excited to play with that because I'm going overseas for a couple of weeks soon and I'm looking to use it as my traveling device. So,
it's I've got those. They're great. They're really, really good.
I'm quite excited about it. So, they're really good. If you're an Android phone user, Surface 2 is amazing. If you're an Apple phone user, you can't pry Apple devices out to people's hands. But the Android device is phenomenal. Lee, you'll really enjoy When we finish recording this, I'm going to be going to play with it. So, I'll show you. Not that I'm excited. I'm very excited for this, too. But I'm also excited for that.
And for me, this last week, I've been in previous week, last week, I was in Edutech, which is an education event in um Melbourne. So, I spent the week there with my 12,000 of my closest education colleagues um talking about uh what's new and what's on the ground in in education. So, that was been uh that's been really great fun as well. So, it's a com scenes back on. Um I suppose some people are, you know, are able to travel, some people unfortunately aren't and are being cautious about that, which is which is absolutely fair enough. But uh it was nice to see people in the flesh and you know and also talk to you know a lot of people in education myself where you know really understanding what's happening there because we see a lot on the news about teacher shortages and stress and workloads and you know it was very evident that there's a lot of um stress coming in into that entire sphere at the minute and uh you know there's a lot of pressure on teachers and and and education. So it was good to see people but it was also kind of sad to get the reality from the shop floors. It was so yeah um uh that's what I've been up to. So Beth, who's our guest today?
Well, tell everybody.
We are very spoiled today. We've got one of Australia's best uh social innovation experts and entrep social entrepreneurs. So I have been blessed to know Jan Owen for just just over 10 years now actually. Um I worked for a nonprofit back in 2010 in um uh the school for social entrepreneurs and Jan Owen was on the board of the school and so it was a real privilege to meet Jan um uh 12 years ago and uh we've kept in touch ever since. and I have followed her work for many many years as she has um led some exceptional organizations and always circling around education innovation and the focus on on young people. So I was thrilled when Jan um agreed to participate in the pod and over to you Jan. Welcome. Thank you so much for joining us.
Thank you guys. So lovely to hear all of you and to hear your um things that you're working on at the moment which are diverse and uh and interesting very interesting to me now I'm like obsessed with dark mode and going to be distracted the whole
change your life change your life Jana tell
I know I know I'm very excited so um yeah it's great to be here and um as well as having a long association with Beth also obviously been doing bits and pieces of work with Microsoft and Beth has also aly represented Microsoft in some projects that we've been working on together as well so wonderful to be here on the pod.
Well, Jan, um we will get to some of the work that you're leading um now in a little bit, but I'd like us to start with a little bit about you. Um so, I was reading your uh biography on LinkedIn and I had to um actually look up some of the words um uh specific, but you have had such an incredible life and impact in the world. Can you give us a little bit of a snapshot of who you are and and what gets you excited and you know what your personal passions are? I I think there's a lot there.
That's right. And this usually is accompanied by a glass or bottle of wine. So, um just
Oh, hold on. Let's Let's all go get one. I
forgot to tell you.
