Systems of Empowerment: Franco Mosso
How do projects of Agency across broad ranges and portfolios across Peru impact upon the lives in the community?
Hear from a Peruvian expert in education about how a system has empowered hundreds of students into role models and doers of admirable public and community good.
Franco Mosso is CEO and co-founder at Enseña Peru.
https://ensenaperu.org/
Franco finds, connects and develops leaders to transform education together. His passion is student leadership. He holds a master’s degree in education from Harvard and studies in strategy also from Harvard. He is a TEDx Speaker and Salzburg Global Seminar Fellow.
He was a member of the Network Advisory Council of the global network Teach for all. He is also an author, publishing several chapters and articles in UNESCO, Diplomatic Courier, OECD, Teach for All, Harvard Latin Review, Global Education Initiative. In 2018 he was the recipient of the Leadership in Education award from Harvard, as well as the Faculty Tribute award from Harvard. His courses have become public policy in several regions in his country, scaling to thousands of teachers, especially promoting transformations such as student agency and personalized teaching in rural areas. He lives in Peru with his wife and daughter.
—-
This Season is done in partnership with Salzburg Global Seminar. https://www.salzburgglobal.org/
Please check out the partner publication: https://www.diplomaticourier.com/issue/transformed-the-case-for-education-transformation
[transcript auto-generated]
00:00:08:05 - 00:00:34:10
Louka Parry
Hello dear friends, and welcome back to the Learning Featured podcast. I'm your host, Look up Harry. And oh gosh, it's a delight to be speaking with our guest today all the way from Peru. His name is Franco Muso. And today we're going to explore now Education Transformed, which has been the focus of this season. And Franco is fantastic because he's the founder of and Xenia, Peru, which is Teach for Peru.
00:00:34:20 - 00:00:53:09
Louka Parry
And he has a wonderful career and as you soon here, I think a terrific philosophy on how education can activate agency in young people and also be a transformative force in the world. Franco is some lesser than ertiga. It's fantastic. That's here on the podcast. Thank you for being here.
00:00:55:01 - 00:01:07:14
Franco Mosso
Which I have to give. Thank you so much. It's really been taking the time to, you know, dream about about a new future vocation, but fantastic.
00:01:07:14 - 00:01:23:07
Louka Parry
And you know, ever since we met in Salzburg, I think it was a couple of years ago now, you know, it's been great to connect with you on numerous occasions and hear what you're up to there in Peru. My first question to you, which is a common one on this, because what's something you're learning? What's your learning right now?
00:01:23:07 - 00:01:25:08
Louka Parry
Franco, that's kind of taking your interest?
00:01:26:19 - 00:02:08:07
Franco Mosso
Well, I'd say that the biggest learning right now has some keywords Students agency being one of them. Yes, Transforming systems. And then can I share about how this ties together through something I'm reading? MCLEAN Really? Actually, I'm reading I'm reading one of the latest books of Ropes that's that is called Dark Horse. And it speaks about how we're transitioning from the age of standardization to the age of personalization and the size of the individual.
00:02:08:15 - 00:02:41:11
Franco Mosso
Yeah, and I was stuck with part of the story that at some point before the 20th century, around 18, 19, there were people that were trying to solve a problem that requires standardization, that medicines, for example, you would go to to buy some medicine. You would get different qualities, right, from the same product. Yeah. And then humanity, they worked along, you know, the currents of industrialization to standardize products.
00:02:42:03 - 00:03:12:03
Franco Mosso
And then someone thought that that same process could be applied to human beings. And that's a and a was born, you know, part of the basis of both the motor and the immigration system in which students play a certain role with a certain expectation. Those you know, I'll be colloquial, like an expectation of being in a classroom and be quiet and do what they're told.
00:03:12:23 - 00:03:37:18
Franco Mosso
Right. And we have the we have that. That's part of our story a couple of hundred years and already. And so I think that my biggest learning is around what I consider one of the one of the for me, one of the most exciting trends in education will change, which is the transfer of power in learning from adults to students.
00:03:38:01 - 00:04:16:07
Franco Mosso
MM I find that to be a fascinating idea. I perhaps did not live it in my first, let's say, three decades of my life. I didn't live it. I started living it as an adult, you know, taking charge. And I wondered, you know, what if kids felt that their societies respect them to a degree that that they can make, you know, a more numerous choices around why they want to learn and how when I'm between.
00:04:16:24 - 00:04:47:19
Louka Parry
Beautiful FRANCO Oh, so many great threads there not not least of all how wonderful Todd Rhodes Todd Rose is. I commend him to all the listeners. Actually, he was previously at Project Zero at Harvard, wonderful educationalists and at the end of average as well, which is a great book. Well, let's stay on this piece on agency. Right, young people, because as you've reflected so many of us, it's kind of like we wake up one day and we go, Ah, oh, this is my life, and I can take charge of it.
