On the margins of the recent United Nations General Assembly, Teach For All once again joined the 2021 Concordia Annual Summit as a Community Partner and hosted a discussion on the topic, Reorienting the Purpose of Education to Help Students Thrive in a Changing World. 

Moderated by Steven Farr, Head of Teach For All’s Global Learning Lab for Classroom Impact the panel featured Luis Arias, Enseña por Colombia participant and teacher in the DigiMENTE initiative; Nene Ibezim, Teach For Nigeria alumna and Founder of Leading Kids Program; Vivek Kaushik, Teach For India alumnus and CEO of Claylab; and Rutuja Bhoite, former Teach For India student and current student at Lake Forest College in Chicago. 

The discussion explored questions such as how to rethink the purpose of education in response to the innovations emerging during the COVID pandemic and the increasingly complex  challenges facing young people, and how to reorient education from an academic focus towards the goal of developing students as leaders who can  thrive and lead in an uncertain world.

Panelists offered insights on the role of new technologies in the classroom, how to engage students as equal partners in learning, and the importance of seeing education as a pathway to enabling children to fulfill their potential both inside and outside of the classroom. 

Watch the full discussion above for more insights and perspectives from the panelists.