This is not um Yeah, that's right. I've got this is really coffee that I'm holding in my hand. Um,
uh, well, Beth, I mean, I kind of like to talk about my story from a kind of a different I mean, obviously I've been really fortunate to do lots of different things and to have a really varied career and to um, have worked with and collaborated with ridiculously amazing people in Australia and around the world. But um, I don't know, I feel like sometimes it's good to remember where we all came from. And I was a a kid in what was really pretty much country Brisbane um in at the time and I um was also this kind of had three really strong influences that I think really impacted my entire career and my life. One was I was very entrepreneurial. I don't know why. I don't know where that came from. Um I um don't know much about my backstory. I was an adopted child. So everything that I did that was weird and different to everyone else in my family was obviously because of whatever I came from. And one of those things was I was very entrepreneurial. So, I was that 8-year-old kid who set up a kind of a lemonade stand at the end of their driveway um and sold lemonade to, you know, passing strangers and cars and so on. The only the only issue being that the end of that driveway was about uh 45 minutes out of Brisbane City uh where about two cars went by per day, one of those being my dad coming home to work. So, I saw exactly one glass of le homemade lemonade every day to my dad. Um, which was, you know, a lesson in in failing fast. Um, but I went on to just always work within my environment. So, this is a terrible story and you can't even really tell this story now, but I'm going to, where um, my dad worked at the University of Queensland. He was a very senior researcher and he helped invent sunscreen in Australia and all that kind of stuff. us kids were we we were the first trial of sunscreen. So all kinds of creams were put on us to test them and then we were put out in the sun to b
um but I he also was was linked to the veterary um the veterary school and we had many my my father was a man of um hobbies and so at one point we had a hund beehives on our on our acorage that we lived on and um in Queensland at that time toads and Dan I don't know if you know about toads but toads are a big deal They basically sit outside beehives and eat them as they come out. So they're they're not they're not any beekeepers friends. So I um I with my three younger brothers um who are all very close in age to me, but I was clearly kind of the boss of them uh we used to catch the toads and give and sell them to the University of Queensland because of course that's what toads and rats and mice are what um you know veterary surgeons and and lots of other people actually kind of do experiments on which as I said is not not really the greatest story. Um, but clearly from a very early age and this is kind of the second theme of my life became clear very early because I was the CEO and salesperson of toads.in and my brothers did all the work. So I sent them out in the middle of the night with the torches with the um plastic containers to catch the toads which had to be live which is terrible. And then I would organize the drop off which was organizing my my transport company being my mother to drop the toads off at the university. So I was very much in a leadership position from a very young age. Um and then the third theme of my life I guess was a very strong sense of social um justice. I my parents helped set up Lifeline in Australia. Um and in those days when Lifeline was set up you took a call which was an emergency call. Um you put the phone down, you then got in your car and you drove to the emergency. There wasn't a third party. So, because we were very young as children, we were often sitting under the desk at the lifeline office when those calls were taken. And um I definitely, you know, was in the back of the car as my parents went into family homes where there were, you know, very intense domestic violence disputes coming happening and came out with mothers and children. Um or I watched my father literally talk people down from jumping off the sort of story bridge in Brisbane. Um many a time from a really young age and those people would then come and stay at our house because there were no real services. There were kind of churches were the ones who did that work and that was kind of it. So at any point in time I would wake up in the morning and I wouldn't be in my bed. There'd be some other person in my bed or there'd be a family on our lounge room floor. And the thing that really came through to me though in all that was not actually necessarily those stories which were pretty horrific. It was that actually number one community supports each other and number two that actually with support you can reset and get back on your feet and that's what happened sometimes the mothers would leave the children with us for a while and then they would get on their feet and come back and collect their children and kind of move on. So that ability to kind of gather community around people and also reset your life were big really strong things that actually impacted my view about social policy and how um we need to be working better as communities and society. So, a kind of a weird entrepreneurial streak, um a strong kind of leadership streak, and then a kind of strong social justice was kind of three things that have really framed my entire life and everything I've done.
What an incredible story. I I think, you know, as a parent as well, you think a lot about the ways that you can shape your children. Um, and I have lots of conversations with with my daughter, but I think it's it's what you do as a person. in your own life that perhaps can have the the biggest impact. Um Jan, I know that uh you have had lots of different roles across lots of organizations, but I wanted to come to your time at the foundation for young Australians. So I just love the FYA. Um I know that you you're not there uh now, but you you led that organization for a long time. I'd love you to explore with us, you know, the the role that you see young people taking but then also some of the work that you were doing in regard to the future of work because I you that that work was happening in 2015. We hear a lot about it now but you were really one of the first organizations to be having that conversation. So is is that something you can share with us?