00:04:47:19 - 00:05:15:06
Louka Parry
I can create things and build things. And and I mean, it strikes me that a lot of that's unlearning. So when we when we talk about education transformed, give us a sense of what that means to you through the lens of agency and youth empowerment. And then, of course, I would love you to talk to some of the projects that you're leading across Peru with these young people as well, and kind of the generation of change agents and Malala's that you're you're kind of supporting groups.
00:05:15:24 - 00:05:36:15
Franco Mosso
Right? Yeah, Yeah. Well, lender, of course, But I've been thinking a lot about the question about what how does it look A system, let's say a Peruvian system, the Peruvian system has 200 districts, right? In each district. There are the occasional authorities. There are people in institutions. In each district, there are about it's a 20 to 30000 students.
00:05:37:11 - 00:05:52:21
Franco Mosso
And maybe I can say a few characteristics of how that is not presently right. So many countries, they signed the Declaration of Children's Rights, the Rights.
00:05:52:21 - 00:05:53:08
Louka Parry
Of the child.
00:05:53:20 - 00:06:32:01
Franco Mosso
A few years ago, and it's actually written that they have the right to be consulted and heard regarding issues that pertain to them, Right, their health, their education, etc.. But when they see educational systems across the world and of course Peru is no exception, a question that I asked myself is, okay, so what are what are the institutions both formal and informal, that are designed to honor that agreement, to listen to students, you know, at a micro level, let's say at the level of school, at a level of the level of the district or at a national level.
00:06:33:12 - 00:06:57:22
Franco Mosso
And I find there that there is room for improvement because I think that we have I'll share some of the anecdotes that my students have. I have I speak to students, you know, every single day without exception from across our country, mainly teenagers that are trying to create changes in their own communities and nationwide. And when we think about a school, for example, we have school representatives.
00:06:57:24 - 00:07:47:03
Franco Mosso
We have like like the student representative right now. These are kinds of institutions that we have learned to to build A they are for money and they, um, some of my students, they see that, that they might not be serving the purpose that we want, right? I've heard stories where student representatives are a is a mostly mirroring. They be I've heard the the absence of mechanisms at the school level or at the district level to actually gather information from students about how they feel.
00:07:47:12 - 00:08:21:10
Franco Mosso
Yes. Of what is going well or place, you know, going not very well, perhaps in education. And so that's, for example, the first rate I would dream of districts and national systems that have placed the newer institutions through which we can systematically and openly listen to students and take into account their input. That's perhaps that's a very basic thing, but it is achievable, very achievable.
00:08:22:08 - 00:08:25:20
Franco Mosso
It's more about the mindset of what we believe about those who.
00:08:25:20 - 00:08:26:18
Louka Parry
Absolutely.
00:08:27:11 - 00:08:30:02
Franco Mosso
And that there's a second trip. Yeah, go ahead. Well, I.
00:08:30:04 - 00:08:52:19
Louka Parry
Was just going to say, Frank, I feel like you're being so diplomatic and maybe you need to be this this near the lack of mechanisms to support students. I mean, I think in our work all over the world, students are silenced, not because teachers are deliberately doing that, but because that's kind of been a system feature for so long.
00:08:52:19 - 00:09:21:13
Louka Parry
This kind of specificity of transfer, of knowledge, of instruction, as opposed to co-design and kind of, you know, inquiry and, yes, explicit instruction at times. But yeah, there's something I feel, you know, the provocation is always you look at the different industries that have shifted and yet we are still mired in the efficiency paradigm of standardization because that is at the core as you opened with of the kind of modern education systems.
00:09:21:13 - 00:09:25:00
Louka Parry
But, but yeah, keep going, keep I was just I was just reflecting on.
00:09:26:11 - 00:09:53:18
Franco Mosso
I think what you say is very true. It's a learned habit. Yeah. That was built like when you when you look at a system, right, you see the formalities and the informatics. Right. And so when I see a school, the average school in my country, when I see the average district in the formality, there are institutions that are supposed to be, you know, formally listening to students but are perhaps not working quite adequately.
00:09:54:01 - 00:10:32:03
Franco Mosso
Yeah. Is just is just a structure, but the substance is not really happening. Right. And then there is this void of other kinds of features that you would want maybe. Right. Let's say let's be very, very, very specific of something that could happen tomorrow. Could a district tomorrow in one of my one of the provinces in my country launch a new system of gathering data through Google forums, whatever, and just work with the with school principals and communities to gather the information about what students think of this class.
