The 5 principles of highly effective teachers: Pierre Pirard at TEDxGhent

[Music] what is the common elements between managing companies all over the world and teaching in a school in in Molen bake Le ship in both job you need strong leadership to manage companies and to teach to kids who face huge difficulties let let me tell you how I came to that conclusion for for 25 years I've been managing companies I've tried to make sure that every single quarter was was more profitable and and I really enjoy that I've learned that strong leaders apply four basic simple principle the first one they believe that their team can

achieve great results and because they believe that their team can great achieve great results their team start to believe also they can achieve great results second thing they set goals develop a vision for their company third to make sure that this goal this Vision become the everyday priority of their people their employee and last great leaders they plan carefully and purposefully to make sure they achieve their objective I mean that's what great leaders are doing and I've tried to do that for 25 years I mean it's really a tough job four years ago I was

in my mid-40s and and I I fa what we call a midlife crisis uh midlife crisis is a very simple concept I mean suddenly you realize that living is not forever I mean it's a little bit like a ghost curve you know you at the top of the hill and suddenly you see the end at the Horizon and you ask yourself this basic question what do I do now I mean which track do I take to go down the hill I mean do I take the same track or do I take another the route to

go down and personally I felt the need to to give more sense to what I was doing and so I totally changed my professional career from a CEO I became a teacher in Mullen bake in what some magazine called the Bronx of Brussels I'm teaching the professional section to kids or young adults between 15 to 22 years old mostly coming from the marican communities and those children are coming from low social economical backgrounds I mean they they are what we call underprivileged children I thought that teaching will be great I mean you know you working

what 20 hours per week you have plenty of vacation you are sitting in front of people eager to learn from you well I'm not sure if there are teacher in the audience today but you know that the reality is slightly different I mean the start of my career was not easy I mean my colleague warned me they told me Pier well don't put your expectation too high I mean their motivation is very low they don't know much what I thought they were testing me or killing me but actually they were right in my class none

of my student were capable to give me the results of 10% of 100 when I talk about Stockholm they thought I was talking about a rap singer and and Ja brell is the name of a subway station in Brussels you know and when I face the reality of this new job I say but how is it possible that kids who have spent 10 to 15 years in a bench in a school in Belgium know so little I mean kids who are far of being stupid they have a great sense of humor good common sense I

mean what what happened to them I mean why are they in this situation so I also realize that those kids who face disaster results in some classes actually achieve very good results in some other classes same kids different results so actually there were two type of teachers there were the teacher where the students achieve very poor results and the other one where the teacher and the students achieve great results so this really trigger my attention so I went to talk to both my colleague and to the first group of colleague where the the kids achieve

poor results I asked them this very simple question what can I do to make my student progress and the answer I receive we always going in the same direction well Pier what can we do how do you want to teach to kids where there's no books at all where where the parents do not speak French or flamish friendly well let me tell you the truth Pier that's what my colleague told me there is very little that teachers or school can do they even talk to me about a Lost Generation let me tell you today what

the other group of colleague told me the one where the kids achieve great results among those group there was one teacher Mrs anony and she she's a French teacher and in her class the kids were always there with high motivation and they have good grades so I want to ask her this question but how do you do it I mean what's your secret I mean do you pay them and Mrs anony is a great teacher so she really took the time that day to explain to me her principle of teaching and she told me Pier

if you want your kids to progress you have to apply four basic principle the first one she say you have to believe in them you have to believe to make sure that every single one of them can achieve great results regardless where he or she is coming from whether her parents are rich or poor whether he was called Muhammad or Jean and you need to make sure that also they know that you believe in them so they start also to believe that they can achieve great results once you deeply and truly believe in them you

have to set a goal which is ambitious measurable meaningful for your student and she gave me a great example she tell me take sadya sadya don't like reading and Mrs Antony gave her a very ambitious goal she said well sadya by the end of the year by no by you will read a book of barvel it's not an easy one and you will do it in two weeks time and you will enjoy it by November I saw sadya finishing a book of am Noto 122 pages and she was eager to start a new one so

once you set the goal you need to make sure that the goal that you have given to your student become the everyday priority of the student and their family you need to invest in their life she gave me another example Hannah Hannah had a great deficiency in spelling and because of that Mrs Antony told her well you need to stay at school every day after the normal school time the parents of Hannan will not allow this so Mrs Antony went to see the parents of Hanan in her home discuss with them convince them and told

her it was a right thing to do for Hannan Anan is now spending every Tuesday and Thursday at school and she's making dramatic progress the last principle that Mrs Antony told me is probably the most difficult one you have to plan purposefully from from the objective that you have defined you have to plan backwards to create an efficient path to success take Mustafa Mustafa is one of my student I mean he's incapable to concentrate for more than 2 minutes unless you talk about football okay his goal was to receive his goal was to be able

to summarize in 200 words a very difficult article from the M newspaper every week Mrs anony gave him an article a little bit longer a little bit more complicated so that Mustafa was capable to see his own Improvement on that specific day the 10 of October 2009 N Mrs anony probably gave me the the best speech lesson on teaching but on leadership believe in your team set goals like for Sadia invest in your student like like for Hannan and plan carefully like for Mustafa but like every great leaders Mrs Antony had also small secret you

know and I remember oh she almost whispered to me that secret and she told me Pier you and your student will have to work hard because it will not be easy and she's right I'm working much more than 20 hours per week you know much more and I've learned so much in those last four years I thought that teaching had to do with I don't know sense of humor Authority respect mastering the content of your classes your courses of course teaching has to do with all this but for those kids who have lost so much

of self-confidence who are so far behind where school do not have meaning anymore teaching as leader show outstanding effect I mean since since then I've tried to to apply those four principles it's not easy I fail many times I mean sometime my vision is too high it's not clear enough sometime I come home very frustrated because of the lack of motivation of my student but there's one thing I don't give up it's the first principle I always believe they can succeed there's a great quote on leadership which said that true leaderships lies in guiding others

to success in ensuring that everyone is performing at their best doing the work they are pledged to do and do it well this is exactly what great teacher are doing in Mig they're probably the best leader I've met so so four years ago I've decided to change my life you know I was in my midli crisis and but I'm still leading well there's a big difference from my previous job as a CEO there's no better feelings than the one that you have when you feel and you see one of your student who was supposed to

fail going to Upper School or open his shop like like dunia just open a shop a few weeks ago in Excel number 125 Ron I told her I will make some advertising for her okay so please go to see Nelson Mandela say once that education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world so let's make sure that in this country in 2013 all leaders will use this weapon so that every children will obtain access to excellent education regardless of their social economical background thank you