Yeah. So um as you say I think we were looking at the kind of landscape um that was occurring for young people what was coming and what the sort of future trends were and we were kind of very involved in education actually Beth which we're still being involved in of course as you know but um we sort of started to look beyond the horizon to the future of work and what would young people be going towards and therefore what would education need to look like to better prepare them. And so our first report um the new work order as it was called kind of looked at these very very big and significant themes, you know, around globalization, automation, and so on, and started to call those out and talk about what they would mean and the shifts in the world of work, um, and how they would impact young people. And then, of course, inevitably, we did get back to education because how we were the pathways and things that we were doing to prepare young people. But it was very leading work. Um, it was also leading work because we went to the demand side. So, obviously, you know, in There's a lot of conversation internally about what should we be doing, but we did things that had not been done previously. For instance, we looked at 4.6 million job advertisements across Australia and used, you know, some of the first data analytics work around to say what were the key themes and ideas that were coming through job ads. Not what the jobs were and not what the job ads were promoting, but what were they looking for? What were employers looking for? So I really found that um that sort of work every time we went to that sort of demand side we were bringing new information, new data into this very big conversation and of course we were interested in what it meant for young people. As it turns out those things were important for everybody in the workforce to understand the shift in skills and capabilities. The looking for what used to be called soft skills which we kind of outlawed that term in FYA very early and called them enterprise skills or kind of you know world global skills. So that kind of work, you know, we also looked at the entire economy in one of our reports and looked at 12 million jobs and how they might fit into clusters and we came up with the seven clusters. Again, we were foreshadowing what has now come to pass, which was growth in care, growth in the green economy, growth in technology. We were calling those things out in 2016, 2017 as really key themes. So it was a very exciting time to be talking about the future. work. Bringing that back to what must we then do to more effectively engage and prepare and actually inspire young people about the future work rather than bringing in the story about automation's going to kill jobs and the robots are coming. We were like, "No, no, no. This is an inspiring time to be in the world of work."
Hey, Jan, it's I I it's fascinating to hear you talk about this. I I had the chance to quickly read through the the new work mindset work that you'd also done. But like I I've got a 15-year-old son who's just in the cusp of doing his HSC. He's just done his HSC selections, you know, and he's heading into year 11 and I'm just reflecting on, you know, what you've written about and what you're saying, but then I see the world that he's living in, which is still very traditionally aligned to old educational norms. And he's picking these subjects and he's going to a careers adviser that's literally telling him, you know, you have the capacity, your your skills tell me you should be a and I kid you not, I think it's like a a a town planner or a software engineer. It was just this bizarre thing. So, what what's I mean, look, we should we'll get into the tech side of things and how tech's impacting this, but I'm really keen to get your view on is everything catching up with the thinking that you're having. Is the education system adapting to be to take advant to recognize that it's really the skills and as sorry, you said the word soft skills and I've talked about this a lot. Soft skills are really really hard, visceral, impactful, important skills. And I when I say to my son, he says, you know, what what what do you do in your job? And I say, well, I I talk to people. I engage in contact. I I build trust and I tr and these are soft things. I don't do anything hard and it, you know, it's all of these things. I'd love to get your thoughts on how how you might talk to a 15-year-old about these things and and how the education system's adapting to be ready for what you're describing.
Well, how I would talk to It's all really good points, Lee, and I'm sort of sad to hear that story about your son, by the way, but it's the first time that I've I've heard that story either. Um, in fact, many, many, many times. So, we've still obviously the system is still lagging. Um, because everything that you said to your son about what you do, um, and how you do it, um, was exactly what our our reports showed. I mean, they said things like what employers want is people who can communicate, people who can collaborate, people who can um design, people who can think um across cultural divides, you know. All these things that were what we would call you know as I said used to be called like nice to haves are now absolutely core. It doesn't mean that you don't need technical skills of course. So nobody's saying that you shouldn't do reading and writing or you shouldn't look at an area of kind of a vertical that you're passionate and interested in but it does mean that we're trying to round out and have a much more holistic view. The other reason for this and one of the drivers is that the shelf life of an average university degrees down to about two years. So you know every employer is talking constantly about upskilling, reskilling or even more importantly as of right now learning in flow of work and life. Like how do you learn in the flow of work and life? So we've got to say to 15y olds things like guess what? Don't worry too much about one big decision or one big career because you're going to have seven jobs in five different industries across your lifetime. Now, good news, that doesn't mean 17 different degrees or courses. Just means that actually jobs and skills are more linked than we thought. So, what you want to focus on is what are the transferable skills and capabilities that you have. You know, are you really good at teamwork and collaboration? Are you really good at kind of entrepreneurial thinking? Develop those things. Develop those skills and capabilities and you will find that they are applicable. able across many many many jobs. That's what our research showed. Um, don't get hung up on the one. And by the way, once you get into one industry, and the care economy is a great one at the moment. So is the green economy. Once you get in there, it's like a lily pad. You can jump from job to job and including there's a bunch of lily pads that we don't know what those jobs are yet, but with thinking about skills and capabilities, you can move around. So, you know, there would be immediately there's about 30 jobs that are linked without you having to go back and do another degree. Because one of the things that happened in the 2000s is that young people got trapped in this idea that you had to keep literally getting more qualifications to get a job. And that was actually the biggest kind of con really around the world of young people, which had them ending up in massive debt, by the way, because they were told, "You've just got to keep studying. You're not prepared, so keep studying." Whereas actually what we need to do is work out what are those skills and capabilities? How do you recognize and articulate those much more clearly? And from 15ly, from your son's age, what is he doing in school, out of school, around school, with his friends, at home, with you? Um, which will get us to learning creates in a second, but we're trying to understand much more how you recognize and articulate the whole person.
