Ricardo is CEO and major stakeholder of SEMCO SA and director of FIESP (Industry Federation of São Paulo)

He has a bachalor degree in laws from USP (University of São Paulo) and a degree in Business from Harward

He is author of international best-sellers like Turning the tables (Mavericks)

and Seven Days Weekend.

in 1990 created the Ralston/Semler Foundation with the goal to research and

contribute to find solutions for innovation in the education of Brazil.

He is also the cretor of the Project Lumiar Sinapses. With the word, Ricardo Semler.

First I need to complain with Positivo because it's not fair to put me after Nicolélis.

I didn't invent anything, nothing will be walking around because of me

But...

when I think about our current moment in education

it reminds me the story of the guy that will

do skydive and they tell him that he only needs three things

first

to open that parachutes he should press the green button

if it doesn't open...

then press the red button

and when you land don't start to walk around because a Van will come to pick you up.

The man jumps, press the first button

nothing happens

he thinks, keep calm, keep calm, you have the second button. He press the second button

and nothing happens and then he thinks...

Now, I hope the Van is still waiting for me.

The feeling I have is that we came from the

greek education

approach,

with a tutor.

From the concept that

education is something for few people.

Then we passed through a moment

of middle age

where a lot was lost

and restarted again with the Iluminism

idea the you have to train the brain.

And education is basically about the brain.

And the brain is

naturally taken, like we heard here already,

to a perspective where you can measure,

and things you can understand and also

the market and employment...

and that we are trying to create people to power the current market and work force

but we don't understand the current market even less the future one.

And in a second moment, and what I think is the second button in the parachute

Henry Ford's idea that it's not doable. To educate everybody...

you have to create an assembly line.

The schools we have today are the result of that. Well, simplifying:

I have millions of kids I need to to prepare

for the market. How can I do that?

Let's see

They asked the University of Chicago,

in 1908,

also the same year

of the assembly line from Ford,

How can I dod that?

And the answer was...

What is the attention span of a kid?

Around 53 minutes was the answer, at that time.

How many kids I can put in the same room?

Considering the louder a

teacher can communicate and not stress himself toi much

and also keep the order

...

around 35 kids

And how can I share the knowledge?

Don't know, ask the biologist, the mathematician, and everyone comes up with their plan

So, mr. biologist, what's the deal?

Hum, first we start with amoeba, and then that, and then the division, so on and so forth.

What about Math? First addition, then subtraction, some numbers here, sine and cosine... got it?

Then you think, well, I'm gonna create something called Curriculum.

I put everything side by side and I'm gonna create people who passed through everything

but is absolutely schizophrenic,

necessarily schizophrenic.

They passed through all that because the student takes a Trigonometry 2 class

then goes to history of Japan, to cell division, and then

he has to find a way to put everything together. It is absolutely impossible e nobody ever did that.

With time, the University of Chicago started to measure that

And concluded that the american curriculum (with 1552 pages at the moment) detailing what

should be taught

in which year and age

and concluded that the retention of knowledge

of the students who went through that system

was 6.7%.

Which means you are

in a business that 92, 93% of failure

and that's what we do.

Then you think, who is going to find a better approach for us?

Maybe consultants could be a good idea

and academic researches,

And now we are talking about the Van,

that...

will never arrive.

Or the entrepreneur that comes from outside, no, everything is wrong.

let me explain to you: management

change the principal and the director

and recycle the teachers

Got it?

But that man who is teaching you

has also almost the same rate of failure. 91% of the companies doesn't last more than 20 years.

91.1% of the companies...

The man who

learned

that 91% of what he does fail, is teaching someone with a

93% rate of failure.

There is something wrong.

The notion of making marginal improvements

in a system

that is obsolete by definition, by design

is nuts

and we are doing that more and more

because we are getting

anxious

to realize that it is not working.

And I'm not talking about Brazil only.

There's no exception in the world.

There's no place in the world, not even in Finland, or any place

where people are completely happy with their education system.

But we are making it work

based on a rules somebody invented.

The OECD came up with the Pisa exam that tests Portuguese (or English) and Math

wait?!