00:10:32:03 - 00:11:09:00
Franco Mosso
Of course, of course, they could do it tomorrow, not a And so I think that's the first feature that is is it is for me like a basic feature of transformation. Yeah. One some some people would say that that is if we make it concrete enough is an advocacy goal for some not to make the current institutions work for listening to student voices or to create others that we do not yet know how they will look right, But they serve the same purpose of students feeling heard of their opinions.
00:11:09:05 - 00:11:36:06
Franco Mosso
You know, you mentioned other sectors. I've heard more than once that while other sectors are moving into the user driven logic. Yeah, right. Education is going behind, right. Because paradoxically, being one of the most important sectors in every country, the most numerous sectors. The Right. Yeah, it's still not the most used to listening to its users. Yes. By far no.
00:11:36:10 - 00:12:13:01
Franco Mosso
And then I think there is another key now. I think there is another cape in terms of the potential leadership, in terms of the outcomes, not a of a system to transform a system, aa1 of the biggest learnings was how do we interpret the current outcomes in light of what humanity needs. Right? And part of the transformation of the system would be of of an educational system would be to really have a really honest conversation about what we're really driving towards right now and then observe that and say where we should be driving towards.
00:12:13:01 - 00:12:46:11
Franco Mosso
And does that entail a different a different kind of outcome? And also when I talk to my students, if you would look at at most educational system, I think they're driving towards fundamental skills. Yeah. The fact that say right in Peru, the number one measure of success is students that are able to read by this some this students are able to solve mathematical problems and that says something about how we view students during their time from childhood to adolescence.
00:12:46:11 - 00:13:18:04
Franco Mosso
The very existence of that measure and those measures, you know, they were invented close to 70 years ago in a time where we had very different technology. And in an effort to to gather the data that would allow us to to learn from countries. Right. But now we have another, another or another field regarding technology. Right. And I wonder if there are other kinds of outcomes that would be their very existence.
00:13:18:04 - 00:13:42:06
Franco Mosso
Reframe what we think about the potential of students. I've heard phrases like you've probably heard this phrase phrases Students are the future. No. Ay, that says something, right? Ay ay. My students, for example, they always tell me there is a phrase in Peru. I don't know if in other countries, but there's a phrase that says it, but I guess they love it, which means so that you can be someone.
00:13:42:13 - 00:14:05:13
Franco Mosso
Now, one of my students said, you know, I started thinking, what am I not someone to back them? And what does that mean about what society thinks about me and my potential to say no? Yeah, yeah. So I think that that questioning of what are we driving for in educational system? Not to say that, not to say that reading comprehension, of course is important is, is transversal right.
00:14:05:13 - 00:14:40:08
Franco Mosso
We're going to talk it tomorrow. But you know, from three years old to 17 years old, you approximately spend 18000 hours in the school of your life. So what's absolute right, The by the end of those 18000 hours, what are we aiming for our society? No. And in in some of us in some of our societies, when I talk to my students and I and I share with them at the end of their schooling year, at the end of the K to 12 right spectrum.
00:14:40:23 - 00:15:13:05
Franco Mosso
What are you hearing? What do you hear from all the adults around you? Around What's the next step? What does it mean for your life? And they tell me most of them, that what is repeated from all fronts now is money to get someone a need to think about your career. And in the most difficult cases for students, the adults prescribe with what they know no to very specific careers.
00:15:13:17 - 00:16:01:17
Franco Mosso
Yeah. And then students are receiving this ignore this amount of pressure from around them and then that I think it reflects and it's you know, there is another report that that put it beautifully about system change from the team of lan Bridget and said you know what if what if society could tell their students and for students to go out of schooling knowing that the reason why they they were educated was to be a good family member, that education would weigh on that part of our lives, not that education would weigh on being a community member, on helping your country in the world be better.
00:16:02:03 - 00:16:35:00
Franco Mosso
Yes and yes, of course, to join the economic system. Right. But so many students are not listening. The first three things that I said are completely absent. No. And so the you know, they study a study study the last two years. It's like I got to get this exam, I got to get some money, etc.. And and then that marks, you know, I see that that marks maybe the next decade or the next two decades.
00:16:35:07 - 00:16:55:16
Franco Mosso
Yes. And so by the time sometimes that they are parents that say if we take that example, so many students in that process that maybe back back in the day when they were in school, it might have been a great moment to learn the tools that you need also to be a parent or also to be a son or also to be a brother or also to be a great citizen.
00:16:55:16 - 00:17:18:06
Franco Mosso
Right? And so it seems to get more narrow and more narrow and more narrow and more narrow now. And and with this logic, students might miss a lot of opportunities to talk to to become, you know, not only this worker that they can but but the best version of human being the best version of their own life and those many aspects.