You're making an assumption there about a 15-year-old and having conversations with his father, of course, which is, you know, not something we have. Can I ask
Can I ask a question? Can I ask a quick question as well? You know, reflecting back on the research you've done and now, you know, we've had a couple of conversations on this podcast in the last month about how the pandemic has changed adults experiences in work and uh you know the the needs of employers and employees now is changing. When you look back and reflect on some of that because it was amazing when you were articulating that that those things you so long ago are still so relevant now. Is there anything when you reflect back that that may or may not be relevant to this new pandemic era that we've just come out of or still in
uh yeah still still in is it sort of endemic now isn't it? Um then I think that probably none of us predicted I mean you know none of us predicted that we would be using platforms in the way that we're using. So you know Microsoft teams or all those all the things um that we would have such access to the kind of technology that is available and I think that's definitely changed. We didn't we weren't really thinking about that back then at all um and how that would lead to better flexibility and better choices in terms of how you worked and studied. But I'm still you know to me I think we just still need to be a bit careful. You know there's still um 250,000 families in Australia. That's a lot by the way. 50,000 households that don't have secure Wi-Fi and internet. Um so you know there's a there's an equity issue here that is still although we may be moving quickly into the future um I think in Australia at least we would have a very strong view as a community that that should be everyone should be getting access to that that opportunity should be for all. So you know although we've seen some of these changes and maybe some leaps Dan I don't know that they are equitable yet Um, and I think we maybe would have said that back then as well around even some of the opportunities for young people in the future of work. How, you know, what are the barriers to those opportunities?
Jan, I want to there's something you said when you were talking about that period of time, I think you said the early 2000s where young people were sort of encouraged to just overeducate, you know, and focus on this kind of continual learning process. And I think about the time that, you know, when I was in the sort of 80s and 90s when I was forming my career and it was all about get a job, get stability, get into one place and stay there. And we've gone through these phases and so I hear a lot about this phrase of being the gig economy phase. Love to get your thoughts on that word, the gig economy. Is it a real thing? Does it does it bely the true nature of what it is? Is it a good description of what our future looks like for for young people's careers?
