education – LEARN AND LEAD

TEDx Burleigh Heads – An Education Worth Having saw an engaging group of educators, leaders and thinkers share ideas with courage and conviction. While each voice was distinct, a shared message echoed across the day: our current education system is misaligned with what it means to be human in the 21st century.

Post Blog Note: Within 8 days of the event, all TEDx Burleigh Heads 2026 Talks can be found here.

Again and again, presenters challenged the industrial model of schooling, one built on compliance, conformity, and high‑stakes testing, and called us instead toward an education that puts people first, purpose first, and humanity at the centre.

What follows is a weaving of their thinking, credited and celebrated.

Awe Before Outcomes

Jen Buchanan invited us to reconsider the very starting point of learning. What if education didn’t begin with content, compliance, or outcomes but with presence?

Jen is principal of Think Globabl School (TGS). Each year, TGS students and staff travel to four countries together, one term at a time, to learn from the wisdom of local communities, through the power of their local context. Jen asked the audience to imagine students arriving in class and spending just one minute noticing what it means to be human: feet on the ground, breath steady, sounds drifting in from outside. To feel what she described as the human hum and the awe which surrounds it.

In a system obsessed with coverage and pace, awe slows us down. It reconnects learning to meaning. Awe reminds us that education is not simply about knowing more, but about becoming more. If awe were the curriculum, wonder would no longer be a by‑product of learning, it would be the entry point.

Think Set Go

Lauren Munday offered a practical and empowering framework for navigating uncertainty: Think. Set. Go. Rather than preparing students to simply follow instructions, she spoke about developing the mindset skills needed to adapt, to pause and think critically, to set intention and direction, and then to move into action.

In an industrial model of education, compliance is often rewarded over agency. Lauren’s framework reframes learning as an active, human process, one that equips young people not just to succeed in known contexts, but to respond confidently to the unknown.

An education worth having doesn’t remove complexity; it gives students the tools to face it.

AI as a Mirror to Our Humanity

Pip Cleaves brought a clear and grounded perspective to the conversation around artificial intelligence. AI, she reminded us, is not the enemy, it is a mirror. If AI can take on many of the tasks we currently do, the question becomes: what parts of our humanity are we willing to protect, prioritise, and develop?

Her work with custom-made AI bots, bots that don’t get tired, forces education to confront a deeper truth. The value of human beings is not efficiency alone. It is empathy, creativity, ethical judgment, relationships, and meaning. AI doesn’t make education irrelevant. It makes humanity non-negotiable.

Imagination Over Obedience

Adriano DiPrato offered one of the day’s most arresting provocations: “Obedience builds replicas. Imagination builds worlds.” He challenged the outdated binaries that still shape much of schooling and work, blue collar versus white collar, and named what is emerging instead: a no‑collar future. In this future, purpose, values, and accountability matter deeply. Creativity is no longer decorative. It is infrastructure.

Adriano reminded us that the 20th‑century promise of education was security. The 21st‑century call is courage.

People Before Policy

Sally Lasslett asked a confronting question: Why didn’t we truly learn from COVID? During the pandemic, we discovered that flexibility was possible. Systems adapted. Learning shifted. And yet, we have gone back to a model of education where students are still expected to reshape themselves to fit rigid structures. Her message was clear: know the person and their story before compliance.

Compliance, she argued, is not the starting point. Wellbeing is not an optional extra, nor is it in opposition to learning. Wellbeing is the starting point and when wellbeing and learning work together, they don’t dilute outcomes, they transform people, classrooms, and communities.

An education worth having is one where students are known before they are measured.

Choice, Becoming, Humanity

Colleen O’Rourke cautioned against confusing technological advancement with human growth. Colleen is clear that when we offer learners choice, when they are invited to think, to question, and to become, education shifts from something done to students into something they actively shape.

An education worth having, she reminded us, does not simply prepare students for work. It prepares them for life as humans in relationship with others, alongside technology, not beneath it, and certainly not replaced by it.

Strengths, Purpose, and Service

Paul Miles grounded the conversation in purpose and practical wisdom. Drawing on Aristotle’s model, he spoke about the power of education that helps young people to identify their strengths, develop skills from those strengths, and use those skills in service of others. Rather than asking only What are you good at?, this approach asks, Who does the world need you to be?

An education worth having doesn’t end with personal success. It leads naturally toward contribution towards the common good.

Courage Is Not Optional

Bianca Nuss posed a question that lingered long after it was spoken:

We don’t leave literacy to chance.
We don’t leave numeracy to chance.
So why do we leave courage to chance?

She challenged the tendency to remove all discomfort from learning. Bianca acknowledged students must feel safe, yes, but learning also requires discomfort. Growth demands risk.

Bianca offered a simple and powerful sequence: Courage is the decision. Bravery is the action. Resilience is the outcome. She also offered a great line, “let kids be uncomfortable and get out of their way.”

An education worth having doesn’t eliminate challenge. It teaches students how to meet it.

Time to Think

Aimee Presnall named a reality many educators feel but rarely articulate:

Leaders are not running out of passion. They are running out of time to think. When leaders are denied protected time to reflect on learning, why it matters and how it evolves, education becomes reactive rather than intentional.

She reminded us that the most powerful leadership questions are not What’s the direction? but What do you need to get there?

