These days, people are busy reflecting on 2017 and looking forward to 2018. As I look back, my 2017 is a year of graduation. Looking at my personal growth over the year feels like reading a notebook on educational innovation. And I believe it is time to make a year-end review. After graduating from Zhongguancun No. 3 Primary School in Beijing, I enrolled in the Innovative Experimental Class of the High School Attached to Capital Normal University in 2007. In 2010, I was admitted to the Day Yuan Experimental Class of Beijing No. 4 High School. In Autumn 2014, I was accepted by Minerva, one of the most pioneering university in the world. Given my educational background, I quite often receive invitations to speak. Young parents often ask me the question of “how to develop their kids." There are even documentary directors and media outlets that would like to document my daily life for extended periods. I am being considered as an icon of educational innovation, more commonly known as a guinea pig.

I have been through many kinds of “innovation”, and I personally talked a lot about “innovation”. But when it comes to articulating what educational innovation really is, suddenly it seems not that easy after all. 

To start with, I could not think of a catchy title for today’s talk. It reminded me of the book What We Talk About When We Talk About Love by Raymond Carver. Then Haruki Murakami’s book What I Talk About When I Talk About Running came to my mind. This pattern sounds cool. I quickly ran my title through my search engine just to make sure I didn’t repeat what others created. Guess what? Boy, you find a similar title for just any debatable topic: women, the Chinese soccer team, Donald Trump, Scorpio, you name it.

So, the title of my talk today is: what do we talk about when we talk about educational innovation? In the first section, I would like to share my educational experience and present a number of case studies about educational innovation at the organizational level. This will be followed by some of my personal thoughts on individual-oriented educational innovation. What is the rationale for educational innovation? What kind of education successfully nurtures individuals?

What. What is educational innovation?

 Let me start with a typical day at my university. I might be attending classes with my laptop, or joining a class from an airport lounge. In afternoons when my class schedule is empty, I might be taking a walk outside, or spending the entire afternoon in a museum, or talking to the most vibrant groups of people in town. These are all photos from the last semester. Take a look at the official Instagram account of my university. Nature, city, communities, dialogues, games, contemplation... In this way, technology changes how a classroom works. It changes recruitment criteria. It redefines curricula. It creates a diverse and immersive international environment. In doing so, an independent education model is created, which seems like a breath of fresh air, a microclimate in the overall climate of higher education, one that is evolving rapidly. This is innovation in teaching methods.

Later, I started to search for educational innovation practices in other places. One example is Staatliches Bauhaus, and I visited the Bauhaus Archive when I was in Berlin. From its spatial arrangement, its ways of teaching, to the need to connect with the industry, all these in Bauhaus represent modernity and freedom. Take teaching as an example. At that time, no design school would be ready to allow teachers to freely lead curriculum design. Students did not only have to learn the comprehensive knowledge in many fields, but they were also encouraged to be creative for pragmatic industrial needs. Bauhaus revolutionized the aesthetics and culture of the field of design, and this is innovation in educational concepts.

In November I was invited to participate in the World Innovation Summit for Education, or WISE, held in Doha and listened to the talks given by winners of the WISE Award. One of the projects based in Tanzania uses mobile phones and televisions as a tool to teach basic subjects to children through animations. The programs are now freely available in 27 African countries, involving over 5 million families in Africa each week. This is truly incredible. Although I have never been to Tanzania, I understand the magnitude of this data. It’s easy to label this as an innovation in applying technology in education. But this is relatively easy when compared with the innovation of educational communication as it has the potential to transform societies.

Another element of educational innovation is the innovation of organizational arrangements. In counties like UK, Japan, and of course China, we have seen the emergence of public-private partnerships in education, which involves collaboration among governments, individuals and private entities. This enables better allocation of resources and collaboration among public and private players, which will enhance the provision of educational resources.

As you see, educational innovation involves many different levels and ways, which makes it difficult for us to define it succinctly. It seems as if this is only the concern of governments, institutions and educators, it’s more of organizational practice, and that students job is simply to receive whatever signal and environment given. While as students we all yearn for education that fits us best, and we dream of a school or a policy that is perfectly in our favor. In other words, we tend to seek innovation from the external environment. But today I encourage you to look at educational innovation from a different perspective: when does educational innovation happen? Where does it originate from?

When. When does educational innovation happen?

Hermann Hesse is a German writer I admire. He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1946. In his novel Demian, Hesse depicted the life of a young boy confused about life. In fact, Hesse himself had gone through a boyhood full of confusion. He loathed studying. He wandered around and worked odd jobs, defying public schooling. I remember feeling deeply moved after reading his biography. How stubborn and sensitive was he to be able to “disobey” schooling so frequently?

