Dovilė Jablonskaitė, News journalist, Source: 15min.lt
At the International Conference organized by the Lithuanian Children and Youth Centre on Monday, Vilnius University Professor, a psychotherapist Eugenijus Laurinaitis was contemplating what to focus on when educating future leaders.
He confessed that he was appealing not only on his professional, but also on his own experience as a grandfather of six grandchildren.
“The children born today will live in 2050s. If they live well, they will live in 2100s, too. Can we predict what the world will be like at that time and what competencies they will need? I think, not much, because everything changes very quickly and so far our far-reaching prophecies have hardly been proved – we were not good at predicting the future. Hence, we have no simple answers”, said E. Laurinaitis.
Do not hesitate to praise! There is nothing more motivating to go forward.
Referring to the insights of writer Yuval Harari, the Professor reminded that in this ever-changing world there is one stable thing, i.e. the ability to discover oneself once again.
“This is the property we have to cultivate. And the most important thing in this discovering onself is to be able to build and maintain relationships with other people”, explained E. Laurinaitis.
Another important thing is to constantly learn new things, which is often associated with danger. Well, I can not be able, I can not understand, I can not succeed.
“Innovation creates a risk reaction. The aim of the teacher is to reduce, to weaken it. How? After all, we all know that the best way to learn is when your curiosity, zeal for knowledge is excited, when you are interested yourself. It would be great to create situations of choice so that students feel autonomous and able to make decisions. The third moment: everyone wants to get an assessment, wants to be praised. So do not hesitate to praise! There is nothing more motivating to go forward”, convinced E. Laurinaitis.
He also advised to set clear boundaries to students on how much and what they would need to learn: “After all, it’s impossible to know everything!”
Summing up his thoughts, E. Laurinaitis explained: “We have to raise our children to be happier than we are.
Robert Dargis, President of the Lithuanian Confederation of Industrialists, noted that the role of the teacher in the 21st century has changed radically. In the past, the teacher was a source of knowledge. “And now he should be more of a coach who helps students navigate in the sea of information.”