Yeah, I mean it's a really good one, Lee, isn't it? Because obviously also in technology, it's been a gig economy for quite a few decades for lots of people actually. So in fact, that was probably one of the leading areas of the gig economy that and hosp um which has always been a gig economy. So it's not a new idea. I think the reality though is that two things about the gig economy I think. Number one is that um it isn't all kind of sexy co-working spaces and lots of drinks on Friday afternoon, you know, with really cool people with whoever who only wear t-shirts. Um it's actually, you know, for a lot of people it's an insecure and very precarious The gig economy showed up in a very ugly way in the pandemic and we saw that through age care for instance where we discovered what lots of people knew but nobody talked about that people had many jobs and were having to go from job to job to job to make a job to make a whole job to get enough money to pay the rent. Now that might be okay in hospital but it definitely wasn't okay in age care as it turned out in the middle of a pandemic. So let's kind of get a reality and kind of take off the rosecolored glasses on the gig. economy, what it really is and what it really means. However, on the other hand, if you actually try if you are actually to get more conscious about the gig economy and understand how those gigs may uh help you build out that kind of skills and capabilities that you're looking for and um you are able to articulate those across different things, I think that's fine. So, you know, whenever I say to whenever I I go to schools and talk to 15y olds, I say, you know, when I grew up and where my parents grew up, there was like a one path. You chose your path. Um, there was often a sort of a ladder. It was quite relentless. You got up the top of the ladder if you're lucky. You know, after whatever 40 years, you got a gold pen and off you went, you know, in Australia, Dan, you put a caravan on the back of your car, drove around Australia, went home, retired, and died. Like, that was it. Good life. I've got no problem with the go around Australia caravan. I'm not I'm not dissing that. But now you know, and then you say to a 15-year-old, there's that or there's um what looks more like a jungle gym where you go up and down and in and out and you have a lot of different experiences, but you're on the jungle gym and so things are linked and joined up. And to a person, if I say, "Which one do you want?" Most of them go, "I'll go the jungle gym." I don't know if that's because they've just come out of primary school and it was all jungle gyms literally, but you know that idea that it's okay if you are if it's a jungle gym as long as you can link it as long as you can link things and I think we found this a lot where you know I if I've met one I've met a million baristas who have got two or three degrees now being a barista is not going to help them get get to the path of the kind of degree that they were whereas if they could even get um a casual or start to think of their first job in the area that they might be interested in then it will be a much smoother pathway for them. So, you know, all of this is about thinking about how do you utilize that idea um to create flexibility to create opportunity to link things. Um so, it's not that I want to, you know, kill the gig economy so much as I'm I don't want it to be precarious and insecure and I don't want it to be meaningless actually that, you know, so they're the things we're looking for.
That's really insightful and that that whole point sorry Beth I mean that underlying in sort of insidious reality of it is something that often gets lost. So, it's great that you you bring that out. Sorry, Beth.
No, I was just going to ask Jan. Um, you know, we'll get into Learning Creates in after this, I think, but I can you tell me I I think one thing that I've always admired about your work and about your process is the way that you involve people in the decision making and that through all of the work that you've championed over the years, you've actually put the the you know the client as it were. So young people with the foundation for young Australians, you put them in the driver's seat and you've empowered them to talk about what they want and you know what they're scared about and what can you tell us a little bit about the process that you you undertake to do this research where you're really empowering those people to be the you know the authors of their own destiny as it were.
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean I think Beth as you know that and increasingly I think this is definitely a trend. You know the three things I talk about all the time when I do you know a lot of public speaking which I do and it doesn't matter which audience which I think is super interesting whether I'm talking to business or parents or students or teachers. I talk a lot about agency kind of meaning and purpose and mastery sort of three really really key themes. And so you know agency and that sense of autonomy that sense of being able to to um not only create your own kind of adventure but also contribute um and having the agency and the skills and the opportunity and capability to do that and also the confidence I think is incredibly important and I think they are linked to a sense of purpose and meaning I think you have a greater sense of agency if you have a sense of purpose and meaning in what you're doing you do feel more confident you are more committed you are more passionate um and then the old the age-old idea of mastery which it is an ancient idea A actually which I think we've lost because as much as we can say you know you can and my son has definitely done this he has crafted and launched a career on Tik Tok with tiny videos. Um so as much as you can learn very quickly and in snapshots the idea of actually uh deeper learning over time the idea which is a lost art of kind of finding a master or mistress um and having that kind of you know deep mentoring over time um Those things to me are all absolutely linked. You you will have much stronger agency if you have purpose and meaning and if you have mastery where you're gaining learning and understanding. And so that's that's always been my frame on this. It hasn't been like you should engage young people because it's a good thing to do. My frame has been agency, purpose, and meaning and mastery are all linked. They're all one story about who we are, what we believe in, and how we want to contribute to the world. So if you are thinking about how you give effect to that in every context whether it's a work context a school context a family context dare I say um because we learn most of these things in our family