00:17:18:14 - 00:17:53:16
Louka Parry
Oh, thank you so much. To fact, I, I really feel like this bit on, you know, learned habits, as you said before, you know, this idea that and actually, you know, Professor Martin Seligman from UPenn talks about learned helplessness and actually in some ways that if we're not careful because we've inherited these legacy systems and it's not our fault we've inherited them, but of course it's our responsibility now to do something with them, Those of us that are in positions of influence as educators, as leaders, I really feel that.
00:17:54:08 - 00:18:29:11
Louka Parry
Yeah, but yeah, if it's like it's this idea that it takes such a long time to realize your agency to be and to because it's so contrary to the existing system. That of course is changing and people are leading shifts all over the world, including you in Peru, quite notably. The other piece I really think about is our colleagues at Big Change who are going to be on this podcast actually in the coming weeks, and they talk about the three piece, you know, with the the transform, it's I love it because really what you've been talking to, I've had the frame of that in my head as you've spoken, you know, between repurposing what's the
00:18:29:11 - 00:18:55:15
Louka Parry
purpose of education, but how do you shift power within education? So the elevation of the users, you know, the clients, the beneficiaries, the students themselves, and then also, you know, the elevation of the educators within the system frame so that you have educator voices that are a genetic and then of course practice, you know, the purpose power practice kind of three part piece on.
00:18:55:16 - 00:19:16:20
Louka Parry
Yeah. And then, you know, how do you let innovative practice spread and be and I I'm really really taken by that because I think everything you've said is so it's so accurate. I mean imagine like what does education for what's what is our school for should be the first question whenever you doing any strategy it's like why why do we exist?
00:19:17:06 - 00:19:39:12
Louka Parry
And I think to your other point, I mean, I sometimes provoke you can imagine and, you know, ask interesting questions of educators and leaders and what is okay. So let's say tomorrow, school is optional. How many of your students turn up? You know, because it's your point, like all these other indices have become user centered largely because the user has decision making power in schools.
00:19:39:12 - 00:20:09:15
Louka Parry
We just mandated it. So very good reasons. Education is a right and there's also a responsibility within that. You know, so the responsibility is not just on the learners themselves, on the students to form themselves to the system. It's for the system to actually welcome the student as they are and see them for who they could be. And I think that piece on like as they are the same heard and valued, I mean that's if you feel unseen, you know, definitely not going to be learning optimally.
00:20:10:03 - 00:20:27:14
Louka Parry
Right. So this is such a and even like exit ticket some of the pieces you'll talk about how do you even just get a district in through one of the 200 just to start experimenting with that? And of course, one district does it and then all of a sudden you have ten districts and then all of a sudden you've got this system transformation spread from such a simple practice like that.
00:20:29:06 - 00:20:45:21
Louka Parry
What do you see? I'd love you to talk about, you know, the work you're leading, because we've had a lot of in before this. I mean, really, that lists it because in some ways it's like we can start you can do top down the middle out as Michael Flynn would say, but you can see the bottom up and all those things kind of move that tenuously.
00:20:46:16 - 00:20:59:11
Louka Parry
I feel like what's happening with your really the student young people at work take us into that world. Really give us a sense for those of us not in Peru, the lovely country, it isn't around what's going on there right now.
00:20:59:13 - 00:21:05:19
Franco Mosso
That's that's what what what's keeping me, you know, not sleeping, but for the right reasons.
00:21:06:24 - 00:21:09:00
Louka Parry
Yeah, it gets it keeps you up.
00:21:09:23 - 00:21:49:23
Franco Mosso
It keeps me up because I'm like, okay, let let the next day come right to continue on this work. Want to feel fortunate about it. And so the idea is the following being an education, a social issue, right? And in Singapore, rule being an organization in which everything which is mission, we talk about our social movement, right? The I usually ask a question, a reflective question when I try to explain why we do this and what it makes sense to you that the women's rights movements be led by men.
00:21:51:02 - 00:22:38:19
Franco Mosso
Right. And and to this day, it's so obvious. No, people laugh. Usually people smile. They don't because it's too obvious, right? The answer. And yet social movements for education not being led by student voices for so many people, you know, that are trying to honestly do educational change is not so obvious. And that is at the heart of what we of what we the reason why we did this not we said we are a group of adults in the first stage, let's say the first years of thinking up who they're trying to really honestly to put, you know, our efforts to change, but we're no longer in the classrooms.
00:22:39:05 - 00:23:09:09
Franco Mosso
And so they they're right over the vision or lack thereof of of the of the level of excellence that our students deserve. We we have an ever a you know, and they are going away window from what it really means. Right. And the people who are actually, you know tasting every day the do's and don'ts of having a great right to education are the student themselves.
00:23:10:12 - 00:23:30:04
Franco Mosso
And yet when you combine that with the learn habits right. Of the system to not listen to students, we have a we have a problem. We have a a social movement in the world. Right. I'm not talking only about group. Yes. A social movement of human beings. You know, if we were a cohort of humanity right now, we're all a cohort, right?