An education worth having requires systems that value thinking as much as doing.

So, An Education Worth Having Is…

… human before it is systemic.
It is grounded in awe, courage, and imagination.
It sees wellbeing as foundational, not optional.
It treats creativity as essential infrastructure.
It honours strength, purpose, and service.
It allows leaders the time and space to think, not just manage…

And it prepares young people not just to succeed, but to become and a future worth stepping into.

As always, reflections and comments are welcome. Any thoughts about what an education worth having is, would also be welcome.

Onwards and Upwards

Greg

Acknowledgement: We are fortunate that another forward thinking educator, Michael Ha, got this off the ground. Those who attended this sold out event are appreciative that Michael took the time to organise the inaugural TEDx Burleigh Heads. Same date, April 9, next year. Lock it in!

For much of the past century, the industrial model of education has supported its goals; that being, to equip young individuals with the knowledge and skills necessary for workforce success. However, with the rapid advancement of technology, especially artificial intelligence, the foundations of this ‘knowledge economy’ are nowhere near as strong as they once were.

Nicole Dyson from Future Anything introduces us to LinkedIn’s Chief Economic Opportunity Officer, Aneesh Raman, who confirms the world is now transitioning into the era of the innovation economy. In this new world, human capabilities such as curiosity, creativity, communication, critical thinking, leadership and agility are becoming more crucial than simply recalling information or automating tasks.

The pressing issue now is not whether young people require these capabilities, but to what extent. The implication for schools is to ask how can we effectively ensure the teaching and assessment of such capabilities; after all, we measure what we value!

Recently, Nicole launched Future Anything’s new Capability Framework. As the world shifts to an innovation economy, Nicole and many others would argue that young people need to develop the capabilities such as the ability to think critically, collaborate, and ethically engage with artificial intelligence.

The focus of developing capabilities for school-aged students is not new. The General Capabilities within the Australian Curriculum brought this to the attention of educators some 15 years ago.

ACARA’s General Capabilities Framework

Most notably, for the last 10 years, Professor Sandra Milligan has led a team from the University of Melbourne’s New Metrics Program. The team has partnered with 40 innovative schools to develop and measure the growth of seven ‘complex competencies’ required for further learning and a new world world of work. They appear below.

For more insights about the work of the University of Melbourne’s New Metrics research project, click here (3 minute video).

As the world of work continues to shift and the requirements of industries shift with it, education, secondary schools in particular, are challenged to adopt a far more explicit focus on capabilities. Employers globally are identifying these essential skills and capabilities as critical for long-term contentment and fulfilment in working lives. Reports which support this include:

The World Economic Forum’s “The Future of Jobs Report 2025” (January 2025) underscores the growing importance of soft skills in the workforce. Analytical thinking remains the top core skill for employers, with seven out of ten companies considering it essential. Resilience, flexibility, agility, leadership, and social influence are also highlighted as critical skills, reflecting the need for adaptability and collaboration in the modern economy.

The OECD’s “Trends Shaping Education 2025” Report (February 2025) emphasises the necessity of equipping students with skills such as analytical thinking and leadership to navigate and thrive amidst these changes.

UNESCO’s “Global Education Monitoring Report 2024/5: Leadership in Education” (October 2024) underscores the importance of leadership skills in fostering environments where soft skills are integral to the educational experience.

These reports collectively advocate for the integration of ‘soft skills’ into educational frameworks, highlighting their significance in equipping students for a rapidly changing world. However, the term ‘soft skills’ undervalues their importance and underestimates the work required to develop them; hence why 40 ‘lead schools’ across the nation follow the example of the University of Melbourne referring to them as, ‘complex competencies’.

Whether it is complex competencies or capabilities, many companies, businesses and government organisations have adopted frameworks to assist career development. The world of work has moved quicker than the world of education. For example, the NSW Public Sector Capability Framework was first developed in 2008, updated in 2013 and continues to evolve. It is designed to help attract, develop and retain a responsive and capable public sector workforce.

The Framework is designed to attract, develop, and retain a capable public sector workforce. It includes 20 core capabilities organised into five groups with key capabilities. The framework provides a common language to describe the capabilities and behaviours expected of employees, supporting consistent practices in job design, recruitment, performance development, and career planning.

Interestingly, the Australian Public Service (APS) use a capability model to help explain the different skills, knowledge and personal attributes that combine to make up someone’s overall capability as outlined below.

This graphic helps explain the interplay between capabilities, skills, knowledge and dispositions. People still need to have qualifications and experience before they can be considered for a role, especially, professions and trades; however, I wonder if we are getting closer to more companies adopting a, ‘hire for character and teach the skills’ approach to employment.

In conclusion, as the world navigates the transition from a knowledge economy to an innovation economy, and as companies, businesses and organisations increasingly focus of capability frameworks for their employees, it is imperative that schools prioritise the integrate the assessment of complex competencies into their program of teaching. By integrating these competencies into curricula and assessment frameworks, we can ensure that students are not only equipped for the workforce but also empowered to lead and innovate in their future of lives of work and play. The challenge now lies in how effectively schools can implement these changes and measure their impact, ensuring that education remains relevant and responsive to the needs of students in an AI infused and rapidly changing world.

As always, comments and questions are welcome.