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n a world where it appears that wilful ignorance is gaining the upper hand, education has never been more important.
But what that education looks like, how it is delivered and how it prepares its pupils for the working world is the subject of an ongoing, often intense debate.
There are those who claim that the education system in the UK is designed to produce citizens for a bygone era when factory work dominated. What is needed now, they argue, is an education system designed for a service economy or whatever economy emerges from Brexit.
And there are others who believe that the learn-and-test method of education that the UK has relied on for more than a century gives its pupils the best possible grounding for the world of work.
At the heart of the debate are the questions of what skills future employers will need and how the education system can fulfil that need. According to the World Economic Forum, the top five skills required by organisations to successfully navigate what it calls the fourth industrial revolution are complex problem-solving, critical thinking, creativity, people management and coordinating with others.
It could be argued that the UK education system is providing these, but the data suggests otherwise.
According to The Economist’s Educating for the Future index, the UK is falling behind in its ability to provide pupils with those much-sought-after skills. From a respectable 10th position globally in 2018, the UK has slipped to a slightly concerning 15th in the space of a year.
In a post-Brexit landscape, where we are told we will have to compete globally rather than regionally, having a workforce with the right skills has never been more important.
But as it stands, and as we face this largely unknown future, we have a schooling system that is based more on memory and testing than it is on any of the softer skills deemed necessary by the World Economic Forum. And that is worrying some people.
People like Paul Gurney and Bear Grylls. They are the founders of Becoming X, an education business and charity whose lofty aim is to “create a world where everyone can realise their potential”.
The original idea was Gurney’s with Grylls getting heavily involved after being asked to provide a support interview for the project (more on that later).
Gurney’s dream is to do more than churn out the next generation of human automatons to feed the economic machine. His focus is on seeing as many people as possible fulfil their potential, regardless of their past (or current) circumstances.
Why? Because he fulfilled his own ambitions, ambitions he didn’t know he had as he hadn’t allowed himself to believe they were possible. Because he thought those ambitions weren’t for people like him – an attitude he is challenging with Becoming X.
“I grew up in Torquay, one of the poorest areas in the UK, and neither of my parents had gone to university,” he explains.
“I never though any of the opportunities I saw on TV were available to me – going to uni, getting a great job etc. I didn’t think that was for me.”
I was constantly told ‘Paul you are a fat consultant. You have to be Bear Grylls to do these things’
But he did go to university and he did get a good job, ending up at a global consulting firm. He says that despite confounding his own expectations and proving to himself what he was capable of, he felt out of place in the corporate environment. So he decided to try to create a working purpose that felt more like home to him.
He floated the idea of setting up an initiative at Accenture organising charity expeditions for corporate clients, but he initially received a lukewarm response: “I left the meeting thinking, ‘F*** you, I’m going to do it anyway.’”
So he did and eventually found himself at the top of a mountain, having raised £250,000.
“I remember thinking that I never thought I could do anything like this,” he says.
That realisation spurred him on to do more, with multiple similar trips to Kilimanjaro and Everest base camp under the corporate umbrella, but he started doing more extreme challenges personally. This culminated in his completing the two toughest races in the world in one year – the 600km Polar Race to the North Pole and the Marathon des Sables, a gruelling 260km run through the Sahara Desert.
And the more he challenged himself, the more he surprised himself and those around him.
‘I’m no smarter or fitter than others. It was the attitude I had and the willingness’
(Becoming X)
“I was constantly told, ‘Paul, you are a fat consultant. You have to be Bear Grylls to do these things.’”
But he did it and remains one of only three or four people to have completed those races in one year.
“It’s not about the knowledge I had and I’m no smarter or fitter than others. It was the attitude I had and the willingness to do these things,” he says.
And it was around that time that he started to think that if he could do it, if he could broaden his horizons of what is possible, so could others.
“The real question was how can you equip people to learn about what it means to succeed? I thought maybe I could share the views and insights of people who have really achieved amazing things and get them noticed,” he says.
And from there, Becoming X, an organisation with lofty aims of transforming education globally, was born.
There are three key components to Becoming X. The priority is getting self-development education into UK schools. This education takes the form of lessons, researched and developed by educational neuroscientists and teachers, then delivered digitally by Grylls.
This programme is set to be launched in 300 schools in the UK in the coming months, funded by corporate partners. He points out that this is 5 per cent of the “UK market” and he is aiming for his programme to be rolled out across the UK. But Gurney’s ambitions go beyond the UK and advanced western economies and that is where the Becoming X Foundation comes in.