around the kitchen table um the the way that you give effect to that I think is how is how it it shows up in your life and so these things started for me when I was you know when I was a very very young mother and I was a young mother um and you know we we started when my children were three we would start, you know, we had family dinner around the table was locked and loaded. Um, at that time it was hard to get people off Minecraft, Dan. Um, but but pretty much it was, you know, let's have this time and every single night we would go around the table and say, what did we see and learn and hear today? Um, and what what made me what happened that made me think differently about something? So that inquiry kind of open curious mindset. Um, and our kids still did it. You know, we also had once a year, which we used to do on Australia Day, was just kind of the day where there was everyone had a shared kind of public holiday, but um you know, we would have a day where we planned and again from when my kids were three, we would plan the year ahead. It was always around three things like school and work, kind of learning and personal development, and then kind of family. And we had this sort of trifecta going all the time where you would plan against each of those things. And then we'd have a midyear review and then we come back. So, Sounds a bit like a business. It wasn't. It was much more fun than that. But you know, we just these ways of thinking have just always been part of whether I was at create Beth where you know I with with young people in care we set up the first consumer body of young people in out of home care and foster care across the country. So and you know I was one of those kids. So it's just how do you how do you bring that just way of thinking into everything your family life your work life your um just your relationships. And so it's very it's it's not something that I kind of impose. It's just a way of working and being in the world. Jan, can I ask you a question on something you brought up there because you were describing this sounds like a seemingly perfectly fam perfect family life of sitting around the table having that conversation which I aspire to. But I wonder what your view is. You know, I look at kids today who whose lives revolve around technology in the same way that as in the 80s probably revolved around movies and music and to the same extent our parents hated that as we probably now hate the way our kids live on technology but it's a real delicate balance because in some ways it's destroying their like you know kids don't read like they used to do they don't learn in the same way they learn in microlearning on YouTube and other things but they're also developing this capability to exist in the world that we can't foresee yet because I'm old and they're young and they're going to do things that I don't get what's your view on technology and kids and how it's helping shape them to be ready for that world of work of the future.
Yeah. I mean my my view on technology is exactly the same view that probably it must have happened when um you know washing machines were introduced um in the industrial revolution and all the maids and laundry people in the world went on strike and you've got these pictures in London and the UK where they were you know there were hordes of them going down the down the road and of course it was um stabilizing. Of course, it did change the way people worked. Of course, some people, you know, had to upskill and reskill to use a washing machine. And yes, it became also though um it democratized that whole, you know, we all started doing our own washing instead of relying on other people to do it. And I honestly I think this I think about these I think we've got to have a a backwards, forwards, and a forwards future view about all of this. Um I do believe that technology is just another one of those. Um, Lee and I do think it is really ubiquitous obviously. I think it is clearly incredibly important, an incredibly important tool and it has absolutely revolutionized our lives and will continue to and including democratize many things from education to work to access to work. Um, a million reasons, banking, insurance, all the things that technology can give particularly people in developing econ economies, you know, the ability to leapfrog a whole lot of um poor conditions to get to a better place. And I also understand that on the flip side, it is also um incredibly um I don't want to use the harm the word harmful, but it's incredibly challenging in some of the ways that it's used. So, yes, I do think that um social media is really complex and also extremely um destructive. ive for some young people and children also adults. Um so I just you know I don't think we can dump technology all in one as you guys know way better than me because you're Microsoft. I think we just need to think very carefully about um where do we need to I think regulate. You know there's a lot of conversation about the metaverse at the moment and I would love us not to end up with the Silicon Valley of the metaverse. I would love the metaverse to be much more democratize. I'd love government to get involved much sooner. Um because not everybody is a Bill Gates as we know and has a kind of altruistic worldview. Um so I do feel like there is a much bigger conversation about how does the community and the society and the citizens want to use the technology and how might we make collective decisions rather than a bunch of decisions by some guys out of Silicon value about how we're going to use technology. And I do think with new platforms, we need to really push and um argue and also hold the line that we need to have a much much more democratized um view about this and conversation about this and government must must must step up and not wait for things to happen and then try to melate the you know the the difficulties. So I went from the kind of your sons and our children's to kind of the the policy environment there. Sorry, but I do think it is a policy conversation actually and yes it does impact our children.