00:23:30:20 - 00:23:49:14
Franco Mosso
A that are that that, that we just happen to live together in this time. And if a person from a from the not from far from the area would say are these this species traveling this problem right. And they have a story of social change that has been lived by the people who actually suffer the regular education or lack thereof.
00:23:50:06 - 00:24:19:07
Franco Mosso
And what's happening in education that that that seems to be a worthwhile a piece of the design of our of our humanity solution to how we're tackling the problem, the inclusion and the inclusion just need to to adapt humanity, to adapt ourselves so that students have the meaningful contribution that we speak about in the papers, in the agreements and the Constitution.
00:24:19:09 - 00:24:52:16
Franco Mosso
Yes, Yes. For that to actually happen. Right. And the we've seen examples of that. We spoke about Malala, for example, with, you know, started her her press at the age of 12. Right. And and, you know, many students in many courses across the world that actually impact their lives. And so the idea was what if what have we a first, it was an assumption.
00:24:52:17 - 00:25:24:06
Franco Mosso
What if we assume that there are thousands of brilliant Mandelas already living in group aged 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 that they are either through this, you know it right there, they're either already making changes or with an idea in mind. Start by not finding because of everything that we spoke about, not finding the conditions to to, you know, to to give their their own their own effort.
00:25:24:12 - 00:25:54:06
Franco Mosso
Right. What if we change that? What if we help as allies of youth for our country, for Peru to have an undeniable force of youth leadership, that they're all I'll be in colloquial, sort of not asking for permission to be great, to create change, to create voice. And that's was born our national student leadership system. Right. And I'll give it with an example.
00:25:54:20 - 00:26:16:23
Franco Mosso
So one where you go there, hundreds of them by this time in the last 15 months, but because it turns out that the hypothesis is real, so it's imperative. And so it is. It is is one of my students we met in Zambia who met meetings and he was making sense of it all when she was 14 years old.
00:26:17:18 - 00:26:45:19
Franco Mosso
She lives in the Amazon, one of the 25 regions and group. So when she tells me about this, she was going to public school. 14 years old is mean. She was in third like they will be acing the 10th grade, something like that. That's three years. And she was scrolling through her social networks and then here a flier in a form saying, hey, do you have ideas?
00:26:45:19 - 00:27:13:04
Franco Mosso
You want to make Peru better in any way, not be supportive of leadership for students of your age. And so he goes in to his place, says the reason why she wants to be there goes into the program. This is the first stage. We call it the short program, seven week program, virtual one virtual, because the in in our country as in many countries, there is enormous cultural difference.
00:27:13:04 - 00:27:37:20
Franco Mosso
Yeah. You know, we have 47 official languages and eight native languages besides espanol. Wow. So so many richness. And we have an incredibly rich culture. Before we were colonized, though, all the incredible pictures, everybody usually knows only the Incas. Now there are so many more now. And some of our students, they live where all of this focus. Right.
00:27:37:20 - 00:28:08:01
Franco Mosso
Right. And they grow up with this incredible culture that and so it goes in from the Amazon, goes to this space of leadership where she starts hearing that she doesn't need to wait to finish university or get a job to create great things for our country. She starts saying, hey, there is another teenager that wants the same as me, but in school and in Angus and Lima and in technology.
00:28:08:22 - 00:28:33:20
Franco Mosso
And so she spent seven weeks with them in in the first stage of our system, which is a curriculum that was designed by a student, not 18 year old, because it has to be no. Okay. Yeah. You're transfer the power, right? That's the day. The second deal, the big story of big change A and they learn about self-knowledge and purpose.
00:28:35:07 - 00:29:02:02
Franco Mosso
Then they learn about the inequities that exist in the world. They go deep into that and talk about history and how we were colonized and dynamics of power. We go, you know, we call it scene on this disconnect without anesthesia. But, you know, like we we talk about the issues that they want to talk. And then the third part of this seven week curriculum this is a is called collective leadership.
00:29:03:01 - 00:29:37:05
Franco Mosso
And it invites groups of students from different cultural backgrounds, from different regions that might otherwise not have joined forces to start thinking about what they could do. And so it goes through all of this and every session is, you know, geared towards having a trust in the Philippines is a mixture of reflection, deep reflection, community, feeling welcome, feel empowered, feeling seen, being taken into consideration where adults have, you know, very little professionalism.
00:29:37:23 - 00:30:02:05
Franco Mosso
Actually, the program is always led by a 18 or 19 year old that's like I know it. And so it is goes out of the first stage and she goes with a wider network with an awareness of what's going on. There's ideas and strength. So that's the first step of an agency like that. It's up to the nine day, 15 months that we've done that with with four times a year.