Co-founder Bear Grylls delivers digital lessons on self-development
(Getty Images)
This charity is designed to take everything that the UK schools receive and deliver it free of charge in emerging economies, with the first pilot in Kenya already under way. The financial success of the current UK operation will primarily fund the charity.
Both elements are supported by a host of interviews with some of the world’s most recognisable individuals – from Roger Federer and Dame Kelly Holmes to Julia Roberts and Courteney Cox.
It is through these films (the interviewees receive no payment for participation) that Gurney hopes to get today’s youth to understand that while the definition of success is subjective, the achievement of it is always based on dedication and hard work. There is, he is at pains to point out, very little that separates these individuals from the rest of us. But he wants to take what can be learned from their lives, and make that applicable to anyone, from any walk of life.
“It’s not just about inspiration,” he says. “That is just the start.”
He concedes that it would be naïve to believe that everyone can become the next Channing Tatum or Wladimir Klitschko just by wanting it enough, but he does want to show young people what is possible.
We hope pupils will see real people when they watch our films. Society and social media paint these pictures of people and their unobtainable lives, which makes it seem unrealistic for others
“A huge focus has been placed on showcasing people who have come from really tough backgrounds,” he says, citing the example of another interviewee, James Brett, who had a horrific upbringing by anyone’s standards. He now runs a social enterprise importing produce from Afghanistan to create fruit bars that are then sold to fund social impact in Afghanistan, a story he relates in one of the interviews.
“The exceptions don’t prove the rule, but we wanted to show it is possible,” he says.
“It is about understanding what needs to happen to be successful. What are the things we typically see in successful people?”
He and his colleagues have distilled this down into 14 attributes that are seen in all highly successful people. The full list is available on the website, but it includes things such as being an effective communicator, a lifelong learner, a resilient survivor and a respectful operator.
“There are commonalities among these people and often, because of the circumstances, they have built an incredible level of resilience,” he says.
And it is that key trait of resilience that he hopes many young people around the country, and indeed the world, will see as something they possess, something that can be used and relied upon to meet their own definition of success.
“How to be successful isn’t understood by the vast majority of people. It’s about achieving what you set out to achieve whether that is supporting a family or climbing Everest,” he says.
Which is why the interviews are not the preserve of the rich and famous. In amongst the recognisable faces, students will find stories from the likes of Kenny Imafidon. As an 18-year-old in Peckham, he found himself being wrongly accused of murder under the joint enterprise law. Today, via a pretty inspiring route of determination, creativity and resilience, he now splits his time between running his own research company and engaging in political and social activism.
‘It’s about achieving what you set out to achieve whether that is supporting a family or climbing Everest,’ says Gurney
(Getty Images/iStockphoto)
His is just one of the lesser-known stories to come through in the more than 50 interviews Gurney has conducted so far, but it is perhaps these stories, more than the others, that help deliver the message Gurney is trying to convey.
“We want to film the most inspiring people on the planet, wherever they are. No matter their background, I want pupils to hear from someone they can relate to,” he says.
“We hope pupils will see real people when they watch our films. Society and social media paint these pictures of people and their unobtainable lives, which makes it seem unrealistic for others.”
It’s a pretty simple, if epically ambitious project. Find some of the most recognisable names in global culture and get them to tell their story of success. Not only will their story dismantle the aura that surrounds that success, their profile will also draw attention to less famous but equally successful individuals, individuals who are more relatable and influential to the average pupil wherever they are in the world. The aim is to embed those stories and the learnings that can be taken from them into the education system, fund that through the organisations that will directly benefit, and disseminate all of that across the globe.
He admits to being intimidated by the ambition of the project, but says it has to be that way.
“If it’s not ambitious, it’s not worth it. I see this as a 15-20-year journey, but I am really proud of the progress we have made, the team we have and the interviewees we have secured,” he says.
“We are off to a great start and I hope we can be part of the solution that helps change the fortunes of younger people – to give them hope and optimism to make the most of their lives.
“It’s about changing lives and asking what the world would look would like if everyone could achieve their potential.”
It is an inspiring, if seemingly unobtainable, goal. But being told it can’t be done is what drives Gurney on. And who knows, maybe in 20 years’ time, we will be looking back at the moment our country’s educational focus changed for the better and that moment of change will be tracked to a “fat consultant” who refused to let others define what he, or anyone else, was capable of.
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