But 4

of the 5th best places in the world accordingly to that, are dictatorships

Have you ever stopped to think about? That's what we are trying to mimic

The best placed in the Pisa exam

is the communist dictatorship of Shanghai.

The other is Korea, where the student spend 12 hours per day in class, including Saturdays and still have

home-work.

And we are saying that this is the formula to generate

happy people

No! That a formula to generate a lot of people that learn to memorize 12 hours a day

and then take a an exam of language and math and goes well.

Will that approach

generate people capable for the market on a new world? No way!

When you entered in this profession did you get in thinking I'm gonna learn

the rules

learn the right ways

and control those kids

or did you have an ideal?

That idea was lost long ago.

Your lost ideal

mixed with kids that don't want to be in class.

And people discuss why schools more and more looks like Febens (brazilian reformatory)

It's because the Febens improved. Am I wrong?

Febens doesn't have watchtowers anymore and other things.

And the schools have metal detectors and high walls

So it's getting closer.

The question is why we are doing that? Because they don't want

to be there.

If you let they will runway

so you can't allow that.

Now that the kids are here, we have them for 13 years at our availability

And what we'll do with them?

Well let's

give them all the curriculum for math, biology, history and etc.

And then we'll commit a

fraud that we all agreed to.

I'm gonna give an exam because the parents, the mayor, etc

are all asking if you are doing well.

I'm gonna give you an exam

of a content

that if it's compared with the internet, on average,

would be a tiny fraction of what is available on Google about the same subject

I'm gonna cover just that tiny fraction

and I teach you that way: I write, you copy, I write, you copy, I write, you copy...

and at the end I say

done, the exam will be just about these things because if I don't say

what's gonna be covered the grades would miserable.

So, I'm gonna make a deal with you, I tell you what I'm gonna cover

I'm ok with cheating and everything else that helps

and when it is a Prova Brazil (national exam to evaluate schools), I let the worst students get "sick",

strangely in the exam's day. Am I wrong? Just a coincidence.

And them when it's done

I plot a chart. I get the best and I put here

and the worst here

and, well, we are not so bad, we have 4.3 which matches the national average

And then you think... there must be something wrong!

How

on this format, the kids learn?

I have 5 little kids at home

and people used to tell me: you have to learn to learn.

When you have a kid

starting to walk

like 9 months

you think you are helping them to learn to walk

it is more or less

like this, come... come...

Do you walk like that?

But that's how you teach right?!

But maybe the come from factory ready to learn.

We, as adults, learning a second language, it is hard...

third language, horrible

but they learn a language while learning to speak

and you try to teach them: fa-fat-fa-ther

And then they: Fish! Am I wrong? Well...

There's something happening and we are failing to understand it

in the school world.

I even have an example

at home,

on how...

on how those kids think.

We had a problem at home, where Fernanda, my wife, was alway too anxious

to

travel or even to go to São Paulo because our girls are too young,

we have twins,

2 years and half.

They understood we had nanys

and the nanys where there but sometimes

they had their day off.

But Fernanda, always very anxious.

And one day,

the girls talking, the twins,

and the mother was in São Paulo,

and of the girls asked:

Where is mom?

And Olívia replied:

well, of course, it's her day off,

right, Letícia?!

And after that we solved all anxiety problems of the mom

because is just had to explain that it was a day off and they said "Ah, ok, bye!".

I never had more problems

because they had understood that in that way.

So,

with format of current schools,

it is passing through a moment where we

are feeling the anxiety and pain

that the system doesn't work here,

o in the US,

or England,

or Japan.

And there is a feeling until your 18 years old that thing is a torture.

And we are practicing that toture if really low

levels of success

and we fooling ourselves saying: the only we can is to recycle a little bit, put

more computers, etc.

A study from

OECD

showed

that with a linear research of 11 year that

the usage of computers

in the school doesn't make a small difference.

It makes ZERO difference!

It made 0 difference in their study per 11 years.

And we are fooling ourselves to believe

that we need to revitalize,

modernize a method that completely obsolete

It is like adding a new

'engine' in an Opala (old Brazilian car)

77

and then we keep polishing it... polish it here and there

and it will look beautiful.

There is something wrong!