Take Hua Luogeng, a renowned mathematician we all know. Although he did not complete formal education when he was young, he was patient in self-studying all the way regardless what situation he was in. What it takes to make a great mathematician is not an inborn gift or a sudden revelation. Rather, it takes self-studying and creating the right conditions for learning day after day.

Pablo Picasso. Having seen his exhibition, anyone would be captivated by the work he produced during the so-called “Blue Period”. Of course, he would establish his own styles and initiated the Cubist movement later in life. But his departure towards distinctive individualistic styles started much earlier. Before that, his art education was quite a bumpy venture. Deciding which schools to attend, moving to between Paris, Barcelona and other cities of art, visit museums, he was constantly on the move. He pursued a kind of education that would not limit or hinder his artistic expression, an education that gave him his personal styles. 

Frank Owen Gehry. Last week in Paris, I re-visited the Fondation Louis Vuitton, which is design by Gehry. It is the building towards the top right corner. On the bottom right corner, you can see his sketches which laid the groundwork for the final design. To the left is the Guggenheim Museum, a better-known work by Gehry. A few years back, I read some biographies of famous architects. In one of them Gehry described his student life as follows:

I moved to California and worked as a truck driver in order to earn money. In the evenings I went to university and took some art courses and met artists. Later I became a “free” student of Harvard. I was given a card which allows me to take all the courses, although without course credit. Paul Rudolph and I participated in an architecture studio together, and E. Sackler gave us a few lectures on the golden ratio. Although no longer with the college of planning, I was still keenly interested in these lectures. I also took many courses about government and policy.

Raise your hand if you study as hard as Gehry. 

Similar to these four masters, many great figures had a turbulent education experience when they were young. But a commonality is they all take active control of their education to obtain the unique source of knowledge. They created their own learning opportunities and define education in their own way, instead of being confined to their classrooms and their formal education background.

Regardless of what levels of inborn talent they have, they are all able to use their own creativity to lead innovation in their respective fields. So, I guess the creativity of individuals usually originates from their creativity towards education and learning.If education is the enlightenment of others, then educational innovation is the enlightenment of one’s self.

When we talk about educational innovation, we tend to talk about the entire ecosystem, policies, institutional arrangements. But when we turn our perspective towards individuals we see those lifetime transformations, although for sure are somehow affected by the environment, depend more on personal uplifting and hard work.Educational innovation starts from self-evolution.

Where. Where does educational innovation happen?

Education has its societal attributes. All innovations originate from an organic framework of geographic and social spaces. I used to believe, having been to many places, I would have seen many vivid examples and effective models of educational innovation. But today, my train of thought brings me back to the simple yet straightforward starting point. I believe educational innovation starts from individuals. If we look back at the history of education, from agricultural civilization, through industrial civilization, to information civilization, we see educational innovation happens in singular threads of our economic and cultural life. In whichever era we look at, there’s no lack of hardworking educators. Education has been an important area of public spending, and schools are constantly being improved. It seems education itself never requires any innovation because the values of truth and learning remain constant. Regardless of its environment, a society does produce great minds and average minds. All through the history of humankind, educational innovation has been invisible but rich. When we look at a person’s life, we ask less about educational innovation of their times, but more about their creation and contribution to the society. 

Take my classmates, my friends and even myself for example. Every time we took an exam or went for an opportunity, we didn’t do it just for fun. We wanted to improve ourselves so that we can play our bit in the future. I still remember the days I went for junior high school entrance exams and interviews all on my own. Since then, I have been choosing my education and learning pathway all by myself. Many people say I am creative and attribute it to the educational opportunities available for the new generation. That’s for sure an over-exaggeration, but I believe in personal development. I believe in education itself.

Why. Why do we innovate education?

I ask myself the question of why educational innovation is needed.To me, the transition from groups to individuals is key to education. Technology-led efficiency improvement, innovated campus environment, novel pedagogical concepts, synergy among organizations, attempts by the private sector—all of these, from the dialogues in the times Plato, to the artificial intelligence today, aren’t these all creative in favor of individuality?We know a million people will have a million definitions of success and happiness. That’s why we need innovation, and we need to allow for possibilities and individualities in education, and we should make efforts ensure each student gets the education that fit them best.

As I cannot give a clear answer to the question of educational innovation, I would like to discuss with you and would encourage my young friends in the audience, to seek opportunities and motivations for personal development before placing hope on the revolution of the education environment.

As the new year is upon us, I would like to share two quotes. One is from the novel Siddhartha which I read in 2014 when I joined Minerva. The other is by Yuval Noah Harari, the author of Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, who said it multiple times in his talk in an event I moderated in 2015.

“I shall get to know myself, the mystery of Siddhartha.” “Know yourself.”