00:30:02:14 - 00:30:30:22
Franco Mosso
And already 700 students have gone through that kind of journey from every corner of our country. So we have discovered thousands are blank. You know, we have discovered, let's say, 700 M.A. in Peru. Right. That are then what we have gotten so far is that only with that stage we have detected over 20 student organizations being born and then multiplying the impact.
00:30:30:22 - 00:31:00:11
Franco Mosso
So now we have people like like young CEOs of student organizations that are creating change across the country in so many different ways. And then it is was one of them. She was co-founder of Wake Up Now beautiful organization. A shout out to them that like in the next months of that first stage of the program was impacting already close to 70 students doing programs around the sustainable Development Goals.
00:31:01:05 - 00:31:19:15
Franco Mosso
And their mission is to ignite the spark in students who have lost it. Wow. That's that's their mission. That's one of the organizations. And then Iris, what is what what she did was she came back to the program. She became like like an older sister. And so in the next cohort, she became a student guide for the next edition.
00:31:19:15 - 00:31:48:16
Franco Mosso
So they think of the second phase. I sent an email to all of them and I say, You know, if you have fallen in love with education and you feel that next coming years, it might be part of your purpose, is it is yours and mine, right? We've made education part of our lives, part of our purposes. But I asked that to a 14 year old, to a 16 year old, to a 16 year old that has gone through that short program, then applied to a one year student activist program that's face to see that.
00:31:49:01 - 00:32:24:13
Franco Mosso
And so I applied. And the design of the program is and it's a pretty extreme version of giving power to a students like a only four or 5 to 6 weeks. They were they receive a very flexible professional development where they learn about project management, agile methodologies, creative writing, how to inspire, how to tell the story about the latest of the trends of technology in education.
00:32:24:13 - 00:32:55:14
Franco Mosso
What what is happening. The UN gender Education Center. In six weeks we were show them a toolbox. It's you know the design is is really work class work hard and with our student themselves. Then at the same time during the during the first six weeks they they have access to flexible mentorship. So every 15 students they have a mentor adult ally that had access to networks and that has experience.
00:32:55:14 - 00:33:18:23
Franco Mosso
And there is a strain to, you know, to be an extraordinary ally to to these teenagers that want to be changemakers and and so during this six weeks, each of our 14 years, we have like, let's say 4 to 2 to six mentorship sessions at the beginning and then they prepare the start of the program, which is their portfolio, right?
00:33:19:01 - 00:33:48:11
Franco Mosso
So what she did was during the first six weeks to prepare an upward of 40 of what we asked of them is, you know, growing your leadership. In theory, you will create changes and you will impact the lives of people through education during the next ten months. And each of our students, they chose their own project. So we just showed them the whole landscape of what you can do in education and testing, dyslexia, cybersecurity, social skills, everything.
00:33:48:20 - 00:34:21:12
Franco Mosso
And they choose their own portfolio of 3 to 4 projects, right? And so I was did that receive the training that the portfolio flexible mentorship and then for the rest of the year they grow through going to action and then Iris, you know, for example, one of the things that she did was she connected with with people in her community, with kids that sold food on the streets, and she detected that she wanted to bring financial educational tools to them.
00:34:21:24 - 00:34:42:02
Franco Mosso
She made an alliance with the municipality. She gathered attention, sign up curriculum, and she invited a group of people with their financial education tools and mothers as well, parents. And that was just one of the things that she did during the year. And like that, we have hundreds of students that are deciding what to do in a program.
00:34:42:08 - 00:35:05:03
Franco Mosso
That's true to them. The curriculum has their own projects, so by the end of the year they become alumni and a lot. And they've grown in courage, incredible. They've grown their ability to collaborate. And they can see when they look back that there is it is undeniable that it is today. She still in most of us stopped reading Change.
00:35:05:10 - 00:35:27:22
Franco Mosso
Wow. 16 years old, with a strength of purpose that nobody will take away from. Oh, my goodness. And with actual action that nobody can deny that part of her education was for her to become a change maker. Yes. A kind change maker in her own way, in the way that moves her. Because we we I didn't tell her to do financial education.
00:35:27:22 - 00:35:54:02
Franco Mosso
I just asked her what you know, and I'll be your ally in that. So we devised a system. Now she will go on as an alumni. Through this system, we have discovered, as I shared with you, hundreds of people like Iris that are across the country. And I think for me, I said a couple of times publicly that for me that is the closest thing that I see as the endgame.
00:35:54:15 - 00:36:28:06
Franco Mosso
Right? Because, you know, for me, Iris is a role model for for my daughter, you know, a person with purpose. She addressed her family relations as well to improve the quality of life lives. Use the tools for that. She use the tools to find a purpose. She uses that life situation to know and act on the notion that there is value in her, not only for herself, but for other people and for my country.