Yeah, I totally agree there and and you know as as parents or you know people who who work with kids you know regularly you know you get caught in conversations and headlines a lot and and sometimes you know it's the policy that needs to change and we need to think about this at a bigger bigger picture. You know I got caught up last uh last week in in a school kind of WhatsApp community around you know, where the mobile phones should be banned. You know, this is the a perennial thing that happens, doesn't it? When uh when when there's a school that removes mobile phones and it's so nuanced a lot of the research and things that happens in there. So, yeah, I think that, you know, and then the and the work you've done in the in the past has really resonated a lot and and the work you're continuing to do now. So, maybe you can give us a bit of a insight, Jan, on to learning creates the the the work you're doing now and and what the ambitions are for the learning creates program.
Yeah. So that the learning creates work came out of all the FYA work. Um so we sort of set up Learning Crates while I was still at FYA was sort of a a kind of a legacy project around that sort of education like we're going to have to yes we can talk about the future work but we're going to have to work on education learning. Um and so the and all the themes that we already had I think came together but what we decided to do was um focus focus in on a particular area that we thought might have the biggest impact and that was if you could change the way that we assessed what young people know and can do that would have the biggest impact on the system. So right now in Australia you know we have this magical thing called ATR which is like the kind of be all and endor of um of high school um and you know you kind of live and die on that and of course when you get into the research you don't live and die on ATR within 12 months of having finished your HAR, nobody cares, nobody asks you about it. Um, and yet you've kind of invested a whole lot of time, effort, and processes and systems in something that actually may not be fit for purpose anymore and may not serve us. When also ATR, like Nat plan, by the way, was never really meant to be a big league table. We weren't meant to be doing the the rugby here or the AFL here. It was meant to be just ways that people could track how young people were going, including young people and parents and schools themselves. So, things have kind of got blown to be bigger than they really are. But our so we've worked for the last two years on a project that started to look at um how could we have a new assessment and recognition system that was valid um that was trusted and that recognized all that young people can do not just an academic record um at the end of year at the end of senior secondary um and so that's been a fantastic experiment. We had a big collaboration consortium around that including Microsoft has been part of that. We've worked very closely with the University of Melbourne and a whole bunch of other people. But we did it a bit differently as as Beth knows which is what she sort of intimated in how we do things which was we set about kind of a challenge question about how might we develop this recognition system and we decided to go sort of from the ground up. So rather than sort of from the top down let's just go and lobby ministers we said let's go and talk to people in communities and schools in communities and let's pro type some different ways that this might be done. So we use code design and human- centered design methodology um partnered really closely with Price Waterhouse Coopers and the difference um the impact assembly sorry there and started to work in communities and with teachers and students and um young people that weren't students who were students and industry and start to say what might it look like if we had a different system what might that look like. So right now we've got a fantastic project going in central Queensland with um some schools around um a first nations project which is looking at again how does first nations knowledge and experience and expertise and ways of learning get better integrated into particularly for um young aberiginal and toristra islander young people how does that get represented in their representation of themselves so if you are you know right now if you are a young person in many um schools. If you're a originalinal touristra islander and you went to for instance go and do something that was culturally important in your community, it might be as simple as going and doing acknowledgement in a country in another part of your suburb or at another organization. You would be marked absent from school. Now, that doesn't seem right, does it? That something that you're doing which is culturally appropriate and a massive contribution to your community and to your culture is not understood and articulated as oh no that's actually part of your learning from your from a cultural perspective. Um equally if a young person um is looking after a family member who has a disability or a mental health issue or um or is doing something in their community and they're not at school for a particular day. Why don't we better understand what they know and can do as a result of being a carer? Why isn't that articulated into their their whole story about themselves? So we'll see a lot of tools emerging from learner profiles to career portfolios. There's a bunch of words flying around. You probably heard them at edtech, Dan. Um, but we'll start to hone in on number one, what might a what I call a beyond the ATAR era look like in Australia? And by the way, this is a global conversation. So, what does it look like to get beyond this kind of one narrow lens on a person at that sort of senior secondary level and then how might we articulate it? How will we assess it? How will we make sure that you for instance as an employer trust a sort of an an assessment or or a portfolio or a a profile that somebody comes to you with that says this is what I know and can do. Yes, it's got academic records in it but it's got all these other things and I want to show you who I am as a whole person even as a 16 17 year old. That's the work. Long way to go. We're just at the beginning. Um, but the work is, you know, very very much involves young people at the center driving this. Um, but also communities including First Nations communities and also industry partners like Microsoft are incredibly important to test and validate um, this work. Um, and of course we are working with governments along the way. Um, and uh, South Australia where some of you are and Beth is is one of the leaders in this in the country. So we're definitely working with governments and engage with governments and policy makers. But we wanted to see what it looked like to design from the ground up some of the solutions or ideas.