00:36:28:20 - 00:36:55:20
Franco Mosso
And and so I'm incredibly excited to have found this is way of working. Well, it's unbelievable. That is why you have so much hope in these days, because every single day I get to speak and witness and be an ally to hundreds of irises across across our country. Yeah, I actually just had a conversation before our meeting right now with another person goes, I mean, it just it's it's I think.
00:36:56:21 - 00:37:22:20
Louka Parry
Wow, I'm a bit stunned, to be honest. Just kind of, you know, thinking about it is and, you know, I'm kind of like now that's the real purpose of education. You know, it's the lighting of a fire. It's not the filling of a bucket. And I just feel like this way of it, for me, it's like activating agency.
00:37:22:20 - 00:37:49:14
Louka Parry
The agency exists in nature, but it's kind of like a remembering of the agency. And some systems are so good at helping people forget. I would even say some societies as well, right? And even some kind of entities where you really you're just a passive consumer of content. Even you think about some of the kind of extractive technologies that are in that space, you know, So it's like, how do you be a creator in your world?
00:37:50:06 - 00:38:07:17
Louka Parry
Like what's what's you do is one of my favorite questions I'm reflecting on all the time. FRANCO And yesterday I spoke with a couple of hundred career advisors across South Australia, my home state, and they really the question is like not what jobs you want to do when you grow up. It's really like what you said, what moves you.
00:38:07:17 - 00:38:31:14
Louka Parry
That's such a beautiful question. What lights you up, you know, And then our role as educators is to create structures and vehicles where young people can expand into that. And then, of course, what I mean, how education would translate if we allowed young people to really show what they're capable of. You know.
00:38:32:04 - 00:38:52:08
Franco Mosso
I really I think about all the time's up, because imagine if we spend those 80000 hours, the lives of every student. Yeah. You know, like we're speaking about the day to day classes and experience of the speech of the principal. Maybe the speech at the beginning of the week shouldn't be even given by the principal, right? Yeah. So the kinds of things that we run on automatic.
00:38:52:16 - 00:39:25:03
Franco Mosso
Yes. An automatic mode. And and I think that part of our job is do is to do the personal work. Because because of course, one has to do a little personal, because I have live and be engrossed in that system. Right. And and I keep discovering my automatic ways of thinking. Yes. That that mirror the ones of of the education system and yes, then keep finding more ways to to help the occasional system.
00:39:26:01 - 00:39:49:17
Franco Mosso
You know, I think you put it beautifully what would it mean for for the occasional system to spend those 18000 hours this day lessons the speech, the data gathering, etc., but all in line with student agency for the common good of humanity as opposed to students, to the students passiveness towards their own individuality and no one else matters, right?
00:39:51:00 - 00:40:12:24
Franco Mosso
What? How, what, what would that look like? Right. Yes. And then let me tell you something. In every city in the world, there are students that have battled enough. The system, and those are student leaders that sort of like they made it, but not because of how the system designed, but in spite of. Right. They fought and they fought and they wouldn't them and their students would find beautiful purposes.
00:40:14:01 - 00:40:36:15
Franco Mosso
But in you know I was talking to a district yesterday in my country wants to transform the district towards doorstep that's actually doing exactly that right. Which was part of the dream. And I asked them, So how many students are there that fit the description? Right? They think holistically about their lives, not only about parts of their lives.
00:40:36:15 - 00:41:05:04
Franco Mosso
They found a purpose, etc.. And then it's like, you know, like one of them fingers, Right. And this is a district where 5000 students go to school. Right? And so we're talking about an ambitious question that no individual program or intervention will be able to achieve. Yeah, right. We're talking about the why. The pushing purpose, I think is so important for me, to be quite honest.
00:41:05:04 - 00:41:24:24
Franco Mosso
The question, the purpose was a little bit, you know, how what is it about, you know, terms and I spend it my journey as an education leader in this 14 years, you know, facing myself with that question. And then and I think it'sit's when I started talking to the students and trying to say, what are they telling them?
00:41:25:13 - 00:41:45:08
Franco Mosso
Yeah, what are they hearing? What are they coming to understand about the purpose of their education? Right. So when I hear my students say, I was filming something very beautiful, you know, she, she, she has done all the stages of us. She still in school, in public school in Peru. So she's done all the stages within school right?
00:41:45:08 - 00:41:47:01
Franco Mosso
Well, frankly, she's a formidable leader.
00:41:47:01 - 00:42:11:07
Louka Parry
I will. Let me say something wrong. Let me say this. I think there's something about she's a formidable leader and she's finding her purpose because quite clearly your formidable leader and you've found your purpose. That's that's no accident that that's the case, Franco, There's something about being in a you know, that's what young people can feel from an educator.
00:42:11:07 - 00:42:41:19
Louka Parry
If an educator feels like they are being supported, enabled and liberated by the system, that's that's actually going to resonate with the class. So we always talk about student agency. Oh, I talk about it all the time. And I it's like it's actually it's kind of system agencies, human agency within the system. You know, it's like the liberation of the human beings, including the educators themselves that are trying to do the best they can, but kind of have got unconscious mental models operating like as we all do.
00:42:42:00 - 00:43:00:24
Louka Parry
And I kind of feel kind of squeezed by the system instead of they can expand within it and be the fullest being a selves. And I think that's really what we need and want. But there's too many take home messages so close this out for us. And then I'd love you to say like what you want to leave us with.
00:43:01:11 - 00:43:19:23
Louka Parry
You know, we've got this beautiful journey about transforming and definitely into kind of this journey and the projects that you're working on now, only 15 months in. And I can't wait for 15 years if I go and see see what's go away. And, you know, and again, it'll just be young people leading, leading the charge who are less young by then.
00:43:19:23 - 00:43:26:15
Louka Parry
You know, it's just it's fantastic. But I'm. Yeah. What's it what do you want to kind of have as your take home for our listeners here?
00:43:27:23 - 00:44:03:06
Franco Mosso
I say that I would say my main takeaway is that it is within reach. So many people feel that this is this is such a super long term thing because of what ways is here. So the design and I would say that I've learned that if we tackle the problem with different mindsets, we talk about adult mindsets around power, around purpose, etc..
00:44:03:09 - 00:44:34:00
Franco Mosso
That's, that's, that's the key to it. And if we can address this issue from a perspective of then I'll tell do something else. Just if there are, you know, perhaps millions, thousands at the very least of of my knowledge in my country. I'll tell you something, there are thousands of adults that are ready to be allies. That's and I don't think that we are, you know, like showing our country, seeing us.
00:44:34:11 - 00:44:35:11
Louka Parry
Yeah, yeah.
00:44:35:14 - 00:45:08:04
Franco Mosso
At scale. The power of those two forces combined, you know, of the Peruvian Malala's, there are bulges and they, you know, the best the best image will be the father of Malala, not a that's been the that's been another a quiet ally, not all along the way. And you know that I do feel that is within reach yes, I do feel that the role of adults is indispensable as well, because to you and to me, probably there is nothing.
00:45:08:04 - 00:45:20:22
Franco Mosso
I feel like that every day, not like my students. One of my students said something very beautiful. They said, you have a blue fire inside. You know what that means. But you have a fire inside as well.
00:45:20:24 - 00:45:22:11
Louka Parry
I love the of it. Yeah.
00:45:23:01 - 00:45:45:24
Franco Mosso
And I and I took it as as the strength of purpose, Right. Yes. I'm an adult. My father, my husband, I'm 36 years old. I don't think that there is anything that anybody could tell me to deter me from my purpose, my life's mission. And I work on it in the next three decades. But when I see some of my students 14, 15, 16, you're right.
00:45:46:09 - 00:46:14:07
Franco Mosso
Because so many times, you know, the dreaming hard, the dreaming mind of of the, you know, the students A before it gets to be a very strong dream. Not that it's difficult to move in terms of their the strength of the purpose. Yeah, I remember students telling me like I went through that classroom in tears because an adult told me that this was not possible, that managing the world was not something that was your right or that you're crazy.
00:46:14:14 - 00:46:42:21
Franco Mosso
We're going to take care of that. Yeah, we have, I think is within our reach. I really think that is within our reach. Then I would call for any district in the world that wants to tackle that challenge, that system level, that I think that that I've never felt in the last decade that there was a time for this kind of change AS Yeah, of this substantial parentage.
00:46:42:21 - 00:47:08:15
Louka Parry
I like this, I like this reflection. FRANCO The time was always now, but it just happens that we're in this now. You know that, you know, it's like how, how you know, I love a mentor of mine, Tony Mackay often tells me. He says, We are the people we've been waiting for this lovely sense of it, you know, And you know Tony as well, it's this idea of where the people we've been waiting for.
00:47:08:15 - 00:47:34:05
Louka Parry
So let's go for let's create. Franco Thank you. Thank you so much for sharing your passion, that blue flame that burns so brightly inside you. And I guess what a gift. What a gift to be able to help other people find that flame within themselves through your work and send to Peru. And and more broadly, I look forward to following the progress made in one day, seeing and contributing to it in person there.
00:47:35:18 - 00:47:42:09
Louka Parry
But thank you so much for joining us for the Learning Podcast and all the best for the journey.
00:47:42:09 - 00:47:48:15
Franco Mosso
Thank you so much for having me. And as we say in Peru, singing as we continue.
00:47:49:00 - 00:47:51:05
Louka Parry
Gracias Amigo,