I love that be beyond thinking because it is such a pivotal moment and an emotional strain on young people. Um let's set aside the energy and effort they have to put in and that and I mean I'm just looking and it happens to be this week as you probably would know in the UK it's their uh university announcement week. So and I'm seeing all this stuff in Twitter about parents dealing with kids who didn't quite get a score and so this is sort of a life destroying moment and of course it isn't but you know but that's the that's the world we built and so I think it's just amazing what you've thought about uh Janet um you the way you're thinking about this problem is inspiring so thank you
and I think Lee you know the myth busting is really important like for instance people don't know that 48% of students who go to universities didn't go with the
so who knew like straight up like that's half students didn't aren't entering with an ATAR. So, like it's already kind of a bit, you know, of a of a legacy piece.
Yeah. When I was when I was doing um in charge of like the sixth form education in the UK when I was teaching, we used to do like a record of achievement uh and and it was like a just a document that I'd made up in publisher or whatever at the time. And it was they they'd go to their lessons, but then they'd have to do community service and other stuff. So, a we'd fill their time in in the the timetable. So, they weren't just going off um and and doing other things. But if they genuinely cared about something in the community, like some would work in old people's homes, some would work in the local vet, some are working already. A lot actually, in fact, were working already. So, it's a good opportunity for them to fill that personal record in. It was really helpful then when you they were writing CVs because kids when they write CVs these days, they'll kind of sit there and go, "These are my qualifications." And the qualitative stuff that they do are often forgotten. They they don't realize that actually the skills they've learned, you know, washing dishes in the local Italian restaurant or whatever are really beneficial for for the jobs of the future. So, it's great that you you're working on that. I I really hope that the governments and things can start to really embed that in in curriculum and policy because it always seems that exactly like you said that we need this there's like an old mechanism in curriculum and assessment and design and university entrance that needs to be broken and nobody has ever cracked that before. That's right. There's a lot of work to do and um I think yeah I I I think if we can bust some myths and also if I think we can um get that recognition Dan because as you say I think everybody's always had these stories but they were kind of bolt-ons or nice to have extras. It's about how we were talking about soft skills Lee. So now we're saying no no no you can actually assess the skills and capabilities that that of those things and that really changes the game because that then does make it very valid and a trusted kind of source if we can have it assessed. So we're kind of yes all the things is about you know taking all of those to the next level um is a very exciting time and again this is global work this is not just an Australian story this is a global story so um hopefully it means that over time young people and children and young people have a much better um ability to feel like they do have agency in their in their education learning in their life and as I said linking that to their sort of purpose and meaning about even their learning not that I was a um you know captive of the education system but it was a genuine part of my life that was sort of had meaning and purpose and enabled me to also explore and be curious about all the things I was interested at that time and then you know as I said that leads to that sense of the desire for mastery and for deep learning um and to find people that you can learn with and grow with.
I I think listening to you, Jan, one of the things that occurs to me with my own daughter is to get her to learn to love learning because, you know, if if nothing else, we are all going to need to become lifelong learners. Um I know we've run out of time, Jan. I feel like I could listen and talk to you for for a lot longer. I do hope that we um get to see the um widespread adoption cloning technology because I I'd like to nominate you to be cloned several times over, Jan. I think we need about 600 more of you. Um, you do the most incredible work and you continue to inspire all of us. Thank you so much for everything that you do and thank you so much for joining us on the pod.
Absolutely.
Thank you. It's been fantastic. Thank you guys and good luck with your brilliant work as well. Um, really, really, really powerful and we love working with you. So, thank you.
Thanks, Jen